Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Net Worth & Expenses September 08

My net worth at the end of September was $337,831, quite a drop from the previous month, of course! No need to go into much detail there, as the reasons for the decline should be obvious.

As for expenses in September, some notable lines:

  • Clothing $272. I really need to stop buying any new clothes, as I'm over budget for the year.
  • Dining $642. Amazingly enough, this doesn't seem to include a single bottle of wine, probably because I stocked up last month.
  • Entertainment $5. Netflix only.
  • Miscellaneous $267. This includes about $100 for two posters I bought. Framing expenses will show up later!
  • Travel $339. This includes a couple hundred dollars for a little weekend escape. This was kind of a naughty extravagance-- the trip was actually a birthday present to me, such an over-generous one that I insisted on paying for part of it!
Not much else of interest to report, just the usual household bills, etc. But at least when all was said and done, my net savings for the month were $1442. I'd rather they had been more, as that is basically just my 401k deductions and barely anything additional.

Now I'm just hoping that October doesn't turn out to be quite so dreadful-- at one point a few days ago, my net worth had dropped slightly below $300,000 but hopefully I can keep myself above that line! Onwards and upwards!

6 comments:

Miss M said...

It's definitely gut check time. I'm losing large percentages but since I don't have that much invested (years of digging out of debt) the absolute dollar value isn't bad compared to those with hundreds of thousands in investments. I'm also not able to make my investment goals this year, I wanted to have X amount in my retirement funds by years end and it won't happen cause I'm losing money faster than I'm investing it. Here's to hoping this gets better soon!

Anonymous said...

You did pretty well with your spending. Nothing you couldn't afford - and travel is worth it.

I am in the same boat on the drop in Net Worth. So mad because I was on track to really making my Net Worth end of year goal and think I'm going to behind by a few months now at least.

For clothing, maybe clean your closet and see if you can rediscover something, or have a swap with some friends. I'm sure you can make it till the end of the year as long as you don't need to buy Halloween costumes, winter clothing staples, or X-Mas party outfits -- which is reasonable.

Hey, did you see mention of the candidates losses in the recent market nosedive? Obama has lost about $100,000 and Cindy McCain like -- I think 1.1 million. So we are in good company I suppose.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/10/13/2008-10-13_stock_market_dive_batters_barack_obama_c.html

Anonymous said...

Whoops, here is that blurb:

"Stock market dive batters Barack Obama, clobbers Cindy McCain

By Michael McAuliff
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

Tuesday, October 14th 2008, 1:11 AM

Barack Obama has lost as much as $100,000 in the Dow's nosedive. John McCain hasn't lost a dime - but his beer baroness wife sure has.

The GOP presidential nominee has few assets, with his millionaire heiress wife, Cindy, holding all the family purse strings. "

Anonymous said...

Luckily, I didn't do too bad this year. Of course, I go against the conventional "wisdom" and market time.

I do need to get a handle on my expenses. Definitely a few purchases I don't need.

Anonymous said...

Argh... this is extremely frustrating. I was going to reach $1 million in October 2007, then the stock market started going down... And in the last year, I had saved enough to make up the difference and would have gotten to that mark by the end of September, then the financial crisis intervened.

Anonymous said...

I'm wondering how much of your monthly expenses you could write off by having your own home business and legitimately converting them to business deductions. I think you'd be surprised at how much more of your own money you could keep.