Friday, May 30, 2008

Monthly Update for May 2008

Great Month!! Very unexpected. This type of month is exactly why it is worth keeping track of all assets and liabilities on a spreadsheet and a blog. I had predicted last month that I would see a several thousand dollar dip in my net worth. However, I was very wrong. I have broken the $200K mark for the first time with a net worth of $202,527.83 which is a 3.3% increase over last month. Wow...

Some Key events of the past 30 days.

  • My company added to my retirement account by contributing their matching 5%. They sadly only match me twice a year instead of actually giving me this money every pay check. However, this was an unexpected $2,400 dollar bump to my 401K..Nice...
  • Good old fashioned savings...I have been able to save extra money by bringing lunch to work and contributed an extra $850 out of my account and add it to the ING account. This is on top of the automatically saved $2,400 a month to ING.
  • $1,200 bucks from Uncle Sam that my wife and I qualified for. Our gross income was over the $150K combined income threshold but luckily we had deducted enough money to qualify. This money went into the ING account.
  • Paid off the final home improvement costs of about $7,000. This was actually $1,000 less than anticipated. The contractor came in under budget because of some minor changes that were made along the way. I had actually assumed that these changes were going to increase the price not decrease it. Needless to say this contractor will be hired for follow on work.

Predictions for next month--I am unsure to be honest. I know that a few expenses are about to hit. With that, I will predict a small decline next month.

  • My wife and I have spent some money on home furnishings and electronics that were much needed. These expenses won't hit the the CC statement until June. Some of these items are gifts from our family. They are going to reimburse us on some of the purchases. I know this sounds weird but this is the easiest way to do it when you live several hundred miles away from home.

My main goal is to keep us above the $200K mark. With a little help from the Stock Market and hard savings I might just be able to do this. Who knows maybe I will be surprised again and have a gain.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Monthly Update for April 2008~Updated May30th

******Realized that I made a small mistake on this months reporting. I added a digit to one of my cash accounts. Ooops...My net worth was actually $195,993.31 which was a decrease of $941.71. I still say this was impressive considering all of the home improvements being done at the time and the amount of cash output..
A relatively flat month. Increase of $158 to $197,093. This is actually a really good sign. I have paid over a third of the home improvement costs and was still able to keep the net worth stable. I contribute this to the comeback of the stock market to the tune of about $4,200. This offset the loss of my cash balance. Another highlight is the paying off of the Zero Percent CC balance. I now have Zero cc debt. Next month the final payment for home improvements should hit. This is roughly $8K more dollars owed. Suspect the month of May will be a decline of about $6K.

Monthly Update for March 2008

Good Month! Up $7,419 for the month to a total of $196,935. Just shy of $200K . Unfortunately the next few months spending will take me a few steps backwards. Home renovations are underway. We are redoing 2 of our 3 bathrooms. This will be a major improvement to our home but will cost us about $14-15K. We will be paying cash for these improvements.
Competing goals are so difficult. Wanting to have a big cash cushion for security but also wanting a nice home to live in is tough. I plan to keep the value of our home listed at what it appraised for a year ago. The below link is a great explanation of keeping track of ones home worth. It is one that I agree with. http://www.2millionblog.com/2008/04/why_is_my_house_value_not_going_down_whos_shortsighted_now.html