June wasn’t too bad a month– my net worth increased despite the stock market not being all that great. I’m now at approximately $352,752, an increase of 1.6% from last month. Here’s how it divides out. (The figure for Bonds is not up to date, as I haven’t visited the Treasury Direct website lately to check on it due to their very complicated log-in process!)
| Cash & Bank Accounts | $47,778 |
| Retirement Accounts | $193,812 |
| Bonds | $4,860 |
| Stocks/Mutual Funds | $13,677 |
| Home Equity | $94,311 |
| Credit Cards | ($1,686) |
As for expenses, this month I thought I’d do a January-June comparison vs. last year instead of the monthly details.
| Jan-Jun ‘08 | Jan-Jun ‘09 | % var | |
| Income | |||
| Bonus | $15,187 | $11,765 | -23% |
| Gift Received | $100 | $944 | 844% |
| Interest Inc | $605 | $428 | -29% |
| Other Inc | $5,294 | $5,541 | 5% |
| Salary | $46,500 | $48,103 | 3% |
| Tax Refund | $6,024 | $4,211 | -30% |
| TOTAL | $73,710 | $70,992 | -4% |
| Expenses | |||
| Bank Charge | $51 | $70 | 39% |
| Charity | $231 | $261 | 13% |
| Clothing | $1,778 | $1,317 | -26% |
| Dining | $4,305 | $4,079 | -5% |
| Education | $249 | $195 | -21% |
| Entertainment | $104 | $330 | 218% |
| Gifts Given | $997 | -$218 | -122% |
| Household | $867 | $757 | -13% |
| Housing | $7,454 | $10,403 | 40% |
| Medical | $1,001 | $708 | -29% |
| Misc | $3,834 | $1,415 | -63% |
| Taxes Deducted | $17,865 | $16,874 | -6% |
| Recreation | $13 | $0 | -100% |
| Subscriptions | $443 | $461 | 4% |
| Travel | $9,206 | $479 | -95% |
| Utilities | $1,041 | $984 | -5% |
| TOTAL | $49,437 | $38,116 | -23% |
A few notes on the above:
Income was down mainly due to my bonus being lower, and a smaller tax refund, which resulted from lower withholding kicking in.
Gifts Received was high due to an attempt from my mother to advance my sister and me some inheritance!
Interest income is down because interest rates are down.
Dining is a bit skewed due to some stocking up on wine, but aside from that, I was pleased to see a nice decrease here due to buying less breakfast food in delis as opposed to bringing it from home. I also ate dinner in restaurants a bit less, I think– the only complication here is that Sweetie and I often alternate paying for things, so sometimes one of us buys the groceries in exchange for the other paying for a restaurant meal. This makes it a bit more difficult to track how I’m actually spending my food budget.
Entertainment is way up due to the tennis tickets with Mortimer.
Gifts Given was really high last year because I bought my mother a plane ticket, and really low this year because I returned a lot of Christmas presents that I ended up not needing to give people.
Housing isn’t really up that much, it’s just that a tax refund hit during this period last year.
Medical was higher than usual last year due to a lot of shots needed for my trip to Africa.
Miscellaneous was high last year because I bought a new computer.
Travel was way high last year, again due to the Africa trip. No vacation travel yet this year, and nothing major on the horizon! And yes, I swear I will finish the post about that trip someday, maybe on its one-year anniversary!
Utilities are down because I’m not home as much and therefore using less gas and electricity.
All in all, the net results are good: I made less money, but I saved more money. Averaged out, my savings this year were about $5,479 per month total. Even if you just look at my expenses vs. salary YTD, I saved about 21% of my gross pay– and bonus, interest income, etc is all gravy on top of that. That number makes me feel a lot better about surviving a tough economy. Onwards and upwards!
Read more about June 09 Net Worth and Expense Recap…
No comments:
Post a Comment