Welcome to the May 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.
May 2026 Net Worth
Here’s how May compares to last month:
May Account Breakdown
Let’s take a quick look at what happened in April.
Cash ($4,786.78)
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 up this month thanks to receiving an “extra” paycheck, and not paying off my credit cards yet. As usual, cash being up or down mostly just depends on timing and what has or has not been transferred yet.
Investment Cash ($6,534.24)
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 come from a combination of transferring money from our bank account here and the market performing well.
Remaining Cash Accounts (Emergency and Sinking Funds) (-$2,761.27)
Nothing exciting here. Just the usual. We are still saving up for our property tax bill for when it’s due early next year.
Actually, I guess we did have a little excitement. Our oven stopped working, so we went out and bought a new one. We used our house sinking fund to pay for it.
This money was transferred to our cash account, but the credit card has not been paid off yet. So…our cash account will be lower next month because of that.
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.
Retirement Accounts
401(k)s ($33,290.52)
May was a great month for the market. Almost as strong as April was.
The 401(k)s had a strong month, especially compared to March. Some of this is from contributions, but most is from market performance.
IRA ($35,605.20)
The IRAs were also up quite a bit this month.
This was almost entirely market performance. After a rougher March, April and now May bounced back nicely.
Overall, that’s a gain of 6.07% between the 401k and IRAs.
College Fund ($4,259.53)
The college fund is invested in mutual funds, just like the IRAs. It was up 4.21 percent.
Net Worth ($79,662.89)
May, just like 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 4.89%.
Not bad for one month. Now, if they could continue like this, that would be nice.
Accessible Net Worth ($10,767.17)
Monthly Blurb: This is the money we are able to put away, not including the tax-advantaged retirement accounts.
Our income was a little above average this month, as were our expenses.
Accessible net worth increased this month, mostly from what remained of our paychecks, and we haven’t paid our credit card yet.
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!
Now, we’re back in the lull until September.
May was about as expected.
For the year, passive income is now up to $11,073.68. That puts us at 27.7% of the way toward the $40,000 goal.
Interest rates on my savings account may have taken another hit, shaving off 10 cents and now sitting at 3.00%.
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
That brings our 2026 YTD savings rate to 43.25%.
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.
School is now out for summer, so daycare has started!
Hopefully, we can get our savings rate above 50% with daycare gone in a few months and lower property taxes. The kids are currently only doing gymnastics.
Here’s how we did this month.
We were at 43.53% in April, bringing our YTD to 43.25%.
Income ($10,975.11)
Right now, our only source of active income is through our full-time jobs.
This is what a slightly above-average income month looks like for us.
Expenses ($6,197.48)
Our expenses were above average this month. We had to pay for car insurance. The new oven came from a sinking fund, so it’s not accounted for in expenses.
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 ($896.71)
The usual 10% we give every month.
3) Cost of living ($4,600.77)
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.
This month also includes car insurance and a partial month of daycare.
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.
May and the rest of the summer months are typically rough for our savings rate.
There were no other major expenses for May aside from car insurance.
May 2026 Vs. April 2026 Expenses
April was better than May from a savings rate standpoint.
Income was slightly higher, expenses were higher, and the market did about the same. That combination makes for a strong month, but not quite as good as April.
April was a pretty normal month, whereas May had more expenses, thanks to insurance and daycare, which kept the savings rate from moving up towards 50%.
Hopefully, June will stay smooth. Expenses should be lower, except we will have to pay for more daycare and may have some travel expenses.
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 $11,073.68, which puts us at 27.7% of the way toward the $40,000 goal.
The investing goal is at $12,720.73, which is 17.0% complete.
The savings rate goal improved this month, but the YTD number is still below 50%.
Hopefully, our savings rate is maintained through the summer and starts moving up in the fall.
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 finsihed The Happiness Files by Arthur Brooks.
Now I have to figure out what to read next.
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.
May 2026 Roundup
May was another very good month financially.
The market continued its run, 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 lot of thunderstorms that rolled through, but nothing severe and no sirens going off. Now it’s about to heat up.
There were no sick days, which is always nice.
I am excited as we get into mid-year and get to do some extra activities with the kids. 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.