Happy New Year everyone!!!! Susan actually made it until midnight this year!!! We watched Ratatouille and are now watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Solitaire for the month: +3000
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Today
So, its been a couple of weeks. I kind of got tired of just posting solitaire post so I quit doing it for a couple of weeks to decide what I wanted to do with this blog. I'm still not sure. But I figured I would type about something today.
A major thing has happened in the last couple of weeks. The biggest one is we are now well below the 40K mark on the house. We are actually below the 35K mark now adding in the January paycheck. Something major happened once we got below the 40K mark. Something simply clicked, like we can do this!!! I talked to Susan about it a bit yesterday and she agreed, there was a psychological change at the first number going from a 4 to a 3. Maybe its because when we started with my debt, that was around what we started with. We were above the 40K mark, but not by much, and we got rid off all that debt in less than a year (closer to 7 months). Maybe, that is one of the reasons things changed.
To give you a little bit of an idea, let me tell you about the end of December budget. Susan and I went through the budget again, and reduced all of our weekly expenditures (which are: grocery money, household money (wal-mart type stuff), date money (for Susan and I to be able to do out to eat, see a movie, etc.), Greg stuff money (money we get that we can spend on whatever), Susan stuff money, and then the montly clothing money. By taking a simple 5 dollars a week from all of these categories, we freed up another 100 a month to send to the mortgage.
With the last raise that Susan got, and my surprise raise (none of my bosses have yet told me that I was getting a raise), we are now sending 3000 a month to the mortgage on top of the normal 604 dollar mortgage payment. Yes, we are managing to send more to Chase each month than my bring home pay. That's a very comforting thought when it comes to when we have a baby and Susan won't be working anymore. Not only will we be able to easily live off my income (sans solitaire) but we will also still be able to send money to retirement.
I have also sat down and made a new spreadsheet showing our net worth. Its a rather interesting process seeing those type of numbers and think about how negative we were and how much in the positive we are now. I'm actually keeping up with 3 numbers overall. The total net worth, net worth not including home equity, and then net worth not including home equity and without including Susan's IRA. There are reasons I'm keeping up with it like that.
Net Worth: Self explanitory, what we are worth overall including everything. Kind of have to track this one.
Net Worth w/o the House Equity: The reason I keep up with this one is for retirement. I don't see us ever having a house that is less expensive than the one we are currently in. That would mean that we can't really count the house equity toward our retirement fund.
Net Worth w/o the House or Susan's IRA: The reason I want to keep up with this number is to see where we stand as far as being able to retire early. I don't know if we will do this (right now, the numbers say no), but depending on outside sources of income, this might be a reality one day. Of course, the thing with IRAs is that you can't start drawing on them until you are 59 1/2. So if there is even a small possibility to be able to retire before then, we will have to have enough money generating interest without this account.
So where do we stand. The numbers look like this. I could only go back to October 2007 because of various factors....
October 2007: Net Worth: 99,586.35
Net Worth w/o House: 64,258.18
Net Worth w/o House or IRA: 25,568.75
November 2007: Net Worth: 109,210.03 LM: +8.81%
Net Worth w/o House: 67,961.87 LM: +5.45%
Net Worth w/o House or IRA: 29,641.71 LM: +13.74%
December 2007: Net Worth: 118,128.32 LM: +7.55%
Net Worth w/o House: 65,552.32 LM: -3.68%
Net Worth w/o House or IRA: 28,763.82 LM: -12.23%
As of right now, the Net Worth w/o House and Net Worth w/o House or IRA should not vary very much. Considering we are putting ANY extra money that we come up with to the house, the Net Worth number is going to be the only thing that is going to change the most. After we do get rid of the mortgage though, the other numbers will have a bigger impact. The other thing to consider is how I get these numbers. I decide to take the numbers from the 1st of every month. The accounts involved are our checking account, savings account (for small, short term emergencies), Vanguard Money Market Account (for tax payments and longer term emergencies, will also be used to build up our next car purchase and our next house purchase), our Home Equity (assuming our house is worth 95K then subtracting what we owe on the mortgage), and Susan's IRA. Once we do start purchasing more equities, once we finish with the mortgage, I will include other accounts. I'm also thinking about going ahead and breaking down Susan's IRA number into the 3 funds that are actually contained within that account.
Anyway, this has gotten to be a long post. I think I will start talking more and more about our finances and forgetting about posting results from solitaire and poker on here. I will post monthly stats for solitaire, but that is probably about it.
Ideas for next post:
Why we decided to pay off the mortgage instead of investing the money.
A major thing has happened in the last couple of weeks. The biggest one is we are now well below the 40K mark on the house. We are actually below the 35K mark now adding in the January paycheck. Something major happened once we got below the 40K mark. Something simply clicked, like we can do this!!! I talked to Susan about it a bit yesterday and she agreed, there was a psychological change at the first number going from a 4 to a 3. Maybe its because when we started with my debt, that was around what we started with. We were above the 40K mark, but not by much, and we got rid off all that debt in less than a year (closer to 7 months). Maybe, that is one of the reasons things changed.
To give you a little bit of an idea, let me tell you about the end of December budget. Susan and I went through the budget again, and reduced all of our weekly expenditures (which are: grocery money, household money (wal-mart type stuff), date money (for Susan and I to be able to do out to eat, see a movie, etc.), Greg stuff money (money we get that we can spend on whatever), Susan stuff money, and then the montly clothing money. By taking a simple 5 dollars a week from all of these categories, we freed up another 100 a month to send to the mortgage.
With the last raise that Susan got, and my surprise raise (none of my bosses have yet told me that I was getting a raise), we are now sending 3000 a month to the mortgage on top of the normal 604 dollar mortgage payment. Yes, we are managing to send more to Chase each month than my bring home pay. That's a very comforting thought when it comes to when we have a baby and Susan won't be working anymore. Not only will we be able to easily live off my income (sans solitaire) but we will also still be able to send money to retirement.
I have also sat down and made a new spreadsheet showing our net worth. Its a rather interesting process seeing those type of numbers and think about how negative we were and how much in the positive we are now. I'm actually keeping up with 3 numbers overall. The total net worth, net worth not including home equity, and then net worth not including home equity and without including Susan's IRA. There are reasons I'm keeping up with it like that.
Net Worth: Self explanitory, what we are worth overall including everything. Kind of have to track this one.
Net Worth w/o the House Equity: The reason I keep up with this one is for retirement. I don't see us ever having a house that is less expensive than the one we are currently in. That would mean that we can't really count the house equity toward our retirement fund.
Net Worth w/o the House or Susan's IRA: The reason I want to keep up with this number is to see where we stand as far as being able to retire early. I don't know if we will do this (right now, the numbers say no), but depending on outside sources of income, this might be a reality one day. Of course, the thing with IRAs is that you can't start drawing on them until you are 59 1/2. So if there is even a small possibility to be able to retire before then, we will have to have enough money generating interest without this account.
So where do we stand. The numbers look like this. I could only go back to October 2007 because of various factors....
October 2007: Net Worth: 99,586.35
Net Worth w/o House: 64,258.18
Net Worth w/o House or IRA: 25,568.75
November 2007: Net Worth: 109,210.03 LM: +8.81%
Net Worth w/o House: 67,961.87 LM: +5.45%
Net Worth w/o House or IRA: 29,641.71 LM: +13.74%
December 2007: Net Worth: 118,128.32 LM: +7.55%
Net Worth w/o House: 65,552.32 LM: -3.68%
Net Worth w/o House or IRA: 28,763.82 LM: -12.23%
As of right now, the Net Worth w/o House and Net Worth w/o House or IRA should not vary very much. Considering we are putting ANY extra money that we come up with to the house, the Net Worth number is going to be the only thing that is going to change the most. After we do get rid of the mortgage though, the other numbers will have a bigger impact. The other thing to consider is how I get these numbers. I decide to take the numbers from the 1st of every month. The accounts involved are our checking account, savings account (for small, short term emergencies), Vanguard Money Market Account (for tax payments and longer term emergencies, will also be used to build up our next car purchase and our next house purchase), our Home Equity (assuming our house is worth 95K then subtracting what we owe on the mortgage), and Susan's IRA. Once we do start purchasing more equities, once we finish with the mortgage, I will include other accounts. I'm also thinking about going ahead and breaking down Susan's IRA number into the 3 funds that are actually contained within that account.
Anyway, this has gotten to be a long post. I think I will start talking more and more about our finances and forgetting about posting results from solitaire and poker on here. I will post monthly stats for solitaire, but that is probably about it.
Ideas for next post:
Why we decided to pay off the mortgage instead of investing the money.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
December 14, 2007 Results
As the survival tournament goes on, actually got up to the 120 level today, stuck for now...
Solitaire: +150
Poker: -8.50
Solitaire: +150
Poker: -8.50
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
December 9, 2007 Results
Another good day in the Survival Tournament.
Solitaire: +250
Poker: -11
MLB Powerpro Baseball was pretty darn cool, but I don't think its good enough to actually buy this time around, maybe the next release. Its defenitely a pretty good baseball engine, the weird thing was the soap opera mode. Basically you lead a life as a college student and have to decide between practicing, studying, dating, and sleeping. It was pretty funny....
Solitaire: +250
Poker: -11
MLB Powerpro Baseball was pretty darn cool, but I don't think its good enough to actually buy this time around, maybe the next release. Its defenitely a pretty good baseball engine, the weird thing was the soap opera mode. Basically you lead a life as a college student and have to decide between practicing, studying, dating, and sleeping. It was pretty funny....
Sunday, December 9, 2007
December 8, 2007 Results
Good day in solitaire thanks to the Survival Tournament, not such a good day for poker.
Solitaire: +200
Poker: -42
Solitaire: +200
Poker: -42
Saturday, December 8, 2007
December 7, 2007 Results
Well the Survival is back, but not exactly how I wanted it. This time around, the Survival is only a 25K survival instead of the 50K survivals they have been having. That makes me very sad...... but hey, at least its a survival and it should end a lot quicker than the last several.
Solitaire: +50
Poker: +47
Solitaire: +50
Poker: +47
Friday, December 7, 2007
December 5, 2007 Results
Pretty dang good day, mainly because the big tournament ended.
Solitaire: +200
Poker: +2.50
Solitaire: +200
Poker: +2.50
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
December 4, 2007 Results
Can't crack the 180 person 4 dollar tournament for nothin'!!!!
Solitaire: +50
Poker: -4.40
Can't decide if I like the Wii version of Fifa 08 or not. It was semi-decent, but its really the same game from last year with just a different control scheme.... Mario Galaxy is pretty cool though, as is Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. Those have both been added to the Christmas list.
Solitaire: +50
Poker: -4.40
Can't decide if I like the Wii version of Fifa 08 or not. It was semi-decent, but its really the same game from last year with just a different control scheme.... Mario Galaxy is pretty cool though, as is Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. Those have both been added to the Christmas list.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Sunday, December 2, 2007
December 1, 2007 Results
No good tournaments going on in solitaire:
Solitaire: +50
Poker: +0.50
Will probably be a zero in solitaire tomorrow :-(
Solitaire: +50
Poker: +0.50
Will probably be a zero in solitaire tomorrow :-(
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Mortgage Payment
Just made the house payment that is due on January 1, 2008. Got to be an extra 2,229.30. That took another 9 months off the original payoff amount.
Beside that, not much changed:
Original Mortgage Payoff: June 2018 - minus 9 months
Official Mortgage Payoff: August 2009 - stayed the same
Dream Mortgage Payoff: August 2008 - Up one month
The dream mortgage payoff should go back down once we get some solitaire checks in. One of those checks is on its way in the total of 950 dollars.
So after taking into account December's paychecks, the new imaginary balance on the mortgage is:
42,219.
Yep, 44K and 43K gone!!! I love being able to take off ks everytime we get paid.
Beside that, not much changed:
Original Mortgage Payoff: June 2018 - minus 9 months
Official Mortgage Payoff: August 2009 - stayed the same
Dream Mortgage Payoff: August 2008 - Up one month
The dream mortgage payoff should go back down once we get some solitaire checks in. One of those checks is on its way in the total of 950 dollars.
So after taking into account December's paychecks, the new imaginary balance on the mortgage is:
42,219.
Yep, 44K and 43K gone!!! I love being able to take off ks everytime we get paid.
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