Following the end of every month, I take my financials from Quicken and publish a few reports online. I’ve been doing this since 2003 to keep myself accountable for my finances. The balance sheet included in this post measures my “modified net worth.” It’s a list of the present values of my assets my liabilities, not including tax implications or other things that would be hard to put a figure on, like my present value of future earnings.
I’m happy to have come out ahead in November considering the performance of the stock market and my investments. Continue reading to see the numbers, starting with the balance sheet report. Click on the image to open a larger version in which the numbers are readable.
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions.
- The report is made with Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Excel. Here’s a balance sheet Excel template.
- The credit card balance is paid off every month and earns cash back.
- My student loan interest rate is 4.25% and my savings account interest rates range from 4.2% to 4.75%.
- I determine the value of my car using the private party value from edmunds.com, but only several times a year.
Explanations and Details.
The $5,000 increase in savings was assisted by selling my third quarter ESPP shares. I expect to be spending a good amount this month on holiday presents, so it helps to have cash in savings accounts ready to go. For the longer term, I expect to purchase a house within a few years, and I want to make sure I’ll be prepared to make a healthy down payment.
The accounts receivable line is mostly side business income that accrues throughout the month and is paid 30 days later. This amount fluctuates from month to month.
Although I pump 25% of my day-job salary into my 401(k), its value declined during the month of November. This month, about $1,000 was added to my 401(k), including employer matching contributions. Despite the contributions, the account value decreased $860. The same goes for my Roth IRA. I invested $333 this month, but my account value decreased by $900. I don’t mind the decline while I’m still investing—it means I’ll be getting better prices on investments that should do quite well over the course of several decades.
My credit card value is higher this month, but it is not due to spending. I’ve been accepting income payments from a few advertisers on behalf of the MoneyBlogNetwork throughout the entire year, and I distributed their earnings earlier this month, some via credit card to earn some cash back rewards. The card will be paid off completely before I would be charged any interest.
After a large payment ($5,000) to my student loans in October, I returned to normal monthly payments in November. With savings account interest rates continuing to drop and my loan interest rate remaining steady, I’ll be continuing to accelerate my payoff timetable in 2008.
Please feel free to leave comments with questions or suggestions. Stay tuned for my Income and Expense report, which will be posted tomorrow morning.
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A positive change in networth for Nov? You are one of very few! Congratulations.
Why not pay off that student loan with some of the 42,000 in savings?
Congrats on the positive net worth this month Flexo! With the down markets, I barely squeezed out positive growth this month.
Congratulations on the net worth increase As J.C pointed out, your are definitely one of the few. November was my worst month this year!
Why wouldn’t you take enough money out of savings to pay off your student loans? I would think that it would be better to have that debt completely taken care of, rather than it hanging on endlessly.
That is a great net worth percentage gain. I have only just started to keep track of my net worth and November just squeaked by in the positive range. Your balance sheet is quite impressive. The money in your savings looks great for a downpayment on a house. I had only a fraction of that when buying my house. More would have been better I think.
Well done Flexo! A positive month with the market weighing down your growth is an accomplishment.
At least you came out ahead! Good for you!
I’m sure Flexo will respond, but I’m just noting that he said his savings was anywhere from 4.2 to 4.75 percent, and his student loans were at 4.5…my guess is that the majority of the money is at 4.75, and therefor the loan is “costing” him less than paying it off would. In doing this he still also:
~~Retains liquidity, he’s not spending a large portion of his COH to pay off the load which frees it for a potential job loss or other emergency
~~Continues to build credit history, by making his (possibly automatic) monthly payments…
Only he can tell us for sure, but this is the 2cents from a Junior Business major…
Let’s not forget about the tax deductible interest with Student Loans.
Thanks for the comments everyone! As I mentioned in the article, I want to remain flush with cash for the time being, but also as I mentioned in the article, I will consider being more aggressive about paying down my student loan in 2008, after tax season. Darrin, thanks for summarizing those points.
Mike L: The deduction for student loan interest phases out starting at an AGI of $50,000 and phases out completely at $65,000. I may not qualify for the deduction depending on how my adjustment to income work out.
Thank you for the explanation, I did not know there was a limit. How ironic is this: At the end of the year, my earnings will be about $48,000.00. Should I pass on my 5% raise this January?! Tough call, ha!
I find the “early payoff of student loans” a very interesting topic, and surely will be blogging about it in the near future. My issue is that my savings account is producing 4.7% and my student loan interest rate is 2.75%. However, most student loan payoff schedules are over long time periods (5 – 20 yrs). My issue: is it really worth paying off over such a long time span, because of the period of time you are paying a good amount of interest in total (in terms of $, not %). I have been waffling with this topic for the past couple years, and have come to the conclusion that this is the year to pay my loans of early, and then invest the amount each month, equal to the monthly amount I would be paying student loans.
@Mike As long as the spread between the interest you are charged and the tax adjusted interest you earn is positive, you are coming out ahead by the numbers. You may be paying interest, but you are earning more. At 2.75% I might keep that loan forever!