About Me

Amy

I created this blog because I like reading other military spouse's blogs. Part of being a military spouse is having the uncertainty of not knowing where you will have to live next or for how long. It often means moving around every few years and dealing with the deployment of a loved one. Financial advice isn't one size fits all and often financial advisors tailor their advice to the non-military folks out there, saying to buy a house right away and talking about 401k's instead of TSP's.

Two years ago (soon after my husband and I got married) I saw David's Bach's book, "Automatic Millionaire" and it truely changed my life and how I thought about money. We started out with pretty much nothing when we got married. I had $1,000 in credit card debt, and my husband had $1,000 saved from a recent re-enlistent bonus. We have since opened 2 retirement accounts, a high-yield online savings account (with automatic deductions from our checking account) and increased our networth from $0 to $18,000!

My husband's military pay includes his base pay, housing allowance, cost of living allowance, food allowance. All together it's $2,000 on the 1st of the month and $2,000 on the 15th.

We save 15% of his pre-tax income in the Thrift Savings Plan, which is the government's version of a 401k retirement account, only with no matching funds. Some people think we're crazy saving for retirement when we're in our early 20's, but we just want to use compound interest to our advantage!

We also save 25%, or $1,000, per month of his take home pay. We're saving to buy a home at his next duty station, though I have no idea where that will be yet. Currently we have about $12,000 saved up for our first home, and by the time we leave here (1 1/2 years from now) we should have at least $30,000 saved.

Part of the reason that we can save so much is that we have no car payments. I'm no finance expert, but I firmly believe that people spend too much on new cars when they should be saving instead.

Net Worth for March 2007 ... $16,400

April 2nd, 2007 at 08:04 pm

http://www.networthiq.com/people/ArmyAmy/2007/03

Hey thanks YOUCANDOIT for the link to the Net Worth IQ website...

I don't count our cars or personal property in figuring our net worth...maybe i would if they were worth more. Anyways the only thing I don't like about the networth website is that they list "cash" as a column, and that's where I wound up putting what we have in our savings account since there was no column for "Savings account".

Our networth is currently $16,400. Not bad if I do say so myself. Smile That's 16 months of hardcore savings!!

Posted in Net Worth | 6 Comments »

6 Responses to “Net Worth for March 2007 ... $16,400”

Amber Says:
April 2nd, 2007 at 08:11 pm

Not bad at all
Ryan Williams Says:
April 2nd, 2007 at 08:19 pm

Nice work and thanks for using NetworthIQ. You got the savings account in the right place, the "cash" category is meant to be anything liquid really, and savings/checking fit the bill perfectly.
Lux Living Frugalis Says:
April 3rd, 2007 at 05:35 am

That's a great amount for someone your age! Good going!!
Ima saver Says:
April 3rd, 2007 at 07:25 am

You are doing great!! I love networthiq. I put all my savings, money markets and c.d.'s under cash. The only thing I don't count is my checking account, cause it is mostly there for bills.
pfodyssey Says:
April 3rd, 2007 at 10:39 am

I think it is absolutely fantastic you are monitoring your finances this early on in your "financial life". Stay the course and keep learning...you will achieve your goals.
armyamy Says:
April 3rd, 2007 at 06:06 pm

Thanks all! I guess I wish the networthiq page had more columns that you could use, for example instead of just "retirement" have individual columns for each account and let the user list "Roth ira" and "TSP" so you can pinpoint exactly where the money's at.

I suppose I could do that myself on an excel spreadsheet, but it's alot easier to go to the networthiq.com website!

Army Amy's Amazing Personal Finance Blog (wow!

Saving money while my husband's in the Army and I work for peanuts.

Net Worth for March 2007 ... $16,400

6 Responses to “Net Worth for March 2007 ... $16,400”

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