One thing, just one thing to say; what a shit show.  The planet is slowly cooking, war in central Europe, American shit show politics and global economy is all over the place.  As a consequence I have the same net worth now that I had one year ago.  To be fair, part of the net worth issue is the degrading of the UK/US exchange rate but still, this sucks.

However, another way of looking at this is that I am buying the market as a discount of almost 20% at this point I think, and so when it comes back (not if, but when) Cat and I should be in good shape to take advantage.

The Numbers:

House Buying

The first thing to notice is that I am at zero on the investment account.  This is because we pulled the money for the deposit on a house so technically I still have that money.  In addition I have also added to that; Cat and I have managed to pull together ~$75k so far. We combined our investment accounts and have added to that over the past couple of months.

That would put my net worth at about $359k, but given that this is about saving for retirement and not net worth, my actual number here is ~$322k.

UK Finances

The Zurich number is also screwed up.  It is about the same as it was a couple of years ago because the market going down is not just a US problem.   International markets have also suffered and my Zurich account is in the UK.   However the reduction in value is compounded by the reduction in exchange rate.  This causes a further reduction in dollar value of about $10k.  This does not concern me, as the value of the account in GBP is ~69k.  That is enough money to live on in the UK for about 3 years without touching my US money.  That may come in handy in the early stages of retirement.

Other Matters

On the other hand, life is not all doom and gloom. Ever since I got back from the UK, Cat and I have been working on our health and we are both losing weight.  I have gone from 206lbs to 192lbs over the past few months and I am hoping my A1C and blood panel come back close to normal when I get it checked next.  We are doing this by walking about 3 miles per day and eating a lot of salad and low carb meals.  It’s working, slowly but surely.  We just have to keep it up.

Final Words

I think we need to settle in for a protracted period of stagnation.  The economy seems to be fucked right now, and will likely stay that way for a while.  Supply issues have rippled through all aspects of manufacturing, but especially tech, automotive and of course fuel supply.  However, we will maintain our strategy of maxing out the Roth ($7k), HSA ($4k) and 401K ($27k) for this year.  I also expect that we will continue that in 2023.  In addition and once the house has been closed on and we complete our move, we will start to rebuilt the investment accounts again.