The last ten days have been intense in so many ways. On my 31st birthday, about a week ago, my sister dropped me off at the synagogue, at 6AM, where I spent a lot of time during my 13th year of living. And to keep the 1 and 3 theme going I ran home, passing terrific beach home views, which happened to be about 13 miles. My final actuarial exam was supposed to be April, 29th and I had planned on doing a trail run in Blacksburg, VA, very shortly after. COVID put a stop to that plan but I thought this experience would give me a resemblance of normalcy, and I think it did. After I got home I cleaned up and then we went up to Traverse City, drove around looking at nice homes, and got take out food.
It’s important to stay physically and spiritually fit and I think that is even more important now. I’ve definitely kept up with my running and have fallen back in love with juggling my soccer ball and roller blading. My spiritual exercise has been my aimless morning drives listening to educational podcasts and talking to my girlfriend. The thing I’m struggling now with is a lack of variety in my vegetarian diet; I’m just tired of cooking so much.
Keep all the essentials in check, take responsibility for your well being, and the financial health will hopefully follow. And with that let’s see how the balance sheet is looking:
10-day BS Refresh
Analysis Intelligence
The Opening NW in the 5/10/2020 column is the closing NW from the 4/30/2020 column.
So the first ten days of the month the name of the game is loan paydown. And the below amortization table are my Michigan properties that were seller financed at a 6% annual effective rate, beginning in January 2019. You’ll notice that right now I’m paying a lot more each month to paying down the loan. Those properties generate about two thousand a month in rent, while I’m making about thirty-seven hundred dollar payments, meaning I am using some of my day job money to move that loan paydown along. This is way I see it now. I have a decent cash cushion right now and might as well lock in the 6% by paying down the loan, so a lot of the extra money I make is going towards that. Some ask me, “why don’t you just refinance that to a lower rate?” I don’t know if any of you have gone through a refinance but they’re not all that fun. I am also studying for my last actuarial exam, now scheduled for July, 15th. That effort to restructure my debt would take time. My current plan is to restructure when I’m done with paying this off, after my exams (I’d have to take another in November if I fail this one). I’d prefer to raise cash from friends as you can save on some of those ridiculous fees. I think last time I had two thousand dollars in fees to refinance, which is so annoying; those loan officers and sharks. Some others ask wouldn’t you be better off buying up discounted stocks? That has crossed my mind a bit, and I had planned on continuing to buy Bitcoin, but I think locking in that 6% return is wise in this volatile environment, especially when I was questioning a lot of the share buybacks in times of calm (I thought things were way overvalued before).
My stocks and real estate went up in value more than I would have thought. One really does need to wonder what it means when the majority of people are sitting at home watching Netflix, while unemployment is crazy high, and the stock market continues to climb. This screams money printing, and really makes me wonder about the future of this country, but on paper it’s good for me in nominal terms.
The cells in the white are the actual numbers compared to my projections at the beginning of the ten-day period. I elected to not pay off my credit card bill, explaining the -1445 in the loan paydown row, while at the same time funneling money to buy more Bitcoin. It did hit ten thousand yesterday but it has done a bit of a retrace back down to about eighty-seven hundred. I remain bullish on Bitcoin and think the May halving will reinforce the fixed supply of Bitcoin idea that can be contrasted with the world printing of fiat currencies.
Michigan Properties Amortization Table:
Crystal Ball
5/10/2020 I ended with a NW of $315,432. I will be collecting one paycheck in the next ten days and I’m going to pay down my credit card. My going to be a bit more upward trending on my asset projections as I keep underestimating this crazy volatility to the up in the market:
Ideas for increasing NW
- Get more traffic to websites
- My book “Make Better Bets” will be out on Amazon shortly. I’m supposed to get my final proofs in the mail tomorrow for final edits.
- Put an offer in on the Stanton house. In the winter they were asking $34,990 and now they’re asking $29,990. I feel like I could get a slight COVID discount and have it rented for around $550/$600 a month. I’m going to offer $25,012 which would hit my $100 of profit per month target, while financing over eighteen years. Hopefully my offer doesn’t get laughed at but as they, “if you’re not embarrassed by your first offer, you’re offering too much”
Notes:
- If you want the excel workbook that I use to help me track just message at jackallweil@gmail.com. I’m also happy to go through any calculations.