Net Worth Update: March 2009 (-$1,684)

Another month headed in the wrong direction but still surprisingly stronger than last month.

This is how things broke down in February:

Cash:
Same old story here. It seems that I’m constantly hovering between $1k and $2k here but I’ve just started taking steps to boost myself into the $5-$6k range for added comfort.

Savings:
Another big month. This marks the fifth consecutive month that I’ve transferred over $1000 into savings.

Now that I’ve hit the big $10000 mark, I’m going to ease off a bit but I’ll still continue to make transfers and keep things moving in the right direction.

Gov’t Bonds:
They’re still returning an awesome rate. It’d be foolish to cash them out now even if they are only earning $3-$4 per month.

401k:
Just like everyone else, I took it on the chin here. Really, what’s another 7% loss over the span of a month? But, seriously, when the markets do recover, I know that I’ll be thankful that I’ve been contributing the maximum amount allowed throughout.

Home:
Yeah, the value is still falling… But I’m going to go out on a limb and state that it’s stabilized. For me, anyway.

Auto 1 & Auto 2:
I hit the 40k mile mark on Auto 1 last night! Besides that, there isn’t really anything to report. Just the usual swing of things in progress… Mmm…depreciation.

Credit Cards:
Back down to zero. Sadly, I was hit with around $15 in finance charges this month.

Turns out that if I’d bought the baby furniture one day later, that wouldn’t have been the case.

Yeah, I was truly hoping to make it through 2009 without paying a single dime for this sort of thing and I blew it already. Grrrr…

Auto Loan:
I should stop reporting this — the last one was paid off back in September 2008.

Other Loans:
Nothing happening here.

Mortgage:
In January, the balance went down $470. This month, it went down $472. Not terribly exciting progress.

With the $10k in savings cushion, I’d really like to go back to attacking this again. For most of 2008, as I attempted to rid myself of PMI, I was knocking over $1000 off per month. I’d like to work my way back up to that again.

For March, I’m shooting for something around $700.