Last updated on September 15th, 2021 at 12:18 am
Welcome to my net worth update for July 2021! These numbers represent my wife and I’s net worth as of July 1st. If you haven’t already, check out our previous net worth update.
Before we start, consider subscribing to my newsletter if you’d like to receive my easy-to-use Expense and Net Worth Tracker spreadsheet. I use it every month!
Happy Canada Day!
First off, happy belated Canada day to all of my readers! With COVID on the decline and more businesses starting to return to normal, there’s a lot to celebrate this year. Like you, I’m looking forward to some travel opportunities and have become even more adventurous when seeing friends and family. Let’s hope it continues!
I also hope that all of my readers from the west coast managed to survive the insane weather we experienced in the last week of June. Take a look at what my weather app was showing me that weekend.
And yes, it really did hit 41 degrees sustained for about 4 hours on Monday, June 28. We don’t (yet) have an air conditioner, so we ended up sleeping downstairs to survive the weekend.
Budget.. What Budget?
Last month our dreaded property taxes came due; $3,312 in cold, hard cash owed to our municipality. As a result, we managed to barely save any money at all this month—just $200!
But I can’t put all of the blame on our property taxes. For one thing, we spent a ton (for us!) on groceries. At $467, it’s our highest grocery bill in quite some time. However, some of that grocery spending can be attributed to a BBQ we hosted with a few friends.
On top of groceries and property taxes, my wife decided to try out laser hair removal. After years of shaving her legs, she’s finally had enough. She ponied up $230 for her first treatment at a reputable laser hair clinic to get started. As it happens, she was pleased with the results and decided to pre-pay for another 6 sessions for about $150 per session.
A final interesting expense came from the $230 we spent on an air purifier. Now, I’ve always been skeptical of these little machines. Still, given the heat we’ve experienced, we’re expecting to see air quality advisories in the not too distant future. To help mitigate this, we bought a Honeywell air purifier to help maintain our indoor air quality this summer.
Leveraging Up!
As you may have already read, my wife and I started using my personal line of credit to supercharge our investments. So far, we’ve invested $5,000 from our Tangerine line of credit and used that amount to secure another $3,500 in margin loans. Add that to our regular TFSA contributions, and we purchased $11,700 worth of ETFs last month.
June happened to be a high-performing month for our investments. Despite only saving $200 of our income, our net worth increased considerably to $402,300 from $396,500 in the previous month. That’s right, we’ve crossed the $400k milestone! Now, let’s just see if it lasts.
Despite our liquid assets growing considerably, the dividends we received in the past month were actually less than reported this time last year. That’s because some of our dividends didn’t hit our account in time for July 1st. Expect to see those dividends show up in next month’s net worth update.
Overall, I’m happy to see our liquid net worth—our savings and investments, not including our pension or home equity—continue to rise higher. We only recently crossed the $100k invested milestone, which is a point where your portfolio can have a decent impact on your net worth. With our continued saving and investing, maybe we’ll hit $200k sooner than we thought!
Thanks for Reading!
Thank you for checking out my net worth update for July 2021. I recently wrote a few articles that you may be interested in. This includes my list of the best REIT ETFs in Canada and my latest views on the COVID real estate boom. Consider giving those a read if you think they’ll help you on your financial journey!
As always, please consider following me on social media or signing up for my monthly newsletter if you’d like to get notified when I post new content.
Hey AL, sounds like a good month overall. I’m sure the BBQ food was worth it. Congrats on crossing over the 400k mark! That’s a nice increase despite being able to save less than usual. Your liquid net worth chart is climbing nicely. I always enjoy your reports. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks a lot Graham! Yep, market was good to us this month. Can’t always rely on that but it certainly is nice when it happens!
Even though you only managed to save $200 last month you still had a nice net worth increase. Well done.
Like you we pay our property taxes annually. It’s a big hit in June but I prefer that to having to account for it on a smaller scale every month.
Hey Maria! Yea, me too. It’s nice to quickly rip off the bandaid instead of having it become a monthly expense. We pay our car insurance the same way.