Another month of slow progress, but we are edging toward $10k! We should go below 5 figures for the first time in a long time next month. Here’s how November stacked up:
| Forecast | November |
| Consolidation Loan | $4,712.79 |
| Credit Card A | $ 0 |
| Credit Card B | $ 3,918.30 |
| Credit Card C | $ 0 |
| Total | $ 8,631.09 |
| Actual | November |
| Consolidation Loan | $ 7,2500 |
| Credit Card A | $ 0 |
| Credit Card B | $ 4,000.00 |
| Credit Card C | $ 0 |
| Total | $ 11,250.00 |
We have cut back a bit on how much we are putting towards our debt, due to extra expenditure that has occurred in November and in preparation for Christmas. We figured at this point in our journey under spending a little bit on paying down debt is only going to delay our progress 2-4 weeks anyway, so it isn’t such a big deal. We managed to pay down $1,797.00 this month which is below our long term average of $2,550.00. I think we should be able to pay down about $2,500 in December comfortably, which will put at $8,750. This figure should then be able to be worked down to $0 after three months. Graph below:
As you can see we are still marginally ahead of our original forecast by $203.70, but fallen behind our new forecast to the tune of $2,618.91. Again this equates to roughly a month, so we aren’t too concerned.
Net Worth
Net worth tracking is always a positive, and for anyone reading that doesn’t do it, I really encourage that you do. Financial progress is long and arduous so I think it is really important to track your net worth at a minimum to give you the inspiration needed to keep on keeping on. Our net worth excluding HECS is approaching the $100k mark, sitting at $97,278.61 and including HECS at $74,075.27. This represents an increase in wealth to the tune of $4,115.01 across the month of November. An increase of $51,522.62 since October 2018, not bad hey? The relentless progress is represented below:
The slope of the line continues with the same trajectory fairly consistently each month. I do expect this to ramp up from March on wards as we finally begin to invest. At the start of our journey I was quite taken with Peter Thornhill’s investment approach, however continued reading has made me question the somewhat active element of the strategy, and I think we will go for a total return investment approach, sticking to funds such as VAS/A200 and VGS. The next big question to answer will be the structure of our investments. At this point in time I am leaning towards a trust structure, due to the tax efficiency, asset protection and estate planning capabilities. The costs to setup and maintain a trust structure ultimately will be far out shadow later in life with the ability to income split to minimise tax liability.
Follow us on the path to FIRE 