March 09 Net Worth Update: Credit Bad, Emergency Fund Good!

Once again it is time to go over my net worth. My monthly reminder of how I am doing with my finances. Everything seems to be the same except one category...DEBT!!! Actually it is not that bad once I break it down for you guys. At least the stock market is doing a little better than they have, even though my Stocks/Brokerage still seems to be losing some money. With this vacation I am going to go ahead and guess that next month net worth will be down also but we will see. Here is the break down:

Cash saving is up slightly I just keep cracking the whip on myself to keep saving up as much as possible. This has the 10k of my emergency fund, along with my monthly budget. It also has different funds like car, vacation, etc... It also has a house down payment fund which is the next goal I am setting for myself finically. 

Stocks/ Brokerage - I now know why they call it a brokerage, because its going broke every month...ha.

Retirement 401k - There you go...starting to see an uptick in the market, its nice to see it going up for once, I never really followed my 401k until about 4-5 months ago so I never really knew how it felt to be making money over a month. I just knew that watching it lose money every month isn't much fun.

Roth IRA - See previous

Debts and Liabilities - Ouch! This one is going to hurt, but just a little

Credit Card - 1) $935.00 is on my AMEX for my vacation(hotels and rental cars) which I get miles and I will be paying this in full before I get charged interest.

Credit Card - 2) $4200.00 this is a new card I just opened which is 12 month 0% APR.  I have the money in my savings to pay off the remaining  balance if I wanted if something unexpected came up.  $4,200 divided by 12 months = $350.00 a month. I will be paying the minimum of the card every month (2.5% of remaining balance) while putting the rest of what remains of the $350.00 into a high yield saving account to make a little interest off while I borrow interest free. I will be cutting a check for the remaining balance on the 12 month of next year before the 0% APR expires.

Car Loan - I want to put more down against the principle but its just not adding up after putting money away for a down payment for a house.  I currently have 4.2% APR so at least it is not killing my wealth but so much. I would love to do it but I am looking to purchase a house close to the end of the year so I can get the first time home buyer tax credit.

Overall - I am still pretty happy with where I am sitting right now, I have to keep myself honest and hopefully knock down some of this debt down. I have a lot of changes coming down the pipeline this year that I already know of, and of course there can always be unexpected situations that come up that you are not planning for. So, I am going to be thankful for where I am finically that this point in my life and hopefully it will remain getting better month by month. Remember the old elementary song, inch by inch, row by row, I am going to make this garden grow!