Monthly Update for August 2008~Net Woth inrease of $3,370

Long time no blog...sorry for that. The past few months have been a Blurr. The addition of a new baby has made life very challenging. My wife and I are enjoying the new addition to the family but still trying to get a handle on all of the changes that have accured. There will be some added expenses for us to consider with the number one expense right now being child care. A new child is certainly not a good investment to the balance sheet but we will go ahead and keep the baby anyways. (ha ha). The day care will start in a few weeks once my wife goes back to work. I am still hoping to be able to save close to $2,000 a month outside of our 401K accounts. The nice thing is that my company matches me 5% and my wife's company matches her 9% (nice). This should help keep me on track to hit the 1million mark in the next 9 years. I will need to get close to 8% return from the stock market in order to get to the million dollar mark. That seems far fetched these days, but long term I think there is a chance. The longer I study the charts I feel that the more money in the stock market is the only way to go. Accruing at a higher rate of return will help me achieve my goals and that the risk of the stock market is worth taking.

August was a decent month. I am still being dragged down by the stock market but our ability to save cash is helping. We are continuing our move into the $200K territory by hitting $205, 633. That's a gain of just over 1.5% for the month. I have also hit the $45,000 mark for our cash holdings that will help me sleep better at night. This is part of our recovering from the purchase of our first home and lots of home renovations. All of our home renovations were paid with cash and we also put down a nice down payment when we purchased.
As a result of our cash holdings hitting this $45K mark, I have decided to move our money savings into a Roth IRA and our brokerage account. Right now my wife and I only have one Roth IRA. By the end of December we will max out this Roth IRA and also put money into a regular brokerage account we have with Fidelity. After December, I am not sure where we will focus on. I will either open up a Roth IRA in my wife's name or simply focus on putting money into the brokerage account.
PS..I finally broke down and purchased a big LCD tv...It had been years since I wanted one and was tired of watching TV on a very small tv from College.