It’s the beginning of a new month (and a new year!), which means it’s time for me to 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.

Of course we’d love to see the numbers increase, but the review is more about the how and the why behind the numbers.

Our Spending Habits in December

December was busy! We had our anniversary last month and we went out of town that weekend. We had friends get married and we helped friends move.

Here are our 3 biggest expenses last month as calculated by Mint:

• Housing (Mortgage, Escrow, HOA, etc): $1,221.60
• Food (Groceries & Eating Out): $497.55
• Shopping: $381.94

All in all a good month for us considering how much we had going on.

Checking & Savings

Big news for us this month was a year end bonus that my husband received from his job. It helped bumped up the numbers a bit, but I’m proud to say that we also increased our savings on our own. We had transferred into the joint account and the car replacement fund.

Retirement Accounts

Good progress on them for 2011. My husband’s 401(k) has steadily been going up and it’s bumped up our assets a bit this month. We’re focusing on long term goals with our investing. We’re not planning on making any changes to our retirement contributions right now – just continuing at the pace we’ve been going.

Cars and Auto Expenses

Our cars are still moving and no repairs this month (yay!). That’s helping us as we saving up to pay cash for the next family car. We hope to get a car sometime next year so we have to get our car replacement fund goal before then. Gasoline was more than normal as we drove to visit family and friends last month in Virginia. In case you’re wondering how I calculate the vehicles’ values, I used Kelly Blue Book. Every quarter I’ll update the values to account for depreciation.

Student Loans

Nothing exciting to report here. It’s the same old, same old. We have one student loan between us. Right now we’re continuing with the automatic monthly withdrawals for the student loan payments. This gives us a slight discount on the interest rate as an added bonus. It’s been relatively easy to keep up with them; we just confirm payments have been made each month from our joint checking.

It’ll be nice if the refinance happens as it could free up a little bit of money to pay this down a bit faster.

House and Mortgage

The mortgage payments are chugging along. As part of our usual routine, our automated extra principal payment (now $175) was sent in on the 15th of the month. Happy to report that we managed to knock off a few years already with those extra payments.

Here’s where we stand today with the mortgage:

• Total Loan Amount: $108,230.92
• Interest Rate: 5.00%
• Loan Term: 30 years, fixed rate

Our goal is to pay off our mortgage years before we retire.  Right now our timeline is about 15 years, instead of the 30 years we signed up for.  Once our mortgage payoff is accomplished, we’d love to be able to direct that money into other interests and goals of ours down the road.

I contacted Wells Fargo about a streamline refinance, hope fully we’ll hear from them this week and get a quote. If we can get a solid deal then that money saved will go towards that student loan.

Monthly Summary

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 December 31, 2011): $71,999.38 (+$6,393.71)

We’re happy to end the year on a plus. We got quite a bit of work to do this year if we want to continue this trend.

Your Net Worth Update

I shared our progress; now I’d love to hear from you. How are you doing with your finances? Was 2011 a good year for you and your family?

This Month’s Goals

This month we’re looking at updating our life insurance policies, will, and other accounts and paperwork should something bad happen to us. We also have to come up with a list of people who we think would be a good fit for guardians of our baby. After coming up with hat list we have to ask them if they’d be interested and go from there.

If any of you have done chose your guardian, could you please share your stories? How did you approach them? Did those at the top of your list accept?

Photo Credit: borman818

Thank you again for subscribing to Couple Money! Here some recent popular topics from the site:

• Save on Baby Expenses
• Pay Down Debt Faster
• Making More Money
• Giving Back
• Mortgages and Real Estate
• Retire Rich

It’s the beginning of a new month, which means it’s time for me to examine last month’s finances and see how it’s affected our net worth. While I do get excited to see the numbers move up, I’m not devastated if they decrease. We’re more concerned with learning where our money goes.

It’s a great exercise to help us see where we’re doing well and what we can improve on.

Our Spending Habits in November

November was a good month. I knew that even before I checked Mint. We  didn’t have any big expenses come up. Our cat his vet visit, but it was just for a check-up and his rabies shot. I think the 50/50 Challenge was also a factor. I wanted to try and cut back on some expenses.

Food was up, but when I checked it was due our trip to Virginia and all the stops we made to 7-11, lol. They don’t have any in North Carolina, so we went there every day of our trip.

Here are our 3 biggest expenses last month as calculated by Mint:

• Housing (Mortgage, Escrow, HOA, etc): $1,140.75
• Food (Groceries & Eating Out): $497.55
• Bills/Utilities: $381.94

Next month I imagine spending will be a bit up as we’ll be out of town for a weekend and it’s going to be our 5th anniversary. I got my gifts planned out and my money saved, so I will be spending it shortly!

Checking & Savings

Things are continuing to pick up with savings as we have the buffer in place for checking and we put some money into the car replacement fund. We opened a savings account for our baby girl and will deposit money gifts we receive from family.

Retirement Accounts

It looks like our retirement funds doing a bit better. Happy to see our accounts grow. Never knowing what will come up next in the short term, we’re focusing on long term goals with our investing. We’re still not planning on making any changes to our retirement contributions right now as we have some more immediate financial goals we’d like to reach this year.

However, we’ll be talking about our 2012 plans soon and we’ll look at our retirement accounts a bit more.

Cars and Auto Expenses

Our cars are still moving and no repairs this month (yay!). That’s helping us as we saving up to pay cash for the next family car. We hope to get a car sometime next year so we have to get our car replacement fund goal before then. Gasoline was more than normal as we drove to visit family and friends last month in Virginia.

In case you’re wondering how I calculate the vehicles’ values, I used Kelly Blue Book. Every quarter I’ll update the values to account for depreciation.

Student Loans

Nothing exciting to report here. It’s the same old, same old. We have one student loan between us. Right now we’re continuing with the automatic monthly withdrawals for the student loan payments. This gives us a slight discount on the interest rate as an added bonus. It’s been relatively easy to keep up with them; we just confirm payments have been made each month from our joint checking.

I do want to make paying this loan down/off  a priority in 2012. The balance is creeping down and I’d like to see it drop quicker. That means we have to look at the budget and decide how we’re going to do this.

House and Mortgage

The mortgage payments are chugging along. As part of our usual routine, our automated extra principal payment (now $175) was sent in on the 15th of the month. When deciding on how much we were going to send in to our lender, our main focus was creating something sustainable and had some impact with the mortgage.

Here’s where we stand today with the mortgage:

• Total Loan Amount: $108,615.65
• Interest Rate: 5.00%
• Loan Term: 30 years, fixed rate

Our goal is to pay off our mortgage years before we retire.  Right now our timeline is about 15 years, instead of the 30 years we signed up for.  Once our mortgage payoff is accomplished, we’d love to be able to direct that money into other interests and goals of ours down the road.

Absolutely no progress on operation refinance in November. I’ve get on it this month – it can mean some big savings for us in the long run.

Monthly Summary

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 November 30, 2011): $65, 605.37 (+1,475.64)

Your Net Worth Update

We’re happy to have nudged up a bit more and look good for reaching our 2011 financial goals. I shared our progress; now I’d love to hear from you. How are you doing with your finances? How are you doing in 2011 so far?

Photo Credit: borman818

Thank you again for subscribing to Couple Money! Here some recent popular topics from the site:

• Save on Baby Expenses
• Pay Down Debt Faster
• Making More Money
• Giving Back
• Mortgages and Real Estate
• Retire Rich

It’s the beginning of a new month, which means it’s time for me to examine last month’s finances and see how it’s affected our net worth. While I do get excited to see the numbers move up, I’m not devastated if they decrease. We’re more concerned with learning where our money goes.

It’s a great exercise to help us see where we’re doing well and what we can improve on.

Our Spending Habits in October

Overall October has been a great month. We’ve been doing pretty well with our budget. However I think this month we should go ahead and review it again to make sure it’s still fairly accurate for our income and spending patterns.

Here are our 3 biggest expenses last month as calculated by Mint:

• Housing: $1,185.75
• Food/Groceries: $550.33
• Travel: $332.38

These numbers reflect the other portion of the Financial Blogger Conference expenses. Yes we spent a bit more than intended, but this was our (working) vacation as a family. My husband and I had a great time in Chicago and we spent some time with friends.

Checking & Savings

Things are slowly picking up with joint savings. Happy to report that our buffer is still in the checking account. By having a little extra in there, we also have a little more peace of mind should some irregular payment comes up.

Retirement Accounts

It looks like our retirement funds came up a bit in the market last month. Never knowing what will come up next in the short term, we’re focusing on long term goals with our investing. We’re still not planning on making any changes to our retirement contributions as we have some more immediate financial goals we’d like to reach this year.

We took care of our savings for the baby and now we’re saving up for our next vehicle. We’ll look at our retirement accounts and contributions next month and figure if they can be increased in 2012. It looks like we may have a little bit of wiggle room for that.

Cars and Auto Expenses

Our cars are still moving and no repairs this month (yay!). That’s helping us as we saving up to pay cash for the next family car. We hope to get a car sometime next year so we have to get our car replacement fund goal before then. Gasoline expenses have crept up a bit as we’re using my sedan a bit more.

In case you’re wondering how I calculate the vehicles’ values, I used Kelly Blue Book. Every quarter I’ll update the values to account for depreciation.

Student Loans

Nothing exciting to report here. It’s the same old, same old. We have one student loan between us. Right now we’re continuing with the automatic monthly withdrawals for the student loan payments. This gives us a slight discount on the interest rate as an added bonus. It’s been relatively easy to keep up with them; we just confirm payments have been made each month from our joint checking.

If we have any savings in December after reaching our other financial goals for the year, we’re hoping to pay it down. Since this is a reach goal, I’m shooting for $2,000. If we don’t make it we won’t be disappointed, but if we do, it’ll be icing on the cake.

House and Mortgage

The mortgage payments are chugging along. As part of our usual routine, our automated extra principal payment (now $175) was sent in on the 15th of the month. When deciding on how much we were going to send in to our lender, our main focus was creating something sustainable and had some impact with the mortgage.

Here’s where we stand today with the mortgage:

• Total Loan Amount: $108,998.79
• Interest Rate: 5.00%
• Loan Term: 30 years, fixed rate

Our goal is to pay off our mortgage years before we retire.  Right now our timeline is about 15 years, instead of the 30 years we signed up for.  Once our mortgage payoff is accomplished, we’d love to be able to direct that money into other interests and goals of ours down the road.

We’re looking into refinancing our mortgage into a lower rate with a shorter horizon. I’ll keep you posted on what happens next.

Monthly Summary

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 October 31, 2011): $64,129.73 (+$1,005.74)

Your Net Worth Update

We’re happy to have nudged up a bit and we hope to reach our financial goals for 2011. I shared my progress; now I’d love to hear from you. How are you doing with your finances? How are you doing in 2011 so far?

Photo Credit: The Cleveland Kid

Thank you again for subscribing to Couple Money! Here some recent popular topics from the site:

• Save on Baby Expenses
• Pay Down Debt Faster
• Making More Money
• Giving Back
• Mortgages and Real Estate
• Retire Rich

It’s the beginning of a new month, which means it’s time for me to examine last month’s finances and see how it’s affected our net worth. While I do get excited to see the numbers move up, I’m not devastated if they decrease. We’re more concerned with learning where our money goes. It’s a great exercise to help us see where we’re doing well and what we can improve on.

Our Spending Habits in September

I already know we’ve spent more than normal this past month. The biggest expenses involved the Financial Blogger Conference. Besides hotel and car rental expenses, we also grabbed some time to sight-see in Chicago, pick up some clothes for the chillier than we planned weather, and eat out with friends while watching knights (Medieval Times).

Here are our 3 biggest expenses last month as calculated by Mint:

• Housing: $1,176.71
• Food/Groceries: $508.23
• Shopping: $370.23

Housing expenses have remained the same, but food and shopping increase sharply last month. We ate out a bit more this month due to the trip to Chicago and for a game night we hosted at our place. We haven’t had one in almost a year. I didn’t want to do one while I was pregnant and after the baby was born I needed time to just recuperate. Now that we’re getting used to our routine we’ll be trying to host one each month. I’m going to plan ahead more so we can keep our food expenses lower. I shopped last minute for this one and paid too much for the supplies.

As for shopping much of it was for a few items for the house that we wanted for awhile, but were waiting for sale to appear. We bought a small gas grill for our little place and since it’s the end of grilling season we saved some good money with this purchase.

We also found a fantastic deal on Newegg for office chairs. Don’t laugh- having new office chairs has been a wonderful upgrade. My back has been bothering me and when I sat in the new chair, it felt so good. I can’t describe the awesomeness of having a chair that adjusts so well. Our old chairs were hand me downs and pretty much were uncomfortable if you spent a significant time sitting. Since I work from home, this was a problem.

Next month will hopefully look a little better and have our spending more in line with our previous average.

Checking & Savings

In case you missed my earlier post, my husband’s company came through and reimbursed a big portion of the deductible. We’re happy they took care of it promptly and my husband immediately scheduled a transfer into the joint savings.

Retirement Accounts

It looks like our retirement funds took another hit in the market last month. Happy to report it wasn’t anything tragic, but I do hope to see it improve soon.

We’re still not planning on making any changes to our retirement contributions as we have some more immediate financial goals we’d like to reach this year. We took care of our savings for the baby and now we’re saving up for our next vehicle.

I believe once we have some idea of how we’re going to handle our finances as new parents, we’ll look at our retirement accounts and contributions some time in 2012 and adjust accordingly.

Cars and Auto Expenses

Our cars are still moving and no repairs this month. That’s helping us as we saving up to pay cash for the next family car. We hope to get a car sometime next year so we have to get our car replacement fund goal before then.

In case you’re wondering how I calculate the vehicles’ values, I used Kelly Blue Book. Every quarter I’ll update the values to account for depreciation.

Student Loans

We have one student loan between us. Right now we’re continuing with the automatic monthly withdrawals for the student loan payments. This gives us a slight discount on the interest rate as an added bonus. It’s been relatively easy to keep up with them; we just confirm payments have been made each month from our joint checking.

If we have any savings in December after reaching our other financial goals for the year, we’re hoping to pay it down. Since this is a reach goal, I’m shooting for $2,000. If we don’t make it we won’t be disappointed, but if we do, it’ll be icing on the cake.

House and Mortgage

The mortgage payments are chugging along. As part of our usual routine, our automated extra principal payment (now $175) was sent in on the 15th of the month. When deciding on how much we were going to send in to our lender, our main focus was creating something sustainable and had some impact with the mortgage.

Here’s where we stand today with the mortgage:

• Total Loan Amount: $109,380.34
• Interest Rate: 5.00%
• Loan Term: 30 years, fixed rate

Our goal is to pay off our mortgage years before we retire.  Right now our timeline is about 15 years, instead of the 30 years we signed up for. We wanted some wiggle room in case we ever hot a financial speed bump. Once our mortgage payoff is accomplished, we’d love to be able to direct that money into other interests and goals of ours down the road.

Monthly Summary

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 September 30, 2011): $63123.99 (+3,095.42)

Your Net Worth Update

I shared my progress; now I’d love to hear from you. How are you doing with your finances? How are you doing in 2011 so far?

Photo Credit: The Cleveland Kid

Thank you again for subscribing to Couple Money! Here some recent popular topics from the site:

• Save on Baby Expenses
• Pay Down Debt Faster
• Making More Money
• Giving Back
• Mortgages and Real Estate
• Retire Rich

It’s the beginning of the month, which means it’s time to examine last month’s finances and see how it’s affected our net worth. It’s a great exercise to help us see where we’re doing well and what we can improve on.

Our Spending Habits in August

Here are our 3 biggest expenses last month:

• Medical Expenses: $2,237.17
• Housing: $1,140.75
• Food: $372.88

As expected, medical bills for labor & delivery were the big expenses. As for food, we’ve had to fill up on groceries. With the new routine, preparing dinner hasn’t always been a priority and so we’ve had some food ordered or picked up.

Checking & Savings

Our account went down significantly, but it was expected. We received our hospital bill for the baby and the bill and the obstetrical care. It was over $2,000 out of our pockets for the arrival of our lovely baby girl.

Hopefully we’ll get some of the money we paid reimbursed from my husband’s employer. While I would love to include this in our budget (the company has a wonderful track record), as a matter of habit I don’t count it until it’s in our hands.

My wish is that next’s month net worth review includes that money back in our accounts.

Retirement Accounts

It looks like our retirement funds took a bit of a hit last month. Nothing drastic, so we’re not going to change our asset allocation or anything. We’re still not planning on making any changes to our retirement contributions this year. We really wanted to focus on more immediate goals of getting ready for the baby.

I believe once we have some idea of how we’re going to handle our finances as new parents, we’ll look at our retirement accounts and contributions some time in 2012 and adjust accordingly.

Our Cars Expenses

We had my husband’s car repaired (much cheaper than the first estimate) and we’re happy that it’s good to go for now. We hope that it lasts a few years longer. Our goal is to build our car replacement fund for the next vehicle. We hope to get a car sometime next year, our current car is barely sufficient in size for our family. I believe the Jetta can handle until then, so we can sell it for additional funds.

In case you’re wondering how I calculate the vehicles’ values, I used Kelly Blue Book. Every quarter I’ll update the values to account for depreciation.

Student Loans

We have one student loan between us. Right now we’re continuing with the automatic monthly withdrawals for the student loan payments. This gives us a slight discount on the interest rate as an added bonus. It’s been relatively easy to keep up with them; we just confirm payments have been made each month from our joint checking.

If we have any savings in December after reaching our other financial goals for the year, we’re hoping to pay it down. Since this is a reach goal, I’m shooting for $2,000. If we don’t make it we won’t be disappointed, but if we do, it’ll be icing on the cake.

House and Mortgage

The mortgage payments are chugging along. As part of our usual routine, our automated extra principal payment (now $175) was sent in on the 15th of the month. When deciding on how much we were going to send in to our lender, our main focus was creating something sustainable and had some impact with the mortgage.

Here’s where we stand today with the mortgage:

• Total Loan Amount: $109,760.30
• Interest Rate: 5.00%
• Loan Term: 30 years, fixed rate

Our goal is to pay off our mortgage years before we retire.  Right now our timeline is about 15 years, instead of the 30 years we signed up for. We wanted some wiggle room in case we ever hot a financial speed bump. Once our mortgage payoff is accomplished, we’d love to be able to direct that money into other interests and goals of ours down the road.

Monthly Summary

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 August 31, 2011): $60,028.57 (-$777.23)

While we’re not happy to see how our net worth decrease, it wasn’t unexpected. I’m hoping that next month we’ll have the following done:

• Get my husband’s old 401(k) moved into a Roth IRA
• Get our deductible money reimbursed and back into our family fund

Your Net Worth Update

I shared my progress; now I’d love to hear from you. How are you doing with your finances? How are you doing in 2011 so far?

Photo Credit: The Cleveland Kid

Thank you again for subscribing to Couple Money! Here some recent popular topics from the site:

• Save on Baby Expenses
• Pay Down Debt Faster
• Making More Money
• Giving Back
• Mortgages and Real Estate
• Retire Rich