March 2017 Statement of Net Worth

Hello and welcome to our March 2017 Statement of Net Worth!

We have another awesome increase this month, the amount of which is a little deceptive. I’ll explain more in the Liabilities section below.

Assets

We are only seeing 2 decreases this month in the House category and Savings – Reg category. I’m not worried about either of these because the house is probably responding to a downturn in our local housing market, and the savings is going down in value due to having paid bills recently.

I’ve explained in previous posts that we save our money all month long and on the last pay day of the month we pay all the bills. If there is excess remaining (there hasn’t been lately due to the car insurance situation) we will put that toward debt payoff. Typically when I share our net worth the Savings – Reg should be at or near 0.

Even though it is March, we have not yet increased the contributions to the Vacation Club and Christmas Club accounts. For one, the bills are not 100% paid off on the last pay day of the month and secondly, it sounded like a good idea in theory but when it comes to actually putting it to practice? I just don’t know!

­Liabilities

Only one liability increased in value this month and that is the Navient account due to my Income Based Repayment Plan not being high enough to offset the interest that accrues each month. It is interesting that this account has been increasing in value only around $100 a month, but when I talk to customer service representatives they advise me that my student loans accrue around $258 in interest per month. If I am paying $90.61 every month (my IBR amount) you would think the value would go up $168 or so. Interesting.

Navient is another one of the accounts that I said I would increase payment too once I got our bills back to being paid in full on the last payday of the month, and I have absolutely no hesitation regarding this! I can’t wait to see NO increases in value in our liability accounts, and I can’t wait to start working on paying it off altogether. I really want it gone.

Our Equinox looks as though we have made a double payment but we haven’t. I’ve been tracking our balance on my notepad since we first got our lease in December 2014. Somewhere along the line I must have not counted a payment that we had made because our actual account balance is $460.61 less than I always counted it as in my notepad. So, this is making our increase just a tiny bit dishonest but at least now our amount due is correct!

Next month our Personal Loan should be moving to the Capital One credit card for a 0% for 18 months balance transfer. The transfer will cost about $110.25 (3% transfer fee) and will increase our bills $75 for the next 16 months. It’s going to save about $700 in interest and move the loan maturation date from 12/2020 to 8/2018.

Our CP credit card is seeing a very sad decrease of only $147 this month because we had to travel to NYC for a funeral. Hubby did not want to use his travel fund money for this obligation trip so we used the credit card and savings. The good news is the spending we did that long weekend did not increase our credit card balance, but the bad news is we would have had an additional $350 decrease had that not happened, but what can you do? It’s all a learning experience.

We have not had the doors put up yet for Home Depot. I did get some quotes using ThumbTack but the funeral came up and everything was up in the air so we didn’t move forward with that. We did however get our new bathroom sink and vanity installed! There is still $240 in our Home Renovation envelope; I’ll have to make a post about our small scale renovations! I keep saying I will but now that we actually have something done I can show you that.

I send Home Depot $50 per month, so the $42 balance from February really should have been paid off, but we needed to buy a faucet for our sink so there’s a very slight increase there.

We also have Home Depot coming out this Saturday to give a quote on swapping out our furnace and AC which will be on special 24 month 0% interest financing. Very exciting stuff there! Our electric and gas bills have been horrendous. I’ll have to show you guys our mammoth furnace in another post. In 2016 we spent $1,609.69 in electricity and $736.99 in gas so I’m hoping updating the units will make a difference in our bills! Also, we can finally have our handy dandy wifi enabled thermostat installed for even more savings!

We are still waiting to hear back regarding Compassionate Care for all of my husband’s medical bills. We also received separate bills for his CT scan which is not covered by Compassionate Care. I called to make a payment arrangement on them of $100/month (the bill was over $700) and completely forgot to take my own advice about negotiating the balance! The first payment isn’t due until 4/1, and I should know more about what’s going on with Compassionate Care at that point; how much they are covering if anything, so I will call them back and try to negotiate the balance down.

So, at the end of the day we have an increase of net worth of $2,083, and I am very excited to note that our March 2017 net worth of (67,370) is VERY near our very first Statement of Net Worth back in 10/2016 of (67,325).

Coming up in March 2017:

• Home Depot increased balance for our new furnace and central air conditioner under 0% interest 24 month financing offer
• Medical bill changes
  • Emergency fund – will it live to see another month?
  • Compassionate Care? Payment Arrangements?
• Personal loan balance moved in to Capital One for 0% 18 month financing offer
• An on time statement of Net Worth – Maybe.

Thanks for reading!

XOXO,

Dolores