February 27, 2010

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.

February 17, 2010

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!

February 12, 2010

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!

February 3, 2010

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.