The monthly Net Worth Update has arrived. Check out how I did over the month of January:
| Assets |
| $ Diff | % Diff |
| Cash | $3,877 | $242 | 6.66 % |
| Stocks | $0 | $0 | - |
| Bonds | $0 | $0 | - |
| Annuities | $0 | $0 | - |
| Retirement | $15,191 | $259 | 1.73 % |
| Home | $191,900 | $0 | - |
| Other Real Estate | $0 | $0 | - |
| Cars | $16,123 | ($93) | -0.57 % |
| Personal Property | $0 | $0 | - |
| Other | $151 | $151 | - |
| Total Assets | $227,242 | $559 | 0.25 % |
| Debts |
| $ Diff | % Diff |
| Home Mortgage(s) | $177,648 | ($181) | -0.10 % |
| Other Mortgage(s) | $0 | $0 | - |
| Student Loans | $0 | $0 | - |
| Credit Card | $11,290 | $12 | 0.11 % |
| Car Loans | $11,072 | ($335) | -2.94 % |
| Other | $1,682 | ($58) | -3.33 % |
| Total Debts | $201,692 | ($562) | -0.28 % |
| Total | $25,550 | $1,121 | 4.59 % |
I think I did fairly well. I added $1,121 to my net worth (a 4.59% increase) during the month and paid off $369 of my bad debt. I got my first pay check that includes my annual cost of living raise and that will be a nice change. It is enough to start putting a total of $600 per month toward my credit card debt rather than $500 as in the past. This will amount to paying twice my monthly minimums. During the course of January, I managed to make progress in every category of my balance sheet except credit cards which suffered from a ninja bill of $270 on school books.
Now I'll go on a slight rant about how we managed to spend so much cash on books. The books cost $270 for TWO CLASSES of school for my wife. I can not believe the insane prices for these books. They aren't even hardback! I had planned to buy the books online from half.com or somewhere similar and get them for much much less. Of course things don't always work out the way we planned...
When my wife showed up for the first day to collect her syllabus, her math teacher promptly dragged the class down to the math lab and had the students use their books to perform an activity. When my wife and 5-6 other students said they did not have the book the instructor told them they may as well leave because they could not participate in the rest of class. No sharing? What kind of teacher kicks students out on the first day for not having their books on hand? I've taken 6 years of college and I've NEVER had a professor require the book on the first day.
About 70% of the students indeed had the book, but that is because they went to the "official university book store" where they were told what to buy. I went that route when I was a freshman myself and quickly realized that: A) the bookstore is sometime wrong about the book you need, B) the bookstore rarely has any used books, and C) the bookstore charges a ridiculous markup. To make matters worse, I was out of town on business and my wife was flustered about not having her books. To fix the problem as soon as possible, she went straight to the bookstore and bought everything they told her, brand new at full price. She paid at least twice what the books should have cost. The whole situation makes me very mad at the college and even madder at the instructor. I could have been mad at my wife for letting herself get ripped off, but it really isn't her fault. She was upset on the first day of class and didn't want to be behind the curve since most other people had their books already. So, there is my very long explanation/rant about why I made no progress on my CC debt last month.
My investments, as with everyone else in the world, performed terrible in January. I lost roughly 7.44% during the month. On the positive side, I still ended with a net gain by pouring $1370 into my 401(k) and Roth IRA during the month. I've written before about Ignoring the Stock Market Pain and I will practice what I preach. This is just an opportunity to pick up more shares at a discount. I'm happy that I had enough money to add to my investments so that I still had a small net gain in that column (it is always better psychologically to see progress), and now I own about 12% more shares of stock than I did a month ago.
My final wealth building activity during the month of January was creating some "Found Money" on eBay. I have $85 in my PayPal account and another $151 of sales that have closed but remain uncollected (listed under Assets - Other). This Saturday my last round of auctions will end, and I expect them to bring in another $200. All this extra cash will allow me to pay off an additional $400 in credit card debt in February (which will be put me right back on track).
Next month should be a great month (barring any more ninja bills). Subscribe to my RSS and check back again soon to follow me on my path to wealth.
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