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.

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

Monthly Update for February 2008

Good month..Net worth up by $6,532 to $189,515. That's an increase of 3.6% over last month. During this economic period I think it is a small miracle to have any gains. I have almost $100K in the stock market so the declines in the market absolutely have an effect on my net worth. I am looking forward to when the market comes roaring back, which I believe it will. In fact I believe the stock market and real estate market will come back with a bang in the next 2-3 years.
Overall, I feel it is a tough time. So much in flux with the stock market and real estate. Still just plugging away and saving cash..Cash account is just over $40K. I am trying to avoid spending to much cash on the home renovations but we need the work to get done.
Highlights for the month

• Paid down CC debt (at Zero %) by $2,500.
• Received a quote for some bathroom work..Came in at about $25K..Yikes. no way.. getting more quotes.
• New position at work has me driving a lot more so the gas bill is going up. Flip side is that I am bringing my lunch to work and not spending hardly any money during the week. I have noticed extra cash in my account that I am sending to the ING savings account.
• Received our $2,100 dollar tax refund..

Monthly Update for January 2008

Networth increase of $974.00 to $182,982 Tough month for the networth. Details on NetWorth IQ. With a "normal" stock market climate it would have been a huge month for me. The stock market tank has really impacted my retirement and brokerage account balances. However, on a very positive note, my cash increase has gone up by $4,046 dollars for the month. This is huge!! I am still trying to get my cash account back to the $45K or higher range. Right now it is sitting at $35K. So you can see that if the stock market had gained even moderate numbers or stayed even for the month my increase could have been $5-6K...oh well. I fugure the market will come back and I will make up the networth numbers on the back end...i.e. whenever the stock market comes back.
Highlights for the month

• We finished paying off the HVAC unit for the townhouse.
• Extra income from travel reimbursement
• I spent my last day at my current position at work. On Monday I will be moving to a new sector within my company.
• Two chairs were purchased for the livingroom at Ikea..$100/chair.
• Awaiting an estimate for updating all three of the bathrooms in our townhouse. We will have to prioritize some of this work depending upon what the quote comes in at. We have $1000 from the family to help chip in. Much appreciated...This money is not reflected in my net worth. Check is literally sitting on the dining room table (I think).
• I spent $158 dollars on new clothes for my new position at work. I rarely buy clothes for myself, but the ones I have are very nice. I usually only buy clothes on sale. I got all items on 50% off...not too bad.

Overall, I feel like I am on track... I am really focused on the cash...If only I could get more comfortable with the amount of cash I have on hand for emergencies I would then feel more comfortable in tryng to max out retirement accounts...I am hoping that $45-$55K is the magic number for me. I have looked at many other people who post their networh and the size of cash on hand seems to very. I will keep plugging away and do the best I can.

Monthly Update for December 2007

Average gain for the month of 1.4% or $2,447 for a grand total of $182, 008 as a net worth. This was actually a surprise as my wife and I are still in the middle of paying off our HVAC. Last payment is this month of about $1,100. I am doing my best to transfer any extra cash over to our ING savings account so that we can add to our cash cushion. I am expecting January to be a tad bit better with a noticeable increase in February. This also depends upon any small home improvements we intend to make to our bathrooms. More to follow on this. I am going to try and get a quote this month from our contractor for work on all three bathrooms and then make the decision based on the price....

Monthly Update for November 2007

Net Worth is down by $249 Dollars to $179,561. I'm actually happy about this. There have been some unexpected events the past 30 days or so.


My heating and air conditioning unit in my home decided to go on me. ugh! The joys of home ownership...And this is supposed to be an investment. Yah, I'll keep telling myself that until I believe it. However, the new unit has added a great improvement to the house. We even have a fancy new programmable thermostat. The total cost of the equipment and labor was around $4,700. I got the installer to agree to breaking up the payments over the course of three months. I am learning that I don't like to drag out financial obligations this way. Kind of like my dislike of our CC balance at zero percent. The upside of this is not having to take out any cash from my ING account, but in turn, I have had to suspend any further payments into this account until mid January. I am hoping to pay off the repair bill and maybe add a little additional cushion to the joint checking account by doing this and not have to actually transfer any savings. This home improvement is really crushing my cash flow in a bad way. I am estimating that I can put the ING on automatic pilot for $500 a week beginning mid January.
A few other factors were:
1. My employee stock actually went down by about 7% instead of the rumor of a heavy increase.
2. Overall Stock Market decline


December may not be much better. We still owe about $1,200 to the installer and another $700 for some recent furniture purchases. On a positive note, my next paycheck should be a bit higher. I received a 5% raise and will be able to drop my W4 form down by about $200. I am also expecting about $500 dollars (Net) from a bonus from work. I am hoping to break into the $181K bench mark in December. This should be achievable with just our 401K contributions and company match. As I suspected the stock market has come roaring back in the past few days adding easy money back into our accounts. This will certainly help the cause.


My short term goals are still the same. I want between 40-50K total in our cash accounts. I will then start contributing to our brokerage accounts to include Roth IRA and maybe even a little extra into the mortgage. I must say I feel like I'm running up hill pretty hard right now. Sometimes it feels like I just won't make it over the hill. I look forward to the day when I can feel comfortable with the amount of cash I have on hand and start putting more money into the brokerage accounts.