We’ve done a good job of increasing our retirement account contributions this year. Thus far, we’ve contributed $3,802.39 to my 401(k) and $3,976.48 to my wife’s 401(k) and a total of $8,400 ($4,200 each) to our Roth IRA’s. That puts us at $16,178.87 in total contributions to our retirement accounts so far for the year.
By the end of the year, another $617.91 will be contributed to my 401(k) and another $1,040.63 to my wife’s 401(k). We hope to contribute another $800 to each of our Roth IRAs to fully fund them for the year. If we’re able to do that, we’d have a total retirement account contribution of $19,437.41 (roughly $1,620/month) for 2009. That’s a huge increase over our $12,111.56 retirement contributions in 2008 and our $12,330.19 retirement contributions in 2007. We’re feel very blessed to be able to sock this kind of money away for early retirement.
Both my parents and my wife’s have paid off their auto loans early to save a ton on interest.Now we get to join the club.Thanks to my wife’s $4,872 ($2,255.97 net) quarterly bonus and our accelerated payments, we just paid off the 6.5% auto loan on our 2006 car.The loan was originally scheduled to be paid off April, 2012 and at the beginning of 2009 our balance was $15,586.49.It feels great to have this paid off early.We now have $450 a month to save and/or invest.
My wife’s quarterly bonus help us reach this new net worth milestone. We hit our last net worth milestone of $50,000 in August. We’ve been blessed to have a strong second half of 2009. Based on my estimates, we may hit a net worth of $70,000 in February.
My wife received her quarterly bonus today. She was 5th in the region in sales and received a $4,872 ($2,255.97 net) bonus! In addition, she received a special Teamwork award.
$730.80 of the $4,872 was deposited into her 401(k). The $2,255.97 check will be spent as follows: $487.20 to tithe $1175.74 to our auto loan $593.03 to savings
My wife is doing awesome in her job and, at this rate, our goal of early retirement is all the more possible.
Our income in October was a bit above average and we did an good job keeping our expenses down (click on spreadsheet below).
For the 3rd month in a row, my company increased my salary 1%. In addition to our paychecks, my wife received her $110 company reimbursements, I sold my old gym membership for $480, and we earned $85.89 in credit card cash back rewards. We also earned $0.95 in interest income from our online savings account.
If you pull out the extra $1,150 we paid to our auto loan, our total expenses were only $5,266.53. That includes being dinged with a $342.50 towed bill. I was out of town 2-1/2 weeks of the month, so my wife gets credit for keeping expenses down.
Next month brings more good news. My wife may receive her quarterly bonus (early) and my company will be increasing my pay again.
Our net worth in October increased $675.72 from last month, to a total of $54,211.91(click on spreadsheet below).
What Worked
I received another 1% increase to my salary (3rd time in 3 months). We paid an extra $1,150 to our auto loan, bringing the balance down to $2,907.26.
What Didn’t Work
We pulled $1,393.43 out of savings to pay our credit card bill for the balance of our Hawaii vacation in September.This was planned so it actually should fall under the “What Worked” category.We contributed a total of $1,497.03 to our retirement accounts (401k & Roth IRAs), but only them increase to a total of $367.45.
Next Month
God willing, November should be another net worth increase month.We plan to continue our accelerated payments on the auto loan and invest another $1,500 in our retirement accounts.I will have a large gym membership bill due next month, a portion of which may come out of our savings.
The Owner of my company just announced he will be increasing everyone’s salary again. I’ll be getting a 3.5% increase, or ~$2,100/year. This brings me to a total of 6.5% in increases over the past couple of months. That leaves only another 3.5% till I’m back to $70,460/year, where I was in February before the 10% salary reduction.
My company has been doing much better lately, but I’m surprised our salaries have been increased so rapidly. I was happy just having a job in this economy, but am very thankful for the extra money. I plan to increase my 401(k) contribution from 8% to 15% in January (my wife just increased her’s to15%). These salary increases will help make that doable.
I always feel like we could be doing more to reach our goal of early retirement, but am very thankful for all of our blessings. I’m also thankful for my parents for being such great personal finance role models.
We’ve been working hard to increase the contributions to our retirement accounts and have done a good job over the past 6 months. Our average monthly contribution since May has been $1,453.
I just returned from another business trip and earned 6,216 Delta SkyMiles. This brings me to a total of 49,939 SkyMiles. I also used my rewards credit card for all business expenses during the trip, earning us a $25 cash back reward.
I leave town again in a 1-1/2 weeks and may reach Gold Medallion status, resulting in double the SkyMiles every time I fly for the next 12 months.
Our path to financial independence and retiring early.
