Finance Travels

February ended up being a pretty significant month for us.  Not only do we have a pretty decent net worth increase for the month, but we also hit our emergency savings goal of $20,000.  We did the calculations, and the $20K should give us at least 6 months of emergency funds should one of us lose our job.  In the unlikely event that both my wife and I lose our source of income at the same time, this emergency fund will get us through 3 months easily.  While Dave Ramsey suggests that this money sit in a savings account earning a pittance of interest, we’ll be keeping it in four CDs, each spaced 3 months apart.  Granted CDs aren’t providing a whole lot more interest right now, but they are better than just a standard savings account, and we’ll have enough liquid money in other accounts to handle real emergencies (dead appliance, car repairs, etc…).

Part of the February increase was due to a$3,400 tax rebate check.

Starting from here on out, I’m going to start tracking my investment performance on this blog as well.  I’ll start with our Roth IRAs and start to include other accounts once I determine how successful I’m doing.  I’ll be taking a cue from 2million’s personal finance blog and be comparing my monthly gains or losses with the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index.

I’ve done some initial analysis, and I”m not happy with how my investments have been performing as a whole.  Hopefully this extra step will provide some guidance in how I can start to rebalance my portfolio and begin to beat this index.

Finally, now that we have reached our emergency fund goal, we are going to do a bit of home improvement once we save up the cash.  We are looking at replacing our 11 year old tube television with one of those “fancy” LCDs or plasmas, as well as some furniture upgrades.  My wife has been getting on me about replacing the desk that I bought in college (from Lowes) and while I love that desk, I can see her point.  We are going about setting a budget for the project and we will save up so that we can pay it all in cash.