Welcome to the April 2026 edition of our net worth tracker, where we’ll track our net worth month over month. I first started tracking our net worth when this blog was started at the beginning of September 2019. I started by creating the Net Worth Baseline report.
You can view Previous Net Worth reports HERE.
Let’s dive straight into this month’s report.
Monthly Roundup
Previously, I would go through my month and go over the highlights. These days, I’m doing it a little differently. Unless you convince me that you want to hear about my month, I’m not going to talk about it.
April 2026 Net Worth
Here’s how April compares to last month:
April Account Breakdown
Let’s take a quick look at what happened in April.
Cash (-$784.32)
Monthly Blurb: This is where our paychecks get deposited. All our income goes into this account and is then transferred to the appropriate accounts as set by my budget. As usual, I do the net worth report before transferring money to the appropriate accounts.
Cash was down this month, but not by anything crazy. This mostly just depends on timing and what has or has not been transferred yet.
Investment Cash ($3,757.11)
Monthly Blurb: All of our cash left over at the end of the month is transferred here and counted toward our savings rate.
This is where our leftover income goes, plus all earnings from having the investment cash invested in an ETF. As a reminder, a portion of the investment cash is now invested in an S&P 500 index fund.
Our gains this month are mostly from transferring money from our bank account to here.
Remaining Cash Accounts (Emergency and Sinking Funds) ($1,182.60)
Nothing exciting here. Just the usual. We are still saving up for our property tax bill for when it’s due early next year.
We are putting $200 a month into our travel fund. There is no end date set, and we are planning more vacations, so this may go up at some point. Or I may just cash flow it, like I did this month.
We are also putting $200 a month into car savings, rather than saving it all at once. That way, we have the savings ready when we need it and it doesn’t completely blow up our savings rate for the whole year! Check out 2024 if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
Our current cars will hopefully last us until 2030, although I’m starting to get an itch, and I’m looking at some newer EVs.
Retirement Accounts
401(k)s ($35,488.63)
April was a much better month for the market.
The 401(k)s had a strong month, especially compared to March. Some of this is from contributions, but most of it is market performance.
IRA ($43,606.08)
The IRAs were also up quite a bit this month.
This was almost entirely market performance. After a rougher March, April bounced back nicely.
Overall, that’s a gain of 8.01% between the 401k and IRAs.
College Fund ($7,725.34)
The college fund is invested in mutual funds, just like the IRAs. It was down 8.26 percent.
Net Worth ($87,599.28)
April ended in very positive territory.
Utilities have come down as we transition from winter to summer.
In total, our net worth rose. We had an increase of approximately 5.68%.
Not bad for one month. Now, if they could continue like this, that would be nice.
Accessible Net Worth ($4,155.39)
Monthly Blurb: This is the money we are able to put away, not including the tax-advantaged retirement accounts.
Our income was about average this month, as were our expenses.
Accessible net worth increased this month, mostly from what remained of our paychecks.
Liabilities
Status: None, as usual. They’re a burden, so I avoid them. The cars, the house, they’re all paid for. Student loans…never used them. Credit Card debt? I only use one, and it gets paid off every month, and often, I’ll pay it off multiple times per month. Just depends on how many times I think about it.
Passive Income
January and February are very boring months for dividends.
March was a record breaking for that month alone.
Guess What ?!
April also broke its record!
For the year, passive income is now up to $9,695.58. That puts us at 24.2% of the way toward the goal of $40,000.
Interest rates on my savings account may took another hit, shaving of 10 cents and now sitting at 3.10%.
Saving’s Rate
I track my savings rate in order to help keep my feet to the fire so that later I can be Gone on FIRE. As a bonus, you get a glimpse into my cash flow by looking at the income and expense rows.
A couple of years ago, I set the savings goal to 50%. In 2022, we barely missed that goal, but we met it in 2023!
As a result of meeting the goal in 2023, I raised the bar to 55%.
In 2024, we missed the 55% goal by about .5%, if you include our car savings in our total savings number. Otherwise, we were around 35% in 2024.
In 2025, we ended the year at just under 49%.
I want to start spending more money, so I decided to set our 2026 goal at 50%.
In January, we fell short of the goal, coming in at 40.66%. Paying for the cruise dropped our savings rate by 15 percent.
March was pretty grim for our savings rate. We saved only 36.7% of our income.
April was a much better month for the savings rate. We ended the month at 54.00%.
That brings our 2026 YTD savings rate to 43.18%.
Of the 50% we are spending, we give 10%, and property tax is about another 10%, so that means we are living on 30% or less for everything else.
Housing and daycare alone used to eat up over 30%. Fortunately, property taxes have gone down, and we only have daycare during the summer for now. The daycare bill will start next month!
Hopefully, we can get our savings rate above 50% with daycare gone and lower property taxes. Both of the kids have now dropped one of the activities, so we are left with only doing gymnastics.
Here’s how we did this month.
We were at 54.00% in April, bringing our YTD to 43.18%.
Income ($10,748.23)
Right now, our only source of active income is through our full-time jobs.
This is what an average income month looks like for us.
Expenses ($4,944.51)
Our expenses were average this month.
Here is a quick breakdown:
1) Home Escrow ($700.00)
The normal amount we put aside every month to pay for property taxes and insurance.
2) Giving ($857.72)
The usual 10% we give every month.
3) Cost of living ($3,386.79)
This includes all our bills (Gas, Electric, Water, Internet, Phone), transportation, food, shopping, and car insurance. Home insurance is paid from our Home Escrow savings account.
As we did last year and in previous years, we will drain our dependent care account at the end of the year in one lump sum. Doing it that way saves us from having to complete more paperwork.
April was better than March from a savings rate standpoint.
There were no major expenses for April. The biggest expense a trip to the zoo.
March 2026 Vs. April 2026 Expenses
April was better than March from a savings rate standpoint.
Income was higher, expenses were lower, and the market did a lot better. That combination makes for a strong month.
March had the road trip and more spending. April was more normal, which helped bring the savings rate back towards 50%.
Hopefully, May will stay smooth. Expenses should stay about the same, except we will have to pay for one week of daycare.
I plan to continue funding my after-tax account at work and to do a Mega Backdoor Roth at the end of the year.
Goals Progress
Financial Goals
The Roth IRA contributions were taken care of in March.
The 401k is still on automatic contributions from my paycheck, so that will continue moving along throughout the year.
The passive income goal is at $9,695.58, which puts us at 24.2% of the way toward the $40,000 goal.
The investing goal is at $9,945.35, which is 13.3% complete.
The savings rate goal improved this month, but the YTD number is still below 50%.
Hopefully, our savings rate starts moving up after March. We’re not doing a great job this year.
Blog Goal
I have a goal of 12 articles again this year. I’ve worked on a few, but they’re still not ready to publish yet.
I am still at 0 published posts for the year, so I need to get moving here.
Personal Goals
I’m doing a reading goal again this year with two books. I’ve read 2 books each year for the last couple of years, and that seems like a good amount for me. That seems to be my sweet spot.
I’m still working on The Happiness Files by Arthur Brooks. I should be done with it by the end of the month.
There are a few I want to read: Build The Life You Want by Arthur Brooks, Cues by Vanessa Van Edwards, and Millionaire Mission by Brian Preston.
And then there is my physical health. I didn’t get to where I wanted in 2021, 2022, 2023, or 2024. But I finally made it in 2025!
I still want to lose body fat, but gain muscle mass, all while maintaining my weight. I have to make sure I’m eating healthier and exercising. I have been on target so far this year.
April 2026 Roundup
April was a very good month financially.
The market bounced back, the savings rate improved, and passive income continued moving in the right direction.
There’s still work to do, especially with the blog goal and getting the YTD savings rate back over 50%.
The weather was overall nice. There were a storm or two that rolled through, but nothing too crazy, aside from the one night when the sirens went off 3 times. I took a nap the next day.
There were no sick days, which is always nice.
I am excited as we get into mid-year. As always, there’s really a lot to be thankful for.
Stay tuned for next month’s New Worth update!
FIRE Away!
REMINDERS:
- 2 big items not included in my net worth:
- House & Cars – Their value will be added to my net worth if and when I sell them.
- 2 accounts not included in the net worth total (even though they’re listed):
- 529 – This is my money for my babies. Consider it their net worth summary.
- Home Escrow – This is Uncle Sam’s money. We don’t mess around with Uncle Sam and his money.
- Total income only includes our active income, which is currently our full-time jobs.