Welcome to the August 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.
August 2026 Net Worth
Here’s how August compares to last month:
August Account Breakdown
Let’s take a quick look at what happened in August.
Cash (-$2,381.53)
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 decreased by $2,381.53 this month. Cash was down this month because we did not make as much, and money was transferred where it was supposed to go.
As usual, cash being up or down mostly just depends on timing and what has or hasn’t been transferred yet.
Investment Cash ($8,916.23)
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 due to interest, me remembering to transfer money over, and te markets were up slightly.
Remaining Cash Accounts (Emergency and Sinking Funds) ($1,100.00)
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.
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.
Retirement Accounts
401(k)s ($8,355.44)
August was the best month we have had this summer, although still not very impressive.
The 401(k)s had an okay month. The gains this month are due to contributions and a moderate amount from market performance.
IRA ($18,234.11)
The IRAs increased by $18,234.11 this month.
This was entirely due to market performance. This sector of the market just happened to do better than the 401k’s. Oppsite from what we saw last month.
Overall, there was a loss of 2.16% between the 401k and IRAs.
College Fund ($1,017.75)
The college fund is invested in mutual funds, just like the IRAs. The college fund increased by $1,017.75 this month. It was up 0.96 percent.
Net Worth ($33,524.25)
August ended in positive territory.
Utilities are at their peak as we get round out the summer months. There will be another month or two of high bills. It was over 100 almost every day this month!
In total, our net worth rose by $33,524.25, an increase of approximately 1.92%.
Accessible Net Worth ($6,934.70)
Monthly Blurb: This is the money we are able to put away, not including the tax-advantaged retirement accounts.
Our income was below average this month, but we were able to keep out expenses relatively low. That, long with having some money invested, helped to increase this.
Accessible net worth increased by $6,934.70 this month. Accessible net worth ended the month at $518,102.53.
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 record-breaking for that month alone.
April also broke its record!
May was about as expected.
There is usually a lull until September, but June was better than expected. We had another record-breaking month (for that month alone)!
July fell back to expectations of the summer lull.
In August, we earned slightly more, but nothing to write home about.
For the year, passive income is now up to $15,977.52. That puts us at 39.9% of the way toward the $40,000 goal.
Savings 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%.
May wasn’t that great for our savings rate, but it was higher than our average for the year. We came in at 43.53% for the month
June was right at where our goal is, coming in at 50.12%. That said, we will need stronger months to pull up our annual average.
July wasn’t that great for our savings rate because we spent a lot. Daycare and travel mostly. It was very similar to May. We came in at 41.87% for the month.
Although we didn’t make as much money as normal, we also didn’t spend as much. Daycare was minimal, which also helped.
August came in at 50.15%. That brings our 2026 YTD savings rate to 44.69%.
August’s savings rate was 8.29 percentage points higher than July’s.
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 I think we may be permanently done with daycare. Not sure about that yet.
Schoolstarted and we are now back in our routine. As anticipated, we saw the savings rate go up. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending how you look at it), I think our savings rate will be lower for September.
We have the cruise we are going on, and we are buying season passes for six flags. The kids are finally tall enough!
Hopefully, after september, we can start to keep our savings rate above 50% with daycare gone and lower property taxes. The kids are currently only doing gymnastics.
Here’s how we did this month.
We were at 50.15% in August, bringing our YTD rate to 44.69%.
Income ($9,937.01)
Right now, our only source of active income is through our full-time jobs.
This is what an below-average income month looks like for us.
Income was $3,146.35 lower than in July.
Expenses ($4,953.24)
Our expenses were well above-average this month. We had to pay for a full month of daycare and wrapped up our cruise expenses. We paid for all of our excursions, cruise parking, and all those miscellaneous things that come along with it.
Expenses were $2,652.74 lower than in July.
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 ($790.50)
The usual 10% we give every month.
3) Cost of living ($3,462.74)
This includes all our bills (Gas, Electric, Water, Internet, Phone), transportation, food, shopping, insurance, and other day-to-day expenses. Home insurance is paid from our Home Escrow savings account.
School started and we didn’t spend a whole lot of money doing things because of that.
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.
July 2026 Vs. August 2026 Expenses
August was better than July from a savings rate standpoint.
Income and expenses were both lower than July. The market performed slightly better than July as well.
August was a more normal month, whereas July had more expenses, thanks to kids and travel, which kept the savings rate from moving up towards 50%.
September has some big expenses since we will be going on our cruise and we are buying Six Flags season passes. Hopefully not having to pay for daycare offsets some of that.
Missing work will also hurt our income, so I expect it will be similar to August.
August had lower income and lower expenses than July. Net worth increased by $33,524.25 (1.92%).
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 goal is 100.0% complete. Current status: Complete.
The 401k is still on automatic contributions from my paycheck. Contributions are at $16,403.00, or 67.0% of the annual goal.
The passive income goal is at $15,977.52, which puts us at 39.9% of the way toward the $40,000 goal.
The investing goal is at $22,116.76, which is 29.5% complete.
The YTD savings rate is 44.69%, or 81.3% of the annual goal. This is the time of year where our savings rate normally starts to climb. I expect that will be delayed by a month 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
The reading goal is 50.0% complete. Current status: 1 Book Read.
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, but I’ve started to relax during the summer.
The cruise we have this month is sure not to help with this goal.
August 2026 Roundup
August was a better month financially. We ended with more money than we started with, and one month closer to retirement.
Our savings rate improved, and passive income continued to move in the right direction.
The weather is officially hot. All month. I think we had 28 days that were over 100, so the electric bill in Septermber should be fun. We should start seeing some rolling showers again as we get into fall.
There were no sick days, which is always nice.
I am excited as we get into the back end of the year and get to do some extra activities with the kids. We are all looking forward to the vacation this month. As always, there’s really a lot to be thankful for.
August ended with net worth up 1.92%, a 50.15% savings rate, and $1,402.37 in passive income.
There’s still work to do, especially with the blog goal and getting the YTD savings rate back over 50%.
Stay tuned for next month’s Net 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.