Greetings everyone!

We have closed the book on another month and it’s time to take a look back and see how we performed in July.

Personally, July was a wonderful month. We had a blast on our trip, with the exception of a minor problem with our RV. If you have not visited Yellowstone National Park I highly encourage you to put it on your bucket list. It is one of the most pristine and beautiful places on earth to visit and you will no doubt enjoy your time there.

I still haven’t been able to get around to doing a comparison of expenses for our trips. In my last blog, read it here, I talked about my job and the ongoing problems. In the past week things continued to fall apart with the bad decision makers putting my team and myself in a bad position with our client. We are doing our best to hold it together but we can see the train coming and we are not going to be standing on the tracks when it arrives. Because of the hours I am putting in everything else has had to take a back seat, including this blog and the list of things I want to do with it.

As of now I am continuing to move forward with my plan to start my own business. I have a class and certification test coming up in the next week. Once I get those out of the way and receive my credentials I will be clear to set out on my own. I also had another interview so there is that prospect as well. One way or another, my time with my current company will be coming to an end.

In times like these it’s important to remember our purpose. I have a family to take care of and goal to achieve. A company can either be a partner in that process or a detriment to it. If it’s the latter, then it’s time to move on.

July was a fairly tame month in the market. I don’t really recall much going on and the returns kind of reflect that as well. The first couple of days in August have already seen more action than the entire month of July. We have seen an interest rate cut, which stocks usually rally on, and the return of the dreaded trade war tariff showdown. As a result we are off to a rocky start to the new month.

I did make a small change to our portfolio by adding in the Vanguard REIT fund. I acquired a small position just to add something that generates more dividend income. We are never going to be landlords but there are other ways to generate income in real estate. It is also something that helps us diversify away from stock funds, in which we are heavily invested.

On other note, we started selling off some of our worldly possessions. This has actually been interesting and has brought in some good cash. Although, I did discover that I was not very good at coin collecting in my younger years. Apparently, I slightly overpaid for a lot of my collection. But going through this process and paring down is something we needed to start doing. After all, an RV only has so much storage.

Here is where we finished the month of July:

Portfolio- $967,836 (Cash and Investments)

Portfolio Goal – $1,500,000

Amount needed to reach goal – $532,164

Our portfolio increased by $7,484 or 0.78% from the end of June.

Year-to-date we are up 16.40%.

Net Worth – $1,170,986

This is an increase of 1.50% from the end of June.

Year-to-date we are up 15.58%

As I said, this was not the most exciting month. I’m also sure that our road trip took a good chunk of cash out of our savings. But it was still a positive month and that is always a good thing.

I expect August to continue to be a volatile month. Trade talks are continuing with China. If they end in a positive manner I think the market will move heavily to the upside. That’s a big if. Until then we will probably drift sideways with the market reacting and over-reacting to every bit of news.

Being a long term investor, none of this really matters. But it’s still fun to watch.

Thanks for reading………….