Last updated on March 10th, 2023 at 10:56 am
Welcome to my net worth update for July 2022! These numbers represent my wife and I’s net worth as of July 1st. Please check out our previous net worth update if you haven’t already!
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!
Investment Loan Update
It’s been a few months since I shared that I was starting the Smith Maneuver. I planned to write a lot more on that topic (and I still will!), but I’ve been busy with work getting as much enjoyment out of this summer while we still have it. However, I did want to give a short update and also update you on my original investment loan.
Basically, I’m continuing my Smith Maneuver strategy of investing $10,000 per month into VEQT, and I’m pretty happy to have capital available to buy as the market is down. With $20k invested as of July 1st, I’m down about $1,500.
My original margin account with Interactive Brokers is down much more (around $5,000) since I made all of my purchases last summer/fall. In this account I currently have $37,000 of VEQT backed by $25,000 of LOC debt and $15,000 of margin debt.

One thing that has been increasing is my investment loan interest! The bulk of this interest comes from my HELOC which is at 4.00% and my Tangerine LOC which is at 3.70%. And it seems certain that these rates will soon hit something closer to 5% in the very near future.
However, I’m not worried. Even at 5%, the after-tax interest rate is a reasonable 3.1% (given that my marginal tax rate is 38%), which in theory should be easy to beat over the long-term with equity investing.
Dividend Income
I was a bit disappointed to receive no dividend income last month, but this month more than made up for it: Two of my wife’s monthly dividend payers (XDIV and XDG) paid twice. On top of that, a few of our quarterly payers also paid. In total, we received $890!

That’s our second-highest earning month for dividends! That’s got me excited to see what August and the rest of the year delivers. We’re on track to earn way more passive income in 2022 than ever before!
Expenses in Depth
Last month was another expensive month. However, this was expected, as our annual property tax bill came due. This was a $3,500 expense that simply can’t be avoided (well, unless we sold our home!).

On top of property tax, we spent an incredible $594 on eating out. Much of this came from day trips and birthday outings we went on with our family—treating others out is expensive! We also spent another $252 on gifts.
For our home, we spend $100 on some shelves and $300 on an air conditioner which (thankfully, after last year’s heat dome) we haven’t had to use yet.
Because of all of these expenses, we only managed to contribute a measly $1,000 to our investment accounts last month.
Net Worth Change
With our high expenses and the stock market performing abysmally, this is our largest net worth decrease to date. Our net worth is now $645,800, down from $664,000 in the previous month. That’s a decrease of over $18,000!

Most of this decrease is from our investments. Overall, we lost $20,850 across all our investment accounts. Which makes sense, if you consider that our portfolio composition is similar to VEQT which fell from $32.98 to $30.73 in June—a 9.3% decline.

That leaves us with a liquid net worth of $239,600, which is less than it was back in April of this year. Luckily it looks like we’ll both have a three paycheque month at the end of summer. That’ll help us recover somewhat after this expensive month and juice our liquid net worth as we head into the end of 2022.
Thanks for Reading
I recently wrote a few articles that you may be interested in. This includes my pick for the best preferred share ETF in Canada and my post on the best Canadian gold ETFs. Consider giving those a read if you think they’ll help you on your financial journey!
Consider supporting my blog by sharing or joining me in using any of my recommended services:
- Join Tangerine using my Orange Code (46870461S1) to earn $50!
- Join Questrade using my referral code (336421347418465) to earn $25 to $250!
- Create your own website using Web Hosting Canada!
- Save online and earn credit card sign-up bonuses by using Great Canadian Rebates!
The stock market has not been good to investors this year so far, lol. Seems like you’re doing relatively well with your diversified portfolio though. $10K is a good chunk of money to invest each month. Have you thought about making a special lump sum investment ($50K for example) from your lines of credit to your brokerage account and buy cheap stocks in this bear market? 🙂
I have thought about that! My original idea was to pump even more in if the market took a turn. But then that happened (well, continued to happen) but the wife got cold feet. $10k per month is about all I can get her to agree to for now.
So far the plan is to re-evaluate at the end of the year. Depending on the direction rates are going in, we may increase the $10k per month amount or decrease it.