Our Progress Since Buying a House

I wanted to do a post on the progress my wife and I have made since combining our finances together about a year ago. Looking back over our net worth statements I decided it would be beneficial to look at the period since we bought our house back in April up until now. This is a period of 9 months and I've wanted to see what we have accomplished and what I feel we need to work on. I also need to take into consideration that we put on and paid for a wedding in that timeframe as well so that takes away from our savings and debt repayment.

First comparing our assets. Comparing the two months I notice our assets has gone up just over $2,000. Most of this jump came from our Retirement accounts with a small portion coming from an increase in personal property (wedding rings, furniture). Our cash level has stayed about the same with a negative $62 difference.

Next, looking at liabilities we can see that our total debts have gone down. Doing the math shows that we decreased our debt by $13,447 since April. The majority of this came from paying off my wifes car and almost paying off my car. Our other debts have gone down slightly but nothing to get excited about.

Combined this gives us a total increase in net worth of $15,644 over the past 9 months.

Looking forward, I think the logistics of how our net worth will increase is going to change. Once we have my car loan paid off and our other personal debts paid off we are planning on changing our focus from paying off debt to accumulating assets. At that point the only liabilities we will still have will be the mortgage on the house we just bought and student loans. We are in no rush to pay off the student loans with thier low interest rates. As for the mortgage, we feel it will be more beneficial to grow an investment account rather then paying this off at a faster rate. I will probably add a little each month to pay down the principal but not as aggressive as I have been trying to pay off our car loans. So for 2009 I see an increase in our net worth coming from a combination of asset growth and decreasing liabilities. But the focus will be for the first half of the year paying off debt and then asset accumulation for the second half of the year.