HERPY DEW BEER! (Translation: Happy New Year!) It’s been a whirlwind December (as it usually is), so I can hardly believe that it’s time for this month end/year end update already! You might remember from November’s update that I was worried about December possibly (probably!) being a down month. Let’s check in and see if that’s what happened:
Change: +$2,142 or +24.54%
December Net Worth: -$6,586
That’s pretty far from a “down month,” wouldn’t you say? Woohoo! Much of that gain comes from a bump in the value of my retirement accounts, but I’ll take it!
Also in December, the video game fundraising group (yes, that’s a thing) that I founded and organize raised $4134 for the organization charity: water, to provide clean water to people who need it in Cambodia and Ethiopia. So I’m feeling pretty good about that! I spent all the money in my “Charity” savings account on the fundraiser (mostly on supplies and food for the volunteers), and I still came out with a positive increase to my net worth? WIN WIN WIN!
8.5 months to go to get to my “Positive Net Worth” goal, and now $6,586 is the amount I need (or, I suppose, $6,586 + $1!). That’s about $775/month that I need in net worth increases to get there. Not too bad, I’d say — so long as this pesky wedding thing doesn’t cost me too much along the way.
Speaking of the wedding, based on our total budget and what we’ve spent so far, and what’s in our Wedding saving account as of now, we need to put aside another $1452.99 at this point (yeah, the 99 cents is really how the numbers came out!), and the goal is to have that money all set aside by April, so that’s $363.25/month between the two of us — totally do-able, I think.
$775.00/month in general net worth increase + $363.25/month in wedding savings (at least until April) = $1138.25/month that I need to squirrel away. I only averaged $1021.42/month in net worth increases in the months of 2013, so it might be a little tough to do… but then again, the wedding savings is between two of us, and only until April. So I’m optimistic that I’ll get it done.
Stay tuned, because I’ll do a Savings Snowball update soon, as well!
Questions? Critiques? Words of encouragement? Leave them in the comments!
Wow what a great year! 2013 was awesome for me too, mostly because the stock market was great.
I worry that we’re approaching another bubble, though. Have you seen the Shiller P/E? It’s fairly high. A Vanguard study showed this to be the most accurate stock market prediction tool, and when it’s high, it doesn’t bode well for stock returns purchased at that time.