In the spirit of Austin K Wood and The Simple Dollar, every month I’m going to start posting a personal financial review.
The idea of these posts is that they will help me track my own progress. I could do this private but opening this up to a public audience will drive me to succeed. I also want to be honest about what is and what is not working. I’ll break things down by my assets and debts to calculate my net worth. Using these numbers I’ll set goals for the upcoming month.I’m sure these reviews will evolve as I get into them however here is the start.
July Monthly Financial Review
July – Assets +4.53%, Debts 0%
In July and August my single biggest goal is to build up a cash buffer for when I head to Argentina at the end of August. I did pretty well on this goal increasing my cash by 26% and that’s even after buying my flight to Argentina which set me back $1300.
I picked a fairly fortuitous month to start posting monthly reviews as my assets grew by an incredible 4.53%. The S&P 500 is up 4.7% this month which helped grow the assets.
I have $0 of debt right now which is great. My student loans are paid off as of 2012. I use credit cards but pay them off in full each month. Much of the financial advice I read is geared towards staying out of debt or working yourself out of debt. So I struggled for a little while to develop goals not related to debt.
Goals for August –
- Asset growth of 0.8%
- Create budget for life in Cordoba
- Save $1000 cash for Argentina