February 2017 Report

It was another positive month for the markets and us. We did a big restructure of some of our investments, which I'll discuss after this month's numbers. Here are our monthly accounts (in AUD):

Spending (not counting mortgage) was normal at $7.8k. Salaries etc. added up to $11.8k (after tax). After taking into account the mortgage payment of $3.8k (which includes implicit interest saving due to our offset account - the actual mortgage payment was about $650 less than this) - which shows up as a transfer to the housing account, we saved only $250 on the current account. We made $3.6k of retirement contributions, and saved a net $1.8k in added housing equity. Net saving was, therefore, $5.7k across the board. One reason for higher spending is that we are now spending $306 a week (for 3 days) for childcare and so far not getting any government benefit for this. Yes, people on our income can get a big subsidy for childcare here in Australia.

The Australian Dollar rose from USD 0.7580 to USD 0.7686. The ASX 200 gained 2.25%, the MSCI World Index gained 2.85%, and the S&P 500 3.97%. We gained 1.83% in Australian Dollar terms and gained 3.23% in US Dollar terms. So, we underperformed the Australian market and outperformed the international markets. The best performer in dollar terms the CFS Geared Share Fund ($11k) followed by Oceania Capital Partners (OCP.AX), which gained $4k. Every asset class  gained, with private equity the best performing asset class and Australian small cap stocks the worst.The worst performer was the CFS Global Resources Fund down $1.9k.

As a result of all this, net worth rose AUD 36k to $1.745 million (new high) or rose USD 45k to $US 1.341 million (ditto).

We shifted most of our Colonial First State managed funds and superannuation from the old now closed to new investors retail platforms to the newer wholesale platforms. I have no idea why these new platforms are called wholesale as you don't need to invest very much. The fees are lower on the newer platform. I did a little reallocation especially for my superannuation fund. This reduced our overall exposure to large cap Australian shares by 8% points of total assets. Total leverage (gearing) went down by a similar amount. All other asset classes increased their shares, especially small cap Australian shares. But generally we are now a bit more diversified and a bit less levered and cloe to what I think is an optimal allocation for us.

January 2017 Report

This month was fairly quiet though there was a strong rise in the Australian Dollar, which boosted our US Dollar returns. Here are our monthly accounts (in AUD):


Spending (not counting mortgage) was normal at $5.7k. Salaries etc. added up to $13.1k (after tax). This will likely be lower going forward as Moominmama is back at work but on a part-time basis and so her pay will be lower than in the last couple of months. After taking into account the mortgage payment of $3.8k (which includes implicit interest saving due to our offset account - the actual mortgage payment was more than $600 less than this) - which shows up as a transfer to the housing account, we saved $3.7k on the current account. We made $3.6k of retirement contributions, and saved a net $1.8k in added housing equity. Net saving was, therefore, $9k across the board, which hopefully will be typical in the future.

The Australian Dollar rose from USD 0.7229 to USD 0.7580. The ASX 200 lost 0.79%, the MSCI World Index gained 2.76%, and the S&P 500 1.90%. We lost 0.81% in Australian Dollar terms and gained 4.03% in US Dollar terms. So, we about matched the Australian market and outperformed the international markets. The best performer in dollar terms Oceania Capital Partners (OCP.AX), which gained $3k. Not surprisingly the CFS Geared Share Fund was the biggest loser (-$8.6k). Private equity was the best performing asset class. Despite a down month, many of our investments are at all time highs in terms of cumulative profit: Unisuper, PSSAP, Platinum Capital, Clime Capital, Oceania Capital Partners, TIAA Real Estate, CREF Global Equities, Generation Global Fund, Boulder Income Fund, 3i, and Woolworths.

As a result of all this, net worth fell AUD 2.5k to $1.713 million or rose USD 59k to $US 1.299 million - a new all time high.

2016 Annual Accounts: Graphs

So here is how the last year looks on a graph in the context of everything since 1996:

The blue line is the sum of the other three lines. After flatlining last year, things took off again this year. Medium term balance is liquid assets, the green line is retirement accounts. Both of these and housing equity increased. Markets performed well this year and we saved more.

This graph provides a slightly different view, breaking things down according to savings and profits. I don't break down housing equity into the two components as it's not worth it yet...

Though we are making savings outside of retirement accounts and housing equity - the blue line is rising - the slope is much shallower than before we bought a house and had a baby. So, a lot of this year's increase came from profits. In the long run we have done much better with retirement than with current accounts in terms of profits.

The next graph shows actual monthly non-retirement savings since 1996 and a 12 month moving average:

I have truncated the axis at -$15k but we dissaved $53k in January and $118k in February 2015 as we bought the house. After the big transfer of savings to but the house, savings recovered, but to a much lower level than recent years. They are at about the level around when we moved from the US to Australia. Savings have been high in the last couple of months. How well they will behave this year depends on some potential major expenditure on the house that I will discuss soon on the blog.

2016 Annual Accounts

This is our annual account - the sum of each of the monthly accounts I've posted - in Australian Dollars. First a reminder about how these accounts are laid out: Current account is all non-retirement account and housing account income and spending. Then the other two are fairly self-explanatory. But housing spending only includes mortgage interest. Property taxes etc. are included in the current account. There is not a lot of logic to this except the "transfer to housing" is measured using the transfer from our checking account to our mortgage account...

We earned $158k after tax in salary, business related refunds, medical payment refunds, tax refunds etc. We earned (pre-tax including unrealised capital gains) $58k on non-retirement account investments. Total current after tax income was $216k. We spent $77k, $71k of that was "core spending". (I always regard business expenses that are refunded as non-core, but also some one-off things).

$9k of the investment income was tax credits. These increased our after tax "other income" but are also counted as part of the pre-tax investment income. So, they have to deducted to get things to add up to the change in net worth. Finally, we transferred $45k in mortgage payments to the housing account.* The change in current net worth, was therefore $85k. Looking at just saving from non-investment income, we saved $36k.

The retirement account is a bit simpler. We made $45k in after tax contributions and the value rose by an estimated additional $54k in pre tax returns. $6k was the estimated tax on that and so the increase in net worth was $93k. Taxes are just estimated because all we get to see is the after tax returns. I do this exercise to make retirement and non-retirement returns comparable.

Finally, the housing account. We spent $20k on mortgage interest. We would have paid $25k in mortgage interest if we didn't have an offset account. I estimate our house is worth $21k more than I did last year based on recent sales in our neighbourhood. After counting the transfer of $45k into the housing account housing equity increased $40k of which $19k was due to paying off principal on our mortgage.

In total net worth increased by $217k, $100k of which was saving from non-investment sources.

Comparing 2016's accounts with the very exceptional 2015 accounts, we saved 56% more and net worth increased by 34% more. Salary and other current income was down as we would expect in a year that Moominmama didn't work (she went back to work yesterday). Of course, she got a lot of maternity and other payments and so current income was only down by 15%. Invesment income was up 18%. Expenditure was down 41% and even core expenditure was down by 18%.

* $5k of this is actually interest we saved by having money in our offset account. I count this as investment earnings and so to balance the books I need to count this as spending on the housing account and need to record a transfer between the current and housing accounts.

December 2016 Report

This month saw a big jump in net worth as stock markets were strong, our spending relatively low, and non-investment earnings high. Here are our monthly accounts (in AUD):

Spending (not counting mortgage) was moderate at $4.8k. Salaries, tax refunds etc. added up to $16.1k (after tax). I received some payments from a consultancy firm I did some work for. More is coming. After taking into account the mortgage payment of $3.7k (which includes implicit interest saving due to our offset account - the actual mortgage payment was almost $600 less than this) - which shows up as a transfer to the housing account, we saved $7.5k on the current account. We made $5.5k of retirement contributions, as last month there were three paychecks and there is a delay in getting the superannuation contributions, and saved a net $1.8k in added housing equity. Net saving was, therefore, $14.9k across the board, which is roughly the same as last month but very high by recent standards.

The Australian Dollar fell from USD 0.7386 to USD 0.7229. The ASX 200 gained 4.38%, the MSCI World Index gained 2.20%, and the S&P 500 1.98%. We gained 3.96% in Australian Dollar terms and 1.75% in US Dollar terms. So, we again underperformed both the Australian market and  the international markets. The best performer in dollar terms was again the CFS Geared Share Fund, which gained $22.5k followed by Clime Capital (CAM.AX), which gained $4.9k. The only investments to lose money were the China Fund and the CFS Developing Companies Fund, which was down $0.8k. Every asset class gained. Many of our investments are at all time highs in terms of cumulative profit: CFS Geared Share Fund, Unisuper, PSSAP, Platinum Capital, CFS Diversified Fund, Clime, TIAA Real Estate, Generation Global Fund, Boulder Income Fund, 3i, and Woolworths.

As a result of all this, net worth rose AUD 70k to $1.715 million (a new high) or USD 24k to $US 1.239 million.

2016 Result and 2017 Projection

We exceeded our optimistic forecast of reaching a net worth of AUD 1.7 million by the end of 2016. The optimistic forecast for 2017 is currently AUD 2 million. Coming soon: December accounts, 2016 accounts, and more detailed projections.

November 2016 Report

Here are our monthly accounts (in AUD):

Spending (not counting mortgage) was fairly typical at $6.3k. The biggest single expenditure was a $956 quarterly electricity bill. This covered part of the winter and with the baby we have been using much more heating - both reverse cycle air conditioning and conventional resistance heating. Our hot water and cooking are gas powered and so this bill was really large.

Salaries, tax refunds etc. added up to $19.7k (after tax). We both got three pay checks this month and Snork Maiden's pay went back up to the regular full time rate for some reason, even though she is not back at work yet. I also got a tax refund of $990.

After taking into account the mortgage payment of $3.7k (which includes implicit interest saving due to our offset account - the actual mortgage payment was about $500 less than this) - which shows up as a transfer to the housing account, we saved $9.7k on the current account. We made $3.6k of retirement contributions, and saved a net $1.7k in added housing equity. Net saving was, therefore, $15k across the board, which is very high by recent standards.

The Australian Dollar fell from USD 0.7613 to USD 0.7386. The ASX 200 gained 2.99%, the MSCI World Index gained 0.81%, and the S&P 500 3.70%. We gained 2.24% in Australian Dollar terms and lost 0.80% in US Dollar terms. So, we underperformed both the Australian market and  the international markets. The best performer in dollar terms was the CFS Geared Share Fund, which gained $18.4k followed by Platinum Capital and related funds, which gained $3.3k. The worst performing investment was Oceania Capital Partners, down $3.8k after the big gains last month. U.S. stocks were the best performing asset class in percentage terms with a 2.88% gain, while the worst performing was private equity, losing 3.56%. Australian small cap stocks also performed poorly losing 2.50%. That's not a good sign of the sustainability of stock market performance going forward.

As a result of all this, net worth rose AUD 42k to $1.646 million (a new high) or fell USD 5.4k to $US 1.216 million.

October 2016 Report

A down month in the financial markets and a very high spending month for us. Here are our monthly accounts (in AUD):

Spending (not counting mortgage) was high at $10k. I spent over $3k on an airfare to the US, which should be mostly reimbursed. We also paid for annual car insurance. Besides that there lots of relatively small expenditures on baby stuff etc. which all added up. Salaries, tax refunds etc. added up to $12k (after tax). After taking into account the mortgage payment of $3.7k (which includes implicit interest saving due to our offset account - the actual mortgage payment was about $500 less than this) - which shows up as a transfer to the housing account, we dissaved $1.1k on the current account. We made $3.6k of retirement contributions, and saved a net $1.7k in added housing equity. Net saving was, therefore, $4.1k across the board.

The Australian Dollar fell slightly from USD 0.7665 to USD 0.7613. The ASX 200 fell 2.15%, the MSCI World Index fell 1.67%, and the S&P 500 fell 1.82%. We lost 1.22% in Australian Dollar terms and 0.27% in US Dollar terms. So, unusually, we outperformed both the Australian market and  the international markets. The reason for this was largely the big gains we had in Oceania Capital Partners, which gained $8.7k. The worst performer in dollar terms was the CFS Geared Share Fund, which lost $15.5k. The best performing asset class in percentage terms was, of course, private equity, which gained 10.96% and the worst commodities, which lost 2.83%.

As a result of all this, net worth fell AUD 12k to $1.604 million or fell USD 17k to $US 1.221 million.

Moominmama's Taxes 2015-16 Edition

I've filed Moominmama's (formerly Snork Maiden) tax return for this tax year. The tax year runs from 1st July to 30th June in Australia. The figures ignore employer and employee contributions to superannuation (retirement account) which amount to a lot of extra income. Everything is in Australian Dollars of course.

Her salary is down because she went on maternity leave and the average tax rate also falls as a result. Investment income is up though.

Here are the reports on Snork Maiden's taxes for all previous years:

2014-15
2013-14
2012-13
2012-13
2011-12
2010-11
2009-10
2008-9
2007-8

Moominpapa's Taxes 2015-16 Edition

I have now completed my tax return. Looks like I should get a $204 refund. My taxable income is up by 2%. But my tax is up 4% despite a 23% increase in deductions and increases in tax credits. I'm a bit puzzled by that but I did move into the top tax bracket. Gross cash income is before tax income ignoring franking and other tax credits and adding in net undiscounted capital gains (not deleting losses from previous years).

This was the first year I checked what information the government knows about my tax affairs as revealed by the prefilled information on my tax return. They are missing a lot of information on my Australian accounts and none on my foreign holdings. Strangely they have dividends for some shares I have with a broker and don't have information on dividends from other companies that I hold through the same broker. Also they have one managed fund account but not the other I hold with the same firm. If I filed a return based on the numbers they know but taking the deductions I could document my return would look so radically different to last year that I think it would raise a lot red flags. But I didn't want to give the government any more information than they have, so I again filed a paper return. I filed Moominmama's return online for the first time, using the prefilled numbers plus deductions.

Previous years' reports:

2014-15
2013-14
2012-13
2011-12
2010-11
2009-10
2008-9
2007-8

P.S. 9 November

I got a more than $900 refund. Don't know what I got wrong in my calculations, but I'm not complaining :)

September 2016 Report

This was an uneventful month in the financial markets. Most notable thing was in our local housing market. A strong auction of a house in our development caused me to increase the carrying valuation of our house. Here are our monthly accounts (in AUD):

Spending (not counting mortgage) was moderate at $5.7k. Salaries etc. added up to $11k (after tax). After taking into account the mortgage payment of $3.7k (which includes implicit interest saving due to our offset account - the actual mortgage payment was about $500 less than this) - which shows up as a transfer to the housing account, we saved $1.6k on the current account. We made $3.6k of retirement contributions, and saved a net $1.6k in added housing equity. Net saving was, therefore, $6.8k across the board.

The Australian Dollar rose from USD 0.7520 to USD 0.7665. The ASX 200 fell 0.48%, the MSCI World Index rose 0.66%, and the S&P 500 rose 0.02%. We lost 0.15% in Australian Dollar terms and gained 1.78% in US Dollar terms. So we underperformed the Australian market and outperformed the international markets.

The best performing investments (in total dollars not RoR) were Oceania Capital Partners and Platinum Capital, which both gained $2.1k. The worst performer was the Unisuper superannuation fund, losing $1.6k. The best performing asset class was private equity, which gained 2.79% and the worst commodities, which lost 0.82%.

As a result of all this, net worth rose AUD 23k to $1.617 million or rose USD 41k to $US 1.240 million.