April 2009 Net Worth – $84,608.02

April earned us our second largest net worth increase ever. I suppose it's still too early to say things are turning around.

November 2008 Net Worth – $73,317.70

Hopefully the stock sale will continue into January (I have no doubts that it will) so I can load up our 2009 Roth IRA's at these discount prices. Interestingly enough, it was exactly two years ago, in November of 2006, that my Roth IRA surpassed the $20,000 mark for the first time. Back then little did I imagine that I would pass the same mark again 2 years later in November of 2008, but this time heading in the wrong direction. My net worth for the year is currently only positiv...

October 2008 Net Worth – $77,508.84

An important part of determining your asset allocation is knowing your risk tolerance. Unfortunately, you never really know your risk tolerance until you start watching your money disappear. When markets are climbing, everyone thinks they have a high risk tolerance and they load up on stocks because it's not worth getting some safety from investments like bonds which have lower returns. If, during these rough times, you find yourself wanting to sell your stocks or move all your mone...

September 2008 Net Worth – $86,009.44

What can I say, the financial crisis is doing an efficient job of giving our investment portfolio a beat down. It is looking increasingly impossible for us to hit $100,000 by the end of the year. We've increased our net worth by about $14,000 so far this year, and we're still about $14,000 away. It's not fun to consider things like the fact that 1 year ago my Roth IRA was worth more than it is today and I've investing $5,000 into it since then. So much for compounding interest. Re...

August 2008 Net Worth – $88,811.12

June and July were a bit rough on our net worth, so we were glad that August turned out to be a pretty decent month for us. A $3,471.82 gain is our 3rd highest gain this year, and our 7th highest gain of all time. I've accumulated a bit of money in my Emigrant Direct account which will hopefully find its way into an investment opportunity in the coming months. We'll need the last 4 months of the year to be similar to this one if we are going to finish the year anywhere near where we w...

July 2008 Net Worth – $85,339.30

We managed to just eek out a positive month in July. It's a little frustrating to watch my portfolio continually get beat down, but I'm staying the course and anticipating the eventual bounce back. The wife is no longer working, so we're down to one income. Her school schedule for the upcoming semester just didn't allow time for fitting in even a part time job. We've moved from DINK's to SINK's. On the positive side, a couple of investment opportunities have presented themse...

June 2008 Net Worth – $84,881.80

I ran these numbers at the beginning of the month, but I haven't gotten around to publishing them until now. Maybe because the numbers were kind of depressing. June was pretty brutal to the stock market and we felt the effects in all of our investment accounts. Our last two months were pretty strong so it kind of stinks to take a step backwards this month. See the results below. (more…)

May 2008 Net Worth – $87,264.27

After having our largest net worth increase ever last month, we followed it up this month with our 2nd largest ever net worth increase, beating the previous record by just a few dollars. Two strong months in a row like that let me know we are doing something right. We hit a couple of minor milestones this month as my 401k crossed $20k and my Roth IRA crossed $30k. Our entire net worth 1 year ago was only a little over $50k, so it's kind of cool to have that in just two accounts today...