Net Worth Update: December 2022

Last updated on January 1st, 2023 at 08:03 pm

Welcome to my net worth update for December 2022! These numbers represent my wife and I’s net worth as of December 1st. Please check out our previous net worth update if you haven’t already!

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Savings & Expenses

Last month was expensive as heck! Mainly because we finally went on an international trip we had booked this past summer. I shared that we had bought tickets back in our August net worth update for a cool $4,600.

On top of that $4,600, we spent $4,000 this month on the trip. And now that it’s done, I can definitely say this is the most I’ve spent on travel in a single year.

Other than that huge expense, it was a pretty low-spending month. Our grocery and gas bills were both lower because we spent about half the month out of the country. We also spent less on eating out and on our hobbies.

Despite blowing up our budget somewhat, we still managed to save about $4,800. $3,000 of this was savings of income, while the remainder came from a bunch of reimbursements we received from dental and medical expenses in the previous couple of months. Good timing, I say!

Investments & Dividends

Like last year, December has been a low dividend month for us. We only received dividends from my wife’s XDG (iShares Core MSCI Global Quality Dividend Index ETF) and XDIV (iShares Core MSCI Canadian Quality Div Index ETF).

She loves these two funds as they pay a higher than average dividend and you receive payments monthly.

However, every dollar counts. And the $105 we earned last month has brought our total dividend earnings in 2022 to $5,487! This is an increase of 131% compared to the $2,372 we earned in 2021.

If I exclude the $617 we earned from our leveraged VEQT position, we earned a total of $4,870 in dividends so far in 2022. Not too bad, I say! Especially considering that we aren’t overly focused on dividends.

I’ll have much more to speak on this topic next month when I do our end-of-year round-up.

Net Worth Change

Now here’s something that went exceedingly well. Our net worth shot up by $30,800! We now share a total net worth of $730,300, with $313,800 of that being liquid.

Here’s a breakdown of where our net worth increase came from last month:

• $1,300 in home equity pay-down
• $754 in mandatory pension contributions
• $3,000 in savings of income
• $800 in reimbursements for recent healthcare expenses
• $24,100 in investment growth

As you can see, we benefited massively from the recent uptick in the global stock market. Like last month, it seems the markets are getting into the holiday spirit, and helping make our portfolios a little less negative leading into the new year.

If the market continues its current trajectory, we could potentially have a great 2023, with our recent investments using our Smith Maneuver strategy paying off big-time. But we’ll have to wait and see how things shake out in the new year!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Thanks for Reading

I recently wrote a few articles that you may be interested in. This includes my post on capital gains tax in Canada and my how-to article on the getting cash back from your realtor! Consider giving those a read if you think they’ll help you on your financial journey!

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