I decided to change things up a little with my monthly update to help keep me focused on my main goal. 10 million net worth.

I’m curious to see if I can achieve this milestone while balancing all aspects of my life. Inspired by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, it’s a challenge I hope that will keep my mind engaged, motivated, and driven to learn.

It’s hard and scary to observed loved ones cognitive decline as they age. If my mind is anywhere near as healthy as Warrens and Charlies by age 90, that would be the ultimate success.

I refuse to waste this F.I.R.E. by laying around the beaches sipping cocktails! That was never a fantasy of mines.

I need a big challenge that will keep me scratching my head for decades to come!

Goal: 10 Million Net Worth

This post will likely evolve over time as I continue to learn and grow. For now, I will start by sharpening up on the fundamentals and basics.

1. Investment Progress. Evaluate how investments are doing.
2. Expenses. Understand your spending habits and how it’s evolving.
3. Alternative Income. Seek other opportunities to grow income.
4. Cash flow. Improve CF.
5. Savings Rate. Maintain desired savings rate.
6. Net Worth. Track net worth.
7. ETA 10M. Estimate how many years till 10M net worth.

Let us begin! 😏🤘

 

Investments Progress

LBF Dividend Portfolio. Portfolio is down -19.2% YTD. I was hoping this would perform better than the S&P during a market downturn but didn’t live up to my expectations.

I began to gradually weight this portfolio with low vol stocks in hopes to protect the downside as markets rallied to all time highs. This strategy doesn’t work to well during a pandemic outbreak. Figures🙄

What is important is the lessons I will take from this experience.

When massive portions of economies around the globe shuts down, no one cares about hiding in low vol assets. It’s sell everything in sight mode.

Regardless, I will continue to build out this portfolio in order to hit my $10,000 in annual dividends.

Based on current trends, I may achieve this target between 2023 to 2024. We shall see.

Fundrise. Fundrise has been holding up well during the coronavirus crisis thus far. However, I’m expecting cuts to the dividends and drop in portfolio value. Everyone is affected in this crisis.

Fundrise has announced they will be suspending redemption’s for all the mature eREITs and eFunds to protect against potentially having to sell assets which may cause harm to long term investors.

I’m glad they have taken this step. This was one of the most widely debated topic among crowdfunded RE investment skeptics out there. I was worried Fundrise may not take such drastic actions quick enough but it seems they are being proactive to maintain healthy cash holdings and mitigate potential liquidity issues down the road.

Fundrise entire portfolio is currently at $1.1B. With 15.9% of that amount in cash ($175M).

Announcement on Fundrise redemption suspension can be found here.

M1 Finance. My primary focus will be the LBF Dividend Portfolio till it reaches my 10K goal. In the meantime, I will seed this account lightly. Check out M1 Finance and get started investing! Great platform for those of you just getting started.

 

Total Investment Portfolio. Total investment holdings is doing slightly better than the S&P.

 

Expenses

Taxes: $3,642

Groceries: $672.

Charitable Giving: $340

Utilities: $274

Mobile Phone: $123

Shopping: $153. Installed some additional RAM on my computer. 🧐

Dues & Subscriptions: $135. I signed up for the annual subscription for Canva ($119.40). Such a fun and easy tool for people like me who have no sense of design. 😊

Restaurant: $128. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, we mostly stayed home and did some pick ups and drive thru runs.

Auto (Gas): $81

Postage & Shipping: $66

Home (Landscaping): $40

Health/Medical: $28. Bought some medicine for the family. No, not due to coronavirus. 🙄

Travel (Transportation): $9. Took a toll road by accident. 🤦‍♂️

Service Fees: $6

Total: $5,697

Expenses for the month was in line with expectations. The goal is to have my income grow faster than my expenses.

 

Alternative Income

My primary focus is trying to grow my dividend income but noticed some other sources began to sprout.🌱

LBF Dividend Portfolio. March brought in a record $739.64 in dividends.

M1 Finance. Micro dividends! Many small things start with humble beginnings.

Blog Income. Thanks to your support, this blog has generated some ad revenue and affiliate bonus! Thank you all for your support and following me on this journey. 😊🙏

Swagbucks. Swagbucks is great. They have amazing offers from time to time. I only add Swagbucks as income once I make a withdrawal. Maximize your rewards by exchanging your swagbucks for gift cards once per month when they have this sale.

You get a $25 dollar gift card for $21.75 worth of swagbucks every month.

 

Cash Flow

Back to basics. I plan to further strengthen my cash flow going forward and see if I can stay above water every month.

I look forward to comparing my 2019 cash flow to one 5 years from today.

 

Savings Rate

I went into FIRE with savings rate expectations below 10%. Luckily, I was able to save much more than I expected. My goal going forward is to try to keep my savings rate above 30%.

 

Net Worth

Snapshot of net worth from Personal Capital.

Net worth YTD is down by -4.6%

Could have been worse but real estate prices held up well.

 

ETA 10M

Estimated Time Arrival (Best Case to Worst Case)

Destination to 5M: Between 10 – 19 Years

Destination to 10M: Between 16 – 30 Years

I believe that if you do as the majority, your results are of those in line with the majority.

It’s in those less traversed path you’re likely to come across the more rare gems and outcomes in life.

So, my plans are to challenge myself to take risks, exercise discipline, evolve my personal philosophy and remain opportunistic.

All while trying to fail as little as possible by learning from OTHERS’ mistakes.

I always like to run on the worst-case scenario. The worst case is 10M in 30 years.

By then I will be too old.

What will it take to achieve this in 16 years? If possible, sooner.

That is the question I will be grapping with!

The challenge is, to achieve $10M while doing what I love and maximizing happiness for me and my loved ones.

So, the new monthly post begins! 😊 Stay safe and healthy everyone! Oh! And lets wash those hands often! 🙏