In order to keep track of my financial progress or lack of progress I have decided to calculate my net worth each month.
My net worth as of today (3/2/2016) is as follows.
Assets
Cash – $2885.97
IRA – $21,491.86
Roth IRA – $9501.39
Loan – $450
Car/Stuff – $5000
Liabilities
Credit Card – $522
Student Loan – $126,913.89
Net Worth = $-88,106.67
My net worth improved by about $4000 in February. The combination of a strong earning month and my stocks rebounding resulted in a nice little boost to my net worth. It is nice to have a net worth in the negative eighty thousands compared rather than the negative ninety thousands. Well, maybe it isn’t nice, but it is at least an improvement. Maybe I can get my net worth to the negative seventy thousands by the end of the year.
I will finish paying off my credit card balance transfer this week. Then I will need to decide if I should start paying towards my student loan debt again or if I should fund my IRA first. I’m not sure if I should be saving for retirement when I have this monster student loan costing me 6.8% interest every month. On the other hand, I’ll already be retirement age or close to it by the time I get the loan paid off which wouldn’t leave me any time to save for retirement. Should I skip contributing to the IRA until I have the student loan paid off or not?
Good progress. As far as the IRA question, if you’re really not sure why not split it down the middle and see if that leads to possibly uncovering a preference…or maybe you’d be perfectly fine with leaving it as a split. In other words, I don’t think it has to necessarily be 100% one way or the other if you don’t want it to be.
Money Beagle – A split is a possibility. I have until April 15 of next year to contribute to the IRA so I don’t need to decide for a while yet.
Well done – $4000 net in a month is a great effort.
Get rid of your debt – it is an emergency.