Not that it was all that surprising, right? Most of my “worth” is in my 401k, like many of you, and the market just tore it up this month.
It’s all good though, just part of the stock market game – at least i’m not personally doing anything stupid! In fact, Roth & 401k aside, I actually did pretty well!
My Cashing Savings went up due to some new blogging income (finally!), and i’m still religiously paying off my Credit Card with any extra income i get my hands on – which is mostly my old car payment amount at the present time.
I’ve also decided to continue tracking “my” net worth separately until the end of the year. I find that my current method is a PERFECT way for me to track my progress, esp. since I have those 3 main goals i’m working on right now: 1) Erasing all our “credit card” debt, 2) Pumping up my half of our Emergency Fund, and 3) Getting my Net Worth to $100k! (my fav. goal)
So while the Mrs. and I are, indeed, starting to combine all our monies and what not, you’ll just have to wait and see what our new totals will be until January ;) And believe me, there are a LOT of changes coming! Esp considering that the Mrs. is now in Grad School and we’re technically living off one one income. I say “technically” because we do have some other surplus’ coming in like our pay it forward money, as well as her teaching assistantship income of 12k per school year. (thank goodness!) I’ll be posting more about the Grad School stuff soon.
Here’s how it breaks down this month:
CASH SAVINGS: Looking good! I had a few random expenditures like wedding gifts and wedding trips to pay for, but most of it was covered from our savings accounts which are set up for these sorta things :) So most of the increase here can be attributed to some new blogging income! That’s right, companies are finally hitting me up for some advertising action. It only took 7 months ;) haha…
Besides the obvious adsense, and a cple graphics here and there, you can find them under my “Sexy Sponsors” section. I still don’t do pay per posts, paid reviews, or any weird linking within any of my posts whatsoever. I don’t want any confusion at all with my posts or main site, so dontcha worry about that. Not sure if this month was a fluke or not, but i’m def. hoping it continues!
ROTH IRA: Floating on the whims of the market as usual! Haven’t thrown in a dime in months. Once i max out my 401k and Emergency Fund, I’ll reconsider.
401(k): Sad :( And not only because of the economey either. Only ONE deposit made it into my account this month – our 401k company F’d up again and waiting for it all to be straightened out again. So while I tecnically threw in a total of $2,565 this month, including company match, only $1,282.50 was physically deposited! Then i got an extra $242.52 in dividends as well. So after all that, i stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil came out in the negative. I’ll tell you one thing though, i’m sure as hell gonna enjoy picking up all these funds at lower costs now!
SAVINGS BONDS: Nada. Man, bonds sure are slow ;) You can check out the breakdown of all my old a$$ bonds here.
CONDO INVESTMENT: I stopped lending money to my brother 2 months ago, so we’re now just building up this amount by 5% each month until he pays it off in full. He actually just mailed me a check for $350 of it yesterday, so that’s promising as hell! Not to mention ahead of schedule (he doesn’t have to pay it back until he sells his condo). A+, brother, A+.
HOME EQUITY: This amount still reflects our purchase price minus the money we accidently paid off the mortgage when our heloc froze. Still not sure how to calculate our TRUE equity involved here, but we leave it alone for now. I’ll probably end up using Zilllow to estimate the value of it now, and then deduct the amounts we have left on our mortgages but we’ll see.
AUTO WORTH (kbb): A loss of only $25 buck?! HOTNESS! haha…i don’t know if you’ll remember, but i was losing anywhere from $450- $1200 a MONTH w/ the Highlander, so i’ll take this loss for my new Caddy any time!
CREDIT CARDS: Still applying my old $443 car payments towards the balance here. It shows i only paid off like $418 in my graph above, but it’s only becuase USAA messed up (for once) and the corrections haven’t been applied yet – their system didn’t catch that the c/c check I used to buy the Caddy was in line with a promotion they were doing, so they charged me a small fee and more interest than they should have. This $6400 is locked in at 3.4% for 12 months, and covers the purchase of the Caddy, and the payoff amount that was left on the Highlander.
AUTO LOAN: Zeroooooooooooooo! That is, if you don’t read the paragraph above :)
Well, that’s it for this month. I hope you all mastered this market better than i have! Let’s just pray that the economy corrects itself and next month brings double digit gains ;) Layter hayters.
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*The sweet & sexy side bars have been updated.
*And here are the past Net Worth updates.
PS: If you’re just getting started in your journey, here are a few good resources to help track your money. Doesn’t matter which route you go, just that it ends up sticking!
- The "Budget/Net Worth" spreadsheet - the colorful Excel template I personally use.
- The "Money Snapshot" spreadsheet - a simple Excel template I created for my former $$$ clients
If you're not a spreadsheet guy like me and prefer something more automated (which is fine, whatever gets you to take action!), you can try your hand with a free Empower account instead (formerly Personal Capital)
Empower is a cool tool that connects with your bank & investment accounts to give you an automated way to track your net worth. You'll get a crystal clear picture of how your spending and investments affect your financial goals (early retirement?), and it's super easy to use.
It only takes a couple minutes to set up and you can grab your free account here. They also do a lot of other cool stuff as well which my early retired friend Justin covers in our full review of Empower - check it out here: Why I Use Empower Almost Every Single Day.
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