New Year's Money Resolutions Update through November 2006

At the beginning of the year I committed to several money-related resolutions and promised to track my progress on Free Money Finance. So far, I've posted updates at the end of every month (see New Year's Money Resolutions Update through October 2006 for last month's update.)

This is my update for the month ending November 2006.

I've completed most of my resolutions this year and a couple of the others happen automatically every month (see last month's link above for details/specifics), so I'm only going to address the remaining issues in this update.

Here are the ones I'm still working on/made progress on this month:

• Net Worth -- The S&P 500 was up 2.40% in November, another healthy gain (man, I LOVE when the market keeps going up!!!!) My net worth jumped up 4.56% for the month. Yes, you read that correctly -- up almost 5% in the MONTH! The reasons: 1. I received my annual work bonus. 2. My employer has the ability, at its discretion, to make an additional contribution to my 401k. And they did -- at a very good amount. 3. The market was up big -- and I was up bigger. My oil stocks did very well this month. ;-) I'm now up 16.95% for the year and on track to be up 19.8% this year. Just four months ago, I wasn't doing that well, but then the market started to take off and it's been a great time since. I hope it keeps up!

• Sort Out College Savings -- I plan to take part (or maybe all) of the bonus mentioned above and put it into 529s for my kids. Now I just need to pick a plan.

• Update Will -- I got a reference on a lawyer from a trusted friend and I've made initial contact with him to start the process.

• Blog Goals -- November was my best month to date from a traffic standpoint, so things are still headed in the right direction and I'm still on track to hit my mid- to high-level numbers.

We're closing in on the end of the year and I've either completed every resolution or am closing in on them We'll see if I can get the last two done (I really have the college one done -- the resolution was to sort out the amount I needed to save) and make it 100% for 2006.

Comments

[Duane Gran]

Good news all around. I think we have all felt a skip in our step lately while monitoring the investment accounts, but as a tactical matter wouldn't you be happier to have your employer make the discretionary purchase when the market is down or stagnant? There may not be a choice in the matter, and as always, free money is a good thing at any time.