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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.

About 5 years ago (very soon after my husband and I got married) I saw David's Bach's book, "Automatic Millionaire" and it truly 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 managed to save for a downpayment on a home, open and contribute automatically to 2 retirement accounts, and get rid of all our credit card debt once and for all. At the time this blog was first written I was very excited to write that we had "increased our networth from $0 to $18,000!" Now that number has gone up a bit.

Retirement.
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. We also try to max out our Roth IRA every year (some times it doesn't quite happen but close enough).

Saving.
We used to save 25%, or $1,000, per month of his take home pay but still had credit debt and as you'll see in some of the old blog entries we struggled with that for a while. We've notched down savings a bit, but still save regularly and have an emergency cushion that we're comfortable with.

Home.
After moving back in with my parents we saved like crazy and managed to save $33,000 for a downpayment on a our first home! We financed the rest with a 15 year mortgage since we had recently begun listening to Dave Ramsey and liked a lot of his ideas. We pay an extra $300 a month towards principle which means that if everything goes as planned the house will pay off in 10 years instead of 15!

Cars.
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.

Our goals now are to pay off the house and save for when my husband gets out of the army, whenever that may happen...

Net Worth for April 2007 ... $17,700

May 3rd, 2007 at 07:25 pm

http://www.networthiq.com/people/ArmyAmy/2007/04

Arggghh... After paying down the credit cards by $500 this month, I proceeded to charge $700 on them. There were some unexpected expenses, some unexpected visits from inlaws, and some unexpected furniture purchases...all put on the plastic. While we do have an emergency cushion, none of these purchases really counted as emergencies...so we charged them? I really can't explain my logic behind this saving beyond our means, but just because you can't explain something, doesn't mean it's wrong. Take gravity for instance...

Posted in Net Worth | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “Net Worth for April 2007 ... $17,700”

Mulyanto Says:
May 3rd, 2007 at 08:06 pm 1178222762
1178222762

Did you know you can put your Net Worth IQ graph on your page? By the way, there's nothing wrong with charging your creditcard, as long as you pay the full balance at the end of the month. I see my credit card as a interest free 1 month loan. Since you have all that cash, why don't you pay off your credit card balance?
armyamy Says:
May 4th, 2007 at 01:59 am 1178243984
1178243984

I don't know why we don't. I guess that money is ear-marked as long-term savings, and if I used it to pay off the old credit cards then we would have less saved. I don't know if that's a good game-plan or not, but since most of the cc debt is at 0% for the next year, I'm going stick with it til then.

Oh and I didn't know about the graph! Thanks!
Amber Says:
May 13th, 2007 at 05:25 am 1179033901
1179033901

I agree with Mulyanto, make sure you pay the bill in full next month..thanks for the tip as well in regards to the graph
disneysteve Says:
May 15th, 2007 at 05:01 pm 1179248502
1179248502

What exactly is an unexpected furniture purchase?

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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 April 2007 ... $17,700

4 Responses to “Net Worth for April 2007 ... $17,700”

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