Herzlich Wilkommen aus Wien

byoscope

I’m writing to you from a Viennese Starbucks, still during COVID unfortunately, getting to use my botched German to order food (cause that’s about all I can do still). I had the thought the other day that I’d be a good spy as I was able to hop continents during a pandemic, when many have questioned how I was doing this. Starbucks and eating out over the last few weeks has been a strain on my cash, while I’ve also had some large expenses arise. I would like to say it is times like these that I’m happy I’ve planned an emergency fund and have sufficient reserves. My attention is constantly getting pulled in different directions, as many people are making tremendous returns in the stock market, while I’m trying to stick to my plan; I want to get the MI debts paid off and get my life a bit more situated. It’s tough to not bite at the easy/popular fruit sometimes.

One of my goals for increasing my net worth ten days ago was, “Reach out to at least 20 universities over the next ten days about the new book.” I would like to report that I was able to do that and I’m finally seeing some responses, as teachers are becoming more active leading up to the school year. I was asked to give a virtual presentation to the UNC-Charlotte actuarial students about my actuarial experience so far and coping with the exam life. This was facilitated by one of my friends/coworkers who, after he looked through a proof of the goal journal, put in a good word to his university professor. That university professor happened to be that UNC-Charlotte professor I had sent an email to. This reemphasizes the importance of one’s network and never really knowing when someone may be able to help you out. I will continue to, slowly but surely, reach out to more professors at their respective actuarial programs.

Let’s get to the financials!

10-day BS Refresh

Analysis Intelligence

The Opening NW in the 8/31/2020 column is the closing NW from the 8/20/2020 column. The green numbers represent estimated changes to my net worth in those categories (green numbers in 8/31 column are the changes that I estimated on 8/20). The white “Gain from” rows show how the actual numbers turned out compared to my original estimate, ten days prior. Stocks were booming over the last ten days. It also appears that some houses sold on my street with similar builds that drove my Zestimate up about four thousand. I was actually thinking of buying one of those but I thought there was too much uncertainty in my personal life to pull the trigger. I will continue to monitor houses for another potential house hack.

CashFlow

The cashflow situation has been rough the past couple of months. I’ve had some big one-off expenses, taxes due on the Michigan properties, turnover in tenants in the Michigan properties, funneled an additional 6k in loan paydowns, and 3k towards Bitcoin investments. I hopefully just need to weather these next three months and then the story should change dramatically; at the very least I’ll have an extra $3,742 each month to put towards something or to save, as the Michigan properties will be paid off. I may need to start a new budget to get myself back on track with some of these expenses. I’ve been spending a tremendous amount on eating out and Starbucks, smh…

This does hopefully give people a sense, however, that cash is just one component of one’s net worth. While my cash has been going down my net worth has been rising in general, as I funnel cash to Bitcoin and pay down mortgages.

Crystal Ball

The first ten days of the month… The name of the game is loan paydown. I will only owe $11,119 on the Michigan properties after this payment!


Ideas for increasing NW

  • Get more traffic to websites. I just bought a book called Born to Blog. We’ll see if I get any nuggets from it.
  • Start analyzing how affiliate programs really work.
  • Reach out to at least 20 universities over the next ten days about the new book.

Notes:

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