Foreclosure Firesale

One of the foreclosed homes (to the north, there is another foreclosed home to the south) bordering one of our rental properties sold. Our hope is that the new owners, an investment company, will repair and rehab the house, landscaping and the pool and sell it to some new folks. All of which would be good news as the property has gone into serious disrepair an Mr. Sam has had to board up the home more than once to keep trouble makers out of it.

The bad news, the house sold for $21,000 which is, not surprisingly, considerably less than what we paid for our rental property. Clearly the foreclosed home needs some significant work and repairs so I expect the investment company will need to put $30,000 into the property. However, even with the repair costs the total investment of $50,000-$60,000 is still considerably less than what we paid for our rental property. It is just depressing to think that at present our investment property is probably worth half of what we paid for it (if we are lucky).

Week 3 Training

We are one day into our third week of training for the half marathon. At present I am jogging three blocks, walking one block, jogging, two blocks, walking one block and repeat for about half an hour (the Run - Walk - Run training method). Mr. Sam is just jogging for the entire half hour.

Our goal is to train Sunday-Thursday (every day) but work commitments and South Florida summer weather (rain and thunder storms) generally cancels at least a day.

5/15 - Inch-worm Progress

(1) Max out 401ks - $33,000
(2) Max out 2009 IRAs - $10,000
(3) House project and furniture - $10,000
(4) Add to baby fund - $5,000
(5) Lasik surgery for Mr. Sam - $5,000
(6) Add to emergency fund - $10,000
Total - $73,000

(1) $11,920 (36%)
(2) $10,000 (100%)
(3) $663 (7%)
(4) $163 (3%)
(5) $0
(6) $0 ($19,642 in our ING e/r account)**
Total - $22,748 (31%)

Ugh, we are now about $6000 behind of where we ought to be. Our forward progress has slowed to the pace of an inchworm. The car accident bills are behind us, the REFI costs are behind us and yet we seem to be spinning our wheels. We have both been very busy at work and therefore probably spending more than we should eating out during the week. We are overdue for a family finance meeting, but I'm not sure it would be particularly fruitful as I don't presently have a clear idea on why we seem to have a money gap.

** At the end of 2008 we had $21,881 in our emergency fund. We continue to add to our emergency fund, but we are not counting the progress until it hits $21,881.

Week 2 Training

I continue with interval training (the Run - Walk - Run training method) and this week I am jogging two blocks, walking one block, jogging two, repeat.

A New Topic

Today is the first day of training for Mr. Sam and me. We have decided to sign up for a September half marathon and we start interval training today. Neither of us are runners and while we are not out of shape our fitness regimen is pretty basic. I figure, like a debt or saving snowball, we will work on a physical fitness snowball. We will start out slow, jogging every other block or jogging every other minute, and each day out we will work on adding a few more steps or a few more seconds/minutes.

Our plan is to train Sunday - Thursday at 7:00 p.m.

NetWorth IQ

I finally updated our 401k numbers on our NetWorth IQ chart. I ignored those accounts for a good six months as our investments decreased by about 45%. As you will see, at present we are down about 6% for those six months which makes sense as we have continued to add principal and the market has somewhat stabilized.

Happy May Day!

(1) Max out 401ks - $33,000
(2) Max out 2009 IRAs - $10,000
(3) House project and furniture - $10,000
(4) Add to baby fund - $5,000
(5) Lasik surgery for Mr. Sam - $5,000
(6) Add to emergency fund - $10,000
Total - $73,000

(1) $10,313 (31%)
(2) $10,000 (100%)
(3) $613 (6%)
(4) $163 (3%)
(5) $0
(6) $0 ($19,142 in our ING e/r account)**
Total - $21,091 (29%)

We are about $3600 behind of where we ought to be. I finally have my car back, hooray, $12,000 in repairs covered by insurance and @$2700 in rental car costs and my deductible. Those car costs have been a major ding to the last two monthly spending plans (our form of a budget). Looking to get back on track this and next month.

** At the close of last we had about $21,881 in our emergency fund. We continue to add to our emergency fund, but we are not counting the progress until it hits $21,881.