September 2016‘s market got a little scary but then bounced back. I am bracing myself for more crazy in the coming months. A huge highlight this month – we maxed out our other 401k, woot!
All in all, another solid month, we are right on track so far. Here is the summary YTD:
| Income* | Expenses | Assets | 529s | Debt | |
| September | $127.7k | $57.9k | $355.4k | $34.2k | $140.2k |
Our assets grew by $9.4k while expenses came in at $5.8k (very good considering our trip that took about $1.5k of that! Creating habits is REALLY working!).We now have about 5k of these assets in cash, which we really did not have before. People are right – it gets addictive almost and I feel strange leaving things ‘out of the market’ but a little buffer is good, plus we are considering an alternative investment at this point (just considering) so this helps with options.
Our kids’ college funds grew a bit less than normal as we contributed only $2,650 (vs other months that I was putting about 5k to super fund and be done by the end of the year with a $25k balance for each), and the earnings stayed pretty flat otherwise.
Debt is getting there, we contributed a few extra hundred bucks, but is still not making as much progress as other areas, and that is ok as it is by design.
All in all – three months to go to end the year (wha?! how did that happen!?), almost at goal, very exciting to see progress!
How did you go this month? Did you panic when the market tanked?
We had a slow September. Less investing than I would have liked because we need to keep cash on hand for some large upcoming expenses in October. Our 401ks are maxed out too, so no ‘automatic’ savings in September either. Sigh.
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still tracking to your overall end of the year goals though? I am getting a little nervous about a big correction too…
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To stay on track we need to invest another $20,000 before the end of this year. Fingers, toes and other appendages crossed in hopes of a solid last quarter. And yes, I’m worried too that the bull run is all done and since I just jumped on the financial independence wagon, I caught a measly few months of it.
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slow and steady wins the race! keep me posted on how you are going… stay the course, create those habits and keep your eyes on the end goal. We will get there!
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We had an ok month for September but October has definitely been better so far. We paid for a couple of big things in September, mainly a vacation. With that said we are still maxing out our 529, 401k and other accounts so that we too can travel and retire 🙂
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Woo hoo for progress! What is your goal for 529s – having enough for 4 years public/private, certain % of an education, just save what you can? We struggled with that one and in the end after putting $25k in each of their accounts this year we are calling it quits see how we go…. (we may have to find from post taxes, so we are mentally setting aside some of that too – else it is on them to get some aid, work, etc!). Keep chipping away and keep me posted – it is so motivating to have people out there, like minded, to be on the same track and who get it (when I do not talk about this much at all in public).
Here’s to a great November!
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Our plan is to put in $4k each year for the next couple of years. In the state of VA we get a tax break on up to $4k each year. So we figure we’ll take advantage while we can.
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