Our net worth is now at $9,042.53, a $2,604.03 increase from last month (click on the spreadsheet below). Our biggest gain came from a $600 increase in our 401(k), only $100 of which was from contributions. We also checked off another short term goal by opening a Roth IRA for my wife and funding it with $3,000 (thus the hit to our savings amount). Our liabilities were reduced by their standard monthly amounts, except for our Chase credit card that we paid $105 extra on.

God willing, we should reach a net worth milestone of $10,000 next month.

I didn’t expect us to match our huge net worth increase in March, but we had a good net worth increase in April (click on the spreadsheet below). Our total net worth is now $6,438.50, well on our way to our 2007 goal of $22,000.

Some highlights from April follow:

• The nice boost to our net worth this month came thru a $1,147.24 (after taxes) commission check that my wife earned.
• We deposited $630.00 into our Emigrant Direct savings account for Roth IRA funding (once we hit $3,000 will be moved into Vanguard 500 Index Fund Inv). We also restarted my company 401(k), albeit at a measly 2% of my gross pay. Our retirement investment focus for 2007 is to fully fund our Roth IRA’s, and put any “extra” money into my 401(k) plan.
• We paid off our American Express credit card.
• I took $50 from my April fun money ($180/month) and deposited it into our ING Direct account. I hope to get $500 saved up to speculate with in the stock market (more for fun/education than as an investment purposes).
• We had numerous large expenses in April (noted in the spreadsheet) that totaled $1,219.45.

I have added a 2007 net worth goal meter to the blog (upper right hand corner) that will provide a quick reference on our progress.

Thank God for the great month and hopefully we can duplicate it again in May.

A lot of progress was made since our February 2007 Net Worth update. We have a positive net worth! Thank God! It’s a great feeling to finally have a positive net worth, even if it is only $3,293.43.

I can’t believe we were able to post a $6,462.28 change (click on spreadsheet below) to our net worth in one month. Over half of this increase was due to our Federal and State tax refunds ($2,044) and my wife receiving a $1,463 tuition reimbursement.

Here are the highlights from March:

• Our 401(k) has recovered pretty well from the $1,000 hit it took during the February stock market plunge
• We have $100 (starting small) invested in prosper at an average rate of 12.23%.
• Our emergency fund was given needed attention
• We made some serious headway on paying down our credit card debt. All of the remaining credit card debt is on 0% interest credit cards
• My wife’s student loan balance also was hacked down by the tuition reimbursement that she received

I don’t expect us to be able to keep up this kind of a pacing in the coming months, but we’ll sure try.

I will be updating our net worth on this blog at the end of every month.

Below is our net worth for February 2007 (click on spreadsheet). I realize we’re half way thru March already but wanted to use this as a starting point. As you can see, we currently have a negative net worth. Nowhere to go from here but up.