Marriage is totally redeeming itself right now! Last month was, well, mediocre as far as our finances were concerned. But now that Girl Ninja is bringing in the big bucks, and the stock market is actually doing pretty decent, things are looking up. In fact, this month is the first time in history my Roth IRA balance has surpassed my contributions! It’s about darn time!
Here’s what went down…
Assets:
Checking Account: $5,532, +$971. Gotta love the joint checking account. Money in, money out. That’s the way it goes. I’ve heard rumors some big banks are eliminating “free checking”. Don’t know what I’ll do if I have to start paying for this service. Maybe keep it all under my mattress?
Savings Accounts: $18,089, +$302. I can’t for the life of me figure out where this $302 increase came from, but I’ll take it. It’s kind of like finding money in your pocket. Booya!
Roth IRA: $15,130, +$485. Like I mentioned above. This is the first time since I began investing in 2007, that my Roth IRA balance is actually larger than my investments. I’m a little bummed that the markets have shot up so much though because I’m ready to buy in for this year and would like to get in a little cheaper. Usually October is a pretty crappy stock month, not so much the case this year.
TSP (401K): $18,198, +$1,320. The standard 5% contribution heads this direction each month. I also get that 5% fully matched. I invest in virtually the same funds in both my Roth IRA and in my 401K so they generally perform the same. Pretty boring stuff if you ask me.
Liabilities:
Student Loan: $0. Still loving that paid off school loan. I’ve been debt free for 6 months now and it feels WONDERFUL!
Credit Card: $1,653, +$2,251. We use our credit card for our day to day spending, as a result the balance widely varies (but gets paid off every month). Last month our balance was almost $4,000. Why do we use our CC instead of a debit card you wonder? Because we LOVE free airline miles!
You see all those green numbers? That means we had a good month! In fact, we managed to move upwards about $5,300 in the last 30 days. That’s a lot more than the $2,000ish gain I’m use to! Dual Income is pretty much the greatest thing ever! Our total Net Worth is now $55,388 (this time last year, my net worth was $22,420). We still have a long way to go before we break our newest $100,000 NW goal, but we will hopefully get there in the next few years!
Sorry to those of you that hate these updates, but they’ve really been helpful for me. I hope you’ll suffer through them once a month 
And if you’re really nosey you can see all of my net worth updates here.
**I chose not to include ‘possessions’ (including our cars) in our NW calculations, which would probably increase our worth by about $15,000.**
{ 32 comments }
Oh, I don’t hate net worth updates (I do them myself), I just hate that you make so much more money than me.
This is me too.
I’m really glad I can be a source of bitterness for you
Mission accomplished
Seriously! I love the updates. Thanks for this site – its inspiring and helpful! Glad I found it.
Oh, also, seeing as you’ve managed to beat Thesis into submission… you wouldn’t happen to mind beating it into submission on my blog too, would you? It’s making me want to stab myself in the neck. Or, if you found an affordable Thesis Ninja, point me in their direction, eh? Thanks
I too am impressed that you actually put so much effort into formatting your thesis layout. It looks really good. I didn’t mess around with mine as much as I probably should have. Once my blog hits 100,000 alexa, I think I’ll finally put a relevant header page, get a gravatar and give my site a makeover.
It’s hard enough to just be able to find time to write and comment for now.
Oh, I have plenty of time to write, just no material, which leaves plenty of time to play around with Thesis, just having trouble wrapping my head around it. My coding skills have gone to hell.
I would definitely recommend getting a gravatar sooner than later, though – that’s another thing I’ve been working on, one that’s easily recognizable like Debt Ninja’s is. Waiting til your Alexa rank hits a certain number is almost like saying “I’ll attack my debt with gazelle intensity once I’m out of debt” – it’s something that will *help* you get to that goal, not something that should wait until you hit that goal, because by then there’s not much point.
Wait, so you’re debt free but you have a CC balance?
I’m missing something here PD!
At any rate, I did the calculations on my CC to see the points versus the return, and apparently my program returns 1%. That is not too shabby at all.
Going up $5k is no joke! CONGRATS
FB- the credit card balance is what will be due on my credit card bill for the month. I guess technically it is debt, but we pay it off in full each month so it never accumulates interest. Make sense now?
Great job Ninja! Dual income is AWESOME!! Glad to see that you guys are using it the right way and crushing it with your savings!!
Thanks Tim. We gotta be diligent with what we have now, so when tough times come (as they always do) we will be prepared as best we can.
Dual income DOES rock our world, and it’ll be even better when hubby starts his better-paying job next week! With OT and the extra dollars he’ll be earning hourly, he’ll be bringing home almost an extra $700/month… we’re not only punching debt in the face, we’re gonna round-house kick it in the cajones! BOYAH!!
I love reading about your financial updates, Ninja… makes me wish I’d taken my finance as seriously when I was your age! Keep up the awesome work!
An extra $700/month is huge….wanna cut me in on a little slice of that pie?
I totally enjoy the “net worth” updates. I find them helpful in general, to see how others are doing to compare our own growth.
Since I’m not American, could you explain the difference between the Roth IRA and the TSP (401K), and what they are specifically, and how they impact your income tax? I’m guessing one is a pension plan and the other is a registered retirement savings plan, and they both allow for a tax rebate at the end of the year? Could you elaborate? Thanks Ninja!
I second Makky’s request, Ninja; I’m Canadian and have wondered the same things myself.
Check out Arnie’s comments, two down from here, he explained the Roth and 401K pretty darn good and related it to some of your Canadian investment vehicles too! If you are still confused let me know and we will make sense of it
Your net worth update makes me want to go out and marry a girl with a good job. Today.
Rather than explaing the difference between the 401(k) and Roth (unless Ninja wants to) it might help to know that the 401(k) is like RRSPs (pre-tax or tax rebate at end of year, and then taxed on withdrawl) and the Roth is like our TFSA (we were quite behind in bringing this out, compared to the US; money is already taxed but any earnings off the money is not taxed).
Got it! Thanks for the explanation, Arnie!
Ya, ditto, thanks a bunch. Makes much more sense now!
Thanks Arnie for communicating what I never would have been able to. I’ve heard the RRSP mentioned before but never the TFSA. I just learned something new
I don’t mind these posts. In fact, I do one myself. Instead of tracking my debt, I’d love to be tracking my net worth. Baby steps.
Good job on the gains!
Being a DINK is awesome, isn’t it? Our nw went up $7000 this month.
I actually posted my nw update today as well as a blog stat update…my nw is doing better, lol.
Totally jealous of your $7,000 increase. That’s awesome! p.s. I love your blog stat updates.
Dual income is absolutely the KEY to accumulating net worth! You only have to work half as hard to get to your goal.
Accomplish your goal twice as fast sounds better actually.
Why don’t you count your cars towards your net worth?
We don’t count cars because we need them. We can’t really sell them, because if we did, we’d just have to go buy new ones. It’s a value that will never be realized.
What if you had nice, old school cars, that would appreciate in value? Would you count those? A car collection if you will.
Sure. Difference is it’s a collection. If I had a $10,000 baseball card sitting in a box I would count that to, cause I could sell it with virtually no impact on my life. Selling a car I use everyday to get to and from work, not so much.
I love joint savings and checking. What I like the most – my total control of it.
Congratulations! My net worth update: it’s officially positive!!! I am now worth $604.07! Or at least I was yesterday, I did buy lunch today for $4.00. Next up: positive net worth not counting 401(k), then paying off the car!