December 2007 Net Worth Update (+$14,363)

A good month for us to end the year on. After a loss last month and all the churn from the wedding expenses in the past couple months its nice to see some progress being made again. I just hope this can become the new norm for us now that things are settling down a bit.

Assets	Nov-07	Dec-07	Change	%
Cash & Savings	$ 75,360.80	$ 80,747.86	$ 5,387.06	7.15%
Taxable Brokerage Accts	$ 74,727.46	$ 77,884.78	$ 3,157.32	4.23%
Roth IRAs	$ 40,257.93	$ 39,792.82	$ (465.11)	-1.16%
Pre-tax Retirement Accts	$ 150,379.56	$ 153,126.90	$ 2,747.34	1.83%
Stock Options	$ 9,464.00	$ 11,800.00	$ 2,336.00	24.68%
ESPP	$ 31,947.20	$ 33,523.76	$ 1,576.56	4.93%
House #1 - Rental	$ 160,000.00	$ 160,000.00	$ -
House #2 - Rental	$ 128,225.00	$ 128,225.00	$ -
House #3 - Primary	$ 116,500.00	$ 116,500.00
Receivable (Payable)			$ -
Other Assets	$ -	$ -	$ -
Total Assets	$ 786,861.95	$ 801,601.12	$ 14,739.17	1.87%
Liabilities
Credit Card Balances	$ (9,487.01)	$ (9,487.01)	$ -	0.00%
House #1 Mortgages	$ (114,997.77)	$ (114,805.75)	$ 192.02	-0.17%
House #2 Mortgages	$ (102,276.29)	$ (102,172.18)	$ 104.11	-0.10%
House #3 Mortgages	$ (109,204.15)	$ (109,058.34)	$ 145.81	-0.13%
Rental Deposits	$ (6,447.00)	$ (6,447.00)	$ -	0.00%
Additional Tax Liability	$ (3,312.40)	$ (4,130.00)	$ (817.60)	24.68%
Other Liabilities			$ -
Total Liabilities	$ (345,724.62)	$ (346,100.28)	$ (375.66)	0.11%
$2million Goal Progress*	$ 433,841.48	$ 448,059.18	$ 14,217.70	3.28%
Net Worth	$ 441,137.33	$ 455,500.84	$ 14,363.51	3.26%

*$2million Goal Progress - This line item will track our progress to reaching the $2million goal of investable assets - I back out the asset value (and mortgage) associated with our primary residence.

Net Worth - This line item will still track everything including the primary residence. This should keep the transistion smooth and avoid large changes when we move primary residences. Our financial freedom goal can be tracked with this measure as well from this target formula: [$2 Million in investable assets] + [Primary residence asset value] = [Financial Freedom goal].

Highlights for December

All credit card debt (except current month's purchases) is in the form of 0% APR balance transfers earning interest in my savings accounts.
My wife and I started using the paper envelope budget to help use manage our food expenses.
I looked at paying down my wife's mortgage to avoid paying PMI, but found that there is a 5yr minimum to cancel PMI insurance.
We resumed progress on our house down payment goal of $80,000.
I also maxed out my 401k contributions and Roth IRA contributions for 2007, but we still have a ways to go to max out my wife's Roth IRA for 2007.
Im still working on developing meaningful finance reports for financial dicussions with my wife, but I have decided to focus at least initially on cash flow since that is where her impact is felt the most at least immediately.

Additional Stock Investments December (Outside of 401k & ESPP):

$25 in ConocoPhillips DRIP
$100 in USG DRIP
$250 in my Vanguard Roth IRA
$250 in my wife's T Rowe Price Roth IRA
$50 in Pfizer DRIP
$3887.50 in Wachovia via Vanguard Brokerage
$143 in Vanguard Total Stock Market Index ETF via Vanguard Brokerage

You can see my previous monthly net worth updates here.

Related in Net Worth Archive:

May 2012 Net Worth Update (-$28,098) (Jun 10, 2012) Highlights for MayWe like to take advantage of 0% APR balance transfers and other credit card offers for free money. We are actively looking at taking advantage of new credit card arbitrage opportunities. Our properties are listed on our...

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Comments (11)

In your post regarding the $80k downpayment fund you weren't sure how you would reach the goal of saving $5k a month. How did you reach your goal?

Posted by Frugal Dad | January 9, 2008 10:20 AM

i am confused and concerned why you have tenant security deposits listed as a liability but no offsetting account in your asset section.

perhaps your state laws are different BUT in new jersey, you are to have individual tenant-landlord escrow accounts set up for each tenant. this is not to be comingled with your personal funds.

therefore, you should either list a Security Deposits account in assets OR remove security deposits liability from your balance sheet.

i apologize if your state laws are different. im just looking at this and am stumped..

Posted by bryan | January 9, 2008 4:30 PM

Just curious what your 401k is invested in? What types of strategies are you employing there? Set it once a year? Chase %s? Etc...

Posted by Anonymous | January 9, 2008 4:55 PM

Frugal Dad,
Couple things -- My wife started working part time which has been a huge help and this month in particular I had some extra reimbursements from my employer -- I haven't yet figured out how we are going to regularly save $5k.

bryan,
Great question -- I have lumped together all the cash accounts in that line item including those accounts designated to hold the security deposits. Perhaps I should clarify that going forward.

Anon,
The bulk of my 401k is invested in foreign equity mutual funds as most of my taxable investments are in larger domestic equity investments.

Posted by 2million | January 9, 2008 7:14 PM

I am curious why you are having trouble fully funding your wife's Roth IRA when you list $80,000+ in cash and savings. Why not move the balance of the $4000 over? Is the $80,000 earmarked for something?

Posted by JT | January 10, 2008 12:58 AM

2mill:

couple of questions:

- which stocks have gone up for you in the month of december? i have been hammered solid! :-(

- re: the $143 in vanguard total stock market etf: don't you have to pay trading fee for it?

- s.b.

Posted by some body | January 10, 2008 11:45 AM

JT,
Your right we could take some of that money and fund her Roth IRA contributians, but most of that money is earmarked - $17k for her car, $6k security deposit, $3Xk for house fund, etc. Worst case if we don't have enough cash flow we will pull existing cash to fund the remaining piece.

some body,
Im working on a review, but I get the free trades in my Vanguard Brokerage account.

Here is a current list of my retirement and taxable stock investments. You can see the deltas between then and now by looking at the investment transactions looking at each monthly net worth.

Posted by 2million | January 10, 2008 7:09 PM

Hello, great page. I just found it and i would like to start reading from 2005. So much to read and i like to listen to podcast while i drive. Have you thought of converting some old post or even new post to audio?

Posted by David | January 12, 2008 8:20 AM

I've asked this before, but got no response. I'm not asking this question in a derogatory way, but more of an information-gathering way. Why do you continuely add money to Pfizer? I look at it and I don't see many good things (expiring patents being one item). I think of it as a continuous 1 year CD yielding 5+%. Please explain this to me. Also, are you looking at other banks besides Wachovia, which I consider to be a good move on your part. I personally own (and recommend) Bank of America and US Bancorp.

Posted by Kevin | January 13, 2008 11:51 AM

Kevin, Sorry must have missed your question the first time - its a fair question. I believe Pfizer has long term value to it. I have been building an investment in Pfizer for the past several years that I expect will be profitable in the long term. I have an auto $50/mo invest in Pfizer setup so I don't analyze the stock every month -- although I probably need to take another look at it.

Posted by 2million | January 13, 2008 7:14 PM

Just a question (I may have missed explanation of this at some point, so forgive me if I have.):

Do you evaluate the value of your real estate holdings at all? With double digit declines in R/E values in the last year in many areas, it would seem prudent to update the value of these assets as you would stock investments, via some of the free sources of information available on the internet for property values.

Thoughts?

Posted by Derringer | January 14, 2008 8:49 AM