Heading into 2024 with $1 million in reach
Usually I do net-worth updates in June, but we hit an exciting milestone at the end of 2023 so I wanted to share some off-cycle news. We hit $975,000! That means that, unless we have a truly ugly year, we will no doubt hit seven figures in 2024, which is incredible. After the flat year we had in 2022, we are thrilled.
As we enter the home stretch, we are transitioning into a slightly different mindset. I thought a good ol’ Stop/Start/Continue analysis would be a useful exercise.
START
- Rebalancing the portfolio. We need to assess our asset mix and determine if we are too heavy on equities. I haven’t looked at this properly in ages. We aim for a 85% equities to 15% bonds.
- Sign up for an Amazon Prime Visa. We are not credit-card churners or point experts. Since we moved to New York, we have used our Chase Safire Preferred for everything. While it shines in certain categories – travel and dining – it doesn’t do much for us in the Amazon category. I wish we didn’t depend on Amazon so much, but such is life at the moment. The Amazon Prime Visa gives 5% cash-back on Amazon purchases with no cap, which is quite unusual for a cash-back card.
- Developing a re-entry plan. With our seven-figure goal on the horizon, we can start to develop a plan to re-enter Canada. We will assess how much cash we should have to avoid sequence of return risk as well as a down payment for our next home. Much of this is going to be a scientific wild ass guess, but we will need to do our best.
STOP
- Contributing to the 401K. While I hate the thought of missing out on the employer match, we might need to stop contributing to the US retirement account at some point this year. Why? If my husband’s employer will not support making his role 100% remote and based in Canada, we won’t have a steady income to help manage the transition to retirement. He will need to straight-up quit, and we will need to be financially independent before leaving New York. That means having the necessary cash to fund a year of living expenses plus a down payment. We would most likely stop the 401K contributions after we hit $1M, at which point all savings will go to cash.
CONTINUE
- Cooking at home. Nothing new here! I’m trying new recipes to avoid boredom. I’m also working on building up a freezer stash of healthy homemade food to mitigate the takeout bill.
- Seeing New York. We still have a few museums on our hit-list, and the kiddo wants to go back to the Statue of Liberty. We haven’t been since my mom visited in 2019, so we are overdue!
Yearly Net Worth at a Glance
| 2019 | $612,000 |
| 2020 | $715,000 |
| 2021 | $813,000 |
| 2022 | $838,000 |
| 2023 | $975,000 |