| July 1, 2007 | Posted by derek under Retirement & Investing |
As a means of tracking my progress towards my 2007 goals, I am going to be running this as an on-going series of posts. As a bit of background, here are the opening posts in the series: April 2007 Update April 2007 Update March 2007 Update February 2007 Update January 2007 Update 2007 Financial Goals… continue reading
As you may remember, I currently have funds from an American Express 0% balance transfer parked in my HSBCdirect account. The other day I received a new offer from Chase that would provide a 0% offer until October 2008 and there are no balance transfer fees.
I’ve been contemplating the idea of giving Chase a call to see if they will deposit a check into my checking account, which would then be funneled directly to HSBC to earn me additional interest each month. While there are drawbacks to this plan, I’ve done it before and have American Express running on autopilot earning me interest each month.
For the month of June, we reduced our non-mortgage debt by 2.44% and that brings the total reduction to 46.62% since the beginning of the year. While this seems like a small reduction, you have to remember that these funds are just sitting at HSBC earning me interest so I am in no hurry to eliminate this debt.
Increase Net Worth
The month of June was a big disappointment in terms of our net worth and for the first time my confidence in reaching my goal has wavered a little bit. The retirement accounts had a disappointing return for the month although I did lock in a nice gain in my taxable account to help offset the lackluster performance.
For the month of June, we had a disappointing increase to our net worth of only 0.50%. This is the second lowest increase of the year after we had a dismal February as well. Since the beginning of the year we have seen our net worth increase by 20.53% which would translate to roughly a 45% gain on an annualized basis.
The goal that I set forth for our net worth was to have an increase of 35% so it looks like we are still making nice progress towards that goal. There are still a few hurdles in our path but I am pleased with how we have done after the first half of the year is in the books.
Plans for July
We had planned to make the 2nd and 3rd payments on our replacement windows in June but there were a few delays with the windows so those payments will now be made in July.
With a few family activities under our belt, we are currently planning our annual 4th of July celebration and have been thinking about taking a mini-vacation. We’ve really taken a liking to visiting this country’s national parks and spending our days hiking the trails with a picnic lunch, so we may plan something like this for late July or early August.
It’s hard to believe that six months of 2007 have already elapsed but it has been an exciting year. We’re doing well on our financial goals even though we have had some unexpected events and are looking forward to what the next six months will bring.
As you look back at the first six months of the year, are you pleased or disappointed with your progress?
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