“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and… hang on.  Ouch!  Ouch, I say!  Stop that immediately!” – Benjamin Franklin

It’s that time of the month again.  Let’s get to it.

A few comments:

• I did another tile project in the house, ripping out old 1-inch ceramic and putting down 12×12 modern squares in its place.    This is part of our spiffing-up-the-house goals and should help us sell.  Total cost:  $292.  My share:  $146.  This included a new 18″ vanity.  (The bathroom is tiny.)   Also some misc. home/garden costs.
• I made my first clothes purchase of the year.  Bought a quality pair of running shorts at Costco because one of my old pairs had to be retired after about 8 years in rotation.

Yearly Total

Net Worth Update

Markets continue to race ahead.    The NW is about 19K more than last month.  I saved about 4K out of salary, so the remaining 15K bump in worth is directly due to a rising S&P.

Probably unsustainable.  I think boomers are going in again in droves, driving the markets higher.  There’s no real economic news to justify the runup — corporate earnings are not keeping pace with their ETF prices, and US GDP has not been growing faster than expected.  So it’s difficult to come up with real reasons to justify the current valuations.

I think this means we’re in the final phases of an incredible bull run.   Only time will tell.  Regardless, I will stay the course.

Sticky notes on expense tracking

• The expenses listed represent half of our total household expenses.  I’m 50% of a DINK couple.  The same is true for net worth.  I only list my personal stash — my wife has her own and I’m not tracking it on this blog.  Yeah, we’re completely spoiled.
• You’ll notice that there is no mention of car insurance here.  I pay auto insurance once a year in May June when my premium is set.  There’s a 10% discount for paying 12 months in advance, which is a pretty good return on investment.  It’s been coming out to about $60/mo lately pro-rated.
• Similarly, there’s also no mention of home insurance.  We pay the yearly premium annually in full every March.
• I’d love to cut cable but my wife really doesn’t want to.   We have a $150/mo cable/phone/isp package, so my share is $75.  It’s something I’ve agreed to live with because she gets a lot of value out of it and she’s pretty good overall.
• There are menus at the top of the blog (Finances->2014->Month) if you are interested in additional reports.
• I’ve also logged an account of my financial history