August 2026 Net Worth Update: Back Above My Old Peak at $2.33M

Last month I paid off the car loan and got the balance sheet back down to one line — just the mortgage. This month, honestly, nothing happened. And I think that's the actual story worth telling.

Net worth is $2.33M, up about $66.7K from July. No bonus. No stock vest. Just two normal paychecks, the usual contributions, and a market that decided to cooperate. More importantly: I'm finally back above where I was in May, before I bought the car. The dip is closed.

The Bottom Line

Net worth $2.33M. Up $731.5K (45.81%) all-time. You can see the June dip in the line — and that it's now above every point before it.

Assets rose $66K and liabilities barely moved — just the usual $800 or so of mortgage principal going away on autopilot. Nothing was sold, nothing was borrowed. The number just went up.

Growth = New Money In + Market Did. August's New Money In is just regular paycheck savings and contributions — no bonus, no vest to pad it. The rest came from the market.

Here's the plain read: this is the best month on the whole table, and none of it came from a lucky windfall. $10.8K came from showing up and saving like usual. $55.9K came from the market doing its job.

And here's the number I actually care about: $2.326M clears May's old peak of $2.270M by about $56K. Whatever the car cost me back in June, it's behind me now.

Assets Breakdown: $2.654M

ProjectionLab reshuffled its categories this month, so this table is grouped a little differently than past ones — retirement money is now split into Tax-Deferred and Tax-Free instead of one "Retirement Accounts" line, and the car now lives in the same bucket as the condo and the business. Nothing underneath actually moved in a weird way, it's just a different way of slicing the same pie. Cash sat close to flat. Everything else drifted up a little with the market.

Liabilities: $328.31K

• Mortgage: $328.31K — down another ~$800, autopilot as always.
• Auto Loan: $0 — still gone, since July.
• Credit Cards: $0 — paid in full.

One line. Same as it's been since the loan payoff. Boring, on purpose.

Paychecks and Contributions

Two regular paychecks in August, each about $9.75K gross — nothing extra this time, no bonus and no RSU vest. Take-home was small on purpose: 401k, Mega Backdoor Roth, ESPP, and HSA all took their cut before the money ever hit checking. Combined take-home across both checks was under $4.6K.

YTD Front-Loading (through August)

Every account is still on pace, some ahead of it. ESPP is just quietly stacking up cash for the December purchase — nothing to report there yet.

Spending: $6.1K

August spending: $6,115.83. No outlier slice this month — just the usual categories.

Total August spending was $6,115.83. Take out the mortgage ($2,193.38) and core spend was ~$3,922 — comfortably under my $5K target. The rest was ordinary: utilities ($696), dining out ($570), fitness ($500), and a handful of smaller categories. Nothing to explain away this month, which is its own kind of nice.

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What the Car Round-Trip Actually Cost

Since I keep bringing it up, let me actually close the loop on the car instead of just saying "it's behind me."

The timeline: $2.270M in May (the peak) → $2.235M in June (bought the car, $138K all-in) → $2.259M in July (paid off the $99K loan) → $2.326M now, about $56K above where I started.

So what did the whole thing actually cost me? Not $138K — the car itself is still an asset sitting on the balance sheet. The real cost was the gap between what I paid and what the car is worth: about $26K, plus roughly $220 in loan interest before I paid it off, minus the value of 150,000 credit card points I picked up funding the down payment. Call it a real cost somewhere around $25K, all in.

That $25K dent felt bigger than it was. It took two ordinary months of saving and market growth to erase it completely — and this month alone did more than that on its own. The lesson isn't "the car was free." It's that a five-figure setback looks a lot scarier in the moment than it does two months later.

Reflections

1. The best month this year had nothing unusual in it. No bonus, no vest, no big decision — just two paychecks, the same contributions as always, and a market that went up. That's the whole recipe, and it's the one I can count on repeating.
2. A scary-looking dip closed faster than it felt like it would. The car knocked about $25K off my net worth in June. Two months later, I'm $56K past where I started. It's worth remembering that the next time a number drops and feels permanent.
3. Boring is working. Same accounts, same percentages, same targets. I don't have a new plan for September because the current one doesn't need one.

Next up: nothing planned, which is exactly the point. Just watching the ESPP balance build toward the December purchase.

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Your turn. Has a purchase or a bad month ever felt way bigger in the moment than it turned out to be once you looked back? Drop a comment — I'd like to hear how long it actually took you to stop thinking about it.

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