On 25th June I posted this on Twitter:
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything in the media before about the mean net wealth of Australian adults (or maybe I’ve just never noticed/paid attention), but now that it’s net worth update time for me, I’m pleased to see that I’m ahead of the curve, even though (given my age) I would certainly hope that would be the case. In the first half of 2021 it’s seen an increase of 8.89%, and in the two years since I started tracking it, it’s increased by approximately 25.78%.
Here’s how it’s looking now:
I might be a teensy bit excited – my net worth calculations now include an ETFs category! And even though, as a percentage of my overall net wealth, they’re only 1%, they’ve already shown a capital gain of over 6% since I bought the shares at the end of March. I’m not entirely sure yet how frequently I’ll be able to buy more, but I’m tossing up now just letting the Mojo money sit in my mortgage offset and focusing instead on building my ETF holdings. I haven’t worked out my budget for the next financial year yet, so this remains a hypothetical at this stage (plus I still want to boost my super contributions).
Here’s how the components have performed over the past six months and since tracking started (1 July 2019) – this is a new feature in my net worth update.
| Component | 6 month change | Change since 1 July 2019 | Notes |
| Superannuation | +9.69% | +25.99% | Share market high during COVID |
| PPoR (value-debt) | +5.27% | +7.40% | Started using the average of two different real estate valuation sites (Domain and Onthehouse.com) |
| Cash (-credit card debt) | +13.32% | +298.12% | Not much to spend money on – thanks, COVID! |
| ETFs | +100% | +100% | New category |
| Shares | -14.64% | -67.54% | Sold AfterPay July 2019, AirXpanders went bust in 19-20FY |
| OVERALL NW | +8.89% | +25.78% |
Ultimately I intend to divest myself of the individual shares. That would involve having to buy more of most of them, though, because they’ve lost value to the point where I don’t have marketable amounts. Because they’re (mostly) small caps, the trading volume is pretty low, which doesn’t bode well for then being able to sell. I think it’s possible to make arrangements through your broker to sell off unmarketable parcels, but I haven’t looked into this as yet.
At the end of May I changed the investment mix in my superannuation. I’d been thinking about this on and off for a couple of years (if only I’d done this straight away, to capture the bounce-back after the initial COVID drop!), primarily because I’ve been concerned that the growth I was getting was not going to get me to a point where I was happy with the amount I’d be able to draw down each year in retirement, even if I maxed out my contributions to reach the $25000 cap. I was also looking at the bite that the fees take out of it – those default mixes can be two or three times the management fees (in percentage terms) of plain equities. Considering the returns over the past 10 years for plain shares was also a few percentage points better than the default mix components, I finally decided to bite the bullet and make the change. I now have 20% Australian shares and 80% international shares, with future contributions going to international shares. I’ll be interested to see how this affects the performance of my super, including the investment fees. I’ll be keeping a weather eye on the performance over time, with a view to returning to a more conservative allocation as I get closer to retirement.
The increase in the PPoR value is down to having looked at other real estate valuation sites and deciding to take the average of the mid-range value of two different sites. If you haven’t looked at these before, the sites provide an estimated value based on the type of property it is and it’s features, and the sale values of similar properties in the same area. Domain uses a quite wide value range, while Onthehouse.com uses a narrower range. The value range for Onthehouse.com is higher than the value range on Domain, hence the increase in estimated value for my PPoR. Prior to this, the value had stayed static.
Cash holdings have increased due to regular savings, and not having to have made much use of them. š
FIRE for One 
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