Intro
Newer readers may note some serious credit card debt going on above. Please see my posts on taking advantage of no fee 0% APR balance transfers for more information. In short, I’m borrowing the money for “free” and keeping it in safe investments while earning me interest. Some recent examples are my $9,000 from Citibank and $10,000 from Discover Card. Roughly, I’m earning 5% on $30,000, which is $1,500 of free money a year for doing nothing but paying bills on time.
Thoughts
At first glance, my net worth only increased $773 this month, a pretty mediocre if not subpar month for us. But the stock market had a dip this month, and our Roth IRAs took the biggest hit as they held our Large Cap and Emerging Markets funds. It may stress some people out to see $1,000+ disappear in a month, but it’s all just part of the ride.
In actuality, our non-retirement funds went up $2,202 to $42,924 this month, a nice increase due to selling some advertising on this blog and also getting paid for some freelance work. I hope to make up even more ground on our goals this summer. My wife’s raise will also take effect after this month.
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You gotta love those adsense dollars – I’m making US $120 per month from 6 sites, it doesn’t sound like a lot but it’s money I get for doing very little and it’s trending upward!
that 120$ is gross income. you gotta take into account the expenses of domain+hosting.
what do you use to track your net worth? there’s gotta be a better way than using excel.
thanks.
$95,052 – that rounds up to 10% of 1,000,000 😉
The way the market was this past month, ANY gain is good.
i think microsoft money is pretty decent.
I was hit hard by the market in May, too. At least you came out positive!
I read your blog often and really enjoy it. I also read many other blogs about personal finance, which also track net worth’s. I have a general question in regards to assets. In just about every blog I go to, I notice that nobody ever factors in personal belongings into their net worth. Now I understand what you are probably going to say, that these are highly depreciable assets which don’t have a lot of “value” and the net worth you are tracking is for assets you would liquidate in order to retire, etc. However, they do have some value. For instance, I’m sure your wife has some jewelry and I’m sure you have some expenseive electronics that are worth something. I think about it like this – if I were to liquidate everything I own and move away to an exotic island when I retire, I would receive something for these assets. They are a part of my overall net worth. Also, if you are going to put an asset like a car on your balance sheet, shouldn’t you include something like a wedding ring (gold and silver are worth a lot these days) or a lap top computer? Not to mention, from an accounting stand point, you incurred a liability (reduction in cash in your case), so you really should be matching up to the asset.
I guess most people just like to be conservative with these numbers. For me, I always add a conservative amount to my net worth to include things such as jewelry, furniture, and other assets I have which would contribute to my net worth if I sold them. The number is conservative and I depreciate it as time goes on, but I think it should be included. Probably just the accountant in me saying this. It also makes me feel better to see my net worth a little higher than it would be if these were not included!
Jonathan,
An article from the WSJ’s Real Estate may give some small perspective to your portfolio and $1M goal.
Hopefully, you and the wife are buying soon! Any plans on an article on local Seattle real estate on mymoneyblog?
link
But why around $28000 of credit card debt. What did you do with that money.. Credit Card debt is never considered as Good Debt.
Or did you consolidate your other liablities like car loan/home loan and put them as credit card debt.
Ouch the 5% in May really hurt you as well. I did a little worse but one thing I learned, you just need to ride out the bad and the good will come along with stocks.
William, I just use Yodlee (daily) and Excel (once a month).