net worth increased

Since I sent in my most recent credit card payment, I couldn't wait to sync my Quicken to see my current financial status.  Over the last few days I kept syncing waiting for the information to reflect to the program to show the ZERO balance.  I also finally got around to adding my 403b information in there, which made my assets look a tiny bit better.

When I first installed Quicken my Personal Net Worth was laughable...maybe $17,000 (Net worth is your assets minus your liabilities).  I had the mortgage, student loans and of course the credit cards - a lot of debt and little savings or cash.  Little by little over the last 14 months I saw this number gradually increase since I was paying down the credit cards and adding a little extra to savings/retirement accounts; I was becoming a little excited.  But I still have about $230,000 of debt - doubt that will go down a lot in the next 20 years since even if I sell my condo, I will upgrade to something nicer, which means more property debt...but that is a 'good' debt, so that isn't a huge problem.  I will be concentrating now on paying more towards those student loans - I've only paid about $25,000 of it in the last 10 years, and have quite a bit more to go.

With the last credit card payment hitting Quicken, my net worth finally broke $102,000.  While this is a huge improvement in 14 months, it is way less than it should be for someone my age, but it is progress.  Here is my progress:

March 2012 - $17,571
April 2012 - $17,300
May 2012 - $49,256
June 2012 - $55,538
July 2012 - $61,531
August 2012 - $64,205
September 2012 - $67,071
October 2012 - $87,057
November 2012 - $89,307
December 2012 - $90,421
January 2013 - $93,823
February 2013 - $96,413


I hope to continue to see this number increase in the next year...although I hope to take a vacation, which would take a huge chunk of my super small savings, and bring the net worth down a bit.

Looking back at my Personal Strategic Plan I am ready for the 'continuous improvement' where I can re-evaluate some priorities now that they have changed.  Maybe I'll write about that next week.