Net Worth Update

I went back to my last published net worth update from July to compare it to my current net worth. In the last seven months my net worth has grown dramatically - primarily due to a $32,000 bonus I received in September (see I told you it was worth waiting to change jobs until after my bonus from the V-town project was released). The remaining increase in my net worth comes from interest earned on my money in the bank and diligent saving.

	Updated 2/8/09	Change from Previous Month	Updated 7/1/08	Change from Previous Update
Total Net Worth	$151,362.09	$1,747.55	$110,872.13	$40,489.96
Net Worth Comprised of
Retirement Savings:	$31,922.01	-$44.48	$29,881.15	$2,040.86
401k	$25,663.54	$415.56	$23,932.15	$1,731.39
Roth IRA	$6,258.47	-$460.04	$5,949.00	$309.47
House Down Payment	$58,634.87	$58,634.87	$57,401.89	$1,232.98
Future Car Savings	$10,286.27	$271.10	5,458.48	$4,827.79
Future Investment Savings	$0.12	-$36,193.68	$5,458.48	-$5,458.36
Investments	$37,416.97	$37,416.97		$37,416.97
Emergency Fund/Money Market:	$12,416.42	$582.82	$11,435.17	$981.25
"Cash"/Checking:	$685.43	-$464.92	$1,236.96	-$551.53

Net Worth Update --- Looks Like the Stock Market Is Starting to Impact Me

Its July 1st which means that the 4th of July Holiday is right around the corner. It also means its time for me to update my net worth. Below is my new update.

	Updated 7/1/08	Change from Previous Update	Updated 5/30/08
Total Net Worth	$105,413.65	$559.93	$104,853.72
Net Worth Comprised of
Retirement Savings:	$29,881.15	$321.37	$29,559.78
401k	$23,932.15	$361.08	$23,571.07
Roth IRA	$5,949.00	-$39.71	$5,988.71
House Down Payment/CD's:	$57,401.89	$157.06	$57,244.83
Future Car Savings	$5,458.48	$157.76	$5,300.72
Emergency Fund/Money Market:	$11,435.17	$227.89	$11,207.28
"Cash"/Checking:	$1,236.96	-$304.15	$1,541.11

At first I was really concerned that I'd only increase my net worth by less than $560 because that's much less than my typical $2,000. There's two main reasons for this less than normal net worth increase, the first is that my Money Market decreased because I paid for part of my vacation that I'm taking in July the other main reason that my net worth decreased is that despite contributions of over $1700 to my retirement accounts they only increased by $321. I guess the current stock market and economy is finally taking its toll on me.

Net Worth Update -- June 2008

	Updated 5/31/08	Change from Previous Update	Updated 4/29/08
Total Net Worth	$104,853.72	$4,777.40	$100,076.32
Net Worth Comprised of
Retirement Savings:	$29,559.78	$1,728.25	$27,831.53
401k	$23,571.07	$1,347.39	$22,223.68
Roth IRA	$5,988.71	$380.86	$5,607.85
House Down Payment/CD's:	$57,244.83	$163.70	$57,081.13
Future Car Savings	$5,300.72	$5,100.45	$200.27
Emergency Fund/Money Market:	$11,207.28	-$3,738.37	$14,945.65
"Cash"/Checking:	$1,541.11	$1,523.37	$17.74

I'm less than $150 away from my goal net worth for 2008 and the year is only half way over. YAY! This means I need to reevaluate my net worth goal. I have increased my net worth goal to $127,000. I came up with this number based upon my current net worth plus what I anticipate contributing to retirement via my 401k and Roth IRA ($10,250), plus what I anticipate receiving as a bonus after taxes from the project I just completed ($10,000), plus my monthly car savings for the next 6 months ($900), and then I added saving an extra $100/month and rounded up.

I think this new goal is definitely achievable but I will have to push myself to achieve it because it extends beyond my automatic savings.

Monthly Net Worth Update -- May 2008

As discussed a few times on this blog, I’m a very conservative person so I tend to under estimate. In my last net worth update I predicted that I would reach the $100,000 net worth mark in Mid-June...well...it seems that I'm not a very good predictor (which is a good thing). I actually reached the $100,000 mark about a month and a half earlier since this month my net worth is now officially over $100,000! Yeah!

	Updated 4/29/08	Change from Previous Update	Updated 4/3/08
Total Net Worth	$100,076.32	$3,597.77	$96,478.55
Net Worth Comprised of
Retirement Savings:	$27,831.53	$2,345.74	$25,485.79
401k	$22,223.68	$1,812.04	$20,411.64
Roth IRA	$5,607.85	$533.70	$5,074.15
House Down Payment/CD's:	$57,081.13	$168.65	$56,912.48
Future Car Savings	$200.27	$0.00	$200.27
Emergency Fund/Money Market:	$14,945.65	$2,682.51	$12,263.14
"Cash"/Checking:	$17.74	-$1,599.13	$1,616.87

Analyzing the table I thought I’d take a moment to explain a few irregularities.

My future car savings does not reflect any increase this month because my transfer into my emigrant direct savings earmarked for my future car is on the 1^st of each month so last month I updated my net worth on 4/3/08 so it was after the transfer and this month I’ve updated my net worth prior the 1^st of the month and the transfer.

My “cash”/checking looks very light because I have my bi-weekly paycheck deposited into my money market fund to take advantage of high interest rates and then once a month transfer my expenses from that account into my “cash”/checking account.

March Net Worth Update

Somehow the end of the month just flew by me. I’ve finally updated my net worth and am most excited. I knew it would be increasing beyond my average $2,000 due to my tax refund and that I was well under budget for this past month. When I added everything up I was very pleasantly surprised to discover I’d increase my net worth far more than I anticipated.

	Updated 4/3/08	Change from Previous Update	Updated 2/29/08
Total Net Worth	$96,478.55	$4,289.44	$92,189.11
Net Worth Comprised of
Retirement Savings:	$25,485.79	$1,847.95	$23,637.84
401k	$20,411.64	$1,411.16	$19,000.48
Roth IRA	$5,074.15	$436.79	$4,637.36
House Down Payment/CD's:	$56,912.48	$157.32	$56,755.16
Future Car Savings	$200.27	$150.27	$50.00
Emergency Fund/Money Market:	$12,263.14	$1,768.47	$10,494.67
"Cash"/Checking:	$1,616.87	$365.43	$1,251.44

I’m thinking that I should be over the $100,000 mark by mid-June. Maybe sooner, depending on when my bonus for the success of my current project is released.

PS I’ve spend a good bit of time working with networthiq but couldn’t quite obtain the format I wanted so I’ve decided to abandon that idea and stick with an excel spread sheet – its very easy to use and I have the flexibility to format it the way I want. I’ve yet again changed the format of my net worth on the left-hand side, I’ve decided to show the changes and previous net worth in this post and display only the updated numbers on the left-hand side bar. I think this will be all the changes to the format of my net worth.

Net Worth Update

“Wooohooo” – I’ve reached a milestone in my net worth - $90,000. I’ve just updated my net worth and after adding everything up as of today my net worth is $92,189.11.

The more amazing thing to me beyond reaching the 90k milestone is that in the last month I’ve saved over $2,300. My monthly budget, excluding savings, is only $2,000.

Don’t get me wrong I wish I normally saved 50% of my income each month, but my savings rate is normally about 37-40% each month.

I think part of the reason for the savings increase is I received two work expense reimbursement checks that were about $1,000 but on the flip side I had several irregular expenses this month that totaled over $500 (¼ my normal monthly budget). My irregular expenses included a 60,000 mile check up for my car, booking in advance a night at the Hike Inn for Mr. Be-Mine’s B-day in May, and an additional $100 given to charity on top of my normal monthly contributions. All in all still a very nice net worth increase.

Fortunately, especially for this month or I’d have been in trouble since irregular expenses exceeded ¼ of my budget, included in my budget each month is savings to cover these irregular expense that range from maintenance to gifts, and everything in between. Now if I’d been truly living pay-check to pay-check I’d have had to either adjust my spending habits for the month (but quite frankly there isn’t enough fluff to adjust to account for $500 unexpected spending on a $2,000 a month budget), I’d have had to dip into my loose job/major medical expense emergency fund or I’d have had to put these expenses on a credit card. (Or I supposed all but the 60k mile check up I could have chosen just not to incur that expense if it weren’t for having the savings, but since personal finance is about personal choices, I wanted to do those things and more importantly I had the savings to do them).

PS I’ve changed the format of my net worth on the left-hand side. For now I’d decided to use an excel document but I’m planning to invest some time in networthiq. So be on the lookout for more changes at the end of March when I do my next update.

Question on How I started Saving

Thought I’d share a recent question I received about how I started saving.

As mentioned before I really love Weasabe, its really helped me be able to track my monthly expense. Plus I love the group discussion portion of it as well since members can all post questions and get everyone’s insight.

(To clarify Weasabe is not a sponsor of my blog, in fact they probably don’t even know I’m alive – I’m just a very satisfied client and wanted to offer the idea to everyone else just like if I found the most amazing restaurant in town I would be bragging about it to my friends forever until they tried it and agreed with me that it was amazing).

Anyway recently a member posted a question called “Stock’s for Newby’s”. I think you should be able to view the whole discussion even if you are not a member yet.

Below are my highlights:

Original Question:
Hey guys,
I'm 18 and working 2 part-time jobs, I have no real expenses and save pretty much whatever I make (I think I've spent a total of 12 dollars in the last 6 months). I am interested in the stock market, so I was wondering if you guys could send me on the right track.
Ps: I know nothing of stocks and have no idea where to start :S
Thanks

My response:
I'm in the same boat as you, I'm clueless about picking specific stocks that's why I stick to mutual funds and target date funds which take all of the guess work out of the equation. I use vanguard and they have target date retirement accounts so its as simple as finding the 2045 fund (which is around the year I plan to retire)and selecting it.

My one word of advise those it before selecting do a little homework and discover the fees and the asset allocation first to ensure they are consistent with your goals. Other than that enjoy.

A different member chimed in with this in response to my post:
I went to your blog spot... wowowow your doing a very nice job on the blog and on your savings........How did you get started in the saving track? Someone must have helped you along the way? Vanguard is a good stop to save on Mutual Funds. I also like TRowe Price and Fidelity.

Happy Savings

I then responded: Thank you very much for checking out my blog. I hope you'll keep reading.

To answer your questions:
- I got started on the savings track when I was in high school because I knew that I would be 100% responsible for all of my expenses including tuition so it was up to me to figure out a way to go to college, and then from that it progressed. In college I was fixated on savings because it would mean I could work less so I could go to school longer and finish up and now my focus is on retirement. I talk a little about this in some of my older posts on my blog.
- As for as someone helping me I wish I could say that I had someone help me along the way. It really boiled down to seeing the example that several of my family members made of being deeply in debt and struggling to find a way to retire that made me so debt adverse and want to save heavily for retirement. Beyond that it was getting involved with finances from reading EVERYTHING I could get my hands on. Plus Wesabe has definitely helped me a lot in tracking my expenses.

Hope I answered your questions. Thanks for checking out my blog, I’m glad you enjoyed it


Just wanted to share some insight with everyone else about how I started saving. I’ve been planning for some time to write a post about how I came to have saved over $90k and only be in my early twenties (okay maybe I’m a little north of early twenties but close enough). So keep checking back because the questions in the discussion gave me extra motivation to hurry up and write that post about how I started saving.

February's Net Worth

While this has been a super crazy week at work, I have taken the time to update my net worth and see where I stand since January.

My new net worth is just shy of $90k --- $89,807.11. This increase is primarily due to my regular savings via my 401k plan and Roth IRA because I know it sure wasn't market gains. I'm hoping by the time March roll's around I should be over the 90 mark which will be most exciting. Anyway that's all for now, back to the grind --- next week I should pick back up more regular writing.

Fed "Emergency" Rate Cut

As you probably know the Fed's cut interest rates in an emergency today. I have plenty of thoughts to share on this but for tonight I've decided I need sleep more, since work has been so crazy lately.

So in lieu of thoughts I'll provide some links with some interesting reading on this recent rate cut.

ABC News Article "Fed Rate Cut Stabilizes Stocks"

MSN Money Articles "More Rate Cuts to Come?" and "Whom the Rate Cuts Help and Hurt"

Bloomberg.com Article "U.S. Stock Futures Drop on Concern Rate Cut Won't Stop Slowdown"

Secrets of a Self-Made Millionaire

Its been snowing all day today. And those of you that know anything about Georgia know that we're never prepared for snow, especially since it only comes about once every three years. Anyway since I'm snow bound I had plenty of time to catch up on the blogs I read.

I stumbled across an article that that JD who publishes the blog Get Rich Slowly discovered in Readers Digest called Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires, seeing that I plan to be a self-made millionaire figured I should check it out.

Below I've summarized the secrets the article lists:

1. Set your sights on where you’re going
2. Educate yourself
3. Passion pays off
4. Grow your money
5. No guts, no glory

The Biggest Secret? Stop spending.

I decided I'd check to see how I was coming on each of these secrets.

1. Set your sights on where you’re going - I definitely have my sights set. But the more important part, at least to me, I have an action plan to achieve my sights. check--- on my way to becoming a millionaire
2. Educate yourself - By creating this blog I'm helping to educate myself. I read a ton of money articles every week and anytime I run across a financial topic or a word I'm unfamiliar with I research it. My biggest problem is when there is conflicting advice trying to figure out what to follow. check--- on my way to becoming a millionaire
3. Passion pays off - I am passionate about my job and am happy to go to work every day (well most every day). I also am passionate about savings because I realize the freedom money saved will give me in the long run. check--- on my way to becoming a millionaire
4. Grow your money - I have never really lived pay check to pay check so I'm head of that curve. I also activity save. check--- on my way to becoming a millionaire
5. No guts, no glory - Okay I definitely am not doing this. I've never been a financial risk taker. I have always felt I work really hard for my money and save every penny I can, so I don't want to loose even a cent. This thinking holds me back from taking risks, even minimal ones. But I think I'm starting to take some calculated risks, this year is the first year I've invested indirectly in the stock market via mutual funds. So maybe there's time left for me, however I know I'm loosing opportunity every second I wait to take a calculated and responsible risk.

The Biggest Secret? Stop spending. - While no one ever just completely stops spending I think I've reach a point in my life were I realize I don't have to have the latest gadget or accessory and truly do want to live below my means.

Overall, I think I'm on my way to becoming a self-made millionaire. How do you check out with becoming a self-made millionaire? I hope you're on the same path and/or working to get on that path so we can all enjoy our retirement together.

Financial Blast from the Past

Well I'm back from a long hiatus called Christmas vacation with my Family.

During my vacation I decided to clean out my closet at my mom's of stuff I'd left from high school, when sorting through old purses I stumbled upon an old bank statement and pay stub from when I was in high school. It surprised me how far I've come from then net worth wise. The statement was for my regular free checking and for my Money Market. In the checking account I had $19.48 and in my money market I had $4,708.21 and I know that was all the money I had in the world and it was being saved for car insurance, car repairs, and of course college. To think that in the last 6.5 years I've gone from that to where I am today plus paid for college along that way is amazing to me. This means I "saved" (including compounding interest earned) over $12,000 a year and increased my net worth by over 20 times. It makes me very excited about where I'll be in another 6.5 years.

Well now I'm off to donate the purses to goodwill.