November 2008 Score Card — Part I: Net Worth

Another month, another loss.

We ended the month of November with our paper fortune taking yet another hit, though the scale of the loss is much smaller than the one we had in October. For the month, our net worth declined $17,011.73 (3.65%) to a total of $448,925.10, the third straight monthly decline.

Here’s a quick look at each element that I am tracking every month:

• Credit card balance(-): As we returned to normal after the vacation, our expenses also went back to the usual level. For the month of November, we had a total balance of $16,627.79 on our credit cards, up $502.70 (3.13%) from previous month. The good news is now we are spending much less on gas with regular gas price around $1.70/gallon. In the past, we used to spend nearly $120 a week on gas, now it’s less than half of that amount.
• Cash(++): We kept making progress on building up our cash reserve. With stocks tumbling all year long, now could be a good time to buy stocks. However, since we plan to get a bigger house maybe sometime next year, we prefer to put our money in online savings accounts to earn 4% return. There’s no guarantee where the stock markets will be in one year, so we are playing it safe at the moment. At the end of November, we have $84,260.57 in bank accounts, increasing $1,761.90 (2.41%) from October.
• Taxable accounts(—): Well, it turned out that our taxable investments were not the worst performer last month, thanks to the 5-day rally at the end of the month, though overall this part of our net worth is still pretty dismal. Last month, I moved about $3,000 new month to our Scottrade account to use the 1,600+ free trades I earned. I made a couple of profitable trades, but a large portion of the new money is locked up On November 30th, we have $183,243.36 in our taxable brokerage accounts, down $8,936.20 (4.88%) from previous month.
• Retirement accounts(—): Percentage wise, our retirement accounts performed worst last month with a loss of 4.97%, even though most of our investments are in index funds. Given how the indices have performed so far this year, it really didn’t surprise me how our retirement investments have been doing. At end of last month, we have $187,604.37 in our 401(k) and IRA accounts, down $9,316.67 (4.97%) from a month ago.
• 529 plans(-): The 529 accounts shows a miderate decline last month, largely due to the relatively large monthly contribution. For the month, the 529 accounts lost $277.78 (2.13%) to a total of $12,788.19.
• Bonds(+): The safest yet most boring part of our investments grew another $100 (0.71%) to a total of $14,214. I have to get the latest version of Savings Bond Wizard because the one I am using right now didn’t update my holdings correctly.

YTD, our net worth has shrunk $159,197.35 or 26%, better than the performance of the S&P 500 index which is down about 36% so far in 2008. came almost entirely from the last two months. Comparing to the same period in 2007, our next worth had a loss of $165,791.88 or 27%.