We have reached the half-way mark for 2009, and time certainly does fly when you keep busy. As long-time readers know, the original purpose of Consumerism Commentary was to keep myself accountable for my own financial decisions and to blog about interesting things I find on the web. I freely admit that Consumerism Commentary has expanded quite a bit since the first post in 2003. One thing that has remained constant is the monthly report of my finances.
So far this year, my “modified net worth” has increased about 30% since the end of 2008. Despite fluctuating levels of income and irregular expenses, this seems to be in line with my earning and saving pattern for the past several years. This modified net worth is not a true net worth because I do not include some items like my household inventory and tax liability. I would also need to include the value of my business to get a full accounting of what I am worth financially, but I just like to keep things simple. I do include the private-party sale value of my car from Edmunds.com even though I do not intend to sell, and I only update the value once or twice a year. And if I decide to buy a house, I would include its value as well.
The quarterly tax payment due in June took a bite out of my monthly income. I plan for this my transferring a portion of my other earned income into an account earmarked for tax payments each month, but income will likely not keep pace with my estimations.
Continue reading to see my balance sheet and income statement without commentary. You can click on the reports to zoom in to full size. If you have reasonable questions, feel free to post them and I will answer. I will include my quarterly investment report in a following post.
Personal balance sheet and net worth statement
Income and expense report
If you have any questions, feel free to post them here.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
It is quite inspiring that, despite the current economic climate, you have managed to do better than you did last year. Keep up the good work, and keep us posted!
I don’t understand how you have no housing costs. Unless I missed something, I don’t see rent, or a house payment. Also, because I am new to reading this, I don’t know if you have family responsibilities, kids, etc. It looks great on paper, but I don’t know the background. What is your business? How did you pay off your student loans and car so quickly?
Amy: Thanks for your questions. I generally don’t repeat my entire back story each month but having some knowledge of my situations definitely helps put the numbers into context. You can see my Rent expense listed under Nondiscretionary Expenses. No family responsibilities other than a pet cat. My business is web publishing, and Consumerism Commentary, this blog, falls into that.
It actually took me a long time to pay off my undergraduate student debt; in fact, for many years I didn’t get very far with that. My graduate degree was paid about 90% by my employer, but I didn’t always use my reimbursements to pay off my loans when my cash flow was tight. So it took me about a year to pay off the rest of the undergraduate and graduate loans.
I made an effort to pay my car off as fast as possible, although it still took a few years. I put extra money towards paying off that debt every so often.