October 2006 Networth

It has been a busy month, especially the last two weeks.  Now that October is over, welcome to the holiday season!  Probably the most expensive time of the year.  But, we are confident that we are in a much better position now than we were a year ago, so this time, we're approaching it prepared.

October started off strong, having paid off my Chevron gas card, and making the final payment on my Chase card, though towards the end of the month, had a few extra expenses to make for a smaller jump in our worth.  Overall, our credit card debt only went down $217, but some of that is balance on our gas card (which is paid each month) and some other stuff.  Disappointing, but still progress nonetheless.  Better to see it go down only a little than to go up at all.  November is going to be an expensive month though.  Taking my wife's car in for work on Monday, already had to purchase some software upgrades for stuff at work, and I should be getting my new tires now that the rain is here.  Kind of preparing for this month not to be good.  But, I do have a $450 payment on route to Dell, which is nice.  I have more things to put on Ebay, whenever I catch a break from work.  So I know we'll have some expenses, but hope I can keep the damage as minimal as possible.

It is kind of evident how much getting my paycheck early skewed the stats last month.  Our checking account was artificially high, and this month, it looks like we lost a lot, paid little to savings, and little to retirement.  In reality, half of the transfers that were intended for October were in September because of that paycheck.  Ultimately though, I wanted the networth statements to reflect the balance on the final day of the month.  And regardless of how it was counted, I would still be in the same place today. 

I'm still tracking our debt reduction to buy a house, even though we aren't going to buy a house as soon as I thought.  It is still a goal of mine, and one I definitely want to reach by the time we buy a house.  We're up to $2,784 paid off, just over 25% of the way there!  Overall, some good progress.  Should note that once I pay off a card, I no longer count the balance if I use it.  IE, we have a balance on our Chevron card since we regularly use it, but I no longer carry the balance.  It is paid in full each month.  I am mainly looking to reduce the balances we carry, because that is what affects out monthly debt payments and debt-to-income ratio.

Overall, kind of a mixed month.  We made some good progress, our liabilities are continuing to drop, and our networth is slowly approaching $0 even.  Had some expenses, but I know we'll recover.  Regardless, looking forward to the new year, when the expensive season will be over and we can refocus to knock that debt off.