March was another good month for my finances. The usual things happened. I made decent money, watched my spending, and thus had a good chunk left over for saving. It seems to be the pattern this year. My net worth increased an average of $2,900 per month during the first quarter of 2012. My taxes for last year affected this number, otherwise it would have been on pace for around $3,500 per month. However, my balance sheet has been cash-basis, otherwise I would have been accruing for for that tax liability. I’ve increased my withholding at work to cover that amount for 2012, so if I begin to earn significantly more money I’ll want to start actually accruing for the tax I’ll owe.
If I take my investment gains out of my net worth increase and add back in the taxes that were for last year’s income, I’m currently saving more than $2,500 of my monthly income. That puts me right on track to reach my financial goals for 2012. My goal that I set in January was to save a total of $30,000 for various purposes, which are displayed in the right sidebar. To do this, I need to save $2,500 per month. However, I just made this a little more difficult. I finally became eligible to contribute to a 401k at work and I haven chosen to contribute $250 per paycheck to my Roth 401k, which ends up being $6,000 per year. This takes affect in April. That means that in order to continue my current savings trend and reach my yearly goal, I need to increase my earnings about $500/mo from its current level. I think I’m up to the challenge.
Blog Related
This month was another strong one in the blog-related field. I published an updated Ally Bank review. I also wrote about how I thought that target date-retirement funds are great beginner funds for people who don’t want to be bothered figuring out their own asset allocation or who do not yet have enough money invested to make it worth holding multiple index funds. In addition to those, I also covered the best discount brokers of 2012 and compared term life and whole life insurance.
Personal
Still the same weight as February. Always good to not step backwards, but I also didn’t make any steps forward. I’ll be making more of a concerted effort in April.
