Time has flown by as we rush into the New Year. We are almost a week into 2009 so it is time to look back at December and all of 2008 to assess my financial results.
Over the past month a great thing has happened, the S&P went UP 0.78% and the MSCI EAFE Index went up a whopping 7.5%. That means that for the first time since August I had a positive return in my retirement accounts. Because I've poured almost $13,000 of new money into my 401(k) and Roth IRA over the course of 2008 I even had a gain for the year (nevermind the the gain was only $4,900 or a net loss of about $8,000 or 40%). The good news is that I've stuck to my plan and focused on the long term benefits of buying into the down market.
During December I also managed to pile up a significant amount of new cash. This was mostly due generous family memebers at Christmas. Unfortunately there was a corresponding (though thankfully not as large) increase in short term debt as I used most of those funds to buy my wife a laptop. We also paid my wifes Spring tuition. Both of those expenses add up to the entire balance shown for the credit card ($1,179) which will be paid off in short order during January.
For the whole of 2008 kept our cash position virtually equal and made a small bit of progress on the debt front (an almost pathetic $2,500). As far as "bad debt goes" we ended the year almost exactly how we started with about $24,500. This include our car loan, personal loan, and some 0% interest furniture loan.
I adjusted the value of our hard assest this month as well. The result was that the value of our home is virtually static with no change and the value of our cars dropped significantly. No surprises there, but still a bummer to watch how fast a new-ish car drops in value. I do this adjustment every six months rather than every month because the month-to-month trends for auto and home values seems too volitile to give a good reading. If someone has a better suggestion for how to track these values please leave some feedback in the comments section.
I think that covers all of the key areas. The full number can be found in the table at the end of the post. Sometime in the next few days I hope to sit down and write up a list of goals for 2009. Check back for that post soon.
| Assets |
| $ Diff | % Diff |
| Cash | $3,544 | $1,936 | 120.40 % |
| Stocks | $0 | $0 | - |
| Bonds | $0 | $0 | - |
| Annuities | $0 | $0 | - |
| Retirement | $19,837 | $2,293 | 13.07 % |
| Home | $194,900 | $0 | - |
| Other Real Estate | $0 | $0 | - |
| Cars | $12,125 | ($2,595) | -17.63 % |
| Personal Property | $0 | $0 | - |
| Other | $0 | $0 | - |
| Total Assets | $230,406 | $1,634 | 0.71 % |
| Debts |
| $ Diff | % Diff |
| Home Mortgage(s) | $175,551 | ($196) | -0.11 % |
| Other Mortgage(s) | $0 | $0 | - |
| Student Loans | $0 | $0 | - |
| Credit Card | $1,179 | $777 | 193.28 % |
| Car Loans | $7,074 | ($368) | -4.94 % |
| Other | $16,224 | ($312) | -1.89 % |
| Total Debts | $200,028 | ($99) | -0.05 % |
| Total | $30,378 | $1,733 | 6.05 % |
