October 2010 Income Statement

October was a pretty typical income month and a much lower than normal expense month.

In addition to our paychecks, my wife received a $75 reimbursement from her company for internet and cell phone and a $50 Chase credit card reward. They had planned to pay out the Q3 bonus this month, but for various reasons, it has been delayed until December.

Our expenses have slowly crept up over time, so mid October, we decided to challenge ourselves to spend less. I’m happy to report that we did a great job watching each dollar. We spent a total of $4,881.01. Not too bad considering we’ve averaged ~$6,000/month the past six months.

November seems like it might be a pretty normal month. We hope to continue our re-found frugal ways

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October 2010 Net Worth Update +($4,767.46)

I'll be on a business trip next week, so I am posting our net worth update early.

We were blessed with another very good net worth increase month. Our net worth increased $4,767.46 from last month, to a total of $104,360.92 (click on spreadsheet below).

What Worked

Our biggest achievement this month was passing the $100,000 net worth milestone. What a great feeling. We contributed $1,313 to our retirement accounts and saw them increase $3,943.63 to $75,823.18. We also increased our savings account balance $990.98 to $5,722.77.

What Didn’t Work

Everything went great this month.

Next Month

November looks like it may be a fairly typical month, and I mean that in a good way. If things go as planned, we should pass our $105,700 2010 net worth goal a month early. That would then give us all of December to get a head start on our 2011 net worth goal of $138,100.

Net Worth Milestone - $100,000

We passed a net worth milestone of $100,000. We hit our last net worth milestone, $90,000, back in April.

Psychologically, $100,000 represented a big hurdle that didn't seem obtainable when we started tracking our net worth in February 2007. At the time, we had a negative net worth of -$3,168.85. Setting a plan and trusting in God allowed us to reach this goal. And there are many more ahead...

Our spreadsheet suggests we will hit our next milestone of $110,000 around March. I will update our net worth meter (on the left side of the screen) at the end of the month.

September 2010 Income Statement

September was a good month for our income and expenses (see spreadsheet below).

In addition to our paychecks, my wife received a $500 gross ($280.10 net) special bonus and $75 reimbursement from her company for internet and cell phone. We also received a $100 in cash back rewards from our credit cards and an $89.63 auto insurance refund. Not too shabby.

Expenses were more or less in-line with our budget. We each got $140 in extra fun money (we’ve been doing that a lot lately), my wife went on a trip with her friends / family, we bought a few things for the Jeep, and we’ve purchased ~$250 in items for a camping trip we are taking in October.

October seems like it might be a pretty normal month. No large bills are looming and our income should be average.