February Net Worth Update (+$5,529.60)

After a small decrease in our net worth in January, it was nice to bounce back with a strong net worth increase in February. Our net worth increased $5,529.60 from last month, to a total of $73,303.34 (click on spreadsheet below).

What Worked
My wife received a $3,000 ($1,217.53 net) quarterly bonus, so we were also able to increase our savings by $1,830.82. We contributed a total of $2,232.69 to our retirement accounts (401k’s and Roth IRA’s) and saw them increase $3,759.37. Good stuff!

What Didn’t Work
Everything went great this month.

Next Month
It’s hard to guesstimate how March will go. We’ll be doing our taxes and likely owe (we paid $2,024 last year), but I may be able to save some money on food and gas since I will be traveling for business for 7 days. We’ll have to see how it works out.

E*Trade Account Service Fee

While reviewing our accounts, I happened to notice that E*Trade charged us a $40 Account Service Fee for our stock trading account since we have not made any trades in the last quarter.

It's my fault that I did not read the fine print, but a $40 fee on a ~$300 balance is ridiculous. I’ve put a sell limit order in for our remaining 20 shares of BofA stock for $17/share (we bought at $14/share). The stock is currently at $16.66/share. I hope it will sell next week so we can get this money in to savings and away from insane fees.

Getting Back To Even

My company just increased everyone's salaries a bit more in an effort to get us back to our original salary levels before the reduction in February 2009.

My salary reduction was 10% last year and my company, through incremental increases, has raised it back 7.5%. So, I just have 2.5% to go before I'm back to my salary level before the reduction. Great news!

More Bonus Money

My wife received a $3,308.00 gross ($1,217.53 net) quarterly bonus today! 15% of the gross, or $496.25, was automatically deposited into her 401(k). We plan to tithe 10% of the gross and deposit the balance into savings. What a blessing!

January 2010 Income Statement

January was another strong income month and an okay spending month (click on spreadsheet below).

Our incomes dipped a bit in January with my 15% 401(k) contribution kicking in, reducing my paychecks from $1,818.76 to $1,668.40. We certainly felt the missing $300 this month, but the sacrifice is worth it and we’ll get used to it. In addition to my wife’s $110 company reimbursement for internet and cell phone, we earned a $50 Chase credit card cash back reward and $62.44 Citi credit card cash back reward.

Our expenses totaled $5,792.05, which isn't horrible. A couple of large expenses included: $455.48 traveling out of state and $233.50 for 6 months of life insurance. I was happy to learn that my new gym is allowing me to pay month-to-month, but giving me the 12 month prepayment rate. This kept us from having to pull a large chuck of change out of savings.

February looks like it may be a great income month and low expense month. My wife should be receiving her quarterly bonus that may be as much as $3,000 gross (~$1,500 net). I will be out of town on business for 1 week next month, hopefully saving us a few bucks on food and gasoline.