New Worth: Jan 2018

My personal net worth increased slightly during January (up 0.45% to A$2,322,494), mostly due to an increase in the value of my retirement savings (up 1.22% or $11,334). My geared stock portfolio ended almost unchanged at the end of the month (up 0.07% or $162), having given back most of the month's gain during the final two trading days. As expected, the estimated valuation for our home decreased during January (down 0.30% or -$2,591), driven by weakness in the Sydney real estate market reflected in average sales prices for our suburb.

While predictions are notoriously inaccurate, especially ones about the future, I anticipate my net worth may end the year in the range A$2.3m-A$2.5m. The lower figure would reflect stagnant house prices during 2018, but not a 'crash', and lack-luster stock market performance being offset by my continued retirement savings. Any significant adverse event (loss of employment, significant downturn in Sydney real estate throughout 2018, or a major stock market crash) could easily see my NW dip below this figure. The upper figure assumes an overall gain of around 7.5% during 2018, which would represent a dollar amount of around A$174,000. While not outside the realms of possibility, I can't see any evidence to suggest that either the property or stock market (or both) will perform well enough during 2018 to achieve that result. It will be interesting to see how 2018 does pan out, and what NW figure I end up with at the end of this year...

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Net Worth: Dec 2017

DS1 is mid-way through his European vacation. He got a good enough ATAR to get into his first choice of university course, and has already completed the offer acceptance online. He'll finalize his enrolment details when he returns to Sydney at the end of January, and start preparing to start university at the end of February.

My net worth increased again in December, with my geared share portfolio adding a bit over $10,000 to my net worth, and my retirement savings also increasing by around $10,000. Some of the increase in the estimate of my retirement savings account balance is due to my making a slight adjustment to the calculation formula used to work out the % of the total SMSF balance that belongs to each member. I had previously simply added up the contributions made by DW and by myself, and used the relative % of total contributions to apportion the current balance to each member. The correct method is to calculate the relative effect of each contribution to the current total balance at the time of each contribution. The revised calculation method accounted for most of the increase in my SMSF account balance between Nov and Dec.

The estimated valuation for our home increased slightly, as the median sales price in our suburb rose slightly, bucking the general downward trend in property prices in Sydney. 'Experts' are now predicting a decrease of between 4%-10% in Sydney property prices during 2018, which would make it difficult for my NW to continue to rise during 2018, unless there is a substantial shift in investor focus from real estate to the share market, which might assist my geared share portfolio.

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Starting early on the New Year resolutions

My perennial self-promise has always been to loose weight and exercise more, and yet again this year I didn't manage to make any progress with either. So, as we were going to have a low-key Christmas anyway this year (as DS1 is away in Europe on a back-packing holiday before he starts uni at the end of February, and I won't be visiting my parents at the lake house until the New Year) I decided to eliminate the Christmas tradition of overeating and having lots of sweets, and instead get an early start on sticking to my diet plan. Nothing too onerous, just healthy breakfast, a modest lunch and healthy dinner, and a serious attempt to eliminate desserts and snacks from my diet. I also need to start tracking my daily step-count and make sure that I meet my target of at least 10,000 steps every day.

Aside from health and fitness, my others goals for next year are to complete the Diploma of Financial Planning course I'm doing via distance education, as well as a Six Sigma Green Belt certification I am doing at work. I've pretty much resigned myself to not re-enrolling in the MSc/PhD by research that I was doing part-time, as I can't see that I'll every get enough time for it while I'm working full-time, especially if I have any health issues such as during the past couple of years. I'm due to re-enrol by next July, so I'll wait and see if I my eczema improves significantly before then.

My other goal for 2018 is, of course, to keep my job as long as possible. Ideally I'd like to remain employed full-time for another 7+ years. But these days one could get retrenched at any time. And as DW has found out, it isn't easy to find a suitable full-time job when you're nearly sixty, despite the economy doing quite well at the moment.

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DS1 HSC results out

DS1 got his HSC marks via email last night, and sent them via IM to DW and myself (he is currently on a train between Vienna and Venice - halfway through his 10-week post-HSC European back-packing holiday). His results were close to what he expected, or slightly better:

Economics 93/100 band 6
Mathematics 90/100 band 6
Modern History 90/100 band 6
Software D&D 89/100 band 5
English Adv 87/100 band 5
English Ext1 43/50 band E3
Chemistry 83/100 band 5

Plugging these numbers into an ATAR calculator suggests he should get an ATAR of around 95.75, which should be plenty for him to get offered a place in his first choice uni course (Commerce/Computer Science double degree at UNSW), especially as UNSW offers 'bonus points' for getting top results in the top bands in English Advanced, English Extension 1, Mathematics and they also offer bonus points for having completed the Gold Duke of Edinburgh award.

His actual ATAR will be released tomorrow morning, and the first round of university offers will come out on December 21. I'm very happy with his HSC results, and delighted that he should be getting into his first preference uni course. Hopefully DS1 gets home safely from his European adventure at the end of January, and is keen to apply himself to his uni studies in 2018.

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