Net Worth and Goals: May 2010 – Down -5.3%

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:

Better late than never! From a Net Worth perspective May was a tough month. Due to the market correction we took a -5.3% hit to our total net worth. But pullbacks are to be expected as markets never go straight up. We’re happy with our investments so we’ll stick with our plan to fund our retirement account, build our Emergency Fund, aggressively pay off debt and save for Baby Frugal’s education.

Here’s the breakdown:

Emergency Fund: +425.06

Brokerage Accounts: -2581.63

401K: -8187.20

College 529 Savings: no change

Boat loan: -281.10

Additional Assets: I realized that I had erroneously omitted $2300 in assets from our Net Worth. These assets impact the overall total of our Net Worth but not the month on month percentage change.

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

2010 Goals:

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

• We’re getting close with 5.7 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’ve decided to go with a 529 Plan, but I haven’t settled on which state’s plan yet. Now that we have a social security number for Baby Frugal we can move forward with selecting the plan and setting up the account.

Personal Finance blog

Revised Goals (As of April 2010)

• 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

When I joined the Yakezie Challenge on March 10, 2010:

• My Alexa ranking was 3,989,292
• I was not listed on the Wisebread 100+
• I only received a handful of visitors each day
• My Google page rank was 0

Today (3 months later):

• My Alexa ranking is 130,850 – I’ve moved up 3,858,442 places!
• I am # 107 on the Wisebread 100+
• As of this week I am averaging between 70-100 visitors a day
• My Google page rank is 1