Net Worth Update: May 2016

Last month, I revealed my pregnancy and the fact that my expenses will be going up. So how did everything shake out for the month after that? Let’s dive in and see the numbers!

Change: +$4,370 or +15.92%

May Net Worth Total: $31,818

Building Up Cash Reserves for the Baby

This month’s increase can really be attributed to just one thing: I’m building up my cash reserves right now. (So is my husband, but our net worths are not combined for these blog updates.) With a baby coming in November, building up extra savings is an obvious thing to do.

Speaking of the baby – I now know what my total costs for the first trimester have been! Medical costs, anyway – we haven’t bought a single thing for the baby yet. No crib, no clothes, no toys, no adorable baby what-its of any kind. This is, in my mind, a good way to keep the costs of a new baby down: don’t buy anything until just before you actually need it. And until after you see what gifts you will get, because honestly there’s no sense in throwing money away and ending up with duplicates of some things. I’m not trying to be gift-grabby or expecting people will give us lots of gifts – I’m just being realistic about the fact that babies (especially first babies) are gift-giving occasions. Plus there’s the fact that I know so many people with slightly older children, so some hand-me-downs are to be expected in my case as well.

But back to medical costs – for the entire first trimester, including pregnancy tests, prenatal vitamins, and all doctor visits, the total out-of-pocket costs for weeks 1 – 12: $648.45. I’d say that’s pretty good, all things considered… where the “all things” to consider is that I’m self employed, and therefore on the cheapest Bronze-level Obamacare health insurance plan that was available to me. I was expecting a higher bill, due to being on the lowest rung of the health insurance ladder.

I’ll dive deeper into the numbers in a future blog post series about being pregnant on Obamacare – because honestly? Before I was pregnant, I started trying to do research into how much pregnancy would cost out-of-pocket on an Obamacare plan, and I couldn’t find much information, nor hardly anyone giving examples with concrete numbers. It sucked, and I’m happy to help someone else out by at least putting my concrete numbers on the internet. Of course the situation will be different for someone else’s pregnancy, but I just feel like examples should be shared. And you guys know how much I like to share numbers. 😉

UPickVG 5 is Coming

We also hustled pretty hard this month, knowing that next month will require us to take a few extra days off from the usual hustle, because we’re producing a weekend-long livestreamed internet game-a-thon. 48 hours straight of livestreaming takes not just the 3 days of the weekend that the fundraiser is live, but also some shoulder days for setup/breakdown, and rest and recovery. Not to mention we’ve already begun donating some of our own money to the fundraiser (cause it’s hard not to also want to kick in when you’re hustling so hard on behalf of a charity) and anticipate donating more during the event itself, so we’ve been trying to build up the “Charity” savings account to prepare for that.

In fact, by the time this post is actually posted, the UPickVG 5 fundraiser will already be over. The game-a-thon and its prep time are just too close to the beginning of the month of June for me to have all of May’s numbers and everything posted before I have to completely transition into “Showrunner” mode and focus all of my attention on UPickVG. So… I could tell you how the fundraiser did in the end here, but I won’t. I’ll save that for the update it belongs in: next month’s June update. You’ll just have to wait. 😛

Extra $200/month?

I’ve left the poll up for how I should save/spend the extra $200/month I’ll have, starting in July, due to the end of my car payment. I’ve left this poll up even though, in reality, it’s becoming clear that those dollars are all going to go toward rent for a bigger place than my current 1-bedroom/1-bath apartment. Because even if we don’t strictly need more space for the baby during the first 6 months of their life, I’m a big believer that we will need a second toilet. Somehow, my husband and I have thus far avoided any “both of us managed to get food poisoning at the same time” catastrophes (ala Bridesmaids), but with a third human in the home, I feel like we’re just asking for trouble with only 1 toilet. Even if that human won’t use the toilet for several years. Just askin’ for trouble.

So, the new apartment (with at least 1.5 bathrooms) search has begun.

But you can still vote in the poll, which has now become an interesting hypothetical to discuss, for an alternate universe version of Stephonee, where I am not pregnant and apartment shopping right now. So feel free to place your vote for what Alternate Universe Stephonee should do with her extra $200/month starting in July:

I’ll discuss my thoughts in the June update, but I will say that so far… the poll has been going in a very interesting direction, in my eyes.

Holiday Tree FOR AMERICA

We’ve updated our holiday tree to its summertime-long decorations, which will cover Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day:

The flag that’s on top of the tree is pretty special to me: it’s from a Tweetup on the White House lawn that my husband and I went to years ago (when we were just friends), where we got to stand in the rain and see President Obama in person, as well as the President of South Korea. Well, not that the flag isn’t always special, but this exact physical object holds additional meaning in my life

Oh! And to give you the full effect of the fireworks lights…

That’s it for May! Check back next month for another update, and the discussion on the $200/month poll… and who knows what else!

Also, if you’d like to see how I stack up against other personal finance bloggers, be sure to check out The Ultimate List of Blogger Net Worths over on Rockstar Finance!