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At the beginning of the 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.
Our Spending Habits in October
We did some spending on home improvement projects and items this month.
One of my goals is to organize our space better so I grabbed some shelves for our laundry room and the home office.
Our house has enough space for us, but it's not used efficiently.
Looking at Mint, here are the biggest expenses from last month:
- Housing (Mortgage, Escrow, HOA, etc): $1,174.75
- Food (Groceries and Eating Out): $529.00
- Bills (Utilities and so forth): $323.90
Things are back to normal – housing and food are the big bills.
Checking and Savings
The bank accounts are holding steady overall. We grabbed some things for the house so the checking account was down a bit, but that was offset by the saving accounts growing.
Retirement Accounts
Ups and downs with the accounts. We went ahead and re-balanced my husband's 401(k) portfolio, so things should be looking a bit better again.
Auto Expenses
Two of the cars are doing well. We still have to sell the 3rd car ( I know, I know…), but it has to be in good working order before we feel right about putting it up for sale.
Right now if you accelerate at about highway speeds it gets a bit shaky. We need to find a mechanic to diagnose the problem as the current one is stumped.
At least gas prices have gone down in our area. I filled up my tank when I saw $3.18/gallon. Let's see how the prices change this month.
House and Mortgage
Our housing bills are our biggest expenses, but we’re not too worried as that total also includes the extra mortgage payments we send in.
Student Loans
Things are steadily moving down with the student loan balance. We've automated payments since now we're ahead of the student loan service's schedule.
Hopefully, when the car situation is resolved we can focus on our full attention on getting rid of this 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 October 31, 2012): $71,852.01 (+$241.05)
Well, staying steady is better than losing money I guess 😛 Let's see how the rest of 2012 turns out.
I'd love to hear from you on your progress. How about you? How are you doing with your finances right now?