Last month at this time I mentioned I had $15K ready to deploy for the downpayment of my second farmland. Each farm produces 2 rental cheques. Once in the spring/summer when seeding occurs, and the other cheque gets deposited in October when the crops are harvested. As luck would have even though the second farmland isn’t legally mine until later this year, the renter was nice enough to still pay me the first part of this year’s rent 🙂 So I deposited the $2520 cheque into my bank account in June. Thank goodness for that, because my stock portfolio dropped in value on average by about 2.5%.
The Canadian loonie is approaching the lowest value since almost 24 months now. This is good news if you live in the US and like to come across the border to shop for fur coats and maple syrup 🙂 However a higher USD also means I owe more in my US margin account 🙁 Gold, silver, copper, and other hard commodities are super cheap now. I think this would be a good time to start looking at Canadian mining companies to invest in if you haven’t already. It’s smart to take advantage of low prices when business are on sale (^_^)
——————-———————————–
- Part-Time Work = $900
- Dividends = $300
- Farm Rent = $2,500
*Discretionary Spending:
- Eating Out = $100
- Others = $200
*Net Worth: (MoM)
- Assets: = $569,800 total (-$100)
- Cash = $7,200 (+4000)
- Stocks CDN =$71,000 (-$3500)
- Stocks US = $39,000 (+$200)
- RRSP = $30,800 (–$800)
- Home = $252,000 (same)
- Farm 1 = $152,500 (same)
- Farm 2 deposit = $17,300 (same)
- Liabilities: = $392,500 total (-4,300)
- Mortgage = $202,500 (-$300)
- Farm 1 Loan = $110,500 (-$200)
- Margin Loan CDN = $26,100 (-$100)
- Margin Loan US = $22,400 (+$300)
- TD Line of Credit = $13,000 (-9000)
- CIBC Line of Credit = $13,000 (same)
- Credit Card = $5000 (new)
*Total Net Worth = $177,300 (+2.52%)
All numbers above are in CAD. Conversion rate used: 1.00 USD = 1.06 CAD
Not as spectacular as May’s net worth increase but I’m still really happy with this month. The big increase to my cash on hand is due to the rental income, savings from work, and the $5,000 credit card transfer 🙂 I then used the savings to pay off some debt (mostly my line of credit.) Because of this extra money I now have 20K ready for my farmland fund. That means only $5K more to go 😀 It seems like luck was on my side again for the month of June. Since I have a US margin account with US dollars, I was able to not lose as much because due to the conversion rate my US portfolio is worth 1.5% more than it did in May when converted to Canadian dollars. That’s important because CAD is the currency I use to live on 🙂 And it just so happened that my farm rent came in on the same month that the stock market corrected. Couldn’t have predicated any of this but really happy with how things worked out :0)
“Farm rent” love it! Can’t wait til I get some of that myself. Hope the second one goes just as well!
Thanks, I hope so too. 6 more months and I’ll update the value of both farms here.
I had a lot of activity in June due to the sales, but the US dollar definitely hurt as well, especially since most of my portfolios were low on US and international ETFs. Do you think the US dollar will continue to strengthen against the loonie?
Yup, it will probably continue to go higher by the end of the year. The housing and jobs data recently out of the US is looking really optimistic for their economy. Note that if I were to do my net worth in USD instead of CAD it would have gone down in June instead of up. Interesting how currency exchange rates have such a profound effect on our perceived wealth 🙂
Looks like things worked out quite well, overall, last month. You’re definitely rocking being diversified! 🙂
Thanks, we’ll see how things go from here :0)
looking good sir 🙂 hope the floods moving into Sask from Alberta are not affecting your farms in Sask. Ontario farm prices are up 27% y/y!
Whoa, if I had known that I would have bought farmland in ON instead of SK lol. But still happy with the returns I’m getting so far.
Look at that curve… It does not look that linear anymore. Happy days ahead my friend as compounding starts taking visual effect 😀
It’s very telling to have a graph. I’m lucky our economy has been pretty stable over the last 5 years. If either stocks, or real estate drop were to correct 20% it would be interesting to see how my net worth holds up because I’m quite leveraged. Knock on wood 🙂
Getting that farm rent check in the mail must have been a good feeling. I hear you on the gold and silver. I’m very much a buy and hold when it comes to those investments. Those investment also act as a hobby for me as I collect coins. I think now is a good time to add.
I think it’s a good time to buy coins as well. I bought my 1oz gold coin too early this year. Paid about $1750 for it. Today you can pick it up for about $1400 lol. Good time to average down tho.
Handy that the rent came in on the second piece of farmland. It looks like things continue to move in the right direction for you (for the most part)!
It’s like all the stars are aligned or something. I was just in the right place at the right time when I made those initial investment decisions 🙂
Your diversification is working well for you. Good to know and Thanks for sharing
I watched a documentary called The Queen of Versailles. There was this one person in it who was worth $14 million before 2008 because he build up a real estate empire, but after the recession when the mass foreclosures went on in the US he ended up losing all his homes and went back to renting. From decal millionaire to broke. If he had diversified in some other assets like stocks, at least that part of his investments would have recovered.
Looking really good! I like looking at your historical graph and seeing how quickly the wealth has accumulated.
Thanks, I like how it gives me an idea of where my personal finance came from and how much I’ve yet to go :0)
Excellent progress! The farm land rental income really intrigues me…how did you get started in that?
Thanks,
Michael
I saw a listing on mls.ca that they farm was for sale. I called the real estate agent for details.The owner wanted to sell and retire and there was already someone else renting the land from him. So I bought it and renewed the lease agreement with the existing tenant. I’s the same tenant on both farms right now 🙂
[…] Freedom Thirty Five shares his June 2013 Fiscal Update. […]