January 2008 Financial Status / Net Worth Update

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Net Worth Chart January 2008

Credit Card Debt
If you’re a newer reader, you may have some concerns about my high levels of credit card debt. I’m actually taking money from 0% APR balance transfer offers and instead of spending it, I am placing it in high yield savings accounts that actually earn me 5% interest or more, and keeping the difference as profit! :D

Along with other things, this helps me earn extra side income of thousands of dollars a year. Recently I put together a series of step-by-step posts on how I do this. Please check it out first if you have any questions. This is why, although I have the ability to pay the balances off, I choose not to.

Cash Savings, Unknown Goals
These numbers are as of January 1st, but I didn’t post them because I was hoping to announce new goals at the same time. But I haven’t pinned them down exactly yet. I know that do want to create a formal emergency fund, as opposed to just relying on the existing cash cushion we have right now from our future house down payment. So that’s where the cash increase will go towards. We also still need to re-examine our insurance needs.

(Added) Again for newer readers, this is the total net worth for both my wife and myself. We are (now) both working professionals in our late 20s making sizable incomes in the six-figure range. Until recently I was still in school (again). Our expenses are low right now right now, not having a huge mortgage to support… yet. But we do want a house and want to put 20% down if we can, so that is what the large amounts of cash savings are for.

Retirement and Brokerage accounts
Our investments overall have dropped another 2-3% since last month. As reported in our retirement portfolio update, we have both placed $15,500 into each of our 401k/403b plans this year. For 2008, I think we will try and make the contributions more spread out across the year in order to dollar-cost-average and make our cashflow more consistent.

You can see our previous net worth updates here.

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Comments

  1. I was wondering what you’re doing with the credit card money now that all the high interest savings rates are disappearing and CDs are drying up… I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as the credit card interest rate is zero?

    I have a $15,000 education loan with a fixed 3.5% interest rate, and have been doing the same thing — investing the money in 4.75% or higher accounts. But now that interest rates are tanking and I missed my chance to get a CD, I figure I might as well just pay off the loan.

    But if you know of any good ways to get a high guaranteed return still, I’d love to hear about them. 🙂

    Thanks for the great blog by the way!

  2. Why isn’t the equity in your house and the value of your other personal assets factored into this equation (e.g. your car, if it’s paid off)? I thought those were traditionally included when determining net worth.

  3. Eric: he doesn’t own a house yet, hence the 100k+ cash saved up for down payment for a home.

  4. When are you planning to visit Australia? I’m taking the whole month of August ’08 off of work to go there with my girlfriend (hopefully fiance by then) and her family. Should be good times.

  5. Do these numbers cover both you and your wife or just your assets? How do you handle your shared finances?

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