Time for another net worth update… last one was back in April.

Credit Card Debt
I used to take money from credit cards at 0% APR and place it into online savings accounts, bank CDs, or savings bonds that earned 4-5% interest (much less recently), keeping the difference as profit while taking minimal risk. (Minimal in regards that the risk was under my control.) However, given the current lack of great no fee 0% APR balance transfer offers, I am currently not playing this “game”.

Most credit cards don’t require you to pay the charges built up during a monthly cycle until after a grace period of about 14 days. This theoretically provides enough time for you to receive your statement in the mail and send back a check. As this is simply a real-time snapshot of my finances, my credit card debt consists of just these charges.

Retirement and Brokerage accounts
We recently converted our Traditional IRA balances to Roth IRAs, as the income restrictions were lifted this year. The choice to convert was rather simple for us, as we had non-deductible contributions that will now be able to be withdrawn tax-free. (We still owe taxes on very modest gains.)

Our total retirement portfolio is now $289,277 or on an estimated after-tax basis, $249,976. At a theoretical 4% withdrawal rate, this would provide $833 per month in after-tax retirement income, which brings me to 33% of my long-term goal of generating $2,500 per month.

Cash Savings and Emergency Funds
We are now a bit below a year’s worth of expenses (conservatively estimated at $60,000) in our emergency fund. This is after withholding some money for paying taxes on the Roth IRA conversion above, and also for undisclosed, one-time recent expenses. It’d be fun to say that we picked up a convertible or something, but the reality is much less exciting. 😛

Our cash savings is mostly kept in a combination of a rewards checking account (with debit card usage requirements), a SmartyPig account at 2.15% APY currently, or in a 5-year CD from Ally Bank, which despite the long term still provides a very competitive yield even if you withdraw early before the 5 years is up. (See here for more details.)

Home Value
I am still not using any internet home valuation tools to track home value. After using them for a year and finding them unreliable, I am back to maintaining a conservative estimate and focusing on mortgage payoff. If we get some positive cashflow after retirement savings, I do want to pay it down faster.

Lack of Recent Updates
Up until last December, I had done regular monthly updates of our net worth for five consecutive years. However, recent personal events made me much less interested in detailed, analytic planning towards early retirement. As a result, I have barely checked any of my statements in the past few months, other than to make sure they weren’t negative. I think I made a few trades here and there, but for the most part haven’t bought or sold any stocks to maintain my asset allocation. I haven’t even converted my Traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs like I had planned, or made any IRA contributions for 2010.

Instead, reading blogs and other financial news has simply been a recreational escape for me, and I think my blogging has reflected that. I still had fun learning about ways to save money here and there, and enjoy keeping track of other market changes and various offers out there.

However, it’s time to catch back up a bit! Here we go…

Credit Card Debt
In the past, I have taken money from credit cards at 0% APR and placed it into online savings accounts, bank CDs, or savings bonds that earn 4-5% interest (much less recently), and keeping the difference as profit. However, given the current lack of great no fee 0% APR balance transfer offers, I am currently not playing this “game”. My balances are simply monthly charges that I have not yet paid in full when due.

If you’re looking for a competitive offer, Citibank is offering 0% APR for 15 months with a 3% balance transfer fee.

Income
We’re both still working, but will be taking some unpaid time off in April which will reduce income temporarily. Our monthly expenses are still much less than our (regular) income, so while we may eat into savings a bit, I expect to bounce back into the positive very quickly.

Retirement and Brokerage accounts
Near the end of last year, I had gradually moved $30,000 into a brokerage account at OptionsHouse to invest in ETFs due to their $3.95 trades. In my usual way, I then thought about switching instead to WellsTrade since I now had the $25,000 required to get 100 free trades per year. Stuff happened, the application process took too long, I got distracted, and the money is still sitting mostly non-invested. Grrr.

As stated above, besides our regular 401k contributions, we haven’t made any real moves in our retirement accounts either.

The stock market has done relatively well in the meantime, with the S&P 500 nearly hitting 1,200. Our total retirement portfolio is now $269,538 or on an estimated after-tax basis, $233,164. At a theoretical 4% withdrawal rate, this would provide $777 per month in after-tax retirement income, which brings me to 31% of my long-term goal of generating $2,500 per month.

Cash Savings and Emergency Funds
We continue to keep a year’s worth of expenses (conservatively set at $60,000) in our emergency fund. It’s still a nice warm safety blanket. I am thinking of moving a chunk of it into several separate 5-year CDs from Ally Bank, as they pay 1.60% APY (as of 10/25/13) and each would have a small early-withdrawal penalty of only 60 days interest.

Home Value
I am no longer using any internet home valuation tools to track home value. After using them for a year, I went back to simply taking a conservative estimate and focusing on mortgage payoff. After checking them again today, I am staying away. A house nearby sold recently for $500,000 but is listed at both Zillow and Coldwell Banker as being sold for $1,000,000. Needless to say, it is skewing my home value estimates!

It would seem that I am currently long on thoughts and short on action. Time to fix that.

Wow, December already…

Credit Card Debt
Up until now, I have taken money from credit cards at 0% APR and placed it into online savings accounts, bank CDs, or savings bonds that earn up to 4-5% interest (less recently), and keeping the difference as profit. However, given the current lack of good no fee 0% APR balance transfer offers , I am no longer playing this “game”. The balance that you do see is either before the end of the statement or during the grace period, where I’m also not paying any interest.

Retirement and Brokerage accounts
Mrs. MMB and I have both maxed out our 401k salary deferrals for 2009. We have also started to invest in regular taxable accounts by investing $30,000 that was previously being held as cash. I’ll outline the trade activity in an upcoming portfolio update.

Our total retirement portfolio is now $231,368 or on an estimated after-tax basis, $191,475. At a theoretical 4% withdrawal rate, this would provide $638 per month in after-tax retirement income, which brings me to 26% of my long-term goal of $2,500 per month.

We are also getting ready for a Traditional-to-Roth conversion once the income limits are removed in 2010. We’ll need to gather up some information in order to see how much tax we owe on any gains. More details on this to come.

Cash Savings and Emergency Funds
We keep a year’s worth of expenses in our emergency fund. Potential large expenses include $10,000 for home improvement projects (minor roof repair and solar water heating), as well as $15,000-$20,000 on a new car to replace our 1995 Nissan. Hope it can last us 15 years as well!

Home Value
I am no longer using any internet home valuation tools to track home value. Some people have suggested using my tax assessed value, but I also think that is too high. I simply picked what I felt is a conservative number based on recent comparables, $480,000, and keep it for at least 6 months if not a year. (Currently on month 3 out of 6.) For the most part I am concerned about mortgage payoff, which I still plan to accomplish in 20 years at most.

You can view previous net worth updates here.

Credit Card Debt
In the past, I have taken money from credit cards at 0% APR and placed it into online savings accounts, bank CDs, or savings bonds that earn 4-5% interest (much less recently), and keeping the difference as profit. I even put together a series of step-by-step posts on how to make money off of credit cards in this way.

However, given the current lack of great no fee 0% APR balance transfer offers, I am no longer playing this “game” and have just paid off my last 0% offer for now. This makes the net worth chart a bit funny, but it should clear up next month.

Retirement and Brokerage accounts
Our total investment portfolio increased by a few thousand dollars since last month. DW’s 401k was already maxed out at $16,500. I made another $1,000 contribution to my Solo 401k, for a total of $16,500 contributed in 2009 as well. (I forgot the limit was $16,500 and not $15,500 last month…) This makes us done with our goal of maxing out both our 401k salary contributions for 2009.

I am starting to build up too much cash, and have started investing for retirement in a taxable brokerage account as well. In the interest of tax efficiency, I’ll have to move around some investments in order to keep bonds in the tax-advantaged IRAs/401k and the “extra” stocks in taxable. I expect to finish investing $20,000 this week.

Taking that additional 20k into account, our total retirement portfolio is now $211,095, or on an estimated after-tax basis, $170,047. At a 4% withdrawal rate, this would provide $567 per month in tax-free retirement income, which brings me to 23% of my long-term goal of $2,500 per month.

Cash Savings and Emergency Funds
We keep a year’s worth of expenses in our emergency fund. Another $10,000 is earmarked for upcoming home improvement projects that I keep putting off (minor roof repair and solar water heating).

Home Value
I am no longer using any internet home valuation tools to track home value. Some people have suggested using my tax assessed value, but I also think that is too high. I simply picked what I felt is a conservative number based on recent comparables, $480,000, and keep it for at least 6 months if not a year. (Currently on month 2 out of 6.) For the most part I am concerned about mortgage payoff, which I still plan to accomplish in 20 years at most.

You can view previous net worth updates here.