Good news! Luckily April has turned out to be a much getter month than March. My new HVAC system is working just fine, I haven’t made any retarded stock or option trades, and my wife’s health is continuing to improve. Unfortunately, there have also been no financial windfalls during this month save the fact that it’s a 3 paycheck month if you’re paid biweekly. I am, and I used the additional paycheck to put a tidy sum into our Roth IRA’s for 2011. Funding the Roths is always stressful because I would like to do it as close the beginning of the year as I can so the money can be working for me, but cashflows just currently don’t allow for that to happen. However, this was a good start. I hope everyone has been able to at least contribute a little to their Roth IRA’s for 2011 as well.
So, how is net worth looking this month? Let’s take a look.
Net Worth May 2011
| ASSETS | This Year | vs. Last Month | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real Estate | ||||
| My Home (Zillow) | $347,500 | -10% | 1% | |
| Savings | ||||
| All Accounts | $31,773 | -18% | -1% | |
| Retirement | ||||
| All Accounts | $227,704 | 12% | 2% | |
| Investments | ||||
| 529 Plan | $12,535 | 26% | 2% | |
| Brokerage | $5,309 | 7% | 1% | |
| Prosper | $95 | |||
| Total Assets | $617,117 | -2% | 1% | |
| LIABILITIES | ||||
| Credit Cards* | ||||
| All Accounts | $5,905 | |||
| Student Loans | ||||
| All Accounts (1.5% and 2.5%) | $66,562 | -4% | -1% | |
| Mortgage Loans | ||||
| My Home (4.3875%; 30 yr fixed) | $299,516 | -1% | -0% | |
| Total Liabilities | $371,982 | -3% | 0% | |
| NET WORTH | $252,934 | 0.1% | 3% |
On the asset side, my home’s value has stopped cratering for the time being and is basically flat, as is my savings. That’s not too bad given all that’s been going on. Retirement assets increased nicely this month thanks to investment gains and the Roth contributions I mentioned earlier. All of my other investments are headed in the right direction as well.
On the liabilities side, you can see that I’m carrying a higher credit card debt level than is typical. This is due to the new HVAC system and all of my wife’s medical bills. The good news is that this includes all the outstanding bills that would fall within my Emergency category. Like all credit card bills, these will be paid on time with no balance carried over. In terms of other liabilities, I continue to pay both my student loans and mortgage on a mildly accelerated timeline, AND for the first time I owe less than $300k on mortgage! Considering how good that feels, I can’t wait to drop below $200k.
Overall, assets are below where I started the year, but this is largely due to the real estate effect caused by fluctuations in Zillow’s valuation. What if we took out the real estate effect you ask? Smart question. I asked that one too. How do you handle this in your own calculations?