May 19′ Personal Net Worth Report and More

In Monthly Net Worth Reports by Shlomo Freund7 Comments

personal net worth

 

This is my monthly report of our personal net worth progress for May 2019.

I’m sharing this to show how important it is to track your net worth and seeing the progress. This is what I also expect and advise my clients.

From tracking your personal net worth and see how much you are worth, you can learn what works and what you should change in your finances.

It’s the first step to eliminate money as a source of stress and gain confidence in your future finances.

If you’d like to also see how much you are worth the way I do, I created a version of it, especially for my readers. You can get it here.

Also, if you’d like to read the previous report to get the flow of things you can check it here – April 2019 personal net worth report. This is the page with all previous reports is here.

If you don’t know what the net worth definition is, check it here.

I invite you for a free financial fitness call with me. Just click the link and book a time on my calendar

Let’s jump in!

Envestio: Envestio introduced 6 new projects. Unfortunately, I could only invest returns from other projects on these and not a significant amount. I just got a major payment back from Envestio. So, I’m ready for another round, when new investments are introduced.

3/4 of my initial investments in Envestio were already paid out so far. Since then I re-invested the returns around 35 times, so the money becomes more and more diversified over more projects as time goes by.

If you do decide to join Envestio through my link, I’ll get some bonus from them to invest more in my portfolio and you’ll get an extra 5 € bonus + 0.5% cash back for the next 270 days after you invest

Crowdestor: With Crowdestor I made two initial investment. One for 19% a year for a project in a commercial building and a warehouse in Riga. The 2nd project I investment in is a restaurant in a shopping mall in Kyiv. They return 16% a year for 18 months.

Since it’s running for a few months now, I already got some interest repayment back which I was able to reinvest in an additional company called Inch2. They are a fashion brand and they need to month to further expand. They return on this project is 18% for 24 months. A bit too long for me, but this is a tiny investment compared to the other first two.

You can check more of Crowdestor projects on their website.

21.1.20 Update: I no longer recommend Kuetzal. I invested through them. However, large parts of that business were a scam and under investigation. I’m not sure I’ll see my money back in this case.

Kuetzal: I decided to diversify to another crowd investing platform called: Kuetzal. Jorgen Wolf my friend, had a good review on them. He met them, checked their offices, met the team and even checked some of the projects they help fund.

So far I invested in two real estate projects. One generating 19.5% a year and the other 21% a year in Riga. Investment is 12 months long.  I didn’t get any dividends yet from it as it’s so new, but I’ll report on the next monthly report how it’s going.

UK property:  Not a lot of news here. Still negotiating on the price. So, I hope more news on this next month.

Let’s dive into the details of our personal net worth.

OUR PERSONAL NET WORTH ANALYSIS:

Loans: I decided to renew one of our bullet/balloon loans. The bank keeps increasing the interest rate but it’s still a relatively low 2.6% yearly.  So, after a year we need to pay the whole amount + interest. This one can also be extended for an additional year at the same terms. I assume I’ll extend.

US & Israeli Stock portfolio: There was a drop on that portfolio this month and this is mainly what caused our personal net worth not to be on the positive side this month. If you are following my report for a while now, you’d know that this is a hiccup when you invest long term. Doesn’t matter a thing.

US Real estate investment: Nothing new on this one. I’m waiting to get an update of either the sale of the rest of the properties or additional check of the rent collected. It’s usually happening around late summer time.

Bitcoin: Bitcoin’s value went a bit up this month. My Hashflare Mining is not profitable anymore by the way. I wonder if they will ever resume. They are selling now other crypto contracts on their website, but not Bitcoin.

PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL LIFE:

Travel: So, at the beginning of May I went to spend a week in Budapest on Financial independence Europe 2019. That was a week full of activities and lectures with like-minded people. It was a tiny conference of only 40 people, therefore, I got a chance to really get to know almost everyone and make friends. I now have lots of hosting opportunities in Europe which is great.

One of the participants was Mindy from Bankok to Blighty.  While we spoke she mentioned her Etsy store and I got interested to know what exactly she is selling. She told me that she is selling printables for financial tracking. Cool. no?

As she explained more of what her products were, I was amazed and said: “Do people actually buy these things?!” She said: “yes!”. The amazing thing is that such a simple idea is sellable and can provide passive income. Why not try it then?

When she told me about it, it was Saturday night and I was eager to push through and get an Etsy store with products ASAP, and hopefully make a sale before the conference ended on Wednesday.

So, at the same evening I came up with the idea for a printable product, at that very night I sent a message to 3 Fiverr designers with my idea to get quotes. I got them the next day and had a prototype by Sunday evening. A few backs and forth till Monday afternoon and I had my product ready.

The nice thing is that I could duplicate it. So, I created 31 different products, which were ready on that Monday, if I’m not wrong. Now, I had to wait for Etsy to approve my store account, which took almost two days to do until they got back to me and voila, the store is up! Not perfect, but up. Ready to sell products.

So, what that product is?

As I love traveling and I have a 3-year old girl I wanted to give kids and the parents the opportunity to speak about the destination of their next vacation. Once it’s chosen, I created a countdown chart using the destination’s country flag.  That’s driving the anticipation for the trip and they get the opportunity to develop conversations while everyday coloring a single piece of the flag.

Here is my store. I’m very proud of it. I made progress since Financial Independence Europe Week 2019 ended, but it’s not perfect yet, and I keep improving the listings.

Fav the store for support, I’ll keep updating how is it going with my new little venture.

Oh, also read Mindy’s excellent recap of FIWE 2019. She summarized it very well in my opinion. Mindy, thank you for the support with all the setup.

Have a look at the store, you might find something you like 🙂

Will be great if I’ll see you on the stores’ followers list!

This is my store. Click Fav to support!

Travel social impact: Just before I was about to publish this report, I got a message from the kindergarten teacher where my daughter stayed for 3 weeks. They really need our help, and it’s our opportunity to give back to the communities we visit in.

So, I opened this campaign yesterday (see below). I’d like to make a change for these people and will be thrilled to get you, my readers, support too on this. Please click the widget and donate whatever you can. 

All details here:

Fundraising with GoGetFunding

Reading: I also finished reading these 2 books called Anne Frank: The Biography by Melissa Müller and
Ultimate Blockchain Technology by Lee Sebastian. While I highly recommend The Anna Frank book, I don’t recommend the Blockchain one. There are better out there. I’m sure.

After those two, I started to read the book The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Food You Were Designed to Eat by Loren Cordain. I’m on a Paleo diet for a few years now, and I felt it’s time to take another angle on the topic after I read a book about it a few years ago. So far some things are different from what I knew and what was on the previous book I read about the Paleo diet. So, who should I follow? Hard to decide. I’m at the process of still researching on this. 

I invite you to follow my Goodreads profile and read along with me. I’d love to share ideas.

Shlomo’s bookshelf: read

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On ItThe Joy of Not Working: A Book for the Retired, Unemployed and OverworkedScaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don'tFreakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of EverythingA People's History of the United StatesThe 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal ChangeYour Money or Your LifeEarly Retirement Extreme: A Philosophical and Practical Guide to Financial IndependenceContent Inc.: How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and Create Radically Successful BusinessesVirtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Businessגן עדן בפתח הבית80/20 Sales and Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making MoreExpert Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Finding Your Message, Building a Tribe, and Changing the WorldSimple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle
Give Your Child the World: Raising Globally Minded Kids One Book at a TimeThe Trusted AdvisorMoonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering EverythingCrusade in EuropeThe Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big DifferenceThe Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

 

2019 Reading Challenge

Reading challenge is going well, as you can see. Hope to read more than 18 books this year.

2019 Reading Challenge

2019 Reading Challenge
Shlomo has
read 11 books toward
their goal of
18 books.
hide

 

Lifestyle (& Exercise): I finally did it. I signed up on a local gym for their Yoga class. So far been only a couple of times, and really enjoyed those. Go flexibility!

NOW OVER TO YOU

Do you track your personal net worth? What insights did you get this month? Add it in the comments.

 

Comments

  1. Congratulations on your Etsy shop Shlomo. Such a good idea, the designs are looking great! You’re killing it on the savings rate too, well done 🙂

    1. Author

      Thanks, Jorgen! There is still a lot to improve on the store. Working on it on the backburner. I’m glad you like the idea. As for the savings rate, I’m taking all my income to account when calculating this and not only the salary part. If you’ll start calculating like me (Which I know, you are not interested in now), You’ll be super killing it 🙂

    1. Author

      No, I haven’t. Will have a look on this. Thank you for sharing this Whitney!

  2. Love so many books on your shelf. Given we probably have the same taste in books, you may like, “The One Thing” by Gary Keller (of Keller Williams real estate). It’s one of the best books I have read in recent years. If you like tech and start-up stories, a new book just out this year is A Very Public Offering by Stephan Paternot. It’s a fun read b/c it’s not a today start-up but 20 years ago. So there’s lots of tech nostalgia. It is the real-life account of the rise and fall of theGlobe.com, as told by Paternot, one of its co-founders. theGlobe.com was founded in 1994 and went public in 1999, so this book takes you back to the early Internet days and is a great piece of technology nostalgia. The book covers how theGlobe.com went from Internet darling to spectacular crash, so market-watchers will be riveted. Readers will be along for the ride as the company starts, experiences fast growth and all the accompanying growing pains, and goes public

    1. Author

      Thank you Caroline. I actually read “The One Thing” (not sure why you can’t see it on my “read” shelf. To be frank, I didn’t like it that much. Somehow felt repetitive to me that a be summarized in a shorter version.

      Thank you for the other recommendations!

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