I had a house guest and financially speaking, this month didn’t go quite the way I planned. My goddaughter came to stay with me for the month of July and I found myself operating completely outside of my budget. It was amazing to see what I usually spend on myself double in every area. She used my car while I was at work, I paid for her to join my gym for the month, and we were eating out every night times 2 = yikes. That said, I tried to use every moment we shared to build her up and instill a lifetime of wisdom.
I promise that the only reason I managed to see my net worth still go up for the month of July is because my saving and investing is on automatic. However, I didn’t attack my debt the way I wanted because I turned a blind eye on my spending.
Finally, I’d like to mention one big adjustment that I made to my IRA before the update.
I had three index funds in my IRA, one of which was a Fidelity Total Market Index Fund. I decided to close the other two funds because they were ultimately redundant. If one fund buys a portion of every single stock on the exchange I thought it was unnecessary to have two additional funds that specialize in sectors like energy and technology. If FSTMX already allows me to own every single stock which includes all the energy and tech stocks, then I’m just dividing my efforts.
So, I sold the other two funds and applied the proceeds to FSTMX. Now all money is being directed into one fully diversified US stock fund. When I decide to add another layer of diversification to my IRA It would have to be an international index fund which would be all stocks outside of the US stock market and/or a US bond fund or an international bond fund.
July Net Worth Update:
Assets:
Betterment: $3,852.64
Fidelity IRA: $6,000.34
BOA Cash: $3,351.63
AMEX MM: $1,509.77
Stocks(taxable) $1,655.00
I-bonds: $5,355.00
Liabilities:
Credit card: $10,895.00
IRS: $1,109.00
