Progress Update November 2008
It’s that time again. I got a chance to see how we are doing with just one month left to go this year. Despite the stingy market, we have done pretty well. We are under budget for spending this year and over budget on income (not a bad place to be huh?). But let’s look at our current net worth, shall we?
- Assets - just a slight increase this month. Still, the problem seems to be mainly with the market, so it’s not too concerning. Despite putting another $600+ in my 401(k) the total value is up by only $5! It’s a little depressing if I think about it too much, but not so bad when I take a the long term approach. We’ll shake this dust off soon enough and I’ll be better off for it.
- Debts - Good progress here again. It’s been a very consistent drop this year. Our credit card debt started the year at like $54,000, so being close to breaking the $45,000 mark at the end of the year feels good. Just regular payments are accelerating the rate at which that amount goes down. I’ll also have to keep an eye out should the government actually do something about mortgage rates and they drop down to 4.5% as is being talked about now. A streamline refinance would be a great solution for us if available. We could either save $160 a month and put it towards other debt, or keep paying the same and pay the house off sooner. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
- Net Worth - Obviously, we aren’t going to be getting back to a $0 net worth still this year. Of course if our retirement investments had simply held value and not dropped like they have, we’d have another 4-5k towards our net worth and be much closer. Still, we’ve made good enough progress and will continue down this path.
- Look Ahead - December is looking to be a good month. I should get paid 3 tims this month as I am currently scheduled to get paid on 1/1/09, so I’m assuming they will move that back to the previous business day and put it in the month (otherwise, January will get 3). In addition, I will get that extra paycheck from teaching at the end of the month. We aren’t spending a lot on Christmas this year as we are taking a vacation in early February. In all honesty, I’m expecting to be within $10k of our $0 net worth mark before year end. Next year is looking pretty good as well, thanks to about $40k of business loss of which 40% will come back to me. That will give a nice extra tax refund I hadn’t really planned on and that will get applied to some extra debt payments.
