MARCH 2018 NET WORTH: $509K, UP $0K (despite $15K in investments)

What a brutal month. I threw tens of thousands of dollars into our accounts in hopes that the market would turn positive and account with soar, but we ended up staying flat the whole month. What the heck happened?

S&P falls 2.69% for the month

Trade war fears, fed movements, and a bruised tech sector all contributed to a rough market and a hit to my net worth. Thanks to bonus dollars from the month before and continued income, we were able to throw in an extra ~$16,000 over the month. These investments consisted of employer retirement contributions ($5,600), HSA investments ($1,000), Roth IRA contributions ($9,100) and my brokerage account ($200). These continued (and additional) investments are particularly important because the market dropped this month. You can see my thinking regarding tactics you can take advantage of these opportunities following posts:

1. Turning Market Sad Faces Into Market Happy Faces
2. PSA: Drop More $$$ in the Market
3. Max’s Market Correction Tactics (I’ve Got a Black Eye)

With all these investments we still came out flat. Let’s take a look:

Retirement Accounts (+$6270): Thanks to retirement contributions and IRA contributions, these accounts were able to tread water. I opened a Vanguard account and threw $3,900 into Vanguard International Growth Fund Investor Shares. I’ll add the remaining $1,600 in April. The misses added $5,500 to her Vanguard target retirement fund. Also, her 403b contributions kicked in (thank jebus).

BTW: GET YOUR ROTH IRA CONTRIBUTIONS IN!

HSA (+1,035): Special call out here. We put in $1,000 during a couple of the market dips and it’s paid off nicely (i.e., a 3.5% increase in the overall value).

Non-Retirement Moola (-$8,034): Non-retirement money took a crash for several reasons. First, we bought a water softener costing about $4K dropping our savings account balance a few thousand. Second, my options account was heavily invested in Tesla, and market fears plus investigations surrounding a death in a Tesla cause the stock to tank. Because the investing instrument was options, the value cratered $2,700! Crap! I did open a Robinhood account with $0 trading fees so I can add a few hundred a month to some equities.

I pulled all my money out of Bitcoin and Etherium. I sensed the hot, hot digital currency market was cooling off so I took my ~$1,400 gain + my ~$1,700 original investment and moved that to my Roth IRA mentioned above. I’m drawing down Lending Club as that experiment has come to an end :'(

Home Equity (-$3,800): Our home value stagnated. I compute it using the average of Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com. Zillow tends to understate the value, while realtor overstates the value.

Debts (+$1,070): Because we paid some of our loans earlier than normal, we had more dollars applied towards principal. Particularly with the auto loans. I’m a fresh payment ahead on both cars.

Last month I ended my net worth post with “I’m pretty optimistic about March.” I think I’ll reserve any optimism for next month.

How did your month unfold? Did you panic? Or relax and throw benjamins in?