December numbers:
- Personal:
- Gross monthly W2 pay: $5,375 (no change)
- Net monthly W2 pay: $3,373 (no change)
- Total credit card debt: $38,127 (-$4,864)
- Total other non-mortgage debt: $10,348 (+$2,993)
- Total mortgage debt: $215,842 (-$1,024)
- Cash/cash equivalents: $8,106 (-$386)
- Total retirement savings: $265,801 (+$4,788)
- Non-Equity Net worth: $9,591 (+$7,288)
- Total Net Worth: $239,273
Another late monthly update. I’d say I’ll do better, but that could be a lie. Rather I’ll say that I’ll try to get more posted more quickly. This will be a short update so I can focus efforts on January, 2022, and future improvements!
As you can see debt declined for the first time in a while (yay!) But I cannot celebrate too much – January will be much worse with the last 2021 travel costs landing. Thereafter at least there will be a few months of relative calm and debt paydown. I have, and will continue to, cut spending to the bone to help speed this along. I think that should help at least through summer, when there might be some travel expenses.
Retirement and net worth continue to move in a pretty correlated manner. I’d expect that to continue as I live fairly close to zero net worth while my debt load is still too high. Retirement numbers improve or erode as the market dictates, and there’s really not much I can do about that. So, I try not to worry about it. Best thing I can do in 2022 is eliminate as much personal debt as possible so I’ll focus on that for the year.
