Net worth as of Jan 2014

Here is my our net worth report for January 2014.
I just checked our net worth and this is what I found:

• growth by 125% from the same time 1 year ago
• growth by 23.4% from 9 months prior
• growth by 51.4% from 6 months prior
• growth by 7.8% from 3 months prior
• growth by 11.4% from previous month

Comparisons are pretty easy, now that I’ve worked out the report generation within Quicken. Unfortunately to get a comparison for each quarter, I have to simply copy the entire net worth report out to excel (2 button clicks), paste it into Excel (CTRL+V of course), and put the necessary formula at the bottom of the total line that has the respective net worth. In my case, I use the formula “=($P$39 – P39)/P39″ and then copy it to the other 5 columns. I should make a macro out of it, since it is repeatable, but I think it’s about time to get some sleep.

I am sure that the 100%+ for the 1 year increment will surely go down over time, because as your net worth grows, it is harder to double it. In case people are wondering why that is true, let’s say your net worth is $5,000, and you double it in 1 year to $10,000. That’s fantastic, but let’s double it again in year 2 to $20,000. Well in year 3, you have to put away a very large amount of money to maintain the 100%+ growth, not to mention in year 4 having to put away as much or more than the average annual household income according to the BLS.

Although I have a locked in 26%+ gain on a particular stock (RTN) for the month of February, my 401k started to drag as the mutual funds invested in the account dropped more precipitously. There is also the benefit of receiving the tax monies that I overpaid on last year also, which will currently more than offset the recent drop in my portfolio.

Caveat Emptor: Keep in mind that this net worth that I’m talking about is limited in scope to the financial accounts for retirement, checking, savings, and any non-mortgage related debt only. It does NOT include house appraisal or the mortgage, the 2 vehicles that we have – even though they are older, or the overall contents of our house, such as furniture or audio/video equipment or other electronics.
I could easily but don’t like to include the house/mortgage as part of net worth, simply because we have to live somewhere, and if necessary a bunch of the other items could be sold if truly necessary to further make ends meet.