Credit Card Debt
If you’re a new reader, let me start out as usual by explaining the credit card debt. I’m actually taking money from 0% APR balance transfer offers and instead of spending it, I am placing it in high-yield savings accounts that actually earn me 4% interest or more, and keeping the difference as profit. Along with other deals that I blog about, this helps me earn extra side income of thousands of dollars a year. Recently I put together a series of step-by-step posts on how I do this. Please check it out first if you have any questions. This is why, although I have the ability to pay the credit card balances off, I choose not to.

Retirement and Brokerage accounts
It seems like the markets were relatively idle over the last month. We made $2,141 in pre-tax 403(b) contributions. Not much else to report here, although our 403(b) plan did announce some new lower-cost fund choices for later this year, which is nice. I should do another portfolio update soon.

Cash Savings and Emergency Funds
Our mid-term goal is still to have $30,000 in net cash put aside for emergencies, which is 6 months x $5,000 per month in estimated expenses if both of us find ourselves unemployed. We are now a bit over halfway there at at $17,526. This fits in with our overall “just-in-case” focus for this month, hopefully we will also be getting some life insurance soon.

Home Equity
Another $500 of loan principal paid off. Housing values look to continue to be dropping a bit in our neighborhood, although nothing is really selling so it’s hard to tell. I’m definitely aware of this, but I’m still not going to try and re-value my house every month. I’ve found that Cyberhomes.com offers some good data on tracking median prices by zip code. Again, can be tricky to apply if only a few houses sell in your zip code and they aren’t really comparable in size or neighborhood.

Overall, a relatively quiet month financially. You can see our previous net worth updates here.

(By the way, my post yesterday on emergency planning was messed up due to some typos which cut out some parts, you can re-read it if you’d like.)

Credit Card Debt
If you’re a new reader, let me start out as usual by explaining the credit card debt. I’m actually taking money from 0% APR balance transfer offers and instead of spending it, I am placing it in high-yield savings accounts that actually earn me 4% interest or more, and keeping the difference as profit. Along with other deals that I blog about, this boring activity helps me earn extra side income of thousands of dollars a year. Recently I put together a series of step-by-step posts on how I do this. Please check it out first if you have any questions. This is why, although I have the ability to pay the balances off, I choose not to.

Retirement and Brokerage accounts
There were three paydays in April for us based on a biweekly pay schedule. In addition stock prices are up about 6% from my last update on April 1st, making this month extra juicy. I estimate that capital gains accounted for ~$6,000 of the net worth increase. We also made our IRA contributions for 2007 before the April 15th deadline ($4,000 x 2), as well as $4,451 in 401k contributions in order to be on track to max out this year. All these things together made the value of our portfolio jump a lot.

Cash Savings and Emergency Funds
We did a bad job on increasing our cash savings, due to a big hardwood flooring purchase on top of the late decision to contribute to non-deductible IRAs. Taking into account the increased credit card balances, our net cash actually shrank. Need to fix this next month.

Home Equity
I’ve decided to switch to a simpler way to track home equity, as the previous method was a bit confusing. I have my estimated home value in the asset column, and my remaining loan balance in the liabilities column. The difference is home equity. I don’t use a Zillow estimate because that would put my house at nearly $700,000 in value, and although that sounds nice it’s not very accurate.

You can see our previous net worth updates here.

Credit Card Debt
If you’ve recently starting reading, you may have some concerns about my high levels of credit card debt. I’m actually taking money from 0% APR balance transfer offers and instead of spending it, I am placing it in high yield savings accounts that actually earn me 5% interest or more, and keeping the difference as profit!

Along with other deals that I write about, this helps me earn extra side income of thousands of dollars a year. Recently I put together a series of step-by-step posts on how I do this. Please check it out first if you have any questions. This is why, although I have the ability to pay the balances off, I choose not to.

Cash Savings, Home Purchase
We’re still in the process of buying a home. There will be big drops on the cash column soon as we finally spend our down payment funds as well as pay for things like closing costs and home improvements for our home.

$5,000 was put towards the earnest deposit, and I just marked it as spent. But I will have to decide on how to account for my home value in my net worth. I’m leaning towards just keeping it simple and taking option #2, but that may be considered a cop-out if my home value drops.

Retirement and Brokerage accounts
For the third month in a row, our investments overall have dropped in value by 2-3%. Good thing I only check in once a month. I gloomily predict that things will get significantly worse before they get better… but I don’t actually risk my money on guesses. I continue to “stay the course” and keep making regular investments into my asset allocation.

New Midterm Goals?
Although I still want to visit Brazil, Australia, and Southeast Asia, it looks like we’ll probably be spending the next 6 months instead installing hardwood floors, remodeling bathrooms, and jackhammering some concrete. I don’t know if we’ll have the time or money to visit any other place besides the wonderful world of Home Depot. We’ll have to see.

You can see our previous net worth updates here.

Credit Card Debt
If you’re a newer reader, you may have some concerns about my high levels of credit card debt. I’m actually taking money from 0% APR balance transfer offers and instead of spending it, I am placing it in high yield savings accounts that actually earn me 5% interest or more, and keeping the difference as profit!

Along with other things, this helps me earn extra side income of thousands of dollars a year. Recently I put together a series of step-by-step posts on how I do this. Please check it out first if you have any questions. This is why, although I have the ability to pay the balances off, I choose not to.

Cash Savings, Unknown Goals
These numbers are as of January 1st, but I didn’t post them because I was hoping to announce new goals at the same time. But I haven’t pinned them down exactly yet. I know that do want to create a formal emergency fund, as opposed to just relying on the existing cash cushion we have right now from our future house down payment. So that’s where the cash increase will go towards. We also still need to re-examine our insurance needs.

(Added) Again for newer readers, this is the total net worth for both my wife and myself. We are (now) both working professionals in our late 20s making sizable incomes in the six-figure range. Until recently I was still in school (again). Our expenses are low right now right now, not having a huge mortgage to support… yet. But we do want a house and want to put 20% down if we can, so that is what the large amounts of cash savings are for.

Retirement and Brokerage accounts
Our investments overall have dropped another 2-3% since last month. As reported in our retirement portfolio update, we have both placed $15,500 into each of our 401k/403b plans this year. For 2008, I think we will try and make the contributions more spread out across the year in order to dollar-cost-average and make our cashflow more consistent.

You can see our previous net worth updates here.

About My Credit Card Debt
If you’re a newer reader, you may have some concerns about my high levels of credit card debt. I’m actually taking money from 0% APR balance transfer offers and instead of spending it on junk, I am placing it in high yield savings accounts that earn me 5% interest or more, and keeping the difference as profit.

Along with other things, this helps me earn extra side income of thousands of dollars a year. Recently I put up a series of step-by-step posts on how I do this. Please check it out first if you have any questions. This is why, although I have the ability to pay the balances off, I choose not to. Also mixed in are our monthly credit card charges, which we do pay off each month.

Commentary

Cash Savings, Midterm Goal Done. We have successfully reached our mid-term goal of $100,000 to put towards a house downpayment. This goal was set initially on April 2, 2005 – right here on this blog, with a deadline of mid-2007. Since then, I quit my 9-5 job, went back to school, changed fields, and now work both on my own independent ventures and a salaried “W-2” job. That transition set us back, but we finally got there, just 6 months late. 🙂

Of course, now we have to set another mid-term goal. For now, I think a proper goal would be probably to keep accumulating more cash, as if we do have to buy a house there are tons of other costs like closing costs, mortgage points, moving costs, initial home repairs, and so on to worry about. Not to mention also keeping an emergency fund, which is pretty critical once you have a mortgage to worry about.

Retirement and Brokerage accounts. Our investments overall have dropped about 2-3% since last month. We have again juiced up our retirement contributions this month, because unlike IRAs, the 401k contributions for 2007 have be in by the end of the year to count under the 2007 annual contribution limits. Thanksgiving managed to sidetrack me from my asset allocation series. It must be done by 2008!

You can see our previous net worth updates here.

About My Credit Card Debt
If you’re a newer reader, you may have some concerns about my high levels of credit card debt. I’m actually borrowing money for free at 0% interest, putting it in high yield savings accounts that earn me 5% interest or more, and keeping the difference as profit. Along with other things, this helps me earn extra side income of thousands of dollars a year. Recently I put up a series of step-by-step posts on how I do this. Please check it out first if you have any questions. This is why, although I have the ability to pay the balances off, I choose not to.

Also mixed in are our monthly credit card charges, which we do pay off each month.

Commentary

Cash Savings. We continue to have a big cash hoard to try and reach our mid-term goal of $100,000 to put towards a house downpayment in an expensive area of the country. We are now at $94,386 in non-retirement funds (cash + brokerage + 529 – credit cards). Getting close! We continue to browse for that perfect home that fits us, and we’re starting to learn more about the ins and outs of mortgages.

Retirement and Brokerage accounts. Performance-wise, there seems to have been little movement over the last month. The increase in value is primarily due to my wife starting to contribute to her new 403b, which is finally set up properly. We hiked up the percentages in order to try and build up some pre-tax contributions before the end of 2007. Still have to decide whether to contribute to a Non-deductible IRA this year. Finally, I’ll be finishing up my series on rebuilding our portfolio this week.

That’s it for this month. As always, we’re not racing against anyone else but ourselves. Take a peek back at our previous net worth updates here.

About My Credit Card Debt
If you’re a newer reader, you may have some concerns about my high levels of credit card debt. I’m actually borrowing money for free at 0% interest, putting it in high yield savings accounts that earn me 5% interest or more, and keeping the difference as profit. Along with other things, this helps me earn extra side income of thousands of dollars a year. Recently I put up a series of step-by-step posts on how I do this. Please check it out first if you have any questions. This is why, although I have the ability to pay the balances off, I choose not to.

Commentary

Retirement and Brokerage accounts. Last month’s update was right before the drop in the Fed Funds rate, which resulted in another big jump in our account values this time around. In addition, I made a large $10,000 contribution to my Self-Employed 401k at Fidelity.

I’m glad to get our retirement contributions back on track since we haven’t done very much in that department this year. I still have to figure out how much more I want contribute this year, as I do have a some flexibility with the account due to the ability to add profit-sharing contributions. Another thing on my mind is whether to contribute to a Non-deductible IRA this year.

Cash Savings. This actually didn’t go up as much, due to the big contribution to our 401k.

Quick summary. Our non-retirement funds went up slightly to $85,605, which puts us at almost 86% of our mid-term goal of $100,000 towards a house downpayment. Total net cash is at $79,707 (+$1,475 from last month). Take a look back at our previous net worth updates here.