Ouch. Just… ouch. Both months, I knew my net worth was taking a nose dive, and both months, I knew it would be bad. It really is akin to being stabbed in the gut. I’m warning you right now: the damage is bad. Don’t scroll down if you’re financially squeamish.
So, what was the damage?
Change, November: -$3,288 or -11.91 %
Change, December: -$474 or -1.53 %
Wow… that… hurts. Look at that line! The drop in November brought my net worth crashing down to lower (much lower) that it’s been the whole time I’ve been tracking it! And December was just rubbing salt in the wound.
So what happened?
Nothing unexpected, really. November’s drop was almost entirely due to student loans I had to take out in order to start Winter Quarter of my glorious education. I don’t actually view November’s drop as a “bad thing,” in the scheme of things. It’s likely to happen at least three more times, as I take out the money for the last three quarters of my undergrad degree.
All I can really do is try and make sure the line goes up as much as possible in between in quarterly drops. And I actually did that fairly well: November also included my biggest gain in cash reserves.
December, on the other hand, I can feel a little bad about. The drop there was mainly due to car repairs. It could have been worse – in fact, it should have been, but my family took on half the cost as my Christmas present. Still, I had to tap my emergency fund in order to keep my car on the road. The other major expenses this month: textbooks and gas.
For January, I’m hoping to lower my spending on gas, and throw as much money at my credit card as possible. But that’s a story all its own, which I will get to in a few days. As usual, stay tuned!
Yikes, I feel for ya. Cars always have a tendency to break down at the worst time for me too. Hang in there and best of luck getting the graph heading north.