Net Worth & Money News: November 2014
November 17, 2014
Change from October: 1.67% increase
Change from January: (367.80% total); 1.05% decrease
On Money
I’m working away at Swagbucks to earn Amazon money for household, Little Bean, and dog things we need. Feel free to join using my referral link if you like!
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We’ve nearly recouped the investment losses from last month. See, nothing to worry about.
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Chatting with J.Money about his Craigslist challenge, I realized we’d been doing pretty darn well at it ourselves. (We = PiC, but I get to claim…. writer/banker credit?) I proudly present The Craigslist Sales Tracker!
This changed to Our Sales Tallies and then again to Our Side Money Tracker. Like anything with money, it keeps evolving. Check out our progress page in the top navigation bar there.
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Venturing into I-Bonds: I have been what you might call “a lazy git” at maximizing certain investing avenues. Jonathan’s regular update reminded me that I’d always intended to start buying I-Bonds and with CDs paying so little in the “basically-cash” investment vehicles category, now was a decent time to get in there.
Buying right before the end of October means that if I keep the I-Bond over a year, which I plan to, it’ll earn 1.94%.
I maxed out my contribution limit and am waiting to see what the new rate in November will be. If it’s a decent rate, I’ll max out PiC’s contribution limit.
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Investing is where my head’s been lately. I know it’s all slow and steady wins the game but I’m a bit twitchy. Reminders that we have quite a few irons in the fire and it will be ok:
I-Bonds – one bond to have and to hold til a better almost-cash vehicle comes along.
CDs – a strange CD ladder: one will CD mature next year, four will mature in 2016, and the last one matures in 2019. Never let me build an actual ladder for you.
Real Estate – one property with a trickle of cash flow.
Stock Portfolio – tiny, but growing.
Retirement accounts – his and hers, medium-sized.
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We all knew this was coming but with the increase in property value? Yep. Increased property taxes. To the tune of $700. OUCH.
By the way, not that I’m complaining, but it’s a little weird that the actual Payment Is Delinquent date is more than a month after the due date, isn’t it?
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We’re looking down the barrel of nearly $1500 in increased medical insurance costs for 2015.
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Mr and Mrs PoP asked an interesting question about how comfortable you’d be sharing your income. I’m not totally sure that anyone’s actually interested in reading these Net Worth posts but I’m still on the fence about declaring actual numbers. Seems like it’d be more useful (to me) but I’m not sure. Pros? Actual milestones!
Cons? We’re not poor anymore, not the way I used to be, so it makes me wonder (like Abby did a couple months ago) whether I’d be alienating people by sharing our actual numbers and progress. Your thoughts?
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On Life
We celebrate three years of marriage this year. I don’t think that I’d ever anticipated coming around to the notion of having kids or being this content with our family life. We’re not about excitement and big thrills, we’re happiest spending quiet time together and getting things done. And on occasion, a bit of fancy food to commemorate how far we’ve come.
We’re lucky and grateful to have met and, over time, become good fits for each other. I don’t think it was anything as arcane as “meeting the one” so much as learning how to mesh our lives. Sure we started out as a couple that really clicked but that doesn’t make a life. We worked hard at making our differences work for instead of against us, and making each other’s needs a priority. It’s not easy but it’s worth the effort.
Happy Anniversary! I’m not totally comfortable sharing my net worth or monthly income. It still freaks me out a bit.
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Thank you!
Which part freaks you out, the public sharing or the actual numbers that you’d share?
Happy anniversary!
I don’t find it alienating when others share incomes, but I don’t mind that a lot of bloggers keep it private these days. Mine isn’t explicitly shared, but I’ve posted at least one budget that included our net in the past year. The information is there if someone is insanely curious, but not really. I’m not comfortable with it, really.
Thanks!
Yeah I’d like to share but not for a good enough reason to override my reluctance to share.
That cheesecake looks lovely!!! Honestly, as much as I would love to see actual numbers, I would say don’t share. It’s better for you in the long run and I don’t think you’ll alienate people but it might become fodder for gossip and I don’t want that for a friend 🙂 And indeed, it is lovely to be content in home life. After a crazy early summer, we’ve shared several great weekends in a row where the most exciting thing we did was make dinner and watch a movie together. Our time together has become very treasured. I think it helps lay the foundation of sharing parenting responsibilities when you both are kind to each other before the baby. Congrats on three years!
Sally recently posted…When You Think You Have No Choice, Remember that You Always Have a Choice
I have SUCH a love of cheesecake 🙂 Thanks for the feedback, I’m guessing that there may be more downside than up to sharing.
There’s something really nice about being content just spending time together, isn’t there?
we are moving, and I’ve been meaning to take photos to post on craigslist…i always feel like it’s a really big hit or miss. but darn it, I will post them tonight
Newlyweds on a Budget recently posted…Why I Started Giving Money to the Homeless
Go get that Craigslist cash! And you’re very right – it’s hit or miss. We’d been listing one item for months with no good bites. We relisted in this round and had a serious buyer right away who just happened to be looking at the same time we were selling (again).
Okay, send some of that cheese cake my way, please 🙂 I made flourless chocolate cake last night, which ends up creamy and awesome sort of like cheesecake, so I’ll survive 🙂
I don’t share my income, but anyone with half a brain can figure out roughly what my takehome is. And when people start saving 75% of their income and aren’t living like total misers, you realize their income in creeping up there. I’m happy for them, unless they got the job I wanted 😉 kidding!
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Hah I was just thinking about your cake tweets last night! Usually I don’t go for flourless cake but if it came out similar to cheesecake I am ON BOARD.
Yeah, it’s probably easier to deal with seeing people’s savings and incomes if you don’t know what their jobs are and they’re not working your dream job 😉
Now that DH is employed and we make more money than ever before, I think I’d find reading about my life to be pretty boring. And yeah, we’ve probably alienated people who were interested when we were living on my salary alone or when DH was making half what he’s making now and we hadn’t had raises in years. I like living my life more with more money, but reading about it isn’t as interesting. Especially since we’re not really buying that much more, just maxing out savings and thinking about money a whole lot less.
http://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2014/11/11/i-dont-think-id-find-reading-about-my-life-to-be-very-interesting/
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Yeah I had wondered if there was any point to my continuing to publish these NW posts without real numbers but it’s interesting to see that most commenters think it’s not worth it.
Happy Anniversary!
Still sending best wishes for an uncomplicated pregnancy and a healthy little bean.
I think that actual numbers from finance bloggers can be double-edged sword. Yes, some will just be happy for you, some may feel that the income makes the blogger less relevant to them and if the blogger has friends/family that are readers it may add tension to the relationshops. And lets not forget the whole safety issue.
Bloggers should not forget the disdain and actual dislike of high income earners that is wracking this and other nations. Do we want to know how much finance bloggers are worth/make – yes, but I think often it is to see if they are closer to those who are at the bottom and therefore understand and can give advice more obviously useful to those that do not have the credit score or money to invest in real estate or cd’s or something else that requires a good credit score, income, etc.
Seems to me that a clear delineation of net worth may have more cons than pros.
Thank you and thank you!
Those are also good points. Newer readers wouldn’t know or care that any progress we’ve made has been due to more than a decade of struggle, hard work, challenges.
Happy anniversary! Despite my poor run of relationships, I’m not bitter and am always rooting for others who have managed to work through the tough stuff with a partner and are happy together. 🙂
Sharing your income can open up so many possibilities and problems that it’s hard to know what to do. I think I’d be comfortable doing it with a close IRL friend or blogging friend, but I wouldn’t want to do it out where ANYONE on the Internet can see it. It seems like that could attract a lot of creeps and scammers. I’d be more concerned about them than readers/comments spitting out sour grapes at your good fortune.
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Thanks, Linda! I wouldn’t ever downplay how much work it is to have gotten here, nor will I take it for granted, but there is a HUGE element (IMO) of luck involved as well. If I had made 1 different choice in my career, I very well may not have ever met PiC so if ever I have any regrets on that score, knowing that is huge.
You make a good point about creeps. I wonder what experiences other bloggers who do share actual numbers have with that.