January was a fun month and one that helped me build a little on my net worth. I had the rare family-funded vacation and spent hardly anything for the first two weeks of the month. Since returning, I have had a couple of expensive evenings out, but in general this month was fairly typical.

New Student Loan Strategy

I made a life list goal of paying off my student loans in 2012. This is going to take a lot of cash every paycheck. In fact, I am planning on $300 from each paycheck plus my automatic payment of $92. Automatic payments give me a .25% discount, so I will not be getting rid of that.

According to the goals feature on Mint.com, I should be paid off in December. Since I made this plan, however, I realized that I would be getting my annual bonus and (hopefully) tax refund both before December. If I put those toward the loan, I should be paid off this summer.

Side Business Income

I have told you to turn your hobbies into revenue before, but I have never shared much about my success in entrepreneurial adventures. In the spirit of trust and transparency, I am going to open that up to all of you in my monthly updates.

Narrow Bridge Media – All blogs and online activities

• Private Ad Placements – $720.06
• AdSense – $18.88
• Affiliate Income – $0 (only reported when I am paid)

Denver Flash Mob – Sponsorships and consulting

I have yet to take $1 from Denver Flash Mob for myself, but because Uncle Sam thinks I made money from it, I am going to share it with you as well. I have a contract pending for a future event, but did not make anything thing month.

DJ Yofi

My fledgling DJ business made me a whopping $105 in 2011, but that is $105 more than I made in 2010. However, I also spent quite a bit on the startup costs for equipment. I hope to get more paying gigs in 2012, but had none in January.

Net Worth Update

As you can see, things were slightly up this month, but I started making bigger progress on the student loan. I am excited to see it go to zero!

February 2012 Net Worth and Earnings Update is a post from: Narrow Bridge

Related posts:

1. February Net Worth Update
2. February 1st Net Worth Update
3. February 2011 Net Worth Update

Well folks, I was out of town for my usually monthly net worth update, but I decided to do a little more digging for my last update of the year. My year end net worth was $98,081, an increase of $66,322 over the prior year end. My 209% increase was driven by two major factors that need to be explained.

First, I took control of an account my parents had for me for college. I never needed the account, as I had a full ride to undergrad and paid my way through grad school. Because it was not a restricted account, I had my Dad keep it as a “secret down payment” account for my first home purchase. Second, when I bought my home I pushed a hard bargain to get a fair price. The price was so good, that it was far below the standard (easy) home valuation method today, which is Zillow. The instant home equity increase was substantial, but the price has leveled and I decided to lock it in for consistency going forward.

At the end of the day, though, things seem pretty good. I am building my emergency fund back up to $5,000 before I start rebuilding my stock portfolio and I am on track to have that done by the end of 2012, if not sooner. I am also accelerating my payments on my student loan. I have $6,658 to go and I am all paid off. I am also trying to get that done by the end of the year.

To help pay for this, I am using two strategies. First, I am budgeting and spending less than I earn. Second, I finished paying into my flex spend account for my eye surgery. That is giving me an effective $200 per month raise. Add that to my tight budgeting and I should be all set.

Here are the numbers for December:

2011 Net Worth Update is a post from: Narrow Bridge

Related posts:

1. December 2011 Net Worth Update
2. March 2011 Net Worth Update
3. September 2011 Net Worth Update

I have learned a new lesson on how your assets impact your net worth. As my biggest asset (and liability) is now in my home, I can see my net worth fluctuate with the markets. Zillow uses comparable home sales and nearby listings to estimate the value of your home. My value went down about $6,500 this month. It is not the end of the world and has no real impact to me, but I am now more cognizant of that issue.

Now that home owner costs have leveled out, I took a fancy trip to Europe for two weeks. It was not a cheap trip, but it was worth every penny. I am expecting $400 back from a friend for the mutual costs I paid.

December 2011 Net Worth Update is a post from: Narrow Bridge

Related posts:

1. March 2011 Net Worth Update
2. November 2011 Net Worth Update (+2.55%)
3. October 2011 Net Worth Update

I am getting used to owning a condo. I bought a bunch of stuff for the new home and ate out at restaurants way too much in the last month. Also started a new investment account which took some cash.

November 2011 Net Worth Update (+2.55%) is a post from: Narrow Bridge

Related posts:

1. October 2011 Net Worth Update
2. December 2011 Net Worth Update
3. September 2011 Net Worth Update

I had a nice feeling this morning when I logged onto my finance aggregation tool and took a look at my net worth box. For the first time, it has six digits… before the decimal!

How I Got Here

If you look at my most recent net worth update, you can see that I was a long way off from this point just a couple of years ago.

Around December, 2010, I was nearing a net worth of zero. While I did not have credit card debt, I was mid-way through graduate school, my student loans were growing and my bank accounts were shrinking. I had more debt than cash for the first time in my life and I knew I had to keep working hard to get out.

Fast forward to January 2011. In the eleven months since my last MBA tuition payment, I paid off my car, paid off one of the two remaining student loans, dramatically increased my savings rate, and had good trajectory.

I was in a good place with my career and my cash flow, so I decided it was time to look into buying a home. I took control of my “secret down payment fund” that I had kept separate from my other financial accounts. I only used about $5,000 from that account during grad school. When I took the cash and deposited it into my savings, my net worth took a big jump, but it was sort of artificial because I knew the money was there the entire time.

The Double Jump

I was good about pressing forward in my savings and generally good about my spending over the next nine months. I saw my total net worth fall some from equity investments, but I was still on track to buy a home. My expenses rose when my lease expired and I went month to month, so I knew it was time to make a change.

I found the condo I knew would be home around that time, and I started the process of buying my first home. I negotiated a fair deal on the condo and, according to Zillow, had an instant $40,000 home equity gain.

Cash Flow

After I bought the condo, I had lower monthly cash expenses. My costs were about $300 lower per month. It was just a matter of weeks from there for my net worth to make the extra jump to $100,000.

I don’t have any plans to change my spending habits. I will put that extra $300 per month into savings first, student loans second, and my mortgage payments third. That will keep me on track to add another zero to my net worth.

Who know, maybe the million dollar club is not that far off?

Image by financialfellow1.

The $100k Club is a post from: Narrow Bridge

Related posts:

1. Update on Lending Club
2. Lending Club Update: Get $25 For Free
3. August 2011 Net Worth Update

I bought a home! I took one more step toward the American dream. I am a homeowner. If it were 1779, I just qualified to vote.

As you can see, I spent pretty much all of my cash. My down payment and closing costs came to about $34,000 all together. I sold stocks and used cash for the purchase, but I did not have to touch my Roth IRA and did not have to make any major changes to my spending or savings habits.

According to Zillow, I made quite a deal when I purchased my new condo. I had an instant equity gain by purchasing below the “market value” of the home. Of course, the value is really only what someone is willing to pay for it. But I also took on over $100,000 in debt from my new mortgage loan. All in, I am $110,000 in debt. That sounds like a lot, but I have big plans to pay it off quickly.

The breakdown is below:

October 2011 Net Worth Update is a post from: Narrow Bridge

Related posts:

1. November 2011 Net Worth Update (+2.55%)
2. September 2011 Net Worth Update
3. August 2011 Net Worth Update

This month I paid for my flight to Europe, which was the single biggest expense. I also moved some cash from my stock account into my cash account.

This month I am going to buy a home. I am putting down 25% on the condo and will be paying most of the up front fees in cash, so my balance sheet is going to change quite a bit.

My cash and stock accounts will be near zero. My mortgage will go from zero to six figures, and my home asset will go from zero to whatever Zillow says it is worth.

The biggest cause of the decline in my total net worth is my investment accounts. Both my stock and retirement accounts took a big hit from the markets.

Also, a quick thanks to SPF for including Narrow Bridge in this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance.

September 2011 Net Worth Update is a post from: Narrow Bridge

Related posts:

1. October 2011 Net Worth Update
2. November 2011 Net Worth Update (+2.55%)
3. December 2011 Net Worth Update

Result: -1,524 or -2.27%

I spent entirely too much money over the last month, but I spent it on really good stuff. Paid for my new Alienware laptop, bought a plane ticket to New York, and had a ton of fun. However, time to tighten things up a bit.

The stock market bombed over the last couple of weeks, thanks to the Republicans in the House of Representatives, and I have lost about $1,000 from my peak portfolio value. That is about 10%.

This month I plan to spend far less outside of $600 toward a plane ticket to LONDON, PARIS, and AMSTERDAM!

August 2011 Net Worth Update is a post from: Narrow Bridge

Related posts:

1. February 2011 Net Worth Update
2. December 2011 Net Worth Update
3. September 2011 Net Worth Update

This month my personal stock portfolio was down, but my conservative investment in my retirement accounts did not suffer. No major transactions. I came in under budget. Overall, not too bad. I did buy a new laptop which will show up in next month’s update. End results: + $1,219 or 1.85%.

Net Worth Report for July 2011 (+1.85%) is a post from: Narrow Bridge

Related posts:

1. September 2011 Net Worth Update
2. November 2011 Net Worth Update (+2.55%)
3. October 2011 Net Worth Update

I was going through my budgets over the last couple of days preparing the post on Mint.com vs. Adaptu, and I realized that I need to follow my own advice. While my net income continues to slowly increase (emphasis on slowly the last couple of months), my spending has increased with my income.

While my savings has increased as well, I need to get things back into line with where I was a year ago. The biggest spending category increase has been on food and dining. I need to eat out less and cook more. I have suffered from lifestyle inflation and need to deflate a little bit.

Net worth change in May: $433 or .66%

One category that had a big increase in my Lending Club account. I am still averaging over a 10% annualized return, so I see no reason to slow down my investments there. There are risks, but I have seen no defaults and I am very picky with my loans. If you sign up through this link, you can get $25 for free to get started with Peer to Peer lending. You can get a more detailed breakdown on my recent Lending Club update. Here is my net worth breakdown for the end of May:

Assets		$ Diff	% Diff
Cash	$30,304	($1,100)	-3.50 %
Stocks	$10,262	$123	1.21 %
Bonds	$0	$0	-
Annuities	$0	$0	-
Retirement	$18,607	$305	1.67 %
Home	$0	$0	-
Other Real Estate	$0	$0	-
Cars	$14,528	$0	0.00 %
Personal Property	$0	$0	-
Other	$293	$127	76.51 %
Total Assets	$73,994	($545)	-0.73 %

Debts		$ Diff	% Diff
Home Mortgage(s)	$0	$0	-
Other Mortgage(s)	$0	$0	-
Student Loans	$7,562	($51)	-0.67 %
Credit Card	$404	($927)	-69.65 %
Car Loans	$0	$0	-
Other	$0	$0	-
Total Debts	$7,966	($978)	-10.93 %
Net Worth	$66,028	$433	0.66 %

June 1 Net Worth Update is a post from: Narrow Bridge

Related posts:

1. June Net Worth Update
2. 2011 Net Worth Update
3. December 2011 Net Worth Update