February 2007 Net Worth Update

As of February 28, 2007:

• I have $23,642.46 in cash, checking and savings accounts. An increase of $344.17 since last month.
  
• I have $31,580.94 in my 401(k), Roth IRA, and other stock accounts. An increase of $1,196.51 since last month.
  
• I now owe $15,591.38 on two credit cards at 0% interest. An additional debt of $56.20 since last month.
  
• I have a home and a car worth approximately $130,900.
  
• I now owe $117,221.94 on my mortgage and home equity loan. I paid off an additional $309.59 since last month.
• I currently have $649.98 in my Health Savings Account. This is an increase of $199.67 since last month.
  

My total net worth is now $53,960.06. This is an increase of $1,993.74 over last month. Not a bad month overall. It would have been much better, but my retirement account took a nasty little dive at the end of the month, along with the rest of the stock market.

One note, my high balance in available cash is offset by the large credit card balance. I finally decided to try taking a 0% loan and stick it in a savings account and earn 5.84% on it for a while. It's sitting at HSBC Direct to take advantage of their temporary promotional rate.

Fantastically Free Fun

As someone interested in keeping my expenses to a minimum, I'm always looking for different forms of cheap entertainment. Many of my favorite activities are completely free. Some of the things that I do on an average week are:

• Visit a library. My local library system allows residents of other libraries to use their resources for free. I have two excellent libraries near me that usually have books in stock that were just released and have community service events that can range from talks on heart health to showing a movie that just came out on DVD.
• Find people who also enjoy free fun. I've recently started joining a few Meetup groups.
  Some of the activities can cost money (movies, plays, dining out, etc) but many are completely free (boardgames, workout, discussions, etc.)
• Hang out with friends. I have a group of friends who get together a few times a week to watch movies, play boardgames and videogames, and just have fun. Each person usually brings a few things that they already own, so we usually don't spend any money.
• Browse the internet. I enjoy reading other people's finance blogs, I visit FatWallet, SlickDeals, CheapAssGamer, and just generally surf around reading and learning new things.

There are tons of other things out there to do that cost nothing, and there is no way I could list them all. So when you get bored, don't just head out to a movie or the mall. Next time you could try volunteering with a charity you support, communing with nature, exercising outdoors, playing a game with some friends, or simply reading a good book.

2007 Goals

My goals for 2007 are:

1. Increase my emergency fund to $10,000. This is ultimately where I would feel comfortable and equals over six months of living expenses.
2. Max my HSA contributions for 2007. I switched to a high-deductible insurance plan that is combined with a Health Savings Account. The maximum contributions my employer and I can make are $2850 for 2007. My employer's planned contributions are $1000, so that leaves me with $1850 to contribute.
   
3. Max my Roth IRA for 2006 and 2007. This means $1250 towards 2006 and $4000 towards 2007.
4. Contribute at least $13,000 to my 401k. Based on my income and expenses, it doesn't look like I can max it out this year, but if I can I would be extra pleased.
5. Increase my net worth to $76,000. This goal seems very reasonable for me.

I am also going to carry over my 2006 non-financial goals:

1. Have an up-to-date will.
2. Take an inventory.
3. Create a list of accounts in case of emergency.
   

Progress on 2006 goals

My financial goals for 2006 were:

1: Have an emergency fund with at least 3 months of expenses. For me, this would be $4500.
2: Fully fund my Roth IRA ($4000) and 401k ($15,000) this year.
3: Net worth of $40,000 by the end of 2006.

Goal 1 was met - even without my balance transfer money, I have more than $4,500 (three months of expenses) currently sitting in various online banks earning at least 4%.
Goal 2 was not met - I contributed to my Roth IRA, but did not max it out. I am on track to have it maxed for 2006 prior to the last day contributions can be made (around April 15, 2007). I did not max out my 401k either, but between my contributions and my employer's matching contributions, the total in new contributions for 2006 was $14,600.
Goal 3 was met - my net worth at the end of 2006 was $48,721, safely over my goal.

So I came close to meeting all my financial goals and am very encouraged by my progress.

I wasn't quite as good with my other goals. I still have not created a will, I have not taken a household inventory, and in case of emergency, nobody would be able to find all my accounts.

Looks like it won't be too hard to come up with some goals for 2007.

January 2007 Net Worth Update

As of January 31, 2007:

• I have $23,298.29 in cash, checking and savings accounts. An increase of $13,809.18 since March 2006.
  
• I have $30,384.43 in my 401(k), Roth IRA, and other stock accounts. An increase of $17,419.48 since March 2006.
  
• I now owe $15,535.18 on two credit cards at 0% interest. An additional debt of $9,543.57 since March 2006.
  
• I have a home and a car woth approximately $130,900.
  
• I now owe $117,531.53 on my mortgage and home equity loan. I paid off an additional $3429.47 since March 2006.
  

My total net worth is now $51,516.01. This is an increase of $25,114.56 in ten months. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it.

One note, my high balance in available cash is offset by the large credit card balance. I finally decided to try taking a 0% loan and stick it in a savings account and earn 5.84% on it for a while. It's sitting at HSBC Direct to take advantage of their temporary promotional rate.

I'm back

A lot has changed for me over the past year, and yet a lot has stayed the same.

Different:

• I now live alone.
• I am now single.
• My job has changed scope and focus.

And yet so similar:

• I live in the same place.
• I'm still very close with my ex.
• I still work for the same company, in the same group, in the same building.
• I still have the same overall financial goals and am still working toward them.

Since this is a financial blog and not a personal one, the only relevance my dating status has is that I am now solely responsible for all the household expenditures and upkeep. When I was living with someone, we split the utilities and mortgage payment based on the percentage of the household income we had. My cost of living has gone up slightly, while my living standard has probably decreased somewhat.

My new responsibilities at work have given me the possibility of getting a promotion or a raise, both of which would be very welcome. It comes with much more responsibility and a greater workload, but I feel it is generally a good opportunity for me, and a chance for me to show what I can really do, while broadening my future options.

And, dispite all my ups and downs, and lack of posts, I've still be very closely monitoring my finances and making great progress towards my goals. Speaking of which - I think I'm long overdue for a monthly update.

Reevaluating

Something happened last weekend that made me seriously reevaluate the way I feel and think about a lot of things. It made me really question why I do a lot of the things I do. One of the outcomes was the selling of a bunch of old stuff on Half.com.

But it's also made me just stop and wonder why people in general do what they do. Why do people buy what they do? And why do some people save as much as they do? I honestly believe that there exist two extremes, and that there are people at both ends. Of course, it seems like there are more people that currently spend more than they earn in a year, but there are also people who have lived their whole lives as if they were broke, just to leave millions behind when they die. (One recent example that I read about was Hetty Green over at Boston Gal's Open Wallet.)

I suppose I've always had an interest in how other people do things, how they live, how they think, etc. Reading other people's blogs gives me an insight into how they think and feel. It also helps point out areas where I may not have even realized my own behavior, and helps show me the things that I may want to change about myself.

I'm not really sure what will end up happening, but I've noticed that over the past week, just stopping and thinking has resulted in me spending a lot less, being more polite to others, and just being more aware in general. I question things that I may before have just accepted without even thinking. I wonder how many people are experiencing the exact same thing right now. Because even though I may think I'm the only one, I know that's not true.

Making money off my junk

I'm usually fairly disciplined when it comes to not spending money, but every once in a while I have a shopping binge, where I go a bit crazy. This doesn't happen more than every few months, and usually isn't too bad. Well, I had a crazy shopping period in January, when all the stores discounted all the stock that didn't sell at Christmas time.

My weakness this time was video games. I enjoy playing console and PC games, and started following a few discount sites, including Cheap Ass Gamer. Spending while saving is some kind of weird addiction for me, and visiting sites such as CAG make it even harder to not buy stuff. When you know that you're getting a $50 game for $3, it almost doesn't even seem like spending.

I was walking around the house, and noticed that a stack of the stuff I bought was still just sitting there, unopened and unplayed. And I finally got fed up with myself for buying it. So I did something about it.

I listed them on Half.com.

Most of them are listed for more than what I paid for them. I like the way Half.com works more than eBay for things like this, since I know it will sell eventually, but that it may take a few months to get what I want for it.

If everything sells for what I listed it for, I should get more than $400 for it. It's a good feeling to be getting it out of the house, and getting paid for getting rid of stuff I'd probably never use anyway. Now I just need to keep finding more stuff to sell. And maybe next time, I just won't buy stuff I'm not going to use in the first place.

March Highlights and April Goal

As I've already mentioned, I was fortunate enough to get a bonus last month, which helped increase my net worth. Other than a few neccessary large expenses (mainly 4 new tires for my car) I really cut back on my spending in March. I've been keeping the temperature in my home lower to cut on utility bills, and making a point to turn things off when I'm not using them. I made large contributions to my 401k account, and the stock market did well last month, which resulted in the large gain I had this month for stocks.

I know future months won't be quite so good, and I need to keep my expectations realistic. My goal for the month of April will be to increase my net worth by $1,600, which I think is a very reachable target for myself.

March 2006 Net Worth Update

I knew the numbers were going to look nice, but even I'm a bit shocked.

As of March 31, 2006:

• I have $9489.11 in cash, checking and savings accounts. An increase of $2818.48.
  
• I have $12964.95 in my 401(k), Roth IRA, and other stock accounts. An increase of $3017.79.
  
• I now owe $5991.61 on two credit cards at 0% interest. An additional debt of $952.03.
  
• I have a home and a car woth approximately $130,900.
  
• I now owe $120,961 on my mortgage and home equity loan. I paid off an additional $603.
  

My total net worth is now $26,401.45. This is an increase of $5487.24 in one month.

Wow.

I'm going to take some time to break down exactly how this happened.