I’ve spent the last decade of my life focused on my finances. I started because I had no money and a job that was taking more from me than it was providing in income. I knew I had to make some changes if I wanted to build any kind of future for myself. Soon into this journey, I founded this website, where I’ve written about my own financial situation and tracked my balances on a monthly basis.

Over the years, my financial situation has improved. Rather than focusing on and tracking every cent as I was doing in 2003, a necessary step to train myself to save money and value everything I was earning, I now am significantly more relaxed. I still track my bank account balances. Eventually, I stopped tracking every cent I spent with cash. Cash spending became such a small percentage of each month’s income that it became unnecessary for me to enter every receipt (or every remembered transaction for those where no receipt was provided) into Quicken. I have been using credit cards for most expenses. (I was using credit cards to take advantage of rewards, which I didn’t start doing until I was out of debt, spending less than I was earning, and making conscious spending decisions.) The credit cards helped me carefully track my expenses.

My ability to improve my financial condition has been partly due to my public tracking. When my numbers are published online, I have to admit to my mistakes and accept criticism from readers when it’s due. Knowing that I will be reporting the details of my bank accounts helps me to continue making good decisions with my money.

At the end of the year, I take the chance to look at my life from a broader perspective. I now have ten years of history in my Quicken file. I’ll be thirty-six years old in a couple of months, so my finances have been a focus for almost all of my adult life. And for those of you, readers, who know me only through this site, only as “Flexo” or Luke Landes, you may think that an obsession with personal finance rules my life. The good news is that this isn’t true; outside of Consumerism Commentary, when I see my friends and family, personal finance is not usually a topic of discussion.

With ten years of history in Quicken, I can easily see my own financial progress over time. At the end of 2001, the world was still shaking from terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., and my life was uncertain. With no money, no job, no girlfriend, and no place to live, I knew I needed to make changes in my life. That’s what I did.

Continue reading to see the numbers.

If you click on the above image, you can view a larger version of the chart, but you’ll need a wide monitor to see the entire ten-year history.

I recently changed the way I historically report my balances so I no longer include business-related accounts. While this does grant me some flexibility in reporting; theoretically, I could take as much or as little money from the business as necessary as until recently I was the sole owner. As a result of the flexibility to withdraw money from the business, I believe it has become less necessary for me on a personal level to report my finances on a monthly basis. There is nothing related to the business included in my net worth reports other than what I’ve taken as a salary.

Moving forward in 2012, I plan to keep an eye on my spending and income, as I will no longer have the flexibility of defining my own salary based on business performance.

Assets

The Cash in banks category represents any money I have in personal savings accounts, checking accounts, and money market accounts. Over the years, I’ve opened many accounts primarily to review for Consumerism Commentary. Over the last few months, I’ve spent some time consolidating the scattered banks and accounts that I’ve collected. I’ve closed my accounts at Ally Bank, Discover Bank, EverBank, HSBC Advance, FNBO Direct, Sallie Mae, SFGI Direct, and Zions Bank.

Additionally, I merged many of my subaccounts at ING Direct. The bulk of my Cash in banks funds are held there, the same online bank I started with many years ago. My primary brick-and-mortar bank is the descendant of the same bank I started with even earlier. I do plan to move money out of Wells Fargo within the next few weeks, however, due to their new policy of eliminating customers’ rights.

My Investments are held mostly at Vanguard, though I also have active accounts at ShareBuilder and Scottrade. At Scottrade, I’ve been holding an investment in AIVSX that was originally a UGMA. Aside from a small period of time about nine years ago when I thought it would be a good idea to automatically invest more money into this fund — and due to the front-end load fee of 5.25% it was a poor, uninformed decision on my part — this account has been stagnant other than moving from Wachovia to Scottrade when executives the large brokerage decided to begin charging inactivity fees. In ShareBuilder I’ve been holding small investments funded by sign-up bonuses.

I also have accounts at Zecco, Betterment, and Lending Club, but I haven’t done anything with these accounts. I have some company stock with my former company held at E*TRADE, and I’ve been waiting for the share prices to improve before selling.

I keep most of my Retirement accounts at Vanguard. I rolled my old 401(k) and pension over into Vanguard, and this past year, I opened an Individual 401(k) there.

When I first started investing for retirement almost ten years ago, rather than save up the money to reach one of Vanguard’s minimum investment amount, I started smaller with TIAA-Cref. This was perhaps a mistake. It’s possible that what I have is an annuity, although that was certainly not explained to me in language I understood at the time, and it’s still difficult to determine whether what I own are in fact pure mutual funds. I do know that transferring money from this brokerage to Vanguard is not as simple as filling out a form. Additionally, I encountered problems investing with TIAA-Cref, and hundreds of other customers have had complaints to share with other Consumerism Commentary readers over the past few years.

Liabilities

As I mentioned above, since the beginning of my trek to improve my finances, I’ve only used credit cards for everyday spending. I haven’t paid any interest or late fees over the last decade. I’ve spent only what I could pay off when the bill arrived. I have, however, decided it was worthwhile to pay an annual fee for a credit card that provides rewards that make that fee worthwhile; although the Continental Airlines OnePass Plus Card carries an annual fee, it has paid for itself in free checked luggage. I travel to visit family on the west coast and usually need to check bags. Paying the annual credit card fee (and the fee was waived the first year) has been a smaller expense than checked bag fees would have been.

I bought my 2004 Honda Civic new (though it was already an old model, as the 2005 editions had just arrived). That may have gone against most typical financial advice, as gurus often suggest you should buy used. In my case, I knew I liked the long-term reliability of the Civic, and a new car was only slightly more expensive than a slightly used car in great condition. As I was teaching at the time, I needed something that would be reliable as long as possible. I borrowed money from my father rather than seeking expensive financing from a bank, and paid off the loan as quickly as possible.

My student loans hung over my head for a long time. This wasn’t helped by the fact that I decided to pursue a Master of Business Administration degree at the University of Phoenix Online. My job paid for 90% of the tuition, so I figured it might have been worthwhile, particularly considering my earlier exposure to online learning as it was being developed at my undergraduate university. Unfortunately, I let the University of Phoenix financial adviser talk me into using loans to pay the tuition and using my company’s reimbursement checks to pay off the loan rather than to pay the tuition directly. While the loans ensured I didn’t need to use any of my own money up front while waiting for the reimbursement checks, I didn’t consistently use the reimbursement checks as I should have.

Nevertheless, I paid off the last of my student loans, including the graduate degree and remnants of the bachelor’s degree, about a year after I received my MBA and about ten years after I received my undergraduate degree.

This year, I’ll once again need to change the approach to my finances. I’m in a different financial environment now, and it will be important to ensure I continue to make decisions that take the reality of my situation into account. My monthly reporting will take on a new form this year, as I publicly report my expenses rather than my net worth. So once again, I will be more carefully tracking my cash, but not to the point where it is something I am obsessed about.

How as 2011 for your finances? Did you progress as expected? What are you looking forward to in 2012?

The original version of this article, Year-End Personal Balance Sheet, December 2011, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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I’ve been tracking my net worth and keeping my finances updated in personal finance management software since July 2003. I’ve done this mainly for myself. Posting my finances online helps make the numbers real. I use these monthly reports to hold myself accountable. If I write publicly about spending more in a budget category than I should, I have no one to blame myself if, at the end of the following month, I still have the same problem. I would have to face the judgment of readers who see my lack of progress. By keeping my finances public, I try to hold my money-related decisions to a high standard.

Over the past eight and a half years, this technique has helped me gain financial independence, combined with a thriving business. But this will be the final month I share my balances with this much detail. I’m moving into the next phase of my financial journey, and this requires taking back some of my willingness to bare all for an audience. I will still share quite a bit, more than most readers would expect, but the familiar balance sheet will be replaced with a different accountability measure.

Another reason to move away from posting a monthly balance sheet for accountability is the fact that the swings from month to month have more to do with stock market performance than day-to-day money management decisions. When I had very little money invested and my expenses were close to my income, every decision I made could have a strong effect on my finances. That is not the case today. Just like my need for tracking every cent has been relinquished as my budget began to allow more freedom, my daily spending has a smaller effect than decisions pertaining to the larger picture, like my investment portfolio allocation and diversification. I’ll be writing more about my investment choices in the future.

In October, my investments recovered. This contributed to an increase in my net worth. Continue reading to see the numbers.

Note that I took my business accounts out of this report a few months ago. Business income was healthy again in October, but that’s not reflected in these numbers.

If you’ve been following Consumerism Commentary, you should recognize the different lines included in my balance sheet. “Cash in banks” includes all the checking and savings accounts I own, mostly high-yield savings accounts. I added a new savings account in October, and it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do. I needed a signature guarantee in person, a service banks and brokerages often provide. I walked into my local Wells Fargo branch, but the representative had no idea what I was asking for. The next closest bank location was a Chase branch, so I walked in to ask whether they could provide a signature guarantee.

At Chase, the representative knew what I was asking for and was able to provide the signature guarantee for free — but only for Chase customers. Despite the proximity to Bank Transfer Day, I opened a new account at Chase with a $100 cash deposit. In order for this checking account to remain free, I needed to initiate a $500 per month direct deposit or maintain a $1,500 balance. I covered both bases.

I’m not happy with the idea of adding yet another bank account, but I’ve also spent some time during the past few months canceling many of the savings accounts I’ve opened over the past few years as tests for writing reviews on Consumerism Commentary. I closed or zeroed out my HSBC Advance account, Ally Bank accounts, Everbank accounts, Sallie Mae account, Discover Bank account, and Zions Bank account. I’ll be canceling more accounts as I continue to simplify my finances.

My investments line includes a few accounts for stock trading, mostly unused, as well as an individual brokerage account at Vanguard. My plan for this month is to look into moving my investments around so this account includes the most tax-efficient investments. I’d rather have tax-free investments in this account to reduce my tax liability, while leaving the less tax-efficient investments in retirement accounts like 401(k)s and IRAs.

Those 401(k) plans and IRAs are included in the retirement line in the above balance sheet. For the Honda Civic line, I’ve just been reducing the value of my car by $100 every month. This may be something I shouldn’t include in the report, but for a while, this was my most valuable asset, and since I could sell my car in an emergency, I thought it might be worthwhile to track. I occasionally check the car’s value in Edmunds or Kelley Blue Book. I don’t see selling this car until it costs more to maintain than it is worth. I’ve put very little money into the Honda Civic besides regular maintenance.

THe amount in my credit cards category is paid off every month. I’ve been using primarily a Chase Continental Airlines OnePass Plus Card, and I’ve used the miles earned for upgrades. With all the traveling I’ve done this year, I”m very close to earning “Silver” Elite OnePass status in Continental’s (and United’s) frequent flyer program, but I might end the year without crossing the threshold of 25,000 Elite Qualification Miles. (With the OnePass Plus card, the miles you earn for every purchase do not help you qualify for a higher frequent flyer tier.)

As I mentioned above, my plan for November is to simplify my finances by reducing the number of open accounts. Next month, I’ll report November’s progress and review my finances as of the end of the month, but I’ll be changing the format. The monthly financial update is an integral part of this website, so I will find a way to continue this tradition despite the change of relevance.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, October 2011 ($373,552, +9.2%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

Each month, I publish a financial report to help me track the progress along my path to gain financial independence. This is a long-standing tradition at Consumerism Commentary, with relatively significant updates going all the way back to July 2003. I have made some changes over the years in how these numbers, including the net worth bottom line, are calculated. Recently, I decided to take all of my business-related accounts out of the report, resulting in my purely personal net worth.

Even before making the change, the reports didn’t reflect my total net worth, which would include things like my business as an asset and my estimated tax bill as a liability. Rather than try to create values for these items, particularly the business, I decided it would be just as helpful, or even more helpful, to exclude all business accounts. As a result, there is more fluctuation from month to month because I have not consistently moved cash from business accounts to personal accounts as if I had a paycheck. This is one thing I plan to improve next year through paying myself a consistent salary.

This past weekend, I attended the Financial Blogger Conference in Chicago to meet many of the people I’ve been talking to and emailing for years. It was a great opportunity to share ideas about an industry that has grown from zero in 2003 to a community of thousands of blogs today. I attended many of the conference sessions, including two discussions about writing, one with J.D. Roth from Get Rich Slowly and one with Donna Freedman from MSN and Surviving and Thriving. J.D. and Donna also won several Plutus Awards at the conference.

I must have met over a hundred people this weekend, so I can’t mention everyone. The event was one of the most professional conferences I’ve attended, with a large amount of quality content and friendly people.

Also notable, this weekend was my first experience using accrued miles in Continental’s OnePass frequent flyer program. I traded in miles for an upgrade from coach class to first class for the flight out to Chicago as well as the flight back to New York. Continental does a good job of spoiling first class travelers, and I’ll likely address this in a future article.

Continue reading to see the numbers as of the end of September 2011.

A good reason for the decline this past month was due to a major tax bill associated with catching up my estimated 2011 taxes. This has been an exceptional year in terms of income from my business — primarily this website. Looking forward, I’ll have more travel expenses as I plan to visit family in California for Thanksgiving, and I may take the opportunity for more travel.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, September 2011 ($342,242, -7.1%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

Almost every month since July 2003, I’ve been reporting my month-end financial reports on Consumerism Commentary. This reporting started as a way to hold myself accountable as I attempted to improve my finances through earning more and spending thoughtfully while saving and investing for my future. Somewhere along the way, the website became not only a way for me to learn more about personal finance, but to share my thoughts with an audience, and a hobby turned into a passion, and the passion turned into the driving force for the last few years of my life.

I’ll share my number for August 2011 soon, but first I wanted to mention that I announced the finalists for the Second Annual Plutus Awards last night. I created the Plutus Awards to bring more attention to the amazing personal-finance writing, whether educational, entertaining, or both, published outside of mainstream media. These awards also allow the community of expert personal finance bloggers to express their opinions about the best financial products and services on the market. This can, perhaps in a small way, guide the industry in the direction that best suits the public. I’m happy to say Consumerism Commentary is a finalist for several categories, and I want to encourage readers to vote for their favorite personal finance blogs. The winners will be announced at the Financial Blogger Conference on October 1.

In terms of my finances, there was not much out of the ordinary during August. I spent some money on a new camera lens, but I’m still having trouble finding time for photography. My investments performed poorly during the month, leaving my investment balances lower despite adding to the accounts. In today’s report, I corrected last month’s numbers. When I sold a good portion of my former employer’s stock in July, I forgot to list the proceeds as cash rather than an investment.

I’m working with my accountant to make sure I am taking an official salary from the business this year that will allow me to maximize my Individual 401(k) investment. I’ve been contributing both an employer and an employee portion every month.

Now that I’m not including my business assets in the balance sheet that I post to Consumerism Commentary, the reports don’t tell a complete story of my financial worth. I can take cash from the business if needed, reinvest it for the business, or leave it in business bank accounts. As a result, looking at just the personal portion of my net worth makes it easy to manipulate the numbers; if I wanted to reflect a 2.6% increase this month rather than a 2.6% decrease, I could have moved more cash from a business account to my personal account. I try to transfer as little as possible, but as some have suggested, it may be more wise to leave as little in business accounts as possible.

Continue reading to see August’s numbers.

This month, I’ve started reducing my quantity of savings accounts. I often open new accounts to review for Consumerism Commentary, but having small amounts of cash in so many different banks is not very convenient to manage. It’s a good thing I don’t list balances by account in my net worth report posted here; that would be too cumbersome for online reporting.

I’ll skip the line-by-line commentary this month because there just isn’t much to tell. The only major expense was the new camera lens. In September, I’ll be researching travel options to visit my family on the west coast in November for Thanksgiving. In fact, traveling is on my agenda; I have a quick trip to Miami next week, a trip to Chicago at the end of the month for the Financial Blogger Conference, and potential Thanksgiving travel in November.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, August 2011 ($368,817, -2.6%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

Before getting into my monthly financial reports, I wanted to take a moment to mention that The Second Annual Plutus Awards are now underway. The purpose of the Plutus Awards is to bring more public attention to personal finance blogs. While the community of blogs and their authors help move the industry forward by commenting on and sometimes providing direct feedback to the financial industry when developing new products. The personal finance blogosphere is the only place to go to get unbiased, informed opinions on the day’s financial news. The Plutus Awards focus on the best blogs as determined by the community, as well as the best consumer financial products and services as judged by experts within the community.

Every phase of the Plutus Awards involves the entire community, and the first phase depends on feedback from all financial bloggers and their audiences. Before the winners can be announced at the Financial Blogger Conference in October, and before the first vote can be cast, the community will determine the categories on which they will vote. Select this year’s Plutus Awards categories here.

Those who have been following my progress recently might have noticed that my net worth has seemed to shrink considerably from just a few months ago. Based on suggestions from readers, I’ve decided to eliminate my business accounts from this report. Last month was the first time I used this new approach.

It’s not a perfect solution. I can basically pay myself any salary I want (limited only by my business income), so my personal net worth is easy to “manipulate.” I never thought I would be in a position like this. I take the approach that this won’t last forever, so I’m just trying to save a good portion of my income for the future while figuring out what I’d like to do with my life in the meantime.

Keep reading to see the numbers for July.

Let me know if this new report format, text rather than a graphic, is less legible. I prefer using text when possible, but if it’s difficult to see the numbers, I can try different options. The report was created using Quicken. I update Quicken often, but I don’t sweat the details as much as I did ten years ago. Early on, I was concerned about earning enough to pay for my monthly bills, and every cent was important. Now that I’m more financially established, I focus more on the bigger issues.

Cash in banks

The cash in banks line includes my personal savings and checking accounts. I keep the balance in my checking accounts — one at a national bank with a convenient branch (Wells Fargo), one at a regional bank that is also convenient (TD Bank), and one online (ING Direct) — as low as possible while my savings accounts (mostly at ING Direct) are more optimized with higher interest rates.

Investments and retirement

The battle in Congress over the debt ceiling helped turn the stock market against investors who invest primarily in S&P or broad stock market index funds this month. The decrease in this category is due in full to the value of my investments decreasing. I did not add or remove any non-retirement investments this month.

Despite several thousands of dollars of additions to retirement investments, the overall value of my retirement nest egg decreased. Overall, as I invest more during the downturn, my hope is that I’m getting a better price for my investments than when I paid a higher price. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been moving investments in my IRAs from money market funds to a total stock market index fund. This is in addition to adding to my Individual 401(k) on a monthly basis, usually around the 8th of the month.

2004 Honda Civic

It looks like I didn’t approve my monthly entry to reduce my car’s book value by $100 this month. I’ve been decreasing the car’s value by that amount every month. As my car passed 133,000 miles this month, it is still getting good mileage — even better when I drive on the highway for long distances and take advantage of cruise control. I’ve been tracking mileage for a few years with the help of Fuelly. Here’s my car’s profile.

Credit cards

July was a big month for credit card usage. Big expenses included vacation in Lake Placid — though I still worked while I was away — and a new camera lens from my digital SLR. This is my second new lens in two months, but this should complete my digital SLR kit. I’d like to spend more time with film rather than digital, however, but for film I’ll make do with the equipment I have. I started out hoping to have time each month for a few photography shoots, but business has been busier than I expected. It’s been difficult to find the time.

Looking forward

I traveled more this summer than I usually do, so the last few months have been more expensive than usual. I don’t have any major traveling planned for August, though I will be beginning to think about visiting family for Thanksgiving. August will be a very busy month for working. July was by far the biggest month for Consumerism Commentary in terms of visitors and revenue, and it will be difficult to keep this pace for August.

Including the business accounts, but not counting the business itself as an asset, my net worth would be $1,210,896. That would be my net worth if I had been following the same calculation as I had been using prior to June 2011.

What are your plans for the rest of the summer (or winter, if you’re in the southern hemisphere)? Do you spend more during the months of the summer than during months of the remainder of the year?

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, July 2011 ($380,209, +0.2%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

Happy Independence Day to all Consumerism Commentary readers in the United States! I’m celebrating my financial independence, as I do every month, with my regular net worth updates. These monthly reports have been a mainstay of Consumerism Commentary, with only a few lapses early on in the history of this website. For the most part, I’ve been providing these updates close to the beginning of each month, including a financial report outlining my assets and liabilities, as well as commentary about my income and expenses.

The first thing you may notice this month is that my net worth has decreased significantly from my last report. After considering feedback from readers, I’ve decided to remove all business accounts from the report. Business account balances unfairly skewed my bottom line net worth too high. While I included business bank balances, I didn’t include items like tax liability, that would have helped to provide a better picture of my financial situation.

With my new net worth calculation, there are only two ways the number can increase: either by gains in investments or by transferring profits from the business to my personal accounts — something I try to keep to a minimum. Some months I might transfer $2,000 while other months, the number is closer to $5,000. I’ve adjusted my working spreadsheet to use the new calculations going as far back as December 2004. I still maintain a calculation that includes business assets and liabilities in the spreadsheet, but that information won’t be public for now.

Keep reading this article to see the new numbers.

I created the above report using data from Quicken, which contains every financial transaction since 2002. A few years ago, I stopped tracking my cash transactions as closely, though. They constitute a small percentage of my overall spending. Tracking every expense down to the cent is no longer my priority, though at the beginning, it was very helpful to move my finances in the right direction. I export the data from Quicken into a spreadsheet. I’ve recently upgraded from an old version of Microsoft Office to the latest OpenOffice, so there may be a slightly different look to the reports.

This net worth template will work well either in Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice, or even Google Docs.

Cash in banks

This category now includes only my personal saving and checking accounts. The bulk of cash I’ve reported in the past resides in business accounts. If you’ve viewed previous reports, this accounts for much of the $600,000 decrease. I’ve updated my spreadsheet to have an accurate history using the same revised calculation, but I’m not changing past reports on Consumerism Commentary. These numbers won’t tie to past posts, but they do tie to the spreadsheet I keep, that always uses a consistent calculation.

Investments and retirement

The investments line includes all my non-retirement investment accounts. About half of this balance is my employee stock account (from my prior employer), wherein I sold a good portion of the stock on Friday. Just about all of my investments were down this month.

Accounts receivable

Now that my business is not included in this report, accounts receivable basically reflects whenever someone owes me money. This is not a common occurrence, so this line will be zero or missing most months. My business accounts receivable reached a record high as of the end of June, strengthening that asset. The $600,000 decrease in my net worth that occurred by removing business accounts consisted of the removal of the cash accounts, as mentioned above, and from the accounts receivable.

2004 Honda Civic

My car passed 133,000 miles this month, and it’s still running well. I mentioned last month I was planning to schedule maintenance, including a regular oil change and tire rotation, but I haven’t had a chance to do so yet. That’s on my calendar for this week.

Credit cards

I pay off credit card balances before the bill is due, ensuring I don’t accrue any interest or late charges. Mistakes happen once in a while, and I’m not immune to scheduling a payment incorrectly. I’ve managed to avoid this for a long time, but the good news is one mistake shouldn’t damage my finances.

Looking forward

While business income should be strong this month, the nature of my new net worth report doesn’t really take that into consideration. My personal expenses should be fairly normal this month, but I am planning a small vacation to a lake in upstate New York later this month. I expect my personal expenses to be higher than usual this month to cover the costs of travel.

With the flexibility I have today, particularly the ability to take as much as I need from business income to meet my personal expenses, measuring my net worth from month to month with this new calculation may give a truer picture of my personal finances at any moment, but the numbers have less meaning. I can easily manipulate the performance of my net worth by increasing or decreasing transfers from the business. While there are consequences to this, particularly due to taxes, adding 1% to my bottom line is not really much different than adding 5%. Even if I leave more money in the business and my net worth decreases from one month to the next, I wouldn’t be able to consider that a problem when I know cash is available in the business.

At the minimum, I transfer enough from the business to personal accounts for my Individual 401(k) and SEP IRA; the cash transfer is variable depending on what I need for the month. One way to fix this problem would be to assign myself a steady salary.

Including the business accounts, June’s net worth would be $994,884, reflecting a 15.6% increase over May.

What do you think of this new way of reporting my net worth? Is it more helpful to see what is truly in my personal accounts rather than including business accounts in the same calculation? Is this a better representation of my finances?

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, June 2011 ($379,354, +1.4%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

Over the past few days, I considered making some drastic changes to the way I report my finances at the end of each month. I’ve been trying to decide whether it makes more sense to separate my business accounts from this report and report the numbers separately as I did a few years ago, remove the business accounts altogether, or leave the report the way it is.

I’m not sure how relevant my business bank accounts and receivables are to my personal finances. I transfer as little as possible between the business and personal accounts to keep my income taxes low, so most of the revenue stays “in the business.”

I didn’t change the report for May before putting together this article. These numbers include my business accounts and personal accounts commingled, like usual.

I’ll need to start making some decisions about how to better manage the business cash. I wrote about a friend of mine who was looking for better interest rates for his business’s cash and he decided to take advantage of business CDs offered by a local bank; I prefer to avoid long-term CDs with the rates currently so low. I’m not sure an investment account for my business is the right approach either, so I’ll ask around among colleagues to get some ideas.

I expected to see a seasonal dip in business income in May, like in 2009 and 2010, but that was not the case this year. Keep reading to see the numbers. You can see last month’s numbers have been revised upward; I expect the same to happen this month as more business invoices are calculated.

For those curious — and every month I don’t explain this, someone asks — I create the above report using a combination of Intuit Quicken and a Microsoft Excel template. Quicken provides the capability of tracking my spending and income, and at the end of the month, I export a custom report to a file compatible with Excel. I open the output and use the data as input for the template. I add a column for the latest month, update a few formulas to track the change percentages, and copy in chart into a graphics editor.

Cash in banks

I am trying hard to get all major clients to pay the business via direct deposit. I’ve been moving back and forth between my apartment and my girlfriend’s apartment in New York so much, it’s difficult for me to find time to get to the bank to deposit checks. As I said above, I keep most of the cash in the business and transfer only what I need to personal accounts. This means that whatever I don’t need is just left in cash.

I’m open to suggestions for how small businesses usually manage their assets when they are not distributed to the owners or shareholders. The large company I used to work for had entire departments dedicated to investing company-owned assets and still left a sizable portion of these assets in cash accounts, so my experience there isn’t much of a help.

Investment and retirement

Overall, my investments performed poorly during May, reflecting the overall stall in the market. The only investments that increased this past month were my Individual 401(k) at Vanguard, which increased only because I added to my investment in the Total Stock Market Index, and a small investment account at ShareBuilder that includes an investment in Toyota ADR. TM is up for the month but down from the recent peak earlier this year.

Accounts receivable

In May, there was a change with one of my major clients. Rather than paying the invoice within 30 days, this client be paying within 60 days. This will affect the accounts receivable balance starting in June. While this is creates an unfortunate delay, it comes with the benefit of eliminating a middle-man arrangement and increasing the value of the contract.

2004 Honda Civic

My car passed 131,000 miles on the odometer this month. I’ve been driving from New Jersey to Queens and back more often, and this past weekend, I drove to upstate New York for a friend’s wedding. It’s time for regularly scheduled maintenance, though, so in a few days I will call the dealership to schedule an oil change and a few other minor adjustments.

At some point over the past few days, most likely while the car was tightly parallel parked on the street in Queens, a red car hit my Civic’s rear bumper and left a large scratch. The last time I was at the dealership, I asked for an estimate to repair the smaller scratches and dents on the vehicle, but the price from their body shop did not make the expense worthwhile. I don’t plan to sell this car, so its appearance doesn’t usually bother me, but perhaps insurance will cover the cost of fixing this larger scratch.

The scratch changes my car’s condition from Excellent to Average, and with that change, I should take a significant hit in my valuation. I haven’t updated the value of the car in Quicken beyond my standard $100 decrease for depreciation.

Accounts payable

This includes my business bills that are invoices but unpaid at the end of the month as well as any credit card balances. I pay my credit card balances in full every month to avoid interest fees and late charges. I’m thankful that, unlike ten years ago, I earn enough income to cover the basic living necessities and no longer need to worry about going into debt just to commute to work every day. There was a big decrease in my business expenses in May, which resulted in the drop in accounts payable from last month.

Looking forward

Typically, business slows down in the summer. I have every reason to expect the same. Despite slower progress building the business, I have some new deals in place that will keep income very healthy. As far as expenses go, June will also be slow. I see no major expenses coming up this month. I plan to visit family in California for a few days, but that trip is already paid for. I expect to take a vacation later this summer, so I’ll likely plan for that this month.

What are your plans for the summer?

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, May 2011 ($844,136, +9.6%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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In 2003, I started Consumerism Commentary to teach myself more about personal finance and to track my progress as I strove to be financially secure. This was already a few years after my personal “rock bottom.” At the turn of the century, after a few years of letting my net worth as well as other aspects of my life decline, I realized I needed to turn everything around. From a financial standpoint, I attacked the problem from two sides: cutting back my expenses and figuring out how to earn more income, while at the same time, evaluating the other main decisions I’ve made with my life.

Almost eight years later, I’m still publicly reporting my financial progress on a monthly basis.

In April, I traveled with my girlfriend to visit family in California. From a business perspective, I was able to relax and not do as much as work as normal while allowing a number of guest authors to contribute the bulk of content on Consumerism Commentary for the week. In reality, I was still hard at work, spending several hours a day working on issues behind the scenes. Towards the end of the month, I also moved Consumerism Commentary to a new web hosting service. The improvements won’t be noticeable to everyone, but the improvements will be very significant behind the scenes. For those interested in the technical details, I switched from dedicated virtual hosting at MediaTemple to dedicated virtual cloud hosting at Amazon.

From an expense perspective, my vacation-related expenses were higher this month, as well as expenses related to birthdays. My girlfriend’s birthday was last week, and I treated her to entertainment and dining in Manhattan, as well as some other gifts.

On the income side of the equation, I have nothing to say but good things. I don’t share the gory details of the income I earn from my projects here, but there is no doubt that leaving my day job to focus full-time on my own business was the right choice and that I should have made the jump sooner. It might be slightly coincidental; there are market forces at play as well, in addition to some aspects of the internet that are beyond my control. Keeping this in mind, I am remaining cautious about the future.

Here are the numbers, subject to change as more information becomes available, followed by some comments.

I often receive questions about how I track my finances and post them online. Although no longer a heavy user like I was in the past, my main tool is Quicken 2011. This allows me to download most of my financial transactions and manually input the remainder. The software will also generate reports. For example, I export my net worth report to a file compatible with Excel and I copy that information into an Excel template. The template summarizes the information, and I copy the chart into a graphics editing program that saves images for use online.

Here is some discussion surrounding my balances.

Cash in banks

If I had found my way to the bank by the end of the month, this number would have been higher. I have a few checks sitting in my car since I’ve been away from my home without convenient access to Wells Fargo, the brick-and-mortar bank where I have my business accounts. I’ve finally started the process that will allow me to switch to direct deposit for my largest remaining check-sending client.

Having managed cash for a major corporation in the past, I know that it’s quite common for businesses to leave more than the FDIC limit in a savings account, but I prefer to stay within the maximum. For this reason, I will transfer excess money from my online business savings account at ING Direct to Wells Fargo. I’m keeping as much cash in the business as possible, but at some point, I will tap this resource for personal expenses.

Investment and retirement

A chunk of my increase from March to April was due to rolling over my pension. Prior to the rollover, I did not include my pension in my net worth. I received a statement from my employer with my pension balance every three months, but I never considered including the value in my reports. Now, those funds have been transferred to Vanguard, and they are now included in a rollover IRA where the balance is available to me at any time.

My next step is to rollover my 401(k), but I’ll only do this after I’ve had a chance to carefully consider my strategy.

Another change is my treatment of precious metals. A few weeks ago I explained how to track gold and silver bullion in Quicken. I was spurred onto this because I recently purchased some silver bullion, a special edition released by the U.S. Mint. It’s a hybrid, somewhere between a collectible item and an investment item, but I decided to track its value in my net worth.

Accounts receivable

The value fluctuates frequently. When I record business income, I almost always date it for the last day of the month although the income is earned throughout the month. For example, April 29 would have shown a much smaller balance than April 30 because almost all my income is dated April 30. Readers have frequently assumed that the income I earn is equal to this end-of-month balance in accounts receivable, but that isn’t the case.

Honda Civic

The value of my 2004 Civic has actually increased according to Kelley Blue Book and Edmunds thanks to high demand and possibly the earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of Japan. Regardless, I have not increased my book value for the car. I’m still taking a conservative approach in my valuation. The only value that matters is what I can convince someone to pay for the car. With only 130,000 miles and the car running perfectly, I don’t see a sale in the near future.

Accounts payable

The accounts payable line includes credit card balances and any new business bills that haven’t been paid by the end of the month. This was the first month in a while without a major purchase on my credit cards, whether for personal purposes or business, so I’m glad to see this number lower again. I do use a credit card for almost all of my typical, day-to-day spending, due to convenience and rewards.

Looking forward

Assuming no surprises, May should be another positive month. The weather is getting to the point of comfortable, and my itch to move elsewhere won’t be as strong. This is a good time to check on my progress towards my goals for the year, to see if any changes are necessary to find my personal success. I’ll do this in a later post.

What are your plans for May?

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, April 2011 ($761,127, +15.0%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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My financial for March are finalized enough for me to publish the numbers. Although I like the reports I post every month to be as accurate as possible, there are often things I forget or haven’t been finalized, like income from additional sources or bills from vendors. Unfortunately, last month’s net worth has been revised downward, and this month’s number will probably be revised downward as well. Nevertheless, in general, the reports show me what I need to know about my finances.

I’ve been publishing these reports on Consumerism Commentary since July 2003, and tracking my personal finances was one of the original priorities of this website.

March was a typical month. My expenses were normal. I don’t post my expenses anymore, but perhaps I should start again. I’ve noticed my expenses for photography have been increasing a bit. I’ve been enjoying classes in photography and the occasional small gig as a photographer. Working on Consumerism Commentary leaves precious little time for other interests at the moment, and I may be at the limit of what I have time to do with photography for now.

The month coming up will be somewhat atypical. I will have a tax bill to pay, and my accountant has not been very helpful recently. Although I plan to file an extension for my business and my personal taxes, I’m still not sure how much money, if any, I will need to pay this month, and whether I’ve underestimated. Additionally, I will be traveling later in the month, so there will be some expenses related to that.

Here are the numbers for March.

I use Quicken 2011 to maintain my financial information and generate reports. I export a Net Worth report out of Quicken and run it through an Excel template to help me summarize the information.

1. Cash in banks. My cash continues to grow, and it’s unfortunately earning mot much interested even though it’s mostly deposited into high-yield online savings accounts. While this is not a good investment strategy, the liquidity is important until I decide to settle down somewhere, buy a house, and start a family.

2. Investment and retirement. This year, I’ve been making monthly contributions to a SEP IRA and an Individual 401(k), both at Vanguard. Both are invested in the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund — Admiral shares for the SEP IRA and regular Investor shares for the 401(k).

I have not yet sold the shares I hold of my former employer in my company stock purchase plan. Some of the shares are now in the black and qualify as long-term gains, so I’ll be taking a closer look at this. Unfortunately, even with the 15% discount given to employees at the time of sale that looks back to the lowest price at either the beginning or end of the quarter, some purchases were at a price higher than the current price.

Although I understand that writing a loss on a stock can be a good tax strategy, lowering your tax bill, I’d rather earn a good return than sell at a loss. It could be many years before the shares recover, however.

On May 1, my former company will send my full pension check to Vanguard, and it will officially be rolled over into an IRA. I planned to do the same with my former employer’s 401(k) after the pension rollover was complete, but considering how long it’s taking for the first step, I might not wait much longer. One thing I will need to determine is whether I want to keep my investment mix similar or take the approach I’ve been using for my non-401(k) investments — put almost everything into a total stock market index fund.

3. Accounts receivable. March was a strong month in terms of income, and therefore this number is higher than usual. Most receivables are resolved within a month, and all are resolved in about 45 days.

4. Honda Civic. I continue to reduce the value of my car by $100 every month. Several times a year, I check this against the third party price in Kelley Blue Book and Edmunds to make sure I’m on track. I purchased this car, a 2004 model, new in June 2004, and it has a little over 129,000 miles today.

5. Accounts payable. This line contains my credit card balances and any important business bills from March that have not yet been paid. My credit card balances are paid in full every month, and I haven’t had any interest charges since before I founded Consumerism Commentary. I pay business bills within thirty days of the invoice. Occasionally, a bill comes in after the end of the month, and I date it back to that month to record expenses when they occurred.

Although it snowed here in New Jersey just a few days ago, spring seems to be here. It’s a welcome change in weather despite even more precipitation. April is going to be a very busy month for me, for both business and travel, and I expect it will be May before I know it and before I’m ready.

What are your plans for April?

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, March 2011 ($664,370, +7.4%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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My life without salary is continuing to move myself forward financially. Even considering overall income, I earned more in January than I’ve earned in any month prior to that point. February, though I’m waiting for some final details, was a very good month in terms of income, but still about average when compared to the past few months. It’s a reminder that I can’t slow down and expect progress; I need to keep working full steam ahead to grow.

I just returned from a quick trip to San Francisco, where I learned a little about the venture capital industry. I have some great ideas for building the Consumerism Commentary community, and it’s exciting to think about the possibilities. I also had the chance to meet with a few blogging colleagues, and it’s helpful to trade ideas and communicate in person. Now back in my home in New Jersey, it’s time to focus, respond to emails, and keep working on all the various projects I’ve assigned myself.

When I’m away, it’s often difficult for me to record all of my financial transactions in Quicken. I’ve been working almost all morning in getting the details as close to correct as possible for my monthly financial update. I’ll include the familiar table, listing my balances in bank accounts, investments, and credit cards, after the jump.

I generate the above by exporting a net worth report out of Quicken, importing the resulting text file into Excel, and using a template with formulas to categorize and total the balances within each category. I’ve refined it a bit over the years, but the early version of this net worth Excel template will get you started if you’re interested in tracking your finances in a similar manner.

1. Cash in banks. The general consensus is that I’m at the point where I need to do something with my cash other than letting it earn a paltry interest rate across a variety of high yield savings accounts. With the stock market close to 52 week highs, I’m not convinced it’s a good time for a major investment in stocks overall.

2. Investments and retirement. In February, I finished off my 2010 contributions to my SEP IRA at Vanguard. I also contributed the first payment to my new Individual 401(k), also at Vanguard.

I still own a portion of stock from my former employer, and I’d like to begin reducing my exposure to one particular company. The price hasn’t returned to its pre-recession high, however. While I can lock in some profits, the oldest shares I own in the employee stock purchase plan are currently in the red, even considering the 15% discount I received when purchasing. I have even more stock in my 401(k) plan, which I have not yet rolled over. I’m currently waiting for my pension funds to arrive at Vanguard before taking the next step.

3. Accounts receivable. I’m still waiting for some final numbers from clients, and that will affect this number upwards. I wanted to get this report published and analyzed as soon as possible, though, so I’m including as accurate a number I can for now. It’s typical for this number to change after the end of the month, which is why if you’ve done any moderately careful look at my numbers, you’ll see they don’t always match from month to month. For example, today’s chart lists January’s net worth as $583,680, while when I reported the number a month ago, I reported $578,043.

This month, the accounts receivable line includes some expected reimbursements for travel expenses.

4. 2004 Honda Civic. The good news about not having a daily commute is that the miles are now accumulating much more slowly. I still take the approach of reducing the car’s book value by $100 each month for depreciation.

5. Accounts payable. There’s a significant jump in this line. I purchased some new photography equipment and paid for some travel expenses that will be reimbursed, offset by a portion of the accounts receivable category. I continue to collect rewards on all credit card expenditures, even though those that will be reimbursed. This brings up an interesting topic for a future article on Consumerism Commentary.

March signifies the beginning of spring, a welcome change in New Jersey. Some spring cleaning is in order; I’ve been putting it off, but the time to find a cleaning service is here. What are your plans for March?

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, February 2011 ($620,556, +6.3%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

January 2011, the first full month of life without a salary, was my first opportunity to take a look at what I can do while working for only myself. The last two weeks of December were officially post-employment, but with the holidays, my routine wasn’t normal until after the new year.

I’ve discovered a few things:

• Not having to worry about what a boss wants me to do allows me to focus my energy on things that are important to me, and it’s more of a relief than I thought it would be. I expected to have less stress and be able to focus more, but I have a renewed energy that I haven’t had for a long time.
• I’m saving a lot of money by not going to the company’s cafeteria for lunch every day, but my heating costs are increasing, thanks partly to a cold and snowy January and thanks to being home during the day.
• Having an area of my apartment set aside for working is good, but I don’t mind the mobility I have my working on a laptop. This coming month, I’ll be spending more time at my girlfriend’s apartment, and I appreciate my new location independence.
• I still need to hire a cleaning service.

In the next few days, I’ll write more about the changes in my expenses due to the lack of a commute and more time spent at home. In terms of income, the month was successful, with a 33% increase over December’s income. Part of this increase is due to cyclical forces in the industry, but I believe having more time to spend on my own projects has contributed as well.

I mentioned a few days ago that I could be a millionaire just by interpreting my net worth slightly differently. I’ll continue producing these reports every month without taking into account the estimated value of my business, and focus only on my cash, investments, and debt.

Here’s the latest report followed by some commentary.

1. Cash in banks. A friend and reader asked me recently about the best place for his business’s cash. For most of my cash, like him, I’ve had a business account at ING Direct. That’s earning only 0.95% APY at the moment. While it’s still better than most brick-and-mortar savings accounts, it may not be the best option out there. I’ll spend some time researching better options.

The savings accounts I keep are generally designated for emergency savings or a big purchase, such as a house. Leaving my job, I made sure I had cash available for the unlikely even things didn’t work out and I’d need to look for something new. I could being too conservative here, so my plan for this year is to answer some of these questions.

2. Investments and retirement. I still have not completed the paperwork for my Individual 401(k) at Vanguard, but I hope to finish this by the end of the week. It will be important for me to decide what to do with my existing 401(k). I could roll over the investments into an IRA or leave the account with my former company. The mix of investments has performed well, better than the S&P 500, but that’s no indication of how it will perform in the future. Traditional financial-planner advice says I’ll be better off in the long run investing my retirement funds in a broad equity index.

As a continuation of last year, I’ve started off 2011 by investing $1,750 each month automatically into my SEP IRA. My goal for the year is to invest ten percent of my income towards retirement, so I still have more to go before reaching that mark. This may require a manual investment each month after I determine my income.

3. Accounts receivable. Accounts receivable is the line that represents the invoices I’ve sent to clients and advertisers that are still outstanding. When this number increases, it might mean more business or it might mean that companies are taking more time to pay me. Despite a larger income in January, my accounts receivable amount decreased.

The decrease is mainly due to getting payments faster, thanks to direct deposit.

4. 2004 Honda Civic. At 128,000 miles, my car is still running well. There are a few problems that require my attention. I need to replace the battery in the keyless remote, and some of the rubber protecting the bottom of the driver’s side door has fallen off. This is the most trouble I’ve had with the car since I purchased it new in June 2004. Is it crazy to buy a car new rather than used? Not if you hold onto it for a long time and drive it into the ground. Even though Hondas hold their value well, resale value is not an issue for me.

Ever often I use edmunds.com to determine an estimated value of my car for my net worth report, but for now, I’m just decreasing the value by $100 every month.

5. Accounts payable. I use credit cards for almost all of my spending, and that contributes to the accounts payable line. Those who submit invoices to me that I haven’t paid by the end of the month are included here as well. The credit card balances are all paid before they are due in order to avoid any interest charges.

Although I nearly doubled my net worth over the past year, that is a less likely target for the next year. How are your finances coming along so far this year?

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, January 2011 ($578,043, +7.0%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

I’ve been tracking my personal finances for about ten years now, and I’ve been making the information public but anonymous on Consumerism Commentary since 2003. This, in addition to learning about money, was my primary purpose for creating this website and it still is a major part of what I do.

I don’t pay as much attention to each cent as I did in 2003, however. My financial situation was different at that time. In 2002, I found myself a corporate job after making no money after taxes and expenses at a non-profit organization. I considered it a short-term fix, but stayed there until this past month. After a while, I had gained control of my finances and didn’t need to monitor my finances as closely. I gained and maintained better spending, saving, and investment habits and found ways to earn more money.

This year, I may post my financial updates on a quarterly basis rather than monthly. I will continue to monitor my finances as I do. Even while everything is going well, reviewing statements on a monthly basis is still necessary for intercepting any problems. The public updates and the desire to allow the community to keep me accountable may not be as necessary right now.

Here’s a chart of my year-over-year progress.

I ended 2010 with $538,000 in my accounts, a healthy increase since last year. My income and expenses both increased as well. Not including taxes, my expenses increased about 32% in 2010 compared with 2009, due completely to business expenses and money spent on hobbies like photography (which may be business-related, as well, if I earn money from photography). My income increased 56% — a better raise than I would likely ever get in a corporate environment.

Like last year and the year before, I added history to my net worth report to show my progress since 2001. That year was a low point for me; in December 2001 I left a non-profit company with no money, no place to live, and student loans hanging over my head.

Continue reading to see the chart.

I generate this chart by using Quicken’s Net Worth Report, exporting the information to Excel, popping the numbers into a template I designed to subtotal the account balances by type, and converting the report to a graphic file that can be displayed on a website.

Here’s an explanation of everything you see on the report.

Current assets

I have two lines included here. The first, cash in banks, represents all of the savings and checking accounts I have, including both personal and business accounts. I have accounts at all of the banks I’ve reviewed on Consumerism Commentary, and this coming year I will be looking to reduce the number and close some of the superfluous accounts.

I also include accounts receivable under current assets. This is for the most part a business account, where I track clients and providers who owe money to me personally or to Consumerism Commentary. On average, receivables are cleared in 45 days from the invoice date, and that means any month-end balance in accounts receivable might include income from two different months, as I apply all income earned during the month to the last date of the month.

Long-term assets

Long-term assets are accounts that I don’t plan to touch for a long time. I include my investment accounts in here even though they are almost as liquid as savings accounts. Most of my investments are held at Vanguard to take advantage of their free accounts and low-cost investment options, but I also have accounts at Sharebuilder and Scottrade.

This also includes stock in my former company, which as an employee I was able to buy up to 10% of my salary at a 15% discount (or more). I expect to sell most of this investment later this year.

My retirement accounts are included as long-term assets, as well. I plan to call Vanguard today to set up an Individual 401(k) and possibly a SIMPLE IRA to replace my former company’s 401(k) going forward. I will also need to decide whether to convert my existing 401(k) over to a Rollover IRA. Some of my former company’s 401(k) investment options are expensive, so Vanguard’s less expensive choices will be beneficial over the long term.

I also include my car as a long-term asset. My 2004 Honda Civic has about 128,000 miles on it and it runs perfectly. I’m interested to see how long it will last. At this time, I have no need to replace it. I began deducting $100 from the car’s value in Quicken on a monthly basis to represent depreciation. This roughly tracks Edmunds.com’s third-party trade-in value for the car, and I tend to err on the conservative side.

Current liabilities

My only current liabilities are credit cards, all of which are paid in full every month. The balance is particularly high this month, as it was in December in 2009 as well, because it includes a good portion of my charitable contributions for the year. My current card of choice for personal use is the Chase Continental Airlines OnePass Plus Card (review here).

Long-term liabilities

I have no long-term liabilities left, for now. I’ve eliminated student loans and car loans, and I am completely out of debt. If I buy a house requiring a mortgage, that will change. But for now, I’m just enjoying being debt free.

Thanks again to everyone, particularly regular Consumerism Commentary readers, for a great year! In a few days, I’ll post a review of my investment performance for the year.

The original version of this article, Year-End Personal Balance Sheet, December 2010, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

If you’ve been following Consumerism Commentary for some time, you may know that I post my balance sheet at the beginning of each month. I take this time to review my finances and determine whether I’m moving forward. In addition to my balance sheet, I review my expenses and income.

I’ve been posting these monthly updates for more than seven years, with only a few breaks during that time. It has helped me keep myself accountable for my spending decisions. This was the primary purpose I started Consumerism Commentary, and the site has changed significantly over that time.

I feel that I may no longer, from a personal perspective, need to post these updates every month. I believe they are of limited interest to readers; in fact, one reader once told me my progress depressed him and he would stop reading Consumerism Commentary because he was intimidated. That is, of course, not my intention. I never wanted to brag or use myself as a positive example; this entire process has been more of just an exercise for myself.

Last month, I mentioned that I hadn’t updated the value of my car in several months, so I went back and retroactively took depreciation into account. Going forward, I’ll reduce the value of my Honda Civic by $100 each month. This doesn’t reflect the typical tax depreciation rules, but I generally follow the value of the car using Edmunds.com.

While I call the bottom line of this report my net worth, it doesn’t include everything a business might include such as tax liability and the value of my biggest asset, my business.

To see the numbers, continue reading.

Barring any problems, I’ll break a net worth of half a million dollars by the end of the year. That’s pretty exciting considering I started out with nothing a decade ago.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, November 2010 ($494,715, +6.1%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

In July 2004, my car was my biggest asset, although my loan left me with no equity. That same car, as it lost value over time and as my finances generally improved, is now the least significant line on my balance sheet. One would think that the progression of net worth from $20,000 at that time to today’s number would have changed my lifestyle, but very little has changed.

Speaking of change, I may add a line to my personal Quicken file. Although I track the value of income from Consumerism Commentary and other projects, I don’t track the value of the website as a business. It would be interesting to go back to 2004, when I first began earning income from projects like this, and use a formula (such as a multiple of annual revenue) to determine the business’s value. I may never know the real value — what someone might pay — for the website, but if I use a consistent formula I will see the growth over time. This could help me get a truer picture of my complete net worth.

Until then, I’ll stick with the same balance sheet I’ve been using for the past few years. There’s nothing surprising on the report this month. Keep reading to see the details.

Here is my process for creating the above, as new readers ask about this every month. I generate the above report using Quicken Home & Business 2011. I reviewed Quicken 2011 recently and decided to buy the Home & Business upgrade for myself.

I export the customized net worth report to an Excel-compatible text file, which I link to a balance sheet template. The template includes all the formulas necessary, though not everything is completely automatic.

I check the resulting table to ensure all balances are accounted for, and I copy and paste the table into a graphics editing program. I save the table as a graphic and upload it to Consumerism Commentary to be shared with readers.

The value of my car hasn’t been updated since March, so I plan to take a look at Edmunds to determine a reasonable estimate and make that adjustment this month.

As the year comes to a close, I’ll be thinking about another visit to my family in California for Thanksgiving in a few weeks, year-end tax-saving moves, the holidays, and making some major adjustments to my life.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, October 2010 ($463,930, +8.0%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

Last quarter’s devastating investment performance resulted in an overall annualized return of -9.33%. The fact that the S&P 500, the benchmark I use for my investments, faced a -15.14% annualized return at that point was little consolation. The third quarter of 2010 proved to be kinder to my investments.

I can’t take much credit for the improvement. Other than continuing to invest in small basket of investments in my 401(k) every other week, and a discounted investment in my company stock purchase plan at the end of the quarter, I haven’t made any changes investment moves. In fact, two of the four investments I purposefully chose over the past few years, not including index mutual funds and retirement investments, are in the red for the year.

Microsoft, shares of which I purchased in 2006 with free money from ShareBuilder, is down an annualized -23.84% in my account for the year. I bought shares of Toyota at the beginning of the year, after news about vehicle recalls. I thought the bad media would result in just a short term dip and an opportunity to buy, but I didn’t choose the bottom so I’m still waiting for the price to return to the level it was when I purchased.

Here’s how to get that bonus from Sharebuilder.

Keep reading to see my investment balances and performance as of the end of September 2010. Feel free to leave comments, suggestions, and questions after taking a look at the data. The numbers come out of Quicken, which I keep up-to-date several times a week.

The original version of this article, Flexo’s Investment Portfolio, 3Q 2010, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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September was a typical month. I didn’t have many out-of-the-ordinary expenses. I bought some new camera equipment, with the biggest expense being a used lens for my Mamiya RZ67. I did a good job negotiating the price, too. I was able to get Adorama in New York to beat KEH.com’s price for the same lens in the same condition.

This month I also purchased airline tickets to visit my family in southern California for Thanksgiving. The flight costs less money than I can remember paying for the same trip in other years. A quick look through Quicken shows that 2007 was the most recent year I paid less for a flight to California for Thanksgiving.

It was a successful month in terms of income. The only complaint I could possibly have is that is has been taking a long time for some clients to pay. In a perfect world, all advertisers would pay within 30 days. Google about 25 days after the end of the month, but it’s not uncommon for other advertisers to take 45 days or more. One particular company still owes Consumerism Commentary money from March, and it’s been frustrating trying to resolve the issue. For the most part, however, payments are predictable.

October will be a busy month. In addition to working nine-to-five for a job at a large corporation, spending almost all of the remainder of my waking life managing Consumerism Commentary and writing for a number of publications, I’ll be trying my hand at more professional photography. The plan is to take some marketing photography for an audio production company.

Every month I post my net worth report to track my progress. Continue reading to see the report.

You can click on the image above to get a full-size report. If you have any thoughts or comments, feel free to leave them here. In a few days, I’ll post a quarterly review of my investments.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, September 2010 ($427,529, +11.5%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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If you follow the endless financial news, you might have heard that the stock market ended August on a sour note. My investments suffered like those of many investors around the world. The only investment I’ve been adding to for the last few months has been my 401(k) at regular intervals. I’ve been holding off investing otherwise, and any extra income has been sitting in cash accounts.

At this point, I take a close look at my finances only once a month. That’s a big change from ten years ago, when I wasn’t earning enough even to pay for the cost of commuting to work. I began tracking every penny spent to be sure there was as little waste as possible. Over time, the necessity of tracking my finances so closely lessened, and now I’m fairly comfortable that I’ve built up good habits with money. I can save for the future while enjoying my life today.

I’ve mentioned my interest in photography before. This coming month, I plan on taking more steps to take this to a new level. I should have a few paying jobs as a photographer over the next few months, and I think it makes sense to create a new business entity to formalize the activity. My first concern is naming the new company.

But for now, here’s a look at my balance sheet as of the end of August 2010.

Of course, I’ll only be able to commit significant time to photography when I leave my day job.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, August 2010 ($382,103, +3.4%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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My girlfriend and I are spending this week on vacation in Myrtle Beach. It’s my first visit to this area, and we are enjoying it. I’ve never been a big fan of the beach, but that may be only because most of my experience involves the Jersey shore. I’m learning to appreciate the “do-less” vacation, though I still like to take in the best of the area.

I don’t play golf, the activity that, other than beach-going, seems to be the most popular activity around here. We’re staying on the top floor of a hotel in the north end of Myrtle Beach, with an oceanfront view. We’re far enough away from the craziness in the heart of Myrtle Beach, so the streets and beach aren’t as crowded as they could be.

This photograph is a view from our balcony. The hotel room isn’t our only splurge, either. We rented a convertible for the week to get around. With my luck, I expected it to rain all week, but the weather has been relatively good and we’ve been able to enjoy our drives.

This is a vacation, but I’m taking a break only from my day job. I’m still working hard developing articles for Consumerism Commentary and U.S. News, researching topics and outlining questions for the Consumerism Commentary Podcast, and taking care of related business. As I review my monthly finances as I do at the beginning of every month, I consider whether all the money I’m spending on this vacation — and I’m not quite taking the frugal approach this time around — is worthwhile.

We’ll see how those expenses affect my net worth next month. For now, I’m looking at July. The month was not shabby. Five Fridays in the month occasionally present me with three pay checks, so that, in addition to a significant increase in “alternative” income, is bumping my net worth higher.

For the details, continue reading.

With a few more months like July, I will feel much more confident about my ability to leave my day job in favor of working on a number of my own projects.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, July 2010 ($365,647, +8.0%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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Last quarter, almost all of my investments were experiencing positive performance. Three months can make a big difference. My investments tell a different story today.

One thing has not changed since last quarter: my company stock continues to do well, even when the broader stock market is in decline. This was not my best performing investment over the first half of the year, however. That acknowledgment belongs to a small investment I made several years ago in Akamai (AKAM) with free money earned from a bonus for opening an account with ShareBuilder. Overall, while the stock has seen good performance for the year, it has eked out only a $3 profit since the time I opened the investment.

Here are my investment account balances and performance numbers as of the end of March 2010. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

The original version of this article, Flexo’s Investment Portfolio, 2Q 2010, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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July will mark the seventh anniversary of Consumerism Commentary. These seven years I’ve been tracking my finances online to keep myself accountable for my financial decisions. In 2003, there was no such thing as a “personal finance blog community;” this arose out of the desire of a few of us to track our finances in a blog format and discuss money issues. There was certainly a lot of discussion of money on the internet at that time, but very little had the personal touch of a blog.

At the beginning of each month, I share my account balances as of the last day of the prior month, so today I am publishing my June 2010 net worth report. This balance sheet includes a modified version of a net worth, and this is the same way I’ve been tracking my finances online for many years.

And for the sixteenth time since January 1, 2002, the earliest data I have in Quicken, my monthly progress has been negative. This is a fact I can attribute, this time, solely to the stock market. As I invest more of my funds in the stock market, currently only through automatic investments in my 401(k), my monthly progress is increasingly driven by the market as a whole.

Continue reading for my current net worth report.

Unfortunately, June 2010 marked another low point in terms of income from sources outside of my day job. This is despite additional efforts to boost income from a variety of sources. There are a few ways I can interpret this. Rather than look for improvements within the first several months of a new approach, some of the work may pay off down the road. I could view this as validation of my continuing decision to put off leaving my day job, or I could interpret this lack of progress as validation of the need to spend more hours each day building projects.

For now, I’m taking everything one step at a time.

For anyone wondering about how I create these reports, I track all of my expenses in Quicken, though I’ve been unfaithful tracking expenses paid with cash. Cash transactions amount to very little since I use cash back credit cards for just about everything. I run a customized report after I finish entering my income and expenses and export that report to a file that can be imported into Excel. I use an Excel template that formats the data nicely, and I copy that chart into Photoshop. I export the table as a graphic and upload it to my website.

Feel free to ask any questions.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, June 2010 ($340,741, -1.1%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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After the end of each month, I take a closer look at my personal finances. Although I’ve moved away from tracking every cent I spend, I still look at most of my purchases and expenses to ensure I’m not doing anything I consider financially unreasonable. While my spending wasn’t excessive this month, my reports do feature one major non-discretionary purchase.

As I’ve written before, I’ve been learning more about photography. This month I picked up a used medium-format film camera in great condition. I won’t be developing the film myself, so it won’t exactly be a frugal hobby. The expense of film requires a photographer to give more thought into using the camera. With digital, it’s easy to get into the habit of shooting hundreds of photographs and reviewing them before moving onto the next step, like printing. With film, you don’t have immediate feedback, so if you’re not careful, you could end up spending more than you expect on development.

In terms of my finances, my overall “modified net worth” is down. This is attributable to poor stock market performance. I took advantage of stock market dips to invest in my retirement account, a process that will hopefully pay off more than investing by the calendar each year.

This is a modified approach to dollar-cost averaging where rather than investing at the same time each year (or month, etc.) insensitive to price, the investor chooses to invest in the face of public panic or other downturns, where the chance of seeing an increase is higher. While no one can fully predict the stock market, I believe that returns revert to the mean eventually, so worse-than-average performance will eventually be followed by better-than-average performance.

As of the end of May, this strategy hasn’t paid off, but I still have time.

Here are all the numbers followed by a quick analysis.

My major spending this month includes a used (but brand-new condition) Mamiya RZ67 medium format camera with some accessories as well as reservations for a vacation in August. Business income was at its lowest point since the same month last year; perhaps this is a cyclical lull.

While my investments performed poorly as they are mostly linked to the total stock market index, the balance in my bank accounts has increased.

I’ve been publishing these net worth reports on Consumerism Commentary for almost seven years. For most of that time, I’ve been tracking my finances with Intuit Quicken on my desktop or notebook computers. To create the reports I publish online, I export a custom net worth report to Excel and copy the spreadsheet into a graphics editing program.

Feel free to leave any questions about my finances.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, May 2010 ($344,474, -2.7%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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About a decade ago, I realized that I needed to track my spending down to the dollar, if not to the penny, to get a grip on my financial condition. It was the start of a long journey for me, one which saw me get out of credit card debt, start earning money, and getting my life in gear overall. I also started blogging about my finances to keep myself accountable.

I never expected that blogging would help me become more financially secure. I still don’t earn much money in my day job. That income alone would hardly allow me to afford to live an apartment without a roommate. But, here we are. I don’t track my finances as diligently any more because I tend to make better decisions in general. I do, however, check in every month in order to post in my continuing series of net worth reports.

The month of April is usually one where my net worth will take a dip as I pay a high tax bill. That worked out differently this year thanks to re-classifying the side income I earn. As a result, I’ve overpaid my 2009 taxes through overestimated quarterly payments, and I should receive a refund later this year.

If you view the chart, you will see my “cash in banks” line decrease. That is mostly due to the withdrawals made to invest in IRAs. You may also notice that I revised my March net worth downward. This happens occasionally because it may take a few more days to finalize income amounts or other bills. Likewise, April’s net worth may be modified within the next few days, but I’d prefer if the number is revised upward.

Money at this level of detail is often a taboo subject. I chose to write anonymously so acquaintances or potential colleagues curious to learn more about me from the internet wouldn’t find Consumerism Commentary. I’m not posting these updates to brag; in fact, I consider myself to be lagging significantly behind my potential in this aspect as well as other aspects of my life. I don’t have much worth bragging about. These updates exist solely to keep myself focused on improving my financial situation over time.

Here are the April numbers as of today. Feel free to ask any questions.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, April 2010 ($356,832, +4.5%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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When I reported my net worth earlier this week, RetirementInvestingToday, a Consumerism Commentary reader, mentioned I should be reporting my investment performance as well, as raw changes in balances don’t tell the full story. An investment’s performance can’t be measured just by looking at a starting and ending balance if during that time I make deposits or withdrawals.

Thankfully, Quicken handles a better calculation of investment performance so I don’t have to try to plug all of my cash flows into Excel. I do, however, enter the results into a spreadsheet so I can upload the report for publishing on consumerism Commentary. What RetirementInvestingToday might not have known is that I’ve been reporting my investment performance for a while.

During the first three months of 2010, my best performing investment has been by far my company’s stock. The stock tanked along with others in the industry when the broader market recession began, and at one point was down 80%. That was a good opportunity to pick up discounted stock, with an additional 15% discount given to employees as a benefit. It has recovered significantly since then.

I’d like to start unloading the stock I purchased over two years ago through this employee stock purchase plan, but I’m considering waiting until I can sell at a profit.

In addition to the investments you’ll see in the report, as you might have seen on my balance sheet, I have about as much in cash as I have in retirement. That’s unbalanced, but as I’ve mentioned before, I want to have cash available for some day in a future when I feel the time is right to “settle down.” Buying a house is not currently on my agenda.

Here are my investment account balances and performance numbers as of the end of March 2010. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

The original version of this article, Flexo’s Investment Portfolio, 1Q 2010, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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The first quarter of 2010 has ended as fast as it began. In observing my personal finances as I have done for the past ten years or so, and publicly on Consumerism Commentary for the last seven years, I’ve put together my monthly balance sheet. This is a list of my account balances, including savings accounts, checking accounts, and credit cards.

In a perfect life, I would be reducing the number of bank accounts, but in this strange situation where I write about banking, I’ve opened more bank accounts for the sole purpose of reviewing them for Consumerism Commentary. In March, I opened accounts at Discover Bank (review here), Sallie Mae Bank (review here), and SmartyPig. I also opened a new investment account at Zecco (review here).

While I am publishing these numbers today, there is still a question about some of my outside income for March. This should be resolved by the end of the month, so the March results might change when I post an update next month. This outside income, in addition to a tax refund I received after changing the classification of my business, helped to provide a 11% increase over February’s month-end balances.

Here are the numbers.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, March 2010 ($348,492, +11%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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It’s time again for my monthly financial reporting. I’ve been posting a balance sheet online almost every month since July 2003 in order to keep myself accountable for my financial decisions. Seven years ago I was not far into my journal to financial solvency, but I was at least spending less than I was earning by then. That was not the case only a few years earlier. So I would say that tracking my progress for the last few years has been fun.

February 2010 was a short month, whether judged by the count of days or by the passage of time. This is a reminder either that I’m getting older or that I’m not leaving enough time for myself. I will be thirty-four years of age this coming month, so many readers will probably see me as young. Yet life is passing me by. At least February was a good month financially.

The stock market was volatile but ended the month on a positive note, boosting my investments. My bottom line passed $300,000 for the second time, moved by investment gains and income. I mentioned last month that income from my “side job,” that is, mostly this blog, would be unsustainable throughout the year because it included long-term deals usually not repeatable. However, I did manage to surpass January’s income without more long-term deals this month.

Continue reading to see my net worth report. Feel free to leave any questions.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, February 2010, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

Entering the second month of the year, the new decade is officially underway. It’s time to peek into my bank accounts and investments to see how I’m doing so far. But first, I should take a quick look at the goals and resolutions I set for myself this year.

The first goal is to maintain a six-figure income outside of my day job. According to Quicken, I earned over $11,000 this month from various sources not including the work I do from 9:00 to 5:00 or so each day. This month’s income was likely higher than it will be on average for the rest of the year unless I make some significant changes to my life and some progress on new projects. For now, it looks like I’m on track to reach this goal.

My next goal is to maximize my 401(k) investment, and that hasn’t presented a problem so far this year. My non-financial goals are presenting a problem, however. I haven’t made much progress in my attempt to get into shape and I haven’t reached the point where my apartment is consistently in a presentable appearance.

Here is my net worth report. I post this every month to keep myself accountable. The bottom line is down this month, mostly due to estimated taxes paid and a lack of growth in my investments. Although I surpassed $300,000 at the end of 2009, I’m back below that mark for January.

Continue reading to see the numbers.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, January 2010, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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Yes, you can time the market. The S&P 500 benchmark provided an admittedly handsome 27.76% annual return in 2009. However, if you invested in a diversified index mutual fund when the market was at its low point in March more than when it recovered towards the end of the year, you probably beat the market. When the market was at or near its lowest point earlier in 2009, I invested in the market as much as possible with my 2008 SEP and Roth IRAs.

These purchases paid off well in 2009. The Vanguard Total Stock Market Index in my Roth IRA was my biggest winner judged by percentage simply because I invested $4,000 in March and $1,000 in April. Now that the stock market has mostly recovered, I’m nervous about my next investment moves. While I am investing with a distant time horizon within my retirement accounts, when it comes to my IRAs I like to try to ensure I’m getting a good deal.

My 401(k) on the other hand is on auto-pilot, investing a percentage of my salary every two weeks regardless of the market’s situation. This coming year I’d like to change aspects of my 401(k). First of all, I haven’t rebalanced my portfolio in a long time. But before I rebalance, I need to decide whether my investment allocation is appropriate. My contributions are allocated between a large cap value stock mutual fund, a large cap growth stock mutual fund, an international stock mutual fund, and a commercial real estate fund. The company’s matching contributions are split into two sections. The first half invests solely in company stock, though that can be sold and rebalanced within the portfolio, and the second half invests in the same allocations as my portions.

While this combination has performed well for me recently, the funds are more expensive than index funds. There is an index fund available in my 401(k), so that may be a better choice from the long term than the large cap funds.

Here are my investment account balances and performance numbers as of the end of 2009.

The original version of this article, Flexo’s Investment Portfolio, 4Q 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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At the end of every month, I review my personal finances, including bank account balances, investment performance, income and expenses, and I share some of those details here. This was the original purpose of Consumerism Commentary: to track my own finances publicly and hold myself accountable for my financial decisions. I wasn’t aware at that time that within a few years Consumerism Commentary itself would become a large part of my financial development.

I ended 2009 with a “modified net worth” of over $300,000, an increase of more than $100,000 since the end of 2008. A recovery in the stock market helped raise the value of my investments, greatly contributing to that increase. This modified net worth doesn’t include things like tax liability. the value of my possessions other than my car, or the value of my business if I were to sell it. It does however represent a metric that is meaningful for me to track over time.

Like last year, I add some history to my financial report to show long-term progress. The data in Quicken go back to 2001. At the end of that year I had just recently left a low-paying job at a non-profit organization and, like many people today, was unemployed for a few months. As you can see in the chart I had no savings and a few thousands dollars of debt.

Here is an explanation of the categories and numbers.

Current assets

The cash in banks line includes the total balances of all my cash accounts, like savings and checking. I also include the balances of my business savings and checking accounts in this total, as well as money market fund portions of my investment account. I have checking accounts at Wachovia and ING Direct and savings at the same banks as well as FNBO Direct, HSBC Direct, Everbank, Ally Bank, and many others.

Accounts receivable includes the value of the invoices I have sent to companies for which I am still awaiting payment. For the most part, outstanding invoices clear with 45 days.

Long-term assets

The investments line includes any non-cash investment I own outside of retirement accounts. I have a small amount invested in MSFT, AKAM, and IYZ through ShareBuilder. These investments were all made with “free money” through sign-up bonuses. I have an account at Scottrade holding an investment in AIVSX which was transferred to me ten years ago and has lost value overall throughout the course of that time.

My active investment account is held at Vanguard. I’ve been investing $1,000 a month since April in VTSMX, and I’m considering putting that automatic investment on hold now that the stock market has shot back up.

The investments category also includes my company stock purchase plan. I’ve been investing 10% of my salary in company stock since the plan was first offered. I haven’t sold any stock in about two years but I plan on beginning to sell again during the next open trading window.

The retirement category includes by 401(k), both before-tax and Roth portions, my Roth IRA, and my SEP IRA. Both IRAs include investments at TIAA-Cref and Vanguard, though I actively contribute only at Vanguard.

I also include the value of my car as a long-term asset, and I update the amount once or twice a year using a conservative estimate from Edmunds.com.

Current liabilities

The accounts payable includes my credit card balances at the end of the month, which is automatically paid in full by the due date. The only cards I use actively for personal use are a Citi Dividend World MasterCard and a Bank of America Visa Signature. For business, I use an American Express Blue Cash for Business.

Long-term liabilities

This category includes two sets of loans no longer existent. I paid off my car about three years after I purchased the car and I paid off the last of my student loans in December 2008. I expect at some point this category will include a mortgage.

Income and expenses

Although I no longer post income and expense reports on Consumerism Commentary, I still review them every month. In comparing 2009 to previous years, I earned much less interest even though my account balances have been higher thanks to the low interest rates on supposedly “high-yield” savings accounts. Income outside of my day job did not increase as much as I would have liked, even though I surpassed my goal for the year.

At my day job, my pay increased about 10%. I expect to receive a smaller raise and bonus this year, so growth would only come if I change jobs. My plan to leave this job behind and work on my projects full time is somewhat closer to being a reality, but for at least the next few months I will continue to hold down what seem to be at least two full-time jobs.

A steady increase in my dining out and convenience food categories worries me. I’m not necessarily worried about the spending itself; the amount I pay for food is well within what my income would allow. I’m worried because I should be taking the time to shop for better groceries and cook my own meals for the sake of my health. With the aforementioned multiple full-time job equivalents, this has not been a prioritized use of my time.

My entertainment expenses have decreased considerably. This is mostly due to not buying any new photography equipment in 2009. On the other hand, with the start of the Consumerism Commentary Podcast in April, my business expenses have skyrocketed. This required a new computer, audio equipment, and a podcast producer. I then needed another new computer to replace the original new computer which had ended up unreliable — and sometime soon I need to make sure I get the broken computer fixed or get my money back.

In 2009 I paid an enormous amount of federal and state taxes, for 2008 taxes due when I filed in 2009, estimated 2009 taxes, and payroll taxes deducted by my employer. Thanks to my accountant, I’ve managed to get some tax payments back for 2007′s filing but I am still waiting for refunds for 2008.

As I have been doing following the end of each quarter, I plan to post a summary of my investments within the next few days.

The original version of this article, Year-End Personal Balance Sheet, December 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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This week, Consumerism Commentary is matching your charitable donations up to $4,000. Here are the details.

It’s time again for checking in with the state of my finances. Although a few months ago, I changed the format to isolate my “side business” from my personal finances, I’ve changed my mind yet again. It makes more sense just to leave all my accounts grouped together. I don’t do a very good job of keeping things separate. For example, although I have separate bank accounts for personal and business accounts, some business income still comes into personal accounts. Once in a while I transfer money from business accounts to personal accounts.

In terms of income, November was a bit under my expectations. I’m hoping to find new ways to diversify the sources of income from all that I do outside of my day job, but the ideas I have mostly require more dedicated time and effort. I’ve already mentioned that I plan on making the jump to work for myself full-time within the next few months, but it’s probably going to take more growth before I’m comfortable with the switch.

Here are the numbers, without further discussion. Feel free to ask any questions or leave your feedback in the comments below.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, November 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

Although it’s a little late this month, it’s now time to share my personal finances. I’ve been doing this roughly every month since Consumerism Commentary started in July 2003. I did recently make one important change — I am no longer counting my “business” bank accounts in my net worth. I’m trying to separate my business, which consists mainly of Consumerism Commentary, from my personal accounts.

October was an interesting month. I traveled to my brother’s wedding in California, so there were a number of extraordinary expenses related to the event. I do have some good news, however. The IRS has approved the reclassification of my side business from a sole proprietor LLC to an S-Corporation. this should result in a refund of over $8,000 from my 2008 tax payments.

It could take a while to receive the refund, so I’m not planning anything for it yet, but it will most likely stay in a savings account for a while.

Here are the numbers.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, October 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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Earlier this year, I added my investment portfolio to the group of reports I publish on Consumerism Commentary on a regular basis. Every three months, I share my investment balances and performances. I include Quicken’s calculation of the year-to-date average annual rate of return for an idea of how each investment is performing this year.

I add to my investments periodically, depending on the investment type.

I invest in my 401(k) every two weeks when I receive a paycheck. Out of the investments listed below, I only add to four investments, in equal amount: Large Cap Value, International Equity, Large Cap Growth, and Commercial Real Estate. My employer matches up to 4% of my salary. Half of the match is invested in company stock and half is invested to match my allocation rules.

At the beginning of each month, I invest $1,000 in the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSMX) at Vanguard. This automatic investment usually receives the fund price on the last day of the month, but the funds are not deducted from my linked bank account until the first day of the following month.

Those are my only automatic investments. I also invest in an IRA once a year after completing my tax return.

Here are my investment account balances and performance numbers as of September 30.

The original version of this article, Flexo’s Investment Portfolio, 3Q 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

Now that I am working with an accountant, I have been making some changes to the way I track my finances. By the end of the year, I hope to have all of my business-related finances in QuickBooks. Although I am not quite at that point, I am working to separate my personal finances from by business finances. Currently, I tend to move money from my business bank accounts to my personal bank accounts as needed, which makes it difficult to track.

The report I publish on Consumerism Commentary each month will no longer contain anything business related. Any business bank accounts or credit cards will not be listed. I also won’t be publishing my business income online.

This change has affect by net worth numbers going back several years, so if you compare today’s report with any prior month’s report, the bottom lines will be significantly different.

September was another good month in terms of income. My online business continue to diversify and grow. Even with a significant payment to the IRS for quarterly estimated taxes, I managed to bring more in money than I spent. While I won’t be including a full income and expense report, I will post a quarterly investment report shortly.

Personal balance sheet and net worth statement

Feel free to ask any questions. I will be posting a quarterly investment summary shortly.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, September 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

You may have noticed that over the past few days, Consumerism Commentary has been featuring a number of guest authors. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the cost of funerals, inspired by the passing of my paternal grandmother. My maternal grandmother entered hospice care around that same time, and a few days ago, she passed away. I decided to travel to California on short notice to be with my family on the west coast for a short time. I appreciate the assistance with Consumerism Commentary provided by our writers Smithee and Jeff as well as the guest authors.

Every month, I publish personal finance reports to keep myself accountable for my financial decisions, and the travel I mentioned above is the reason August’s report is a little later than it would be otherwise.

2009 continues to be a successful year, but I have some room for improvement. My “modified net worth” includes the balance of all my bank accounts, investment accounts, invoices I have sent out to those I do business with that have not been paid yet, invoices I have received that I have yet to pay, and credit card expenses which I pay off every month. This “modified net worth” is reflected on the bottom line of the first report.

While August’s net worth is up, I expect September’s to be down due mainly to the quarterly tax payment that I will be sending to the IRS. September’s expenses will also reflect the airfare for the flight to California, which was purchased only one day in advance. Most airlines do not offer bereavement rates, or if they do, they are inconsequential discounts off a full fare. I’ll write about this in a future article.

In terms of income, August was a healthy month for my side business, but there is a lot of unexplored opportunity yet to be tapped. With all the projects I am involved in, it’s increasingly difficult to keep track of and manage everything. Additionally, I seem to be getting headaches more often, possibly due to spending too much time in front of computer monitors. At the end of last year, I decided to let the recession play out before deciding whether to leave my full-time job and pursue my side projects full-time. We’ll see how much longer I can continue both aspects of my life.

I’ve also noticed that the automated charitable payments I had been making seem to have stopped, and I’m wondering if that is a result of a change in my credit card number. Once I have a chance, this is something I’ll need to look into.

Continue reading to see my balance sheet and income statement without any further 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.

Personal balance sheet and net worth statement

Income and expense report

If you have any questions, feel free to post them below.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, Net Worth, Income, and Expenses, August 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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This year is passing by too quickly. It is time again for my monthly financial reports, originally designed to keep myself accountable for my financial (usually, spending) decisions. This was a technique that has worked well for about nine years, the last six of which have included this monthly public review.

July was a strong month due to two important factors. First, there were three paychecks in this month rather than the usual two. As months are not divided evenly or equally into weeks, two months each year contain two biweekly paychecks, and July was one such month in 2009. Also, the stock market performed well in July, buoying my investments.

Overall, with a “modified net worth” approach $256,000, which may exceed that amount with some details still pending, I am up almost 40% for the year.

Some of my charitable contributions are taken care of automatically, but the payments seem to have stopped. This is likely a result of a credit card number change recently. My income and expenses report has reminded me to update my payment information on file with the organizations I contribute to.

Almost $500 in dining out? I don’t see how that’s possible, but that should be a wake-up call. I need to make better usage of the grocery store.

Continue reading for the details without further commentary. Many of the questions you might have have been answered in previous months, but if you have any questions, leave them below.

If you have any questions, please enter them here.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, Net Worth, Income, and Expenses, July 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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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.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, Net Worth, Income, and Expenses, June 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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Happy Independence Day to anyone celebrating today! I’m celebrating by spending time with friends later and sharing my investment portfolio with readers now.

Last month, I began sharing my investment portfolio more in-depth than I have in the past. This is part of a renewed effort to make myself more familiar with the investments I have chosen and to develop a better overall investing strategy for multiple targets and time horizons. This will also help with determining the proper asset allocation for my investments.

The last time I rebalanced was when my 401(k) was basically my only investment. At that time, I configured my account to automatically rebalance my portfolio every quarter. Now, with investments scattered in IRAs at two different companies and non-retirement investments in the mix as well, it has been more difficult to determine what I should be doing with my investments.

First, according to Quicken, here is my overall asset allocation for my investment account only.

Investment allocation

If this allocation were to include all assets, it would be heavily weighted towards cash. The chart above only takes into account cash held in investment accounts and cash that is part of a mutual fund’s mix. The “Other Asset Class” consists of the Real Estate Fund in my 401(k). Unfortunately, the asset mix categories are not configurable by Quicken. Each investment must be assigned one or more of the existing categories.

Here is the detailed breakdown, account by account.

Flexo’s investment detail

I provided an explanation for these investments last month, so I won’t repeat that here. The YTD performance calculation comes from Quicken’s internal rate of return included in the Investment Performance report. It is the “average annual return” for each investment.

The investments where I have been dollar-cost averaging as the stock market increased have performed worse than the investments I have not added funds to. As I continue buying, I’m buying at higher prices as the fund values increase, so my performance will continue to get worse. That is a drawback to periodic investing, such as the biweekly investment into my 401(k) or my monthly investment of VTSMX. Dollar-cost averaging works better when the stock market is declining, assuming values return to a high at some point in the future.

The original version of this article, Flexo’s Investment Portfolio, 2Q 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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Although I post my financial reports each month to keep myself accountable for my financial decisions, I have moved to summarizing my investments rather than listing all the details. My reports now simply separate my investments between retirement and non-retirement accounts.

An important part of anyone’s finances is how investments are allocated among stocks, bonds, or other forms of investments like real estate. It’s also important to look at asset allocation at a deeper level, such as the size of the company invested (large-cap, small-cap, etc.) or the type of bonds (municipal, corporate, etc.).

Continue reading for my investment account balances by investment as of May 31, 2009. I will also explain why I have invested as I have.

The investment in AIVSX was held in an Universal Transfers to Minors Act (UTMA) account until I graduated from college. At one point, I was adding to this account monthly until I realized that a front-end load of 5.25% was immediately reducing any return I was earning. In September 2004, the discount brokerage decided to start changing an annual fee for holding this account, so I removed the funds from the company immediately and moved it into Scottrade.

The investments in the iShares exchange-traded fund, Microsoft, and Akamai were made with free money from ShareBuilder. All three investments have lost money since I first used bonuses from Sharebuilder to dabble, but I can’t complain.

I joined my company too late after its initial public offering, so I did not qualify for stock options like many of my colleagues. I do, however, invest ten percent of my salary in company stock through a special discounted purchase plan. Originally, my intent was to sell each quarter’s lot of shares as soon as I qualify to do so, but the recession has brought the stock price down. I may be tempting fate, but I plan to wait until the end of the year to sell the shares I’ve accumulated since the price started decreasing.

My 401(K) is a hodge-podge. Unfortunately, there are not many low-cost options available. Even the lone index fund has high fees. When I originally started with the company, I chose one of the allocation-building options based on an “aggressive” risk profile, but I’ve messed around with the allocation too often without rebalancing. Studies have shown that 401(k)s perform better when employees leave leave them alone, so one of my goals for the end of the year is determine what I want my 401(k) to look like and stick with it.

Moving forward, I’ll include my investment portfolio with my monthly financial reports, but only at the end of each quarter. Even with Quicken, it’s difficult to properly calculate my investment performance (the internal rate of return), but I’d like to include some measure of performance each quarter.

Another investment-related goal for this year is to determine whether I should start investing in an education savings account or 529 for a possible future child’s education before knowing whether I will have children.

The original version of this article, Flexo’s Investment Portfolio, May 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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Every month, consistently for the past few years, I take the opportunity at the beginning of the month to develop financial reports. The first report I post every month outlines my “modified” net worth, basically a balance sheet including my bank accounts, investments, the approximate value of my car, and my credit cards. Following the net worth report, I publish an income and expense report. This includes details about the income I earned during the month as well as my discretionary and non-discretionary expenses during the same period of time.

After my net worth decreased last month, mainly due to a large tax payment and poor market performance, my net worth is back up 6.3% for the month of May. Income, on the other hand, is significantly down this month, more in line with my expectations moving forward.

Keep reading this article to see my May financial reports. I will not give further commentary, but I will answer any reasonable questions.

Personal balance sheet and net worth statement

Income and expense report

If you have questions, feel free to post them here.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, Net Worth, Income, and Expenses, May 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

Each month I open my personal copy of Quicken Home & Business to the public. This tradition was the original impetus for creating Consumerism Commentary in 2003. At that time, at the age of 27, I was about one year into managing my own finances. Prior to that, my own money was mostly something I ignored. That was not a successful approach, so I made the decision to switch gears.

Since then, I have been posting my net worth statement here, keeping myself accountable for my decisions. More recently, I expanded this voyeuristic exhibitionism to include a report listing my income and expenses. The two reports help provide a fuller picture of my finances.

April was not a bad month for my finances in general, but my net worth decreased this month. The biggest driver for the decrease was the check I wrote to the IRS. A large tax bill means I’ve been doing something right on the income side of the equation. Speaking of income, I saw an expected decrease this month. I also expect a bigger decrease for May. Keep reading for my balance sheet and income statement. I’ve included thumbnails in the post, and you can click on the images to zoom in.

Personal balance sheet and net worth statement

Income and expense report

As I mentioned last month, I do not plan to offer additional commentary, but I will answer questions if anyone has any.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, Net Worth, Income, and Expenses, April 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

If you have been following Consumerism Commentary, you might be aware that I publish a monthly report of my financial well-being, and I have been doing so since 2003. Here is my latest balance sheet, whose bottom line represents my “modified net worth.” That number has increased in March by 12%.

Rather than provide all the commentary as I have done in the past, from now on I plan on posting the reports without additional commentary. I will be happy to answer questions or take suggestions, however.

Continue reading for the reports. Thumbnails are included in the post below. Click on the images to see larger versions of the reports.

Personal balance sheet and net worth statement

Income and expense report

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, Net Worth, Income, and Expenses, March 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

Did you read my February balance sheet? This article contains my personal income statement, which goes hand-in-hand with the balance sheet. These two reports provide a relatively complete accounting of my financial standing and progress.

February was short, but good for a number of reasons. Setting personal records, my gross income and net income for the month were higher than any other month I’ve experienced. This was thanks mostly to the biggest month in terms of visitors to Consumerism Commentary since I created this website in 2003. It seems to be an anomaly; I expect traffic to return to normal, but it’s quite possible to see similar surges again this year. I don’t count on it, however.

I don’t generally like to write about blogging on Consumerism Commentary. I write about personal finance, not about blogging. On the bottom line in February, I managed to save over $22,000. Please keep in mind this is a theoretical amount; it depends on me receiving checks. There is still some income I recorded last year that I have not yet received. Keep reading this article for the numbers and explanations.

The above report is made with Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Excel. Here’s an income and expense report Excel template.

Income

In February, I received my annual bonus for my day job, where I work for a large financial company. The bonus is included in the “Salary and Benefits” line. While my company wasn’t subject to the issues that brought several financial companies down last year, we were still significantly affected by the industry and the stock market. Management started early preparing us early for low bonuses and salary increases. This was my first year as an “exempt” employee, which carries with it a wider bonus range. I didn’t receive a bonus that reflected my performance, however. My annual increase was not significant, either, but combined with a promotion and raise last year, I’m still doing better. Even though it wasn’t great, my boss explained that my increase was twice the size the average increase of the entire department.

The annual increase doesn’t take effect until the first paycheck in March.

I still have decisions to make. Time I spend working on my business pays off better than time I spend working at my day job. Leaving my relatively stable career would offer more time to devote to writing, but it would also entail finding my own medical insurance coverage and dealing with a less than stable income.

Expenses

There is nothing out of the ordinary to report here. I purchased some new clothing, recorded under the “Household” category. I have been holding onto a lot of old clothing. Some of my shirts, while still in very good condition, were more than ten years old. I decided to replace some old clothing, most likely acquired during college, with new, better quality items. I should continue to clean out my wardrobe about twice each year. I’m finding it hard to adapt from my old approach of spending as little money on clothing as possible. In February, I purchased new sneakers, new work-quality pants (for a financial company, we’re surprisingly casually dresses), and several new shirts which I found for great prices.

This month, I plan to purchase airline tickets for a vacation in April. Besides tax, rent, and possibly utilities, this should be my largest expense of March.

The original version of this article, Personal Income Statement, February 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

Over the course of February, my “modified net worth” grew 7.5% despite yet another unremarkable month for the stock market. As of the end of the month, my bottom line — a variation of net worth — surpassed $200,000, but was still below my original goal for December 31, 2008.

Every month, I post several personal finance reports on Consumerism Commentary to help keep myself accountable for my financial decisions. It’s a tradition that dates back to July 2003, when my net worth was about $13,000. This was just a few months after my net worth surpassed $0 for the first time.

Take a look at the numbers first, then read some of the following explanatory remarks. You can click on the graphic to view a larger version of the report.

The above report is made with Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Excel. Here’s a balance sheet Excel template. If you don’t want to go through all the trouble I do every month, but you still want to post your financial reports online, I suggest checking out NetworthIQ.

Current assets

The first line, “Cash in Banks,” includes savings and checking accounts, as well as cash held in brokerage accounts. This is a lot of money to have uninvested, but I do have a reason. I expect to have large bills from the IRS and the State of New Jersey when I file my taxes. The cash will also help when I place a down payment on a house, and that is something I have been saying for a few years. I am not excited about “settling down;” I have not yet decided where I’d like to live on a more permanent basis.

“Accounts Receivable” includes money due to me by clients. I still have a significant bill outstanding from a major advertiser, which I hope to resolve this month. I’d prefer to keep Accounts Receivable low while keeping income high; this would mean that clients are paying quickly.

Long-term assets

My investments look depressing. When I view these numbers each month, I struggle to keep in mind that I am investing for the long term. While experts say that equities will significantly beat inflation over the long term, I wonder if that is still true. There have been several period in history in which investing in companies wouldn’t have paid off, like the period of time we call the Middle Ages. Are we in store for a prolonged global economic crisis? When I ever make back the money I “lost” in my lifetime? We may never see the incredible growth of most of the twentieth century United States again.

We talk about the tech stock bubble of the 1990s and the real estate bubble of the 2000s, but perhaps we should be looking at the global economic bubble of the eighteenth through twenty-first centuries.

I also include the value of my car, a 2004 Honda Civic, as a long-term asset. In February, I adjusted the value of my car over the prior year using the value listed on edmunds.com. After over a year of no change in value, the price dropped about $1,000. I went back and split this decrease roughly evenly. So past dates in this report will conflict more with prior net worth reports posted here.

Current Liabilities

“Accounts Payable” mostly consists of outstanding credit card balances. I use one credit card for personal expenses — as many regular expenses I can charge to the card — and one for business expenses. Both cards earn cash back rewards. I find that I don’t spend significantly more using a credit card than I do with cash, so the method of payment doesn’t matter to me. I’d prefer to earn a few hundred dollars in cash back each year, particularly if my spending level would be roughly the same otherwise.

I no longer have any long-term liabilities, but that will change at the point in the future at which I decide to purchase a house.

Thanks for reading through this entire article. Please feel free to ask any questions. I’m completely open about my finances while I remain quiet about my identity. These reports are the primary reasons I do not divulge my name. I’d prefer to avoid a co-worker or future employer discovering more than they need to know.

I plan to post my income and expense report for February tomorrow morning. That report is generally more exciting than this balance sheet; well, it is as exciting as a financial report can be.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet and Net Worth, February 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

This post contains my monthly income and expense report. If you haven’t viewed my January balance sheet, read that first. I review these reports on a monthly basis, though I may soon move to quarterly, to ensure my finances are staying on track and I’m making sound decisions with my money.

Many years ago, I worked for a non-profit organization and spent more money getting to work than I was earning. Eventually, spending more than I was earning presented financial problems, magnified when I lost my job, my apartment, and my girlfriend. Since then, I’ve been working to be more responsible with my personal finances. Not soon after, I started Consumerism Commentary to keep myself accountable in front of an imaginary audience. Now the audience is much less imaginary.

January was a good month in terms of income and expenses. If the rest of the year is like January, even if I experience no income growth, I will be in good shape. Of course, I would like to see growth, particularly in my business income. On the bottom line, I managed to save $10,923 this month, or 68% of my income. Keep reading to see the full report. Click on the thumbnail for a larger version of the report.

The above report is made with Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Excel. Here’s an income and expense report Excel template.

Income

My “Salary and Benefits” category was higher in January due to receiving three pay checks, as it happens several times each year. This line includes my gross pay from my day job, as well as employer’s matching 401(k) contribution. I’ll be contributing the maximum to my 401(k) this year, and my portion of that investment comes out of the salary.

The “Other Earned Income” line consists of any income generated by the work I do when I leave my office. For the past few years, I’ve put much of my waking life into Consumerism Commentary and a few other endeavors. For now, it’s paying off through advertising deals and writing opportunities. I expect that my good fortune won’t last forever, so I’m making as much of it as I can while always trying to think of other ideas to keep it moving forward.

Expenses

Under “Business,” it looks like I haven’t recorded all of my expenses this month. I should have about $300 for January on this line. I’ll have this fixed by the time I report February’s numbers. My business expenses are primarily web hosting fees, merchant fees for accepting payments online, and supplies. I have some major plans for Consumerism Commentary this year, and my business expenses will climb.

Otherwise, my non-discretionary and discretionary expenses are not out of the ordinary. My charitable contribution this month was a small donation directed towards an organization that performed in the Presidential Inauguration Day Parade in Washington, D.C.

I mentioned last month that I didn’t find it likely to have a year as good as 2008, but so far, 2009 is working out well. I’m trending slightly better than last year. Keeping the same level of income throughout the year is going to take a lot of hard work and a lot of time dedicated to these activities. As a single guy with not a lot of familial responsibilities, now is the best time to do this.

The original version of this article, Personal Income Statement, January 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

2009 started off well. Since December 31, my “modified net worth” has increased 2.4% despite a sickly stock market, presenting a January bottom line of $188,566.

It’s not only a tradition for me to publish my monthly financial reports, this transparency is the original purpose of Consumerism Commentary. People post about their lives online for a variety of reasons. One reason is to hold themselves accountable for the decisions they make. By sharing my net worth, I’m exposing my financial decisions to the public, just like a public company submits quarterly and annual reports to the SEC. Even before Consumerism Commentary had readers, posting my numbers forces me to analyze my position and think about what I need to do in order to reach the next level or achieve another goal.

There is no intent to brag. In fact, although I’ve been lucky thanks to the popularity of Consumerism Commentary itself and the income it has presented, I do not have much to brag about. My financial condition, without income from my side business, would be much more dire. I apologize to anyone who finds these reports discouraging. I try to look at it from a different point of view; if I can succeed moderately, anyone (and many) can far surpass my meager accomplishments as of today.

Let’s get to the numbers first, and following the net worth report (balance sheet), I’ll discuss the details. Continue reading and click on the thumbnail to zoom in on the table.

The above report is made with Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Excel. Here’s a balance sheet Excel template. If you don’t want to go through all the trouble I do every month, but you still want to post your financial reports online, I suggest checking out NetworthIQ.

Current Assets

“Cash in Banks” includes savings accounts, checking accounts, and money market funds. This number is increasing, but am I allowing it to get too high? First, I need money ready to go when I make my tax payment to the federal government in April. Next, I want to have cash available for a down payment. I do not have immediate plans to buy a house. My opinion is that I’d rather wait until I’m ready to settle down and start a family before taking up more space than I need. I’m not interested in buying a condominium, the typical intermediary step between apartment dwelling and home ownership. Once I decide to leave apartment living behind, I do not want to experience a pseudo-apartment.

“Accounts Receivable” is a balance I’d like to keep low, as long as that means I’m getting paid faster by clients. My business expenses and income are recorded in a somewhat “accrual” method, in which I record income when work is done, so when I receive payment about thirty days after I send the invoice, the accounting is basically a transfer between accounts receivable to cash. The biggest outstanding invoice right now is from ING Direct, who ran a major advertising campaign in December. If you visit Consumerism Commentary with your browser, you may remember the very orange ads.

Long-Term Assets

Like many people I know, my investments haven’t fared well over the past year or so. I just need to keep in mind that I am investing for the long term. Despite contributions to my retirement accounts, my balance shrunk this past month. I plan on continuing to buy as prices are low, but there’s no way to know exactly how low they’ll go.

I continue to leave my car on my balance sheet. Despite approaching 100,000 miles, edmunds.com has kept its value the same for the past year.

Current Liabilities

“Accounts Payable” represents any outstanding business bills, of which I have none at this moment. It also includes credit card balances. Last month, I initiated an automatic system to pay my Citi Dividend World MasterCard. Through Citibank’s website, I signed up for the service that pays the balance in full automatically by debiting an assigned bank account. The day the payment was due, I checked my account information and saw no scheduled payments. I paid the bill for the full amount due immediately.

The next day, I saw that the card had been paid twice. I transferred money from one ING Direct subaccount to another to ensure the payment wouldn’t bounce or dip into my overdraft line of credit. I now have a credit balance on the card, which will offset future spending.

I have no “Long-Term Liabilities,” car loans or student loans. While I’m happy to be debt free, I know it is only a temporary condition. At some point I will buy a house, and that will require a mortgage. I may replace my Civic at some point, as well, and I might choose to take advantage of a loan if the situation is right.

I’m considering reducing my financial reports to a quarterly basis rather than monthly. Although most of the work I do to put these reports together is automated thanks to Quicken and Excel, it’s still a lot of manual work. I am currently in good financial shape, as long as my income doesn’t falter. It may not make sense to continue reports on a monthly basis while my finances are running smoothly.

Look for my income and expense report, a companion to my net worth report. I will post it tonight or tomorrow. Both reports are necessary to get a full picture of my finances.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, January 2009, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

On Saturday I posted my final balance sheet for 2008 and wrote about my progress this past year. Each month, I take a look at my income and expenses as well to get a fuller picture of my finances. This post contains my income and expense report.

December continues to be one of the most expensive months of the year. Continue reading for the details. For the end of the year, I included some yearly totals going back several years. To zoom in, click on the thumbnail version of the table.

The above report is made with Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Excel. Here’s an income and expense report Excel template.

Income

The “Salary and Benefits” category includes any compensation provided to me by my employer. The amount here consists almost entirely of my salary and 401(k) match. The “Other Earned Income” line is more interesting. This is the income earned by running Consumerism Commentary and a few other internet projects.

I had a successful year in terms of income. My goal for Other Earned Income was $100,000, with $125,000 as my “stretch goal.” I almost made my stretch goal. In the current economic environment, I expect 2009 will not be as successful, but I’ll write more about that when I get to setting my 2009 financial goals.

“Dividends and Interest” is down this year, despite higher balances, thanks to banks tightening their belts and lowering interest rates. This is the only truly passive income on the report. Increasing passive income should be anyone’s goal, particularly people who would prefer not to have to trade time and effort for money.

Expenses

The “Taxes Paid” line includes every tax I’ve paid this year except sales tax. It includes the tax I’ve had withheld from my paycheck, my final state and federal tax bills after filing this past April, and the estimated quarterly payments made throughout the year. I’m going to have a significant tax bill come April, and I’m currently looking for a great tax accountant with experience with small businesses to help me file correctly and efficiently.

Lower gas prices have helped me keep my automobile expenses low in December. Entertainment expenses were high in December mainly due to some used musical equipment I purchased from my brother. He’s a guitarist who recently ended a tour with his band, and he’s looking to upgrade. I was happy to take some equipment off his hands.

My total expenses in 2008 were down from the previous year. In 2007, I moved into a new apartment and purchased some new furniture. While I did get some new furniture in 2008, I didn’t purchase as much as I did in 2007.

The reality is that I may not have another year that was as good as 2008. I’m hedging my bets as much as possible. At work, management is working hard to manage our expectations away from receiving a bonus and annual raise. In an economy such as this, we are often reminded to be thankful that we have a job. This may be true, but it should be motivation to focus on what makes me valuable to the organization, invaluable even, and perhaps there are other environments where my skills can be used further. At the same time, I need to work harder just to maintain my “extracurricular” income, also mainly due to the economy.

2009 is going to be an interesting year.

The original version of this article, Personal Income Statement, December 2008, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

The stock market found a way to trash my net worth goal last year. Had the S&P index and my company stock increased in 2008 like they did in 2007, I would have surpassed my net worth goal for the year. Investments have a way of being volatile over short periods of time, and that was the case in 2008. Rather than finishing the year with a “modified net worth” of $220,000 or so, I ended with $186,237.

For more than five years, I’ve been tracking my financial progress live on Consumerism Commentary. I don’t do this to brag; when I started this website, my situation was not as good as it was now. I track my finances publicly to keep myself accountable and to learn from others. You may notice I didn’t put my numbers in the title of this article. This will allow readers to skip articles about my financial success and failure if they desire.

Despite the stock market’s performance, and despite not achieving some of my goals, I’m happy with my progress this year. The year-end balance sheet includes the closing balances going back seven years. At that time, I had just left my job at the non-profit arts organization and trying to put my life in a new direction.

This graphic is wide, so in order to zoom in and read the numbers, click on the thumbnail.

The above report is made with Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Excel. Here’s a balance sheet Excel template. If you don’t want to go through all the trouble I do every month, but you still want to post your financial reports online, I suggest checking out NetworthIQ.

Current Assets

Current Assets includes cash in bank and investment accounts, like savings, checking, and money market funds. It also includes “Accounts Receivable,” invoices I send to clients and advertisers. Accounts Receivable is a mixed blessing. It’s good when it’s high because it means my business is doing well, but it also means that I have invoices out to customers or clients, and I’m waiting for payment. I’d rather have the funds in my account quickly. I’ve never had an invoice not be paid, but I’m now looking at a few that are overdue.

Long-Term Assets

Any assets other than cash are included in Long-Term Assets, even if I plan to use the money in a few years. This is primarily my retirement funds, but I also include the value of my car and my other investments. My car has surprisingly been the best long-term asset in terms of holding value this year. According to edmunds.com, the value of my car has increased this year. I chose not take a conservative approach and not to reflect an increase in its value.

I’ve mentioned that at the end of last year, I’ve been using a strategy of buying the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index (VTSMX) on dips. There haven’t been any attractive dips lately, however, at least not when I was paying attention. I’m waiting for VTSMX to go below $18 before dollar-cost averaging down again. So far, the strategy has been a losing one, but the story isn’t over yet.

Current Liabilities

“Accounts Payable” includes unpaid business bills and credit card balances. While I’m not as diligently staying away from my credit card as I was during the November cash experiment, I’m still hardly using my credit card. I’m finding that I’m having a hard time tracking cash expenses as well as I track credit card expenses, while I’m not using my credit card to spend on anything I wouldn’t purchase anyway. I think it’s time for the cash experiment to come to an end.

Long-Term Liabilities

December 2008 was the month I became debt-free. That is, I eliminated all my long-term liabilities. The last of these was my student loan, which I paid off in full this past month.

If you look at the bottom line, you might notice that the numbers on the report above don’t match what I’ve reported previously. This month, I changed the way I report some numbers. I’ve taken my “cash” line out. This is supposed to reflect the cash I have in my wallet, but as I haven’t done a good job of tracking my cash spending for the last four years or so, this number has grown so high that it is too inaccurate. My reports now do not include my “cash” line.

All in all, my net worth increased 50% in 2008. This coming year will be a test of whether running Consumerism Commentary and the few other web projects in my portfolio is a sustainable endeavor. I have some big plans for behind the scenes here, and much of it can only be accomplished by dedicated myself full-time. On the other hand, I seem to be poised for some growth at my day job as well. With a turbulent economy predicted for this year, it’s going to be difficult for me to predict the best course of action, so I’ll see how things go — and how long I can hold onto my sanity working almost constantly.

Later this weekend I will post my income and expense report, which will provide more insight an analysis to my monthly and yearly progress.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, December 2008, is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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Along with the monthly personal balance sheet, which I use to track my net worth from month to month, I publish a report that outlines my income and expenses. The two reports together help me focus on the total picture.

My “extracurricular” income — money I’m earning outside of my day job through writing for Consumerism Commentary and a few other online endeavors — would have been lower this month if it weren’t for a surprise client at the end of the month. This push has propelled me beyond a six-figure income for blogging and writing.

Continue reading for the details, with numbers and explanations. You can zoom in by clicking on the report.

The above report is made with Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Excel. Here’s an income and expense report Excel template.

Income

The “Salary and Benefits” category includes everything I earn from my day job, including a 4% salary match for my 401(k). 50% of my salary, the highest percentage allowed, is diverted into my 401(k). Half of the contribution is designated before tax, while the other half is invested in a Roth 401(k). It’s too late to fully max out my 401(k) contribution this year, but I should be able to better plan my contributions next year.

“Other Earned Income” is the line on which I record income from blogging, advertising, and writing. Basically, anything I do to earn income outside of my employment are included here. When people learn that I am earning twice as much from alternative income than I am from my day job, they ask why I don’t just quit the day job and work for myself full-time. This is the goal, and I’m getting closer. I see some trends right now pointing to lower income opportunities in 2009, so I’m going to hold onto my day job, including its benefits and relative security, for a while longer.

If the trend reverses in the first few months of next year, I may decide to reduce my hours at my day job with the intent of making blogging (and everything that goes along with it) my “day job.”

“Dividends and Interest” is my first “passive” income category. Through savings accounts and investments, I’m heading towards $2,500 earned this year by doing nothing than letting my money earn more of itself.

Expenses

My vacation helped me keep my expenses low this month. I only stopped for fuel twice and managed without a trip to the grocery store. The “Interest and Fees” category is decreasing as my student loan winds down. December should be the last month with a value in this category unless I make any money management mistakes.

Expectations for December

The holiday season is here, and I have more gifts to buy. That will most likely be my main expense for December. It will probably not be my largest expense, however. I am faced with making decisions about charitable contributions this month, like I was at the same time last year. I don’t expect my alternative income to remain this high. In fact, December might be this year’s lowest month.

In December, I will continue my November Cash Experiment. For years I’ve been using credit cards for almost all expenses, earning cash back rebates along the way. The rebates are harder to earn now, and paying cash or using checks and debit cards might subconsciously encourage me to spend less. My progress in this experiment so far has been inconclusive, but it’s not a scientific experiment anyway. After another several months, I may have enough data to determine whether I should continue using cash or allow myself the conveniences of a credit card.

The original version of this article, Personal Income Statement, November 2008 (Net Income: $22,787), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

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It doesn’t look like I’m going to meet the goal I set for myself last year. A net worth of $210,000 is out of the question unless the stock market experiences a miraculous recovery. All things considered, my finances are still in good shape.

Every month, I review my account balances and income vs. expenses to keep myself accountable for my financial situation. I’ve been posting my financial reports online for about five years.

Despite further slips in the stock market, my “modified net worth” increased in November. This is attributed to my alternative income, which will be outlined in a post later today or tomorrow. But keep reading this article to see the breakdown of my net worth.

The above report is made with Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Excel. Here’s a balance sheet Excel template. If you don’t want to go through all the trouble I do every month, but you still want to post your financial reports online, I suggest checking out NetworthIQ.

Current Assets

Current Assets includes cash in bank and investment accounts, like savings, checking, and money market funds. It also includes “Accounts Receivable,” invoices I send to clients and advertisers. Accounts Receivable is increasing, which is good for business.

Long-Term Assets

Any assets other than cash are included in Long-Term Assets, even if I plan to use the money in a few years. This is primarily my retirement funds, but I also include the value of my car and my other investments. Surprisingly, my car has been the best “investment” over the past year. According to edmunds.com, my car’s value has actually increased to $9,059.

I don’t plan on reflecting that in Quicken because it doesn’t make much sense.

I’m trying not to focus on my investments. My strategy right now is to keep my head down and continue the process that should pay off in the long run: continue bi-weekly investments in my 401(k) with the same asset allocation I determined last year, invest in an SEP IRA once a year, and buy the stock market on the dips at a rate of about $500 per month.

Current Liabilities

Thanks to my November cash experiment, I have hardly used my credit card over the past month. As long as I keep this experiment going, I my current liabilities will continue to be low.

Long-Term Liabilities

I have only one long-term liability remaining, my student loan. That’s not for long, however. I’ve already scheduled my final loan payment for December 15. At that point, I will be fully debt-free for the first time since I’ve been an independent, income-earning individual.

That won’t last long. Society dictates I join the home ownership club, and that is the plan for when I feel I’m ready to “settle down.”

How was November for you, financially?

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, November 2008 ($180,926, +6.5%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

Despite the 6% decrease in my net worth in October, my income and expenses were healthy. My income was at my expected level for both my salary and “extracurricular” income. October’s expenses were a little higher than expected, but still within an acceptable range.

Each month, to accompany my balance sheet, I publish my income and expense report to keep myself motivated to make decent decisions about the management of my money. I’ve done a good job of using Consumerism Commentary to hold myself accountable. As my income increased, however, I’ve allowed myself more leeway while continuing to spend less than I earn.

To see my progress, continue reading this post. Click on the thumbnail for a larger version of the income statement.

The above report is made with Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Excel. Here’s an income and expense report Excel template.

Income

My salary and benefits consist of the paycheck I receive from my day job as well as my 401(k) matching contributions. 25% of my paycheck is invested in my 401(k) and starting in November, the percentage will increase to 50%. I will not max out my contribution this year, but I will next year after adjusting my percentage again. Also, 10% of my paycheck is diverted to my company stock purchase plan, which lately has not seemed like the benefit it once was due to the lackluster performance of my company’s stock.

The “Other Earned Income” category lists the income I receive from other activities such as writing online. At this point, I’m able to determine that changing my policy earlier this year to not accept text link advertising on this website has set my income back about one year. I mentioned last month that I am still considering leaving my day job to pursue my other interests full-time. The latest analysis claims that next year will be tough for those who earn money through advertising, so I’m going to continue taking a cautious approach.

Nondiscretionary expenses

Although I was able to save money on food and groceries last month, my expenses this month seem to have made up at least part of the difference. The recent decrease in gas prices is also helping to ease my expenses. My utilities expense was higher in October because my September electricity bill ($125) was paid in October as well as my October electricity bill ($90).

Discretionary expenses

This month, I initiated a sustainable membership with WNYC, a public radio station affiliated with National Public Radio. I listen to the station during my commute in the morning and the afternoon. Each month, $10 will be deducted from my credit card (paid off every month, of course), and included in the “Charitable Contibutions” category. WNYC is a large organization with an operating budget amounting to millions of dollars. Usually, I like my charitable contributions to make more of a difference for the organization, but I’m continuing to re-think my strategy for giving.

Every year, I travel to visit family on the west coast over Thanksgiving. I purchased tickets for my cross-country round-trip flight last week, finding a decent deal on JetBlue. I decided to pay an extra $60 to reserve seats with extra space on both ends of the vacation.

Expectations for November

I expect a decrease in my outside income in November and going forward, but I might make up for the coming month’s difference thanks to freelance writing for a major magazine. I should manage to also decrease my expenses in November. Stock market performance, with the largest effect on my net worth, is a primary concern, but I need to spend more time focusing on decreasing my expenses and increasing my income.

In November I plan to experiment with a cash-only payment option. Where possible, I plan to use only cash rather than credit cards to see if the change has an effect on my level of spending. This is will be somewhat difficult when I purchase gas for my car; I’ll need to make sure I withdraw enough from the ATM. This will also limit my ability to purchase items online, which is unfortunate due to Amazon.com‘s low prices when compared to local stores at which I usually browse. It will be an interesting experiment.

The original version of this article, Personal Income Statement, October 2008 (Net Income: $9,074), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.

Following the end of each month, I publicly review my personal financial condition. This is the primary reason I do not use my full name on this blog; I’d like to be able to continue sharing the specific details of my finances without providing people who know my in “real life” the ability to search for my identity online and discover Consumerism Commentary. A few friends and family are familiar with Consumerism Commentary, but that’s the extent of my publicity among people who may want to know more about me.

Like September, I ended the month with a lower “modified net worth” than I had when the month began. October was worse that September, however. My bottom line was $162,881 in October, down over 6% for the month.

Continue reading this post for the report including some explanations.

The above report is made with Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Excel. Here’s a balance sheet Excel template. If you don’t want to go through all the trouble I do every month, but you still want to post your financial reports online, I suggest checking out NetworthIQ.

Current Assets

This category includes savings and checking accounts (“Cash in Banks”) as well as anything owed to me by clients or advertisers (“Accounts Receivable”). I also include balances in investment accounts that are invested in money market mutual funds. In October, I moved a sizable portion of my high-yield savings to a tax-exempt money market fund (VNJXX) and so far it hasn’t paid off well.

Long-Term Assets

The Long-Term Assets category consists of my investment accounts, including medium-term investments and brokerage accounts as well as my retirement accounts. As I mentioned above, if I have money market funds in my investment accounts, I include that above in “Cash in Banks.” Since money market funds are almost fully liquid, it makes sense to include them as current assets.

Checking my investment balances last month was upsetting. Along with the stock market in general, my investments fared poorly. Despite putting thousands of dollars into the market over the past year, the account values are below their levels from one year ago. The performance of the stock market is the sole reason that achieving my net worth goal of $210,000 for the end of 2008 seems like a fantasy.

Nevertheless, I have increased my 401(k) contributions from 25% of my salary, split almost evenly between traditional 401(k) and Roth 401(k), to 50% of my salary. I won’t max out my 401(k) contributions this year, but I should be able to plan better for next year.

Current Liabilities

Accounts Payable includes any money I owe within one year, including credit card balances and any bills I owe. Most bills I simply record as an expense once they are paid, but some I record as a liability when the expense is incurred, such as expenses for anyone who works for me. My credit cards are paid in full every month to avoid fees and interest expenses.

Long-Term Liabilities

Once I’ve been free of a car loan for two years, that item will drop off the report. My student loan is almost paid off, and I’ve been increasing the amount paid for the last several months in order to meet my goal of eliminating this by the end of 2008. I should achieve this goal, paying about half of the loan balance this week and the remainder in December. The interest rate is low, but still higher than most of my savings accounts. Unfortunately, I do not qualify for a tax deduction on student loan interest paid.

I will soon post my income and expense report for October, coinciding with this balance sheet.

How was your performance in October? I hope you performed better than my 6% decrease.

The original version of this article, Personal Balance Sheet, October 2008 ($164,209, -6.1%), is copyrighted by Consumerism Commentary.

If you enjoyed this article, follow @flexo on Twitter and visit Facebook for more updates.