Net Worth Report - December 2005

Our end-of-year net worth report has been compiled and updated on NetWorthIQ. We fared much better this month than I had anticipated, with a net increase of about $8,000. Much of that has to do with the strong performance of some of our investments, as well an on-paper increase in the value of our home by $4,000. I chose the $4,000 number based on our town's estimated fair-market-value of the house that was provided on our tax bill, as well as the recent selling price of a house nearby that is very,very similar to ours. This was the first increase I've noted our home value since March/April 2005, when we put the new windows in. At that time, I noted an increase in home value equal to 50% of the cost of the windows, which seems to be a very fair amount.

My $10,000, 28-day T-bill experiment ended this month. The money was transferred back to my Emigrant account when the bond matured, and I saw it in the account the same day. I think the experiment was successful, and I will evaluate using T-bills as a place to park money from 0% CC offers in the future, based on the interest rates and tax savings.

My ShareBuilder experiment is also going well, despite the fact that I am a horrible stock picker. I have invested about $1,100, although I've lost (on-paper anyway) about $100. I will consider buying more stock, but sometime this year I am going to transfer that stock account along with another stock account at Edward Jones over to Fidelity in order to make my account management a bit easier at the end of each month. I also filled out a "household relationship" form at Fidelity that will allow me to sign into both accounts with one customer number, rather than using each of our SSNs. This will make it easier to use MSMoney to get our monthly updates.