Not all personal-finance bloggers are millionaires
Posted
Jan 03 2008, 11:49 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Some personal-finance bloggers are well on their way to financial security. But others live like the rest of us, trying to build savings while getting through each day. We learned this after a group of PF bloggers decided to post about net worth (assets minus liabilities) at the end of 2007. For instance, Lynnae at Being Frugal reported that for the first time in 12 years of married life, she and her husband are starting the new year with a positive net worth.
Lynnae is not sharing details, because her mom's Christmas letter told all the relatives about her blog. But the cars are paid off, they don't own a home, and they have begun to accumulate savings. Paidtwice at I've Paid For This Twice Already said she and her husband bought their house with no money down, and the value of the home is declining, so she knows they have a negative net worth. "For me, right now, that number doesn't mean a whole lot to me ... since the number that I'm focused on changing is the debt one, no matter what the other numbers in our finances say," she writes.
Rocket Finance says: "I am worth $2,590. Cash money." Mrs. Micah and her husband are about $110,000 on the minus side, an improvement because they paid off their credit card debt in September. A big portion of their debt is Micah's student loans, now deferred since he's still in school. Glblguy at Gather Little by Little won't disclose the number, but reported a 171% net worth increase, due mostly to saving, paying $500 to $1,200 a month on credit card debt, and selling the camper and the full-size pickup. "We decided we loved financial peace more than camping," he explains. Patrick at Cash Money Life reported a 43% increase in net worth -- despite the fact that his wife, as planned, left her job and lost $20,000 in annual income. How could their net worth increase? They have no consumer debt and saved like crazy to prepare for the job change.
