July 2014 - Monthly Update

Another month, and another update.

Net Worth Standing for July 1, 2014:


Assets: $622,464.26 - Liabilities: $92,397.22 = Net worth: $530,067.04

Net Change = increase of $10,427.14

We decided to do something crazy this month.  The emotional toll of the Chapter 13 was weighing heavy on us, and since Mr. Breeze is now working full time and we have been able to save some money, we decided to take our savings (which was only making 1%) and just pay it off.  This didn't affect our Net Worth by much, but as you can see we took a hit in the Assets, but that is offset by the much a much smaller Debt amount.

So our only debt is our Primary Mortgage on our house.  We will probably start paying that down soon, but right now we are going to funnel the money that was going to Chapter 13 payments into the 457b that I am eligible for at work. This allows us to take advantage of Pre-tax savings, and the 457b doesn't hold the penalties that a 401k or 403b does if I have to tap into it before I turn 59.5.  This makes it perfect for an early retirement fund for us so we are going to try to fully fund it first.  Since we were putting $35,000 a year into the Bankruptcy - we are hoping that we can fully fund the 457b (currently allowed at $17,500) and then put the remaining towards our debt.

The stress of having the Chapter 13 (notice I even hate to type the work Bankruptcy), paid off is a huge relief on us.  It wasn't the amount of money they were taking out of our checks each month (we quickly learned to live without it and it didn't hurt all that much believe it or not).  It was the fact that we just owed this huge amount and we were not able to open any credit or have any flexibility.  We were always good with our credit cards and used to rack up the rewards points and travel points, but we always paid them off at the end of the month.  We got ourselves too stretched when it came to houses and mortgages and then a job loss and business loss caused our downfall in 2009.

Now we have to focus on rebuilding our Credit Scores, and have found that we really don't need all that much to live on.  Our jobs continue to stress us out each day, and we are looking forward to early retirement.