Did your net worth increase this year?

[2moretrees]

Now that the year is almost over, did you increase your net worth this year? I guess I did in a way. That is, my debt is less than it was at the beginning of the year although I still have a negative net worth at the moment. But at least I'm heading in the right direction.

[Russell]

- I contributed to my 401k like I have for the past few years.
- I put away $3k into my ROTH.
- I also managed to save about $500 a month on avg. plus a little bit of interest from ING/ED accounts.
- I learnt a lot about finances from everyone here and that's definetly an important asset in my book.

Overall, a good year and looking forward to saving money in 2006 with the rest of you guys

Happy Holidays everyone!

[cercis]

A little. Last year was a very bad year for us. We spent a lot of time unemployed and underemployed. This is the first year we've both had jobs since our oldest child was born. I'm just happy to be on the positive side of the equation again.

[BAGAGT1]

It did increase in 2005, primarily because of my wife and I focused on cutting a lot of waste this year. As such we will have paid down more than 10k in CC and car loans in 2005, while increasing both our short term savings, and our retirement savings.

[Snoopy2645]

Well not really but we are close to paying off the house my goal was to have it paid off this year so I could start putting the house payment into savings every month. I did make more money this year than I have made in along time because I went from SAHM to working PT. I think our networth would have improved but we had somethings come up I bought a new bed cause mine was 100 yrs old same with our kitchen table & living room furniture it was all bought used 10 yrs ago so we got all new this year & then middle dd had surgery out of town. And dh bought a new truck the payments killing us not to mention its a gas hog & everything else.

But overall it was a good year my head is still above water & for that I am thankful!!! One more year gone by that I am not having to crawl back home!!! Not that I have anyone to crawl back too which is why I am paying off my house for my own security!!!

This new year should be even better my dh graduates in a week with a degree so maybe he will move to a higher paid job & since he is graduating I will get another pt job or maybe even go to just 1 ft job & 1 daugther will start school this year so if I do go FT we will only need a sitter for 1 so it wont be as expensive for daycare. I will also be 30 in the next year so hopefully the house will be paid off before I turn 30 & we can get into the saving side of things!!! And then the investments will come after we have saved a good portion

[baselle]

Yes, by quite a bit, about 30K.

Unfortunately a third of the increase due to the fact that I'm beginning to get inherited money, which means that someone close to me died. Another quarter came from the increase in the stock market and 403B investments. The rest due to a promotion and my savings.

Don't be jealous of me. I'm in my 40's so I'm in the time of my life when I had better be increasing my net worth.

[jmjj215]

Yep - and while still in school to boot!

[Fern]

Yes, mine increased by about $26,000, but about $24,000 of that was gains in my mutual fund (long-term) savings. I don't make much $, so was only able to save an additional $2,000 or so after paying expenses.

But i do prepay my mortgage $100/month and put 7% in a 401k.

[jmjj215]

Fern, that sounds great to me if you can save 7% plus $2,000 plus putting an extra $1200 toward your house! Woowoo!

[meaghanchan]

I did pretty well, though I have no exact figure on how much it moved up or down, since I didn't start tracking until this summer.

I
- Started a Roth IRA account with $1000, and am putting $100 a month in there (impending unemployment, plus the fact that I'm 23, accounts for the low monthly contribution)
- Started an ING savings account, now at $3500
-Started an Emigrant Direct savings account, now at $2000.

In short, I'm in a good position for the near term, as long as I'm not unemployed for more than 3 or 4 months.

[PrincessPerky]

well we went from negative a billion (or thats what it felt like) to negative a bunch. Ok so no actual numbers but we are going the right direction (and I don't realy want to know the actual numbers they are to depressing)

[gakline]

Yes, but I'm not sure on the numbers. I put $4000 into my Roth (which did very well) and 4% to my 401k. Another $150 or so went to my house and my savings went up slightly. I'll have to check for some numbers later.

[Bluezy]

Baby CJ and I are $10,000.00 in the good this year. Our financial situation looked VERY bleak at the onset of 2005. Now our future is so bright, we will have to "wear shades" (as the country song goes.)

Cheers and a Merry Christmas to All!

Bluezy

[EHadden]

On paper, I cut my debt, which does increase my net worth (or decreases my overall debt). I exceeded my financial goal for the year, which was to cut the debt by 15%, I actually cut it by close to 30%. From a state of mind standpoint, with the addition of a child, it doesn't feel like we are any better off. We did however, manage to stay off of plastic for Christmas (we paid a monthly bill to savings for that), took vacation for all cash (we paid a monthly bill to savings for that, too), have already banked our EF in ING, and started the 529 Plan for the baby. I'm sure that when we do our financial goals for 2006, we will feel a lot better about the fact that we managed to knock out so much this year, while adding a little one to the clan.

[Jason]

Maintained...working towards getting our head above water. Consolidated some CC's which was a good step. Did not use credit cards this Christmas for the first time in years. Paid down the mortgage and school loan.

[DivaJen]

Yes, it did. Liquid savings is up about $4000, and we have a new 401k established. The only debt we have is our mortgage. I'm pleased about our net worth going up because we also paid a year's worth of private school tuition back in July to the tune of about $5000. If we can do it this year, we can do it every year, even though it will go up each year.

[FrugalTexan75]

Nope, my net worth sure didn't increase this year.

My 401(b) did increase by about $4000 - 6 months only of contributions for 2005.

But unfortunately my savings account decreased by almost $8,000 - thanks to four months of no income, and two months of underemployment, along with moving three times in three months.

Here's looking to a full-time perment job in 2006 so I can increase my net worth!

Keeping It Frugal in Texas,
Laura

[tomkat]

I had a small increase:


--Savings account with credit union grew from $15000 to about $32500.
--Will have accumulated about $4800 in 401K by Dec. 31


This is a good start for me! I sure wish I had been money-wise earlier in life. I feel like I'm so far behind the ball!!!

[jodi]

On the surface it looks pretty bad due to DH's sudden unemployment and decision to go back to school full-time (add $4500 in student loans plus many miscellaneous expenses). Plus we bought a new car ($5k cash and a new $8k in financing). So our overall savings went down by a few thousand.
However, we did put the max in our IRAs ($4k both) plus DH just opened a Sharebuilder account with $2k. And I paid down both of our student loans by about $4k.
I guess it comes out as a wash, more or less. But the fact that we did it on one income makes me feel a little better I had the first half of the year off after ds2 was born, and DH had the second half off after losing his job.

[Ima saver]

Yes, Our next worth increased quite a bit this past year. We sold our last spec house for about $20,000 more than we thought we would and that helped.
By the way, I read an article today that said that over half of american's do not know their net worth. I have to do a financial statement once a year, so I keep up with our net worth on a monthly basis.