6-Month Net Worth Update: Up 74%

Welcome to our semi-annual net worth update voyeur show! Every 6 months, I offer a sneak peak into our current assets and liabilities, allowing you to see an overview of where we’re improving and where we still have work to do on our countdown to a positive net worth. That’s one of the goals I set last December for this year and so far, it looks like we’re going to make it!

For starters, here’s a side-by-side comparison between April and October.

November Net Worth Update

Assets

Liquid
We did a lot better on the asset side than the liabilities side over the past 6 months. Our cash didn’t really increase all that much, but we’ve been making it a priority to put away more into my tax account (converted from our old emergency fund account) since I’m earning more from my freelancing than I was 6 months ago. We also started a new emergency fund, which is getting a little love every month (not as much as I’d like, but better than nothing).

Illiquid
The IRA was doing pretty good until the market tanked for a few weeks, wiping out a lot of the progress we had made. The 401(k) has been pretty awesome, though. It’s kinda nice working for a company that puts in 7.5% to my 6% 🙂 My wife’s teacher retirement, from what we assume, is still at the same level. I say “from what we assume” because apparently the state of Arkansas still hasn’t figured out how to use technology well enough to give its employees access to balances other than the annual report. Sort of odd…

Liabilities

We’re still trucking on student loans right now. Sometime in May or June I decided to start paying $100/month to mine instead of the minimum $93.55. Haven’t missed it so far 🙂 We’d like to get to a point where we can start paying those bad boys down more quickly, but it will be a little longer before that happens.

For our auto loan, we’re actually talking about replacing one of our beaters soon. It’s starting to make the type of noises that make you wonder if the whole thing is just going to fall apart on the freeway. While that’s obviously going to mean adding more debt (ugh), it does mean we have something more reliable for when the baby comes. I’m also thinking I might add our vehicles back in as an asset, even if they’re depreciating, just because we’ve worked so hard to get above $0 that I’d probably freak out if we had to start all over again. More on that when I get around to doing it…

One thing that set us back was an ER room visit in August, causing me to start feeling a little helpless about our debt. In total, the bill came out to be about $1400. Fortunately, we’re able to make interest-free payments, so we’re not super interested in paying those down too quickly. We decided, however, to start paying off our my in-laws faster using money we’re generating from our new efforts to pay off debt more quickly. We’re hoping to have that totally paid off in the next month or two and then we can move forward to other things.

And just a quick reminder, all of our credit card debt is paid off in full, with payments made every couple of weeks or so. We have never paid interest in credit cards and we never plan to. I include it here because that’s the balance at the end of the month.

Year to Date

In general, I’m pretty happy with where we are. We started off the year $8,173 in the hole. We had a huge spike in March when my wife got her last check from her teaching job, which included income for time she had worked last summer that they hadn’t paid her for yet. Then we ate it all again with the move down to Texas that month and some car-related expenses the next month.

It’s been a long road since we started our journey just a little over a year ago. We’ve had some crazy life changes and have gone through a lot of stress of wondering whether we’d be able to reach our goals. But in the end, what matters most is that we’re both probably the happiest we’ve ever been in our marriage, and we’re both freaking stoked for our baby to come next February. We’ve also been extremely blessed with different opportunities that have come my way in the freelancing realm.

And we’ve also been able to have a lot of fun! And since fun to us usually means traveling, here is just a smattering of the opportunities we’ve had this year to travel without having to spend a lot.

1. My wife got to go to Phoenix in April for a women’s conference (about $500)
2. We went to Galveston for Memorial Day weekend (mostly paid for by credit card rewards–we paid about $150)
3. We made multiple car trips up to Arkansas in May, June and August to visit family
4. My wife went back to Phoenix for a women’s retreat (paid for by a scholarship)
5. I went to FinCon in New Orleans in September (paid mostly by a scholarship, the rest was made up within a month from a client I gained while down there)
6. We went to Disneyland in October with my family (mostly paid for by credit card rewards–we paid about $500)

So overall, 2014 has been good to us. A lot better than 2013 was. We definitely have a lot to be thankful for. And barring any crazy things happening, the rest of the year should be just as awesome.

How are your 2014 financial goals turning out? Do you do a net worth update for yourself?