Net Worth Update: September 2022

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

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Savings & Expenses

The latter part of this year has been brutal for our savings rate. Looking back, it seems the last time I reported a good savings rate (around 40%) was in my May net worth update, where we saved $3,700 on about $10k of earnings.

Since then, it’s been expense after expense:

• Travel expenses in June‘s net worth update
• Property tax in July‘s
• Plane tickets in August‘s

And unfortunately, this net worth update is no different. In total, we spent over $9,000.

The biggest abnormal expense was the $2,000 we spent on a credenza for our living room—think wine rack, but fancier and with a painting above it.

I also spent $1,500 renewing my auto insurance. This is pricey (especially for my now near decade-old car) but a lot less than it used to be. For example, just last year I paid $1,750 and the year before I paid $2,050. This drop is mainly because of our provincial government moving our provincial insurer to a no-fault model.

The saving grace for last month was that my wife received two paycheques and even received some back pay. On top of that, it was a full month without CPP or EI deductions for me, which boosted my paycheques by about $300 each. That helped us save a cool $5,500.

Investments & Dividends

Although we saved $5,500, we only contributed the minimum to our investment accounts:

• $350 to my RRSP
• $700 to my wife’s TFSA

However, I will definitely have some good news contribution-wise in October’s net worth update. Stay tuned for that. (Hint: We are getting awfully close to maxing our TFSAs…)

As predicted in August’s net worth update, this go around we earned a meagre $97. Only my wife’s XDG and XDIV monthly dividend ETFs reported dividends. None of our quarterly dividend ETFs paid out.

$97 isn’t too bad, however, as it’s 28% more than we earned this period last year. Based on this, I expect we’ll earn about $300 in dividends this month. In total, we’ve already earned $4,200 in dividends in 2022—not bad!

Net Worth Change

The stock market was relatively flat last month, only declining a small amount. That, combined with our $5,500 in cash savings, roughly $800 in pension contributions, and $1,300 in home-equity-paydown, we managed to increase our net worth to $667,900.

It’s hard to know where our net worth will end up as we round out 2022. Depending on market conditions, we could have another decline into the $650,000 range, or we could be well over $700,000.

Hopefully we can save more consistently over the next couple of months to bring us within firing distance of $700,000, even if the market stays relatively flat.

Thanks for Reading

I recently wrote a few articles that you may be interested in. This includes my pick for the best dividend ETF in Canada and my post on the 10 best Canadian dividend stocks. Consider giving those a read if you think they’ll help you on your financial journey!

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