Net Worth and Goals: April 2010 – 2.9% Gain

Each month I provide an update on how we’re tracking toward our goals. I break it down between Net Worth and Goals for the year.

Net Worth:

Another positive month for us in April! Unless we have any unexpected expenses (which is a possibility with our baby due this month), we are still on target to have our Emergency Fund funded by August. After that we’ll start aggressively paying down our only debt, a consumer loan.

Here’s the breakdown:

Emergency Fund: +1064.27

Brokerage Accounts: -357.89

401K: +2501.96

College 529 Savings: +1000.00 – My parents gave us a very generous gift to kick start our son’s 529.

Boat loan: -297.38

Note: Although I include our vehicles and boat in our net worth, I don’t reassess their value each month. I value them conservatively using Kelley Blue Book and update once or twice a year.

For a more detail you can check out our Net Worth report here.

2010 Goals:

Emergency Fund Set aside 9 8 months living expenses in Emergency Fund (roughly $30K $25K)

• I’ve officially changed this goal to 8 months living expenses
• We’re getting close with 5.6 months saved

Pay down debt Add $130 to boat payment. This alone will shave 5.5 years off the loan and save nearly $12,000 dollars in interest.

• Completed! Can’t wait to meet our Emergency Fund goal so we can REALLY start paying this down!

College Savings Fund We’re expecting our first baby in May. Although we won’t be able to contribute much this year, saving for college is extremely important to us and I don’t want to put it off. Establishing an account will also give our family the opportunity to contribute if they choose.

• We’ve decided to go with a 529 Plan, but I haven’t settled on which state’s plan yet. My parents gave us $1,000 to start the plan which is so awesome. You can read more about our college savings plan here.

Personal Finance blog

• Post daily (except weekends)
• Develop readership of 1,000 subscribers and 10K visits per month (note: I have no idea if this goal is realistic. It may be shooting too high or too low, but I wanted to give myself some sort of target to push me forward.
• Generate additional income from the Personal Finance Blog to put towards paying down debt and savings

I recently gave an update on my blogging since joining the Yakezie Challenge. In that post I explain what I’ve learned since I started blogging in January and share my revised my goals for the year based on what I feel is a more accurate measure of success for Cool to be Frugal.

• Post 4-5 times a week
• Break 100K in Alexa by the end of the year – I will need to move an average of 520 places a day to achieve this.
• Average 10K visitors per month – I think this is achievable but requires that I more than triple my readership.
• Increase my Google page rank to 3

It feels great making progress on our goals each month!

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