Note: I began writing this article last weekend, but for some reasons could not finish it. A few updates since, Gamestop stonk seems to have fizzled; markets seem to have re bounced back very nicely from the 3 % decline of prior week and it looks very likely that Biden 1.9 Trillion dollar bill will have its day in the spotlight soon! Finally, AVI Family net worth inched higher in the intervening week, reaching 94 as of this writing.

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Its already Jan 31st and the time of the month for me to update on AVI family net worth. Lots has transpired in the first month of the year already, the Capitol riots, Biden sworn in as the 46th President of the USA, market mania around heavily shorted stocks and with new strain of COVID-19 spreading around the globe, the pandemic still front and center on everyone’s mind!

As for AVI family, for the most part we were spectators of the movie playing out on the wallstreet and the world at large. Going into the last week of January, I was particularly worried about the relentless rise in the markets and the lack of robust investment opportunities. As such, I decided to use up some of AVI family savings to begin a home renovation project. I will elaborate more on the specifics of the project in due course but want to note here that the dig in AVI family cash accounts was in part due to the down payment for the project.

Were it not for the market correction (3 % drop) in the last week of Jan, we would not event have felt the impact of the cash outflow, but alas! Regardless, lets get into the numbers for the very first month end for year 2021

• Net Worth (as a fraction of FI number) (NW): 90.97
• Liquid Assets/ Debt Ratio (LDR):  2.576
• Cash balance/ Two Year Living Expense (CLE): 1.11

Synposis:

• In case you haven’t noticed, we are now in the 9th inning of our aim to reach our FI goal. We have come a long ways since the first time I started tracking AVI family net worth, back in July of 2019. Since then AVI family net worth has grown upwards of 80 %. Since then I have evolved in my thinking on FI and am privy to various flavors of FI (Flamingo FI, Coast FI, and Fat FI). Based on these readings, I have settled into the idea that the FI number against which I have been bench marking AVI family networth is really the Flamingo FI. What does that mean, AVI family journey towards RE will continue even after we reach 100 % relative to our FI number.
• Cash balance (checking/savings) saw a steep decline, inpart due to a major home renovation work that we have taken up. I will elaborate further as we approach finishing the work, which I anticipate taking a few months.
• I have decided to be quite aggressive with 401K contributions, aiming to reach the limit for individual contributions by mid-year. The >5% jump in 401K is purely the result of increased pay-check contribution.
• AVI investment portfolio (both retirement and non-retirement) saw modest declines relative to the 3 % market decline. This was in part the result of increased cash allocation in the portfolio. If the markets continue to remain frothy, I will probably keep on diluting my share base and moving to cash and may eventually decide to pay of the remainder of the mortgage on AVI family house. I cannot imagine how good it will feel being completely debt free!

Video/Book/Article/Audio for the Week

• Blog: I revisited the 4-phases of FI/RE planning by Money Flamingo, in case you are curious check it out here
• Audio Book: I finally succumbed to the Audible promo deal and signed up for 3 month trial period (again) of audio books. Currently enjoying reading The Price of Wealth, the biography of one of the heavy weights of 20th century economics and capital markets thinker, John Maynard Keynes.

And to end the post on a lighter note, had I not found FI, I would probably have ended up like this guy!