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Net Worth At End Of 2006
Happy New Year! 2006 is in the books, and it was a good year. I just calculated our net worth, which went up by $939 in December. December is a tough month, because estimated taxes are due in January, so I always have to keep lots of money in reserve to pay the quarterly tax bill. This is the last time I’ll have to do that though, because we incorporated this year, and we’re W2 employees of our corporation as of yesterday. We hired a payroll service, and later this month we’ll get our first paychecks from our corporation (with taxes withheld - no more estimated taxes!) Anyway, the only real gain we made in December was with our mortgage principal, and our retirement accounts and ING account, all of which have automatic contributions. January should be better, we should be able to start making a dent in the HELOC.
I’m going to be taking a different position at the library later this month. I’ve been working there for over 2 years now. I love the people I work with, but shelving books gets pretty old. A lady I work with had a baby last summer, and has decided to stay home with the baby for now. I told my boss I was interested, and she said the job’s all mine. I’m already trained, as I’ve been a substitute circulation clerk for almost a year now, and that’s what I’ll be doing with this job. It pays a lot better than what I get now, and I’ll have a 457 plan available (another retirement account - yipee!) and health insurance reimbursement. Also, I’ll get paid vacations (1 hour for every 9 hours I work - that adds up fast). I don’t get any of these things now - the only perk I currently get is my gym membership. Anyway, my husband and I talked about it, and decided that all of those positives outweighed the negatives, which were really just scheduling issues. I currently work about 25 hours a week at the library, and the new job will be 32. I do have a set schedule now, but it can easily be changed at a moment’s notice, since my current work is pretty self-directed. Not so when I’ll be working at the desk. Some of my library hours will be in the evening, so I’ll still have 2 full days each week that I can work at our insurance agency (currently I have 3, although we sometimes quit early on Fridays, so it’s more like 2.5). We’re hoping to have a baby in the next year or so, and if we could save the money I’ll make at the library, it would help a lot. We currently save pretty much everything I make there already, so there’s no reason we won’t be able to also save the extra that the new job generates. We’ll see how it goes, but I’m excited.Â
[...] My new job at the library started today. I had a meeting with human resources to get all my benefit info sorted out. It’s amazing how excited I got over benefits - I guess I’ve gotten very used to having to make my own benefits (one of the non-perks of self-employment), and getting them from an employer again is pretty damn exciting. So what do I get? Well, there’s dental, which we haven’t had since we became self-employed. They’ll take about $50/month out of my check for that, but it’s better coverage and less expensive than what we could get on our own. And we get a reimbursement for health coverage, so we’re bumping our health insurance up to an HSA with better coverage than what we have now. And there’s a 457 retirement plan. I opted to put 30% of my pre-tax pay into the 457. That’s a lot, but we’re trying to save all the extra money I’ll make by getting this promotion. And putting it into a retirement account before I get paid is a good way to make sure we actually do save it. The promotion is giving me a 45% pay raise, so if we put 30% of the total into the retirement fund, I still end up with just about the same amount in my paycheck, give or take a bit for the dental coverage and health reimbursement. [...]
January 18th, 2007 at 5:20 am
[...] I really like my library job. I’m usually happy before, during, and after work. I love the people I work with, it’s fun and fast-paced, and I love libraries in general. Most of the people who come into the library are in a good mood - until the dreaded library fine pops up. I was talking last week with a friend who lives in a small, mountain resort town, and she said that her local library charges $1/day overdue fines for every item - books, magazines, movies… everything is $1/day. Holy crap! I bet people in that town are better about returning stuff than our patrons are. [...]
March 20th, 2007 at 5:29 am
Hi -still reading away!
I have a question about net worth (totally new concept to me). How can people who are “in debt” beyond their house, have net worth about 0? I’m seeing loads of bloggers with networths above 50K and yet they have debt? Is there a reason they don’t apply that money to their debt?
Any tips on getting your networth to grow? Do you do stocks and shares?
Sorry, so many questions!
July 6th, 2008 at 7:07 am