Net Worth Review: June 2012
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I spent a bit more time this month with the monthly net worth review – lots of transactions to sort out. It was harder than normal to sort due to a few trips to stores for multiple purposes (i.e. Wal-Mart & Target).
Our Spending Habits in June
Here are our 3 biggest family related expenses last month as calculated by Mint:
- Housing (Mortgage, Escrow, HOA, etc): $1,198.75
- Auto & Transport: $496.04
- Food (Groceries and Eating Out): $374.52
Happy to see the food expenses stay relatively level. While we do enjoy eating out on occasion, we also like to invite friends over for a meal.
Checking & Savings
Reviewing the accounts brings up something that the two of us need to talk about – savings vs debt reduction. Between all the accounts, the balance has grown and a few options have opened up.
One option is using some of the savings to pay down the student loan. That would significantly speed up paying it off. However it would also mean that we'd be giving up a bit of our financial cushion.
I'm leaning towards paying down the student loan-it would be nice to see the balance drop, but it's a joint decision so we'll figure out what to do together.
Retirement Accounts
Nothing excited has changed with the retirement accounts, we’re still making contributions to the accounts. Focusing on our long term plan, we’ll keep up the automated deposits.
I'm hoping when we get the student loan paid off we can move our attention to these accounts.
Cars and Auto Expenses
We spent about $200 last month to get two tires replaced on the car. I had gotten a flat tire while taking care of errands.
We made some progress with the car situation. We decided which car to sell and which to keep. If anyone is interested in a Celica, please let me know!
We have a little housekeeping to do before we put it up for sale, but hopefully it'll be finished by this weekend. Whatever money we get from the sale will go into the car fund to cover both maintenance for the remaining cars and seed money for whenever we need to replace a car.
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.
House and Mortgage
Here’s where we stand today with the mortgage:
- Total Loan Amount: $105,843.70
- Interest Rate: 5.00%
- Loan Term: 30 years, fixed rate
We're hoping things will turn out well.
Student Loans
Happy to report that several snowball payments were sent to pay down the student loan. The total sent this month was $356.62 with $234.49 (a bit over 65%) going towards principal and the rest going towards interest.
It's kind of frustrating seeing how much is simply going towards paying interest, but it's also motivating me to look for more work so we can increase the contributions.
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 June 30, 2012): $61,640.22 (+$559.13)
Ever so slightly we increased; not great, but it's a move in the right direction.
Photo Credit
Just curious why you haven’t refinanced if you are at 5%. With current rates you could shave 20% off of that if you aren’t planning to move soon.
We did actually tried to refinance a few months, but the appraisal on the house pushed the numbers off and so we’re waiting for the market to adjust.
Wow you did really good on groceries this month! Our bill is like double that or more!
Thanks! I think having the weekly produce delivered has minimized trips to the stores where we usually go over budget.
The grocery budget is impressive – Nicely done! I don’t get a vote, but if I did I’d vote to use savings to pay off student loans. Congrats on a good month.
Thanks; I appreciate your vote! It’s nice to get some outside perspective. Hopefully my husband and I will sit down tonight or tomorrow and talk about it some more.
Elle, have you thought about refinancing? 30-year fixed loans are now around 3.75%. Could save you a good chunk of change! Love how it’s so low in the first place though. Impossible in SF!
S
Thanks Sam; happy to have a smaller mortgage. As for refinancing the numbers aren’t looking in our favor right now. When we tried for a refinance the appraisal was about $20k lower than estimated. That meant we could get from under the PMI, which was our goal. The break even point now for a refinance is also a factor. We’re keeping our eyes open should the numbers work in our favor. Hopefully it’ll be soon as the development is coming to a close.