Personal Balance Sheet, February 2008: Net Worth +3.14%
Filed under: Personal Balance Sheet
We’ve now been rigorously tracking our financial data for 3 months and things are starting to look pretty good. But one can never let his guard down, so continually tracking and analyzing your financial numbers is essential for a sound personal finance strategy.
Since January, I changed my tracking methods slightly to include all assets. I’m not sure if I’ll keep this method, because I’m keeping the property and vehicle values stable anyway. That means it will depress the apparent value of any asset change. We’ll see come March how I change it then.
Here’s February’s data:
Assets
Liabilities
Net Worth
Overview
Assets
Again, our investments tanked, as was expected. It’s starting to get very demoralizing that I’m losing everything I’m putting into my 401(k) and more. I know it’s part of the market’s fluctuations, but to a “rookie” investor, red looks bad and this much red looks very bad. I need to take a look at my allocation strategy to make sure I’m getting the best bang for my buck. I’m very risk-tolerant, especially with 40 years before I’m going to need this account, but I do not want to gamble the money away, either.
Investments aside, we had an outstanding month. Our tax refund for 2007 showed up and we immediately put it to work for us. $1,500 was deposited into savings to take care of paying for the washing machine and $1,200 was immediately put toward the car loan. The remaining amount of the rebate was under $100, so it just remained in our checkbook for use against monthly expenses.
If we take away this $1,500 from the asset column, the non-investment cash-equivalent assets grew month-to-month. That means we were finally able to spend less than I earned for the month. Hurray! We’re on our way to financial independence!
Liabilities
Well, we were close to having a break-through month on the liabilities front… Unfortunately, the extra $1,200 we put toward the car was instantly wiped out by adding the nearly $1,270 (0% interest) debt on our Lowe’s credit card from the washing machine. It also appears that we’ve allowed the student loans to accrue more interest than we were paying in the few months we underpaid. I’ve adjusted the debt numbers to include the evil interest, which caused the student loans to jump up by 3%. This month we’ve already sent a large check to one of the student loans to start attacking them again.
We’re in the home stretch now for paying off the car. We’ve knocked the auto loan down to just over $5,000 and it appears that our goal of paying off the car this year will certainly be realized. With the tax rebate of $1,500 on its way, the extra $100 per month we’re putting toward that debt, and the $3,000 CD we put together specifically for paying off the last of the debt, we’re going to end up reaching that goal well before the end of the year. That will help our snowball grow to attack our home equity loan and add to our savings for our next vehicle.
Net Worth
The tax refund honestly couldn’t have come at a better time. The $2,700 in “surprise income” allowed us to really attack our debt load and raise our net worth by a whopping 3.14% in a single month. With my raise on its way and more “surprise income” on its way, in the form of a tax rebate, it looks like 2008 may be a good year even with the markets declining as a whole. We’re 1/6 the way there!
March 7th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Oh man, yeah i hear you on that “surprise income”! it’s funny how stuff like that happens during times when it’s most needed :)
And i totally agree w/ all that red-ness going on these days w/ the market. It’s not even like it’s a “little” up and down, but more of a freakin’ roller coaster w/ high losses and then mediocre gains the next day.
Either way though, jumping into the game and giving it a good shot is more than a lot are doing. Keep doing your thing!