No better way to ring in the new year then by giving you guys a Net Worth update right? Twenty Eleven was great to the Ninja household. Our NW rose a little over $45,000 during the last twelve months. While we are definitely hoping 2012 is good to us, we’d be foolish to think this year is going to be equally awesome (in 2011 GN had a higher paying job, we lived rent free for four months, etc). Maybe we don’t make huge gains every month, but as long as we make some serious progress towards our goals, I’ll be a happy camper. Let’s get on with it, shall we?
A$$ets:
Checking Account: $4,188; (change not shown since money is constantly in and out of this account). Wrote a check for a pretty substantial charitable contribution last month, but am yet to see the thing clear. Our landlord has also gotten in the habit of cashing our rent checks three to four weeks after he gets them. Checks are annoying because people don’t cash them. Wish I could pay my rent on a Credit Card.
Savings Accounts: $60,289; +$1,497. We hoarded cash like it was going out of style in the early part of 2011. Over the last six months, we haven’t been as good about making progress towards our $100,000 savings goal. Would like to be throwing more like $2,000 to $3,000 in this account each month.
Roth IRA: $25,754; +$389. My 2011 annual gains in this account were nonexistent. In fact I lost a few hundred bucks over the course of the year. I’ll still be a diligent little Ninja and continue maxing out my Roth every year I can. One day this account is going to make me rich, right now it just makes me frustrated. Haha.
TSP (401K): $27,241; +$1,062. I contributed about $700 to this account (including the match) and the markets added another $362 to it’s performance. I’ve upped my 401K contributions from 5% to 8% in hopes of building this sucker up even faster than originally planned.
Liabilities 🙁
Student Loan: $0. Okay I’ve been debt free for over a year and a half now. Thinking this will be the last NW update I include Sallie Mae’s zero balance in my liabilities section. Say your final goodbyes to Sallie Mae, because I’m burying her once and for all 🙂
Credit Card: $2,850 (change not reflected since balance is paid off each month). Ah the joys of Christmas shopping. We spent a little over $1,000 on gifts for the family this year, which was expected. Nothing else too sexy goes on with this account. Just the normal grocery shopping, household expenses, etc. But hey, at least we are earning airline miles while doing it.
My favorite months are the ones where my Savings, Roth, and 401K all show a green balance after them because that means our most important accounts increased in value. As you can see, they did just that last month. This my friends is a very good thing. In total, we added another $4,025 to our net worth, bringing our new total to $114,624.
Do you expect 2012 to be more or less favorable to your NW than 2011 was?
You can see all of my net worth updates here.
That is great! Y’all are really putting a lot towards this progress.
Unfortunately, the Kashman real estate empire has lost a good bit of value this year. It is hard to keep reminding myself that the loss was only on paper, since we’re still in the green on the houses as a whole. Same with the IRAs and TSP. C’mon, all of our investments…let’s make some progress!
I hope the Ninja household has an awesomely appreciating year.
I know that this year’s going to rock it out for you! I gained $2000 in net worth, though I’m still in the hole as far as getting the debts paid off. We knocked out a car and a couple of student loans. All that’s left is the credit card and the mortgage. 🙂
We’re anticipating an “exciting” fiscal year, as Hubby will be moving permanently into his promotion that he got about 6 months ago, and we’re hoping to sell our condo and buy a townhouse. I’m sure we’ll be hemorraging money at some point in time, but it’ll be for a good cause.
Well done, Ninjas!!
“One day this account is going to make me rich, right now it just makes me frustrated.”
I wouldn’t worry about this. Not at all. Sometimes your balances are going to go up, sometimes down. Over the long term, which is all that matters, they’ll probably go up. (At this point in my life, I don’t even keep records of my NW going beyond 5 years ago.) It also sounds from the way you’re speaking (“this account”) that you’re thinking in terms of separate accounts and not an entire portfolio. Seen in this way, with about $60K in cash and $63K in investments, your overall allocation is not “all in stocks” at all, but is actually quite conservative.
Since you can’t control economic conditions, the only thing to concern yourself with is what you can control, that is your rate of savings. And it seems here you’re doing as well as can be expected.
“Haha.”
Same to you.
It took me 10 years to figure out that investing in the markets was not for me. I hope you have better luck and skill than I did. I like what I can control which is the rate of savings. Get rich slowly for me, although everyone else says I’m going broke slowly with inflation.
I thought I was doing good with an $11k gain this year. I think I’ve figured out the secret though.
Step 1: Marry a Teacher
Step 2: …
Step 3: Profit?
I plan to kick 2012’s a$$ all over town, in multiple ways…ha!
And seeee yaaa, Sallie!!!
Nice work, Ninja
No, not really. Unless I miraculously get a properly paid job, it’s not gonna happen.
My net worth is technically negative 60,000+ dollars but I don’t count the credit cards since they’re all charged off, no point in paying them back. So negative 44,000 dollars. Yay.
C,
I was going to write a wise ass comment like, “no worries, it isn’t your fault. You were either forced or tricked into that debt by evil white men” but I am going to take the high road and ask – what are you doing to actually getting a properly paid job?
Are you planning to move? have you been applying? did you learn any new skills? ever try to make money online? I am going to guess no it is easier to just chill here and bitch.
Right, because it’s that simple. I don’t want new skills. I’m a writer who isn’t writing for a living.
You dislike me so much, why do you even need to respond to my posts?
I don’t dislike you at all…sorry if I ever gave that impression. Your comments fascinate me and have even inspired posts of my own.
Well, I’m glad you’re fascinated by someone’s incredibly shitty life and utter poverty. *shrugs*
C,
I would NEVER take pleasure in someone’s misfortune like that just not who I am. The reason you fascinate me is that you hang out on such an optimistic, you can do anything blog and talk about your utter poverty but have yet to say ONCE about how you are trying to change your current path
Well, C, some weeks back I wrote you a fairly long laundry list of possible things you could do to find legitimate work, and there was no reply. If you consider yourself a “writer,” there can and should be all kinds of free-lance opportunities if you make aggressive efforts to pursue them. If nothing else, you should acquire the latest version of Writers’ Market and see what you can learn from that. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.
You say you aren’t going to list the sallie mae loan anymore. I would take it a step further and just quit listing your liabilities because YOU DON’T HAVE ANY. A credit card paid off in full every month isn’t a fucking liability–my 44k in student loans that I have no way of paying back OTOH…
Maybe we have different definitions of liability…
I’m really starting to question your education. First, you elect to define “an extended period of time” as three years away from a loved one.
Now you’ve chosen to define liability as a crapload of student loans (which is correct), but not a credit card bill? You do understand that I have to pay that credit card bill right? It is ABSOLUTELY a financial liability because I owe someone else money. You seem to think liabilities are only things that you can’t pay in full, when that is simply not true. If I didn’t include my CC statement in my NW updates they would be inaccurate and inflated since it would be ignoring the $3,000 obligation I have to the bank.
I think you might be confusing the term liability with burden. My CC bill is not a burden, your student loans are.
You are probably the most fascinating person I’ve never met.
But the reality is that you have the money to make purchases without a credit card. You could just pay with cash/check whatever and not use a credit card. You’re obviously just using the credit card to get mileage and other benefits. Which is fine. But it’s debt that you don’t really need to be taking on every month, as you have enough to pay without using credit cards. You don’t have any real liabilities. I think of a liability as something that is dragging you down, depressing your future earnings and decreasing your quality of life. Yes, you owe money, but it’s inconsequential because it’s really more of a boon to you than a curse. You’re incurring debt to get benefits from it…I don’t really even see it as debt because you have the money to pay it off in full and again, are just doing it to get credit card related benefits. It’s almost disgusting to me.
I think a credit card that can’t be paid is definitely a liability, but yours is not.
I mean, F, The change isn’t even reflected, since you pay it off every month, after all.
I also appreciate your comment about my “crapload” of student loans. Very sweet and supportive of you. No wonder you’re so effing charming.
I’m about to wash your mouth out with soap 🙂
Um, ok. Whatever.
I don’t think you think I’m fascinating at all. I think you think I’m a bitch who needs to go away.
Of course a CC bill is a liability, paid in full or not. It’s an account payable vs. a long-term note like a mortgage, but still a liability.
And for at least the second time, C ignores my positive suggestion as to what she could do to help herself. Draw your own conclusions.
I do wish I could follow your advice, but writing jobs are pretty filled right now. And of all things, by shittier writers than me.
case in point, the author of this blog makes more than I do in a year just writing this blog than I do ringing out assholes all year. He’s not a writer at all but makes what would be a shitty living if he didn’t have his other income.
Sucks.
Bull, C. You have to make your own way. Write articles, submit them to magazines, look in Writers’ Market for opportunities. Lots of people freelance as writers. No reason why you can’t. DN may not be a great writer, but he took initiative. You’ve got a lot of time on your hands from all indications and if DN can make money from blogging, why not you?
You’re right. There’s no reason why not.
I just can’t imagine getting a lot of people to read what I’ve written.
I can’t keep fighting with you, C. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Find yourself a niche. Maybe write a blog (pseudonymous, of course) on the experience of working at Walmart, or the perspective of someone trying to make ends meet on $8K a year. Do you remember the young woman who set a goal to cook through all of Julia Child in a year and started a blog on it? It eventually became a book, then a movie.
If you write something and it’s good, people will read.
Well, I live with my mom, so it’s not any great mystery how I live on 8k a year. (technically almost 10k, before my taxes were taken out, so 8 something)
A lot of the shit people do to cashiers would make good material. The problem is I forget half of it. Bleh.
I would write that but making money doing that is another matter. You think people would really pay to read that?
It would have the added benefit of making people aware of how shitty walmart cashiers are treated and maybe being a bit nicer the next time they shop there (if they do).
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Over and out.
Larry, I like you, you’re a nice person, even when others are mean.
“case in point, the author of this blog makes more than I do in a year just writing this blog than I do ringing out assholes all year. He’s not a writer at all but makes what would be a shitty living if he didn’t have his other income.”
– Do you think Ninja was just walking along the forest one day trying to hit on Unicorns when he stumbled upon the password and login for this blog? NO he worked his butt off to build it up.
” think people would really pay to read that?”
Did you pay to read this blog? It is literally free to start a blog on wordpress or blogspot – do it tonight…and once you have a following you can start to advertise.
That came out wrong. I meant, would people really advertise and pay me.
And, would people really read it.
Also, how did he work his butt off? He bought a domain name and started posting.
C is right Evan. I bought the domain over 2.5 years ago and somehow 800 posts have magically appeared over that time. I haven’t put one ounce of effort or work in to this blog. Not one 🙂
Writing all of your (sometimes obnoxious) thoughts does not equal work.
Says the person who makes sure to come back every day, read my articles, and even contributes heavily in the comments section accompanying each post.
I must be doing something right.
Not really. I come here to see if you care at all about other people’s financial problems. You’re no Suze Orman. You don’t care about helping anyone. You just want to brag about your big bank account and your wonderful net worth.
And you keep coming back why?
Why to talk to my favorite person, of course.
And it seems to me that few of your readers are people who are genuinely in dire straits like I am. Most are just people who, like you, like to brag about how much money they have and how perfect their lives are.
You’re not in dire straits. You simply lack the motivation and determination to change your situation as mentioned by multiple other commenters. If you expended half the effort you put trolling here in to finding a new job, you’d have some pretty decent income coming in right now.
Just because I don’t agree with you completely doesn’t make me a troll.
I do have some respect for you. You got rid of student loan debt in a rather impressive amount of time, and you had the dedication to get rid of it and work a lot to pay it off.
However, you can’t ignore the fact that you had many advantages working in your favor that I (myself being just one example) do not have, such as a middle class family, parents who taught you about money, and yes, much as you hate to acknowledge it, LUCK. Yes, LUCK. LUUUUUUUCK. Deal with it.
You should be prepared to have people disagree with you. I seem to recall you saying you LIKED detractors.
I’m all for people that disagree. Read through many of Larry or StackingCashes comments. They rarely agree with my philosophies, yet they disagree respectfully and with tact. Which you frequently lack.
Example, reader makes comment about eating dog soup and you call reader ignorant for making comment. That’s just mean.
Then another reader references an article that discussed dog soup being a delicacy in Korea, and instead of apologizing for calling someone ignorant, you bury your head in the sand and ignore it.
Don’t be mean and I will welcome your Opposing views.
Having a positive net worth will make me nice.
🙂
C,
I can’t figure out if you are really immature or literally just a moron. Since everyone here is WAY nicer than me I am going to lay it out and maybe it will motivate you, but probably not because the straight white Christian male based society is holding you down….you will likely never be successful and/or financially secure. You are a baby with a degree who has been given answer after answer by Larry yet you throw it all away and say Ninja is just lucky.
You say you are a writer yet you don’t write…you say you want to get out of debt and be responsible yet you don’t understand the basic tenets of personal finance…you bitch that you weren’t handed life on a middle class platter yet you live with your mom which probably helps out a lot
I want to be wrong. I want you to be successful but I really just have very little faith. Take this comment as a call to arms, step up to the plate and change your life! Do one thing today that will make Future C proud. Maybe that is start a blog and actually write or maybe that is updating your resume or maybe that is creating a spreadsheet of all your debt…Just something where 38 year old C can look back and say it happened on 1/11/12 (cool date).
I have almost $100K in student loan debt plus the last of my credit cards, but you don’t hear me whining about how there’s nothing I can do. You have to be proactive.
One thing to help with the check cashing problem is pay with online bill pay. I split a bill with a friend and they never cash my checks. I started doing online bill pay and the money comes out of my account as soon as I pay the bill. They send the check to the person (so I don’t have to buy a stamp- saving me .44×12= heck yeah!!). And one time my friend didn’t cash the check after six months…the bank put the money back into my account.