While this update should technically come after the actual year is over, the truth is that I have the time right now, and I never know what life will be like after the new year, so I tend to do things when I can.
Life is busy, and if you’ve kept up lately, we now own two laundromats, two websites (this blog and Laundromats101.com our new laundromat investing site), and I still have a full-time job (and 3 kids still at home by the way. Four kids if you count my husband). Which means that some things must get done earlier or later than they, ahem, should.
And it’s been a while since I’ve posted a Net Worth update, so I figure now is as good a time as any.
The Numbers Behind “The Number”
As of today, our latest Net Worth is….(cue the internal drum roll)…
$624,101
Did I ever mention that I love the Personal Capital website? It retrieves all of our bank, mortgage and investment balances automatically and calculates our Net Worth in just seconds. (If you want your own FREE account, just click the graph above. It’s a great tool that we use constantly, and the affiliate link helps keep this blog up and running. Thanks!)
Our Net Worth increased substantially after we purchased each of our two laundromat businesses. We bought them for a steal, and then improved them both cosmetically as well as in profitability. In fact, business has doubled at our second location since our initial cosmetic updates and dryer replacement were completed a few months ago. We haven’t even finished the remodel and we haven’t advertised yet either!
These businesses are great assets that continue to increase in value for us each month, yeehaw! (If you’re interested in our journey investing in self-service unattended laundromats, check out the blog on our newest website, Laundromats101.com)
Plus, our small business loans continue to be paid down each month courtesy of our customers, so our equity is increasing on both ends; the loans are being paid down quickly and the value of the assets are increasing at the same time.
The value of our home also increased, going up by $34,244 in just the last year. Maxing out my 401k contributions also helped, and the Roth IRA deposits and the returns on our investments pushed the graph upwards as well.
The last time we checked in, as of May 2016, our Net Worth was $543,567. In just seven months, our Net Worth increased by over $80k.
$80k in 7 months. What?!?! Is that even possible? Yes, it is. It was a few big things (home and business values increasing, business and mortgage debt decreasing) and a lot of little things (regular savings, investment contributions, investment returns, work bonuses, new website income).
Here is the savings goal grid again…needless to say we blew past our goal for 2016 and turns out we are just a hair away from meeting next year’s goal. (I guess if I had waited until the actual end of the year we would meet next year’s goal, but I don’t care enough to wait.)
Earning Income from Unexpected Places
But one very cool thing we did recently to get the ball rolling even faster was add another income stream to our portfolio.
For those that have been following along, you’ll remember that for a long time we posted our laundromat investing journey right here on the blog. Which caused traffic to this blog to explode. Soon we were getting daily requests from readers for one-on-one help. Which we just couldn’t do time-wise.
But we realized that our experience as new business owners and self-service laundry owners specifically was worth something. Something that people were willing to pay for, and did. I’m going to get into more of the nuts and bolts of how we started making money online in my next post, but for now, I’ll leave you with this:
Our online business brought in over $5,000 in just a few months. We did a small amount of work up front, and now it’s completely passive income coming in every month. More on that soon.
Until next time…