Personal Balance Sheet, March 2008: Net Worth +3.83%

April 1st, 2008

After 4 months of meticulously tracking our financial data, I think we may have turned our boat around. Our numbers seem to keep growing when last year we were seeing nothing but red. Considering the condition of the markets, I think we may have seen the worst of our days with a lot of green in the future. This is the time when a solid financial plan is key - so we don’t squander our gains.

I decided to keep my new tracking method from February and play with it for a few more months. I may still remove the vehicle values from the data, but probably not before the car loan is paid off.

Here’s March’s data:

Assets

Liabilities

Net Worth

Overview

Assets

Surprisingly, even with the poor markets, my 401(k) actually gained month-to-month for the first time since I started closely tracking its performance. But this number is deceiving; it appears my employer caught up on their contributions in March, which artificially inflated the balance. I know I put in around $320 or so this month and my investments were down as a whole. But even without the employer contribution, this is the first month I haven’t seen the markets swallow the entirety of my contribution and stop by for seconds. Maybe things are turning around…

Outside of the investments, we had an average month. Our cash holdings grew by $339.87, according to the end-of-month balance check, which represents a 2.37% gain. Again, this number is artificially inflated due to the timing at which payments hit to our checking account. I suspect April will see a painful correction and will show a negative change by the end of the month.

In order to cover impending medical expenses, we moved some of the emergency fund money around to make it more accessible. I wish I could say it was to chase some rates, but ING has dropped to just 3% and is now well under the rate for the credit union savings. As soon as the emergency passes, most of that money will move right back to where it started.

Liabilities

This is the first month of our new snowball debt payment plan, but we won’t see any real gains from that until the car is paid off later this year. I could put my raise toward debt payment, but actually most of it is now going to the church with our increased giving in our capital campaign and the rest will go toward covering the increased cost of insurance in July. That leaves us steadily marching against our debt with no real breakthroughs to note. It is nice to see that debt melting away, though.

Net Worth

Last month, the surprise income of the tax refund boosted our net worth. This month, it appears my 401(k) is now taking the reigns as the surprise maker. We realized a gain of 3.83% this month and things aren’t showing any signs of slowing down. As long as we keep attacking that debt and slowly saving more, we’ll break through the $50K net worth barrier in a month or two and keep moving on up. What a great first quarter!