Net Worth June 2010

July 1st and it's time to get my finances in order and see where they are.






Yay for upward trending graphs! My net worth currently is -$7,026, up $559 from last month. Still plugging away at those loans. I'm normally able to save more, but this month some large bills came due (insurance and car sticker renewal - yuck!). It was painful to withdraw the money from savings, but on the positive side, I'd budgeted for these expenses all year, so the money in savings was specifically earmarked for these bills. As a result, I didn't have to pull anything out of my actual savings, and over the last few months, I've earned a little interest on it as well.


I'm even more excited by some figures that don't appear on this chart. I've been tracking my debt balances in Excel since January, and over the last 6 months, I've reduced my loans by nearly $2,400, while still managing to beef up savings.

Even though I get discouraged sometimes by how long things seem to take, I'm definitely on my way to being debt-free. It helps when I'm able to see the progress. :-)

Where Am I?

Today I missed my exit for work and soon found myself on another highway going the wrong direction. I ended up being forced to navigate through a bunch of back roads.

If personal finance is a sort of journey, what do you do when you find yourself down the wrong road? This morning I had a goal - I knew where I needed to be. I even knew when I wanted to get there (late is a four-letter word in my book). But for a few panicky minutes, I wasn't sure where exactly I was. Made it harder to figure out what turns to take to achieve my goal of beating out the guy who works on the 1st floor for that oh-so-coveted parking spot.

It's not a perfect analogy, but knowing where you are is crucial to establishing solid finances. Know what you have and what you owe (your net worth) - this will allow you to recognize areas which need to be addressed and to formulate a budget to address them.

NetworthIQ is a free online tool to help you calculate your net worth. And if you're anything like me, the charts seem to be lot of fun as well.

Here's where I'm at as of the end of May - it's also my first time using NetworthIQ, so I'll see how I like it.

Net worth is in the negative, due to debts from student loans and my car. Paying down these debts is definitely one of my top priorities at this point. However, the overall figure is not as bad as I thought it might be, since I have also been gradually building up savings. So I definitely have things to work on, but I know I've made progress since I graduated jobless and without savings last May.

Obligatory First Post

Every second post demands a first post. Given that I'm done with college and no longer have deadlines, this might be a harder task than one would think. Gotta love the writer's block. Cured only by deadlines. . . .

Anyway, back on task. So, who am I and why am I writing this blog on personal finance?

I'm a recent graduate from a small liberal arts college who is currently working as a secretary/receptionist for a state agency in the land of the cornfields (anonymity is a beautiful thing!). By no means am I an expert in finance - I majored in history and one economics course was as close as I've come to formal business training. :-P I'm certainly not "making it big," and there are a lot of things I'm figuring out as I go. So, I'm writing this blog mostly to chronicle my own financial journey, to sort through what I'm learning, and, ultimately, to put at least some of it into practice. Beginnings matter, and I want to begin this personal journey well. And just maybe I'll manage to have a little fun along the way. . . .