Just a quick post to say that we bought another vehicle. This vehicle, a 4×4, can be used as a daily driver if it takes awhile for my wife to get a job, or can be used as a fun weekend “toy”. We got a great deal by paying cash, $12,250 to be exact.
My wife is on her final interview today with a great company. If she gets the job, she will have 5 weeks of home study before receiving her company car. So, the extra vehicle will come in very handy.
We just passed $80,000 net worth milestone! Thanks to our $4,111 tax refund and good performance in our retirement accounts, we currently at a net worth of $81,635.73. We passed the $70,000 net worth milestone in January, so it only took us 2 short months. God willing, we should hit our $90,000 net worth milestone in July.
I will provide further details and update our net worth meter (on the left side of the screen) at the end of the month.
My wife’s company has been struggling and finally decided on Friday to layoff the entire sales force off.
It’s unfortunate, but not a total surprise. She had already survived 2 rounds of layoffs with this company and there were rumors and signs things were coming to a head.
Where does that leave us? Not in too bad of shape, actually.
• She will receive 2 weeks severance
• Her vacation will be cashed out
• She’ll be bonused on any sales until 4/2
• She gets to keep her company car for 2 more weeks
With $475/week of unemployment and reducing some of our expenses, we shouldn’t even have to dip into savings. Speaking of savings, with our tax return, our savings jumped from $4,327.37 to $9,320.43. We’ll likely need to use some of this to buy a used car, but the rest can act as a cushion. Plus, we should be able to continue to add a little bit into savings each month.
My wife is so on the ball, she’s already lined up a phone interview for tomorrow.
We paid a total of $2,025 in federal and state taxes last year. This year, we wanted to get help with our taxes because we had to account for our condo short sale. Thanks to a referral from a trusted friend, we met with our new tax accountant today and, boy, was it was worth it.
While we had less mortgage interest to deduct this year, he helped us find other deductions that we didn’t realize we were eligible for. We paid him $275 and he helped us receive a total refund (federal & state) of $4,111!
We should get the $4,111 refund via direct deposit in ~2 weeks. We plan to deposit the money into our savings account to build our emergency fund back up.
Thanks to my wife, February was strong income month and a low spending month (click on spreadsheet below).
In addition to our regular paychecks, my wife received a $3,000 ($1,217.53 net) quarterly bonus. My paycheck was also a bit higher because my company gave everyone another salary increase. My wife received a $110 company reimbursement for internet and phone service, we earned $75 in credit card cash back rewards, and we received a $50 rebate.
Our expenses this month were only $4,930.82, within $200 of our monthly budget. I was on business travel for 7 days, which probably helped save us some money.
March should be a pretty typical income month, but may be a large expense month, depending on how our taxes come out.
After a small decrease in our net worth in January, it was nice to bounce back with a strong net worth increase in February. Our net worth increased $5,529.60 from last month, to a total of $73,303.34 (click on spreadsheet below).
What Worked
My wife received a $3,000 ($1,217.53 net) quarterly bonus, so we were also able to increase our savings by $1,830.82. We contributed a total of $2,232.69 to our retirement accounts (401k’s and Roth IRA’s) and saw them increase $3,759.37. Good stuff!
What Didn’t Work
Everything went great this month.
Next Month
It’s hard to guesstimate how March will go. We’ll be doing our taxes and likely owe (we paid $2,024 last year), but I may be able to save some money on food and gas since I will be traveling for business for 7 days. We’ll have to see how it works out.
While reviewing our accounts, I happened to notice that E*Trade charged us a $40 Account Service Fee for our stock trading account since we have not made any trades in the last quarter.
It’s my fault that I did not read the fine print, but a $40 fee on a ~$300 balance is ridiculous. I’ve put a sell limit order in for our remaining 20 shares of BofA stock for $17/share (we bought at $14/share). The stock is currently at $16.66/share. I hope it will sell next week so we can get this money in to savings and away from insane fees.
My company just increased everyone’s salaries a bit more in an effort to get us back to our original salary levels before the reduction in February 2009.
My salary reduction was 10% last year and my company, through incremental increases, has raised it back 7.5%. So, I just have 2.5% to go before I’m back to my salary level before the reduction. Great news!
My wife received a $3,308.00 gross ($1,217.53 net) quarterly bonus today! 15% of the gross, or $496.25, was automatically deposited into her 401(k). We plan to tithe 10% of the gross and deposit the balance into savings. What a blessing!
January was another strong income month and an okay spending month (click on spreadsheet below).
Our incomes dipped a bit in January with my 15% 401(k) contribution kicking in, reducing my paychecks from $1,818.76 to $1,668.40. We certainly felt the missing $300 this month, but the sacrifice is worth it and we’ll get used to it. In addition to my wife’s $110 company reimbursement for internet and cell phone, we earned a $50 Chase credit card cash back reward and $62.44 Citi credit card cash back reward.
Our expenses totaled $5,792.05, which isn’t horrible. A couple of large expenses included: $455.48 traveling out of state and $233.50 for 6 months of life insurance. I was happy to learn that my new gym is allowing me to pay month-to-month, but giving me the 12 month prepayment rate. This kept us from having to pull a large chuck of change out of savings.
February looks like it may be a great income month and low expense month. My wife should be receiving her quarterly bonus that may be as much as $3,000 gross (~$1,500 net). I will be out of town on business for 1 week next month, hopefully saving us a few bucks on food and gasoline.
