Well, a few days late anyway… 
The calendar on the wall tells me another month has slipped by. So it’s time to take a look at our little balance sheet and see where we stand today. And of course, follow that all up with a few clarifying thoughts on the random bits.
| Dec31′06 | Jan31′07 | Change | |
| Assets | |||
| Liquid Assets | |||
| Checking | $29.58 | $203.23 | $173.65 |
| Cash | 1,350.00 | 410.00 | (940.00) |
| ING Orange Savings | 10.96 | 11.00 | 0.04 |
| HSBC Savings | 3,196.17 | 3,049.20 | (146.97) |
| Total Liquid | $4,586.71 | $3,673.43 | ($913.28) |
| Semi-Liquid Assets | |||
| Firstrade ROTH | $196.74 | $201.83 | $5.09 |
| Firstrade SIMPLE | 6,388.43 | 7,366.95 | 978.52 |
| Wife’s Rollover IRA | 45,626.63 | 46,951.70 | 1,325.07 |
| Total Semi-Liquid | $52,211.80 | $54,520.48 | $2,308.68 |
| Illiquid Assets | |||
| Our Home | $54,000.00 | $54,000.00 | $0.00 |
| Our Vehicles | 5,250.00 | 5,250.00 | 0.00 |
| Gifted Property | 45,000.00 | 45,000.00 | 0.00 |
| Total Illiquid | $104,250.00 | $104,250.00 | $0.00 |
| TOTAL Assets | $161,048.51 | $162,443.91 | $1,395.40 |
| Liabilities | |||
| Credit Card Debts | |||
| Chase | $20,625.00 | $20,250.00 | ($375.00) |
| American Express | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Total Credit Cards | $20,625.00 | $20,250.00 | ($375.00) |
| Other Debts | |||
| Home Mortgage | $39,480.21 | $39,426.69 | ($53.52) |
| Low Energy Loan | 16,700.03 | 16,584.94 | (115.09) |
| Line of Credit | 2,571.55 | 1,690.29 | (7,931.88) |
| Total Other Debts | $58,751.79 | $57,701.92 | ($1,049.87) |
| TOTAL Liabilities | $79,376.79 | $77,951.92 | ($1,424.87) |
| NET WORTH | $81,671.72 | $84,491.99 | $2,820.27 |
A little out loud thinking:
- First off: ‘Wow, looks like a little progress was actually made despite your promise of future sinking.’ Ah, but appearances can be deceiving. For that 31 day chunk, we did get a little traction. But only because others aren’t being particularly timely billing us. And don’t think I’m complaining about that one bit… I’d be perfectly content if they decided to wait until January ‘09 to send out their bills. Alas, I didn’t have to wait long – two good sized bills arrived to add a little heft to that debt just after I put together this table. Now I’m actually looking forward to the rest coming in, just so I can look at a final total and decide how to go about attacking it.
- But just because the debt total will be rising isn’t in and of itself a terrible thing. The additions (which I’m going to make you wait for because I wanna ) are basically sunk costs. The work has been done for awhile; they’re just not particularly on-the-ball billers. We’ve been covering a few smaller ones as they come in this month, to the tune that our debt paydown goal is almost 1/3rd of the way to completion after just one month. We’ve paid, after taking interest into account, just shy of $6,300 worth of our total debt. Of course, $4,500 of that was from our $5,000 Xmas bonus, but just shy of $1,800 paid down is decent progress to me (especially considering we’re eating a bit of money with the various activities around settling into a new home at the same time).
- More bleeding from the ol’ HSBC savings. I can’t recall precisely where that little pile of cash went (I’m writing this up while waiting on hold with the IRS at work so my register isn’t at hand), but I’m thinking it was my life insurance renewal. Next month, even more will disappear as I’ve decided to just pay our real estate taxes in full rather than attempt to take advantage of the interest-free period that our county grants us until May. A few bucks in interest just isn’t worth it to me, especially this time of year when my brain will be filled with all my clients numbers. I may occasionally forget mine, and the 15 bucks or so in interest I will forgo isn’t worth the hit to my peace of mind.
- 15% was a pretty heavy return on investment in my SIMPLE, wasn’t it? I wish – most of that was my employer playing a little catch up with contributions. But I can dream, can’t I….
Ah, the IRS awakens. Back to work…
[tags]debt, report card, retirement, assets, liabilities[/tags]
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