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Our Spending Habits in August
It’s time for another net worth review at Couple Money!
I'm surprised at how quickly 8 months fly by. The big news this month was we lost a car and we gained a new one.
I'll explain more below, but I find it amusing that we got into a car accident on the first of August and we bought a car on the last day of August.
Eating out was a bit of an issue here this month. One reason was that sharing a car and commuting sucked up a lot of our time.
Homemade meals at our place typically need to be planned out, so we cheated and just ate out more instead.
Checking & Savings
Our balances definitely looked great as we logged into bank accounts, but a big chunk of it will be gone come next month.
We've kept the $8,000 tax credit in our bank accounts until we had the car situation settled.
Now that we have bought the car (less than we budgeted!), we'll go ahead and schedule a large payment to knock down our principle on our mortgage.
Between that money and the cash we spent on the car, our balances will be a bit lower. It's still looks as if we're growing our accounts, so I'm happy with our progress.
Our Cars
We purchased our new vehicle this week and my husband is excited about it. It was about time to update the cars' values anyways. For our the value of the new car, I used Kelley Blue Book and CarFax.
The good news is that we got a fair deal and the car looks to be good enough to last a few years. Let's hope we're right. 🙂
We paid cash for our car because we want to not have car payments. If you’re looking for tips on paying off your car loan faster, we shared our own family plan for getting it done.
Our Retirement Accounts
We're having a bit of a problem with accessing one of the accounts. It seems as the company handling it has a confusing way to login and now we've been blocked.
I have Quicken keep track of the portfolio, so we're not totally in the dark. Hopefully, Human Resources can get that fixed quickly.
House and Mortgage
No real changes here, I hope next month, we'll share a big decrease during the monthly.
Here’s where we stand today with the mortgage:
- Total Loan Amount: $121,573.41
- Interest Rate: 5.00%
- Loan Term: 30 years, fixed rate
If we continue to pay $150/month extra towards principle, our 30-year mortgage will become a 20-year mortgage. That means we’ll save $42,408.57 in interest payments!
Student Loans
Like the past few months, we’re chugging along with the student loan payments.
Payments have been automated so it’s been relatively easy; we just confirm payments have been made each month.
Monthly Summary
After tallying up all the accounts, I’m happy to report we’re growing our net worth.
I was really upset with the car accident as we had to go hunting for a car.
I was worried that we might have to go over budget and dip into our emergency funds, but thankfully we didn't.
Net Worth (as of August 31st, 2010): $38,543.59 (+7,350.19)
Your Net Worth Update
How are you doing with your finances? How are you doing in 2010 so far?