Income after deductions for taxes, health insurance contribution, & retirement contribution: $44,473 (38,210 from my full-time job, 3718 from part-time work, 1244 income tax return, 1000 gifts from Mom, 301 in survey income and rebates. I need to do better planning to get less of an income tax return; I’m a relatively new home owner, so I’m still having to adjust my tax planning for the extra deduction I get for mortgage interest payments.

Expenses:

Mortgage & PITI (property insurance & property taxes): $9240. This includes $575 in mortgage prepayments.

Food (Groceries & Eating Out): The books say 7616 (5963+1653), but it’s surely less—as much as 1500 less (2006 food expenses were 6152). The problem in my record-keeping this year is that my detailed records were lost when my last computer died in mid-July. I had to reconstruct my file from bank statements rather than receipts, and since I did a lot of buying at a warehouse store, toiletries, household supplies, clothing and even books got lumped in here—since I had no way to estimate actual expenses, I just categorized everything as groceries, the biggest expense at the warehouse store. Also, when I do ATM withdrawals, I also tend to list those as dining out expenses initially and go back and recategorize as I spend money, but all of those recategorizations got listed as food for January through July. All of that said, my food expenses are way too high.

Pets: $4032, most of that on Henry the Pricey & Priceless Hound, who suffers from several chronic illnesses and is on prescription food and several prescription meds for life, plus who requires about half a dozen vet visits per year. The two cats, Phoebe and Teddy, cost little in comparison—one vet visit per year, and food, kitty litter, and the occasional toy or treat. Between the two of them, there’s only ever been one vet visit for illness—knock on wood, as I hope it remains so. I also include money for bird food in here—I maintain two feeders by the windows for the amusement of myself and the kitties, and that costs about $5/week during the months when the plants are dormant.

Utilities: 3915 (gas heat 1841, electricity 462, phone, internet service, (basic) cable TV (package deal at 76/month for the three), water/sewer 315, trash 385)

Car: 2684 (about 600 on insurance and a thousand each on gasoline and maintenance & repairs, plus my first moving violation ticket ever, for running a stop sign I didn’t see.)

Business Expenses: 2616 (a new laptop computer and software for it (Office 2007, etc), lots of money trying to repair the last laptop, plus the usual array of books and videotapes I use in teaching, and some office supplies and postage.

Personal Care Expenses:2270 (clothing 1304, gym 445, toiletries, vitamins & supplements,521). I spent more than usual on clothing this year, as the only clothing I bought last year was a single pair of athletic shoes, and clothes were beginning to look raggedy and shoes to wear out, plus I gained 15 pounds (which I hope soon to lose) and some items did not fit.

Household: 1691. This includes handyman repairs, items for DIY repairs (that the boyfriend handles), small home appliances, furniture, gardening items, and supplies such as paper towels, light bulbs, and salt for the walks.

Entertainment (385), Gifts (266) & Charity (296): 947.

Health co-pays and disability insurance: 919 (there’s also 104/month health insurance contribution that gets taken out of my pay each month that I haven’t included here.)

Total Spending: $36,430 (compared to $38,653 in 2006. Biggest changes compared to last year are more in savings, less in taxes, more on food, less on pets (no major veterinary emergencies this year, thank god!), a bit more on utilities, clothing, and household; and this year, I didn’t have education expenses because those were picked up by the college.

Change in Net Worth in 2007: +8261 in short-term savings, +8739 in retirement accounts, -1796 decrease in home mortgage principal balance, -1000 loan from mom settled = +19,796 (plus the estimate of my home valuation on Zillow.com is up about 15,912, which I know is not a great estimate, but it’s what I have.)

My goal for next year is to cut down food expenses down to 5800. This is always a “spendy” category for me, as I buy a lot of food that is either pre-made or has a high labor margin—e.g., I buy a lot of pre-chopped veggies, and this past year, I bought a lot of pre-cooked chicken breasts—since that seems to make the difference between my cooking at home or not. Working a full-time job, a part-time job, AND going to school part-time, I do not have the time, energy, or inclination to cook, but I’m going to try to do a bit more so in 2008. I also expect business expenses to be lower, since the big one was buying a new computer this year. Ideally these two cuts will give me an additional 5% to put towards savings.

I'm up 20% for the year so far--partly due to increases in my retirement accounts and partly due to the fact that my home is still appreciating (I'm lucky to live in an area where the housing bust hasn't hit quite as hard.)

To celebrate, I made an extra $300 payment towards my mortgage, bringing it under $90,000 for the first time.

Nice to see progress

July 8: kayaking trip, $15
lunch, 7.90 + ice cream, 3.29
(all unnec)

July 9: grocery, 31.30

July 10-12: no spend days

July 13: 20.29 household
2.92 iced cappucino (unnec)
52.86 grocery

July 14: gas: 31.72, grocery: 28.44, household (flower baskets on sale, unnec, replacement fan for one that broke, 20% off): 52.98


Total weekly spending: 214.98
proportion unnecessary/"fun": 13.5%

A little bit over my 10% "fun" limit, but if I recategorize the flowers for the front as household rather than a pure "fun" expense, I'm still under 10% frivolous expenses.

Flowers are frivolous, but they also feed the soul!

I'm up 15.5% so far for the year according to the updates I do on NetworthIQ.com.

The biggest source of the increase is (presumed) home valuation, as judged by zillow.com. The area where I live has *not* been enduring the nationwide housing slump--things are definitely slower than they were in 2005, but still expanding. My retirement accounts are also up 5.5%, and my emergency fund, which I'd pretty much decimated last fall with all of Henry's medical problems is back up to over $4200.

Net Worth 12/31/06 $153,979
Net Worth 3/31/07 $169.871
Difference $15,892

Looks great, but most of the increase is from the estimate of my house's price on Zillow.com, which took a big hit a few months ago and is just rebounding.

Retirement accounts are up $1743, of which $180 is my contribution and the rest is interest.

Retirement contributions are low because I have been focusing on rebuilding my emergency savings, which I wiped out when Henry had his surgery last October. That is now up to $2213, an increase of $1478 over the end of last year.

Debts are down $1416--$1000 of that being loan forgiveness from my mom, which I'll take.

I downloaded the TaxAct program (basic) for free from their website and used it and the information from my December paychecks and statements to run-through a draft of my 2006 taxes. Looks like I'll be getting about $1450 back, which will make a nice boost to the Emergency Fund (which desperately needs it).

I also made a last-minute donation to one of my favorite charities, Co-Op America. They actively support sustainable and socially just businesses, and I think that making in-roads on the environment and social justice concerns by supporting corporations that act in favorable ways is a tremendously smart move. Until midnight tonight, Co-Op America has a donor grant that will MATCH any contribution you make, making your gift twice as effective. (Of course, that doubles the money that Co-Op America gets, NOT the amount you can deduct on your taxes.) But since this is one of the groups that I most consistently support, I made an extra $30 contribution (I'll get $13 of it back when I file my taxes, according to the calculations I did with TaxAct.)

Other than that, today has been a "no spend" day--in fact, other than taking the dog for a short walk, it wasn't even a "leave the house" day.

The picture shows a big drop in the last month, but that's due to my home value. I use the zillow.com appraisal in order to use a consistent methodology, and that sometimes has big changes without clear rhyme or reason. It shows my home value plummeting 10% this month, while my boyfriend's house mysteriously rises over 200% in value! If you follow the zillow prices over time, you see that there are occasional odd blips, and the thing to do is to look at the overall trends. So I can't know whether these changes are temporary blips or part of a more enduring pattern. Also, my town was awarded a casino license Dec. 20th, which will surely impact housing prices, and I doubt the zillow data incorporates any of that impact yet. I didn't want the casino but I'm still praying that the impact on property values (and quality of life) is for the better.

Probably a better comparison than the changes over the past 6 months is a comparison with my end of 2005 data.

Net Worth 12/31/2005, 149,279

Net Worth 12/31/2006, 153,979

Change: +3%--This is due to a 2% increase in assets (mostly retirement funds) and a 1% decrease in liabilities (mostly mortgage).

Taking the year-long view, 2006 wasn't a great year but at least my net worth still rose.

Paycheck came today and I immediately transferred $1000 to pay off some of the accrued credit card debt. That still leaves about $370 left to pay on the CC, but the latest car repair expense hasn't yet been posted, nor have I done my holiday shopping (limited tho that will be), so I'll pay the rest of the CC off after Christmas. That still will leave $1000 that I owe my mom that I was supposed to pay off by year's end--but (with her permission), I'm delaying that another month, given the $955 worth of unexpected car repair and veterinary expenses this month.

Finally did the last of the end-of-semester chores today so I am officially closing my books on the Fall semester. Relieved to be done. Mostly tired and not very much in the holiday/celebratory spirit. Not trying to be, either. I live in the "Christmas City" and maybe I'll take a walk downtown tomorrow and try and feel a little "holidayish." But we also learned today that we got one of the state's coveted slots licenses, so that the casino will indeed be built on the old steel mill, and for me, that's definitely NOT cause for celebrating--I worry about the crime and traffic that will soon begin to befoul my beloved historical city.

Well, the goal in moving $1000 out of my ING account back into my checking account over the weekend was to pay off the credit card bill. But not quite. First there was the $150 in emergency car repairs on Friday that got added to the credit card bill. Then I forgot about last weekend's $95 gym fee...by paying $95 once up front, my monthly fee is reduced to $19 for life--something I should be able to afford regardless. Doesn't save me much the first year but is a good deal thereafter, and Gold's Gym has been around long enough that I'm not worried that they're going to fold anytime soon. Then there were my two impulse buys: $113 on two accounting textbooks for a class that is required at one school but not at another. I'm working on an accounting certificate through the community college (generally cheaper) but can take a class through the college where I work this term, so I thought I'd familiarize myself with the material from the prerequisite class at my college that's missing from the community college curriculum. The "real" impulse purchase was a pair of speakers for my mp3 player that I got on sale for $37 including S&H (retail price $99). So with all of that extra spending and the $800 payment, the credit card bill is now down to $380. I also owe my mom $1000 to be paid this month. Things will be tight but I think I can squeeze $1380 out of my Dec 20th paycheck and be out of debt (late edit: other than the mortgage) by year's end. That's the plan, anyhow.

I started keeping track of my net worth on NetworthIQ around the same time as I started keeping this blog. It's good to see that things are moving in a positive direction. Increases are mostly a result of increases in the estimated worth of my house (I use Zillow.com for the estimate for my house, and also Kelly blue book for an estimate on the worth of my car) and the rising value of my retirement accounts, since what with the unexpected $5000 in veterinary expenses I've had over the past few months, I've actually spent a little more than I've brought in in income during the past 5 months.