At the beginning of the month we examine last month’s finances and see how it’s affected our net worth. The purpose of the net worth reviews is to give us a regular system to look at our accounts, see what’s changed, and analyze what went well and what we need to work on.
April was a month of money moving around. We had taxes to pay for my business, our car needed to be repaired, student loans were paid down, and we opened IRA as we simplified our finances.
The Debt Movement Over?
So April was the end of The Debt Movement‘s 90 day challenge. If you remember Jeff had a huge goal of getting $10 million paid off. It was reached, but in just 3 months over $415,000 of debt was eliminated.
How about us? We paid off $4,362.13 off since January 1st. That means we decreased our student loan balance by 25%! Just because the 90 day challenge is over doesn’t mean we’ll quit on getting rid of the student loan. The challenge was the perfect jump-start for the year.
We’re planning and scheduling extra payments for the rest of the year. Let’s see how much we can get rid off in 2013!
Things Are Looking Up in Our Neighborhood
It looks like things are picking up in our development. Sales have seemed to increase and building is winding down as builders are finishing up with the last court of homes being built.
One of our neighbors recently listed their place for sale. We’re thinking of putting our place for sale, but we’re waiting to see how things go with them. They have a similar layout and square footage to our townhouse, so that makes us a bit more curious to see what it sells for. They listed it higher than we estimated for our places, but they may be right on the money.
In the meantime, we continue with our mortgage payments as usual and we’re prepping the house should be make the move to put it on sale.
Car Troubles
The Celica had the same problems last month with it once in a blue moon not starting. We took it into the shop and it was a defective battery. After swapping it and testing it out for about a week, the mechanic said it looked good. Let’s hope that it stays in good condition for awhile.
Retirement Accounts
Our retirement contributions aren’t included in our joint expenses above simply because they are taken out before the money hits our accounts. For the most part, everything is automated, so we just check on a monthly basis that the accounts are alright.
We’re not planning on making any changes to our retirement contribution amounts right now as we focused on paying down our debt.
Thoughts on April
Now that everything has been summarized, it’s time to look at the numbers. Here’s our net worth from the spreadsheet:
Net Worth (as of April 30, 2013): $92,587.85
Happy to say are finances are moving in the right direction. I shared our progress and bumps in April. Any tips? I’d love to hear from you about your family’s own money review. How was last month for you?
