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It's all perspective...

October 1st, 2005 at 04:16 am

If someone asked me what I thought of our financial life on a scale of 1-10, I'd say it's a 7-8. I feel like we strike a good balance between living for today and saving for tomorrow, but we could be doing better. My problem is that the 7-8 is an average...when I'm blowing the grocery budget I feel like I'm more of a 5 or 6, and some days, like today, I feel like a 10.

After the markets close on the last day of each month, I review our net worth, not including home equity. I get the current balances for all of our assets, including mutual funds, college savings, 401(k)s, etc., and subtract all of our debt, including mortgage, car loans, and heloc. Not only is it a positive number, it grew substantially last month, thanks to a combination of our 401(k) contributions, decent investment returns, and debt reduction from our monthly payments and the extra $$ we threw at our heloc.

I guess my point is that the other 29 days of the month, I lose perspective. The day-to-day stuff is right in my face all the time, so it's easy to think and (sometimes) get discouraged about it. My 401(k) contributions come straight out of my paycheck, I don't follow my investments on an everyday basis, etc. so even though great things are happening there, it's not on my radar screen. I need to remember this during the 3rd week of October when I've had the heat on for two weeks in a row and I'm already over my grocery budget, and remind myself that in the grand scheme of things, I'm doing ok and just need to keep at it.

Boy, that put me in a good frame of mind. On to October! Hubby came home from his trip today and met us at the park. He also treated us to Chinese for dinner, as I was busy packing for our trip. This seemed like a really long week. I'm totally beat and need to get a good night sleep.

After I finished the last couple of bills today, I was able to transfer about $325 more to the HELOC, making the total for the month $995. Not quite as much as I had hoped, though I won't beat myself up over it. I'm looking forward to a quiet week...

1 Responses to “It's all perspective...”

  1. Anonymous Says:
    1128483083

    May all your days eventually be tens!

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