Net Worth of PF Bloggers: March 2008

Here's the current financial situation of some personal finance bloggers who post their net worth each month.

Monthly Net Worth of some PF Bloggers for March 2008:

Blogger    Age   Net Worth      $ Change  % Change
An English Major's Money  24    $22,561.00     $802.00   N/A
Aspire 2 Wealth           2x    $28,837.00   $1,658.00   N/A
Blogging Away Debt        2x   -$30,443.00     $750.00   N/A
Consumerism Commentary    30   $143,174.00   $7,525.00  5.5%
Debt Free 4 Ever          39    $50,056.00   $1,428.00   N/A
Enough Wealth             46 $1,044,608.00 -$19,167.00 -1.8%
How I Save Money          27   -$17,785.00     $144.00   N/A
Lazy Man and Money        2x   $213,031.00    -$315.00 -2.7%
Map Girl                  32    $49,045.00   $6,029.00  N/A
MaxLoot                   25    $42,986.00   $2,747.00  N/A
Moomin Valley             42   $451,951.00  $19,008.00  4.4%
My Money Blog             28   $242,347.00   $9,894.00  4.3%
Savvy Saver               27   N/A           N/A        N/A

nb. Some ages have been adjusted as follows:exact age provided = listed as given"20's" = listed as 2x"early 20's" = listed as 22"mid-late 20's" = listed as 27and so on.

Previous monthly reports can be found in the Net Worth category.

If you have any corrections, let me know as soon as possible after the post and I'll edit immediately. If it's more than a few days after the post, email me and I'll make the change the following month.

Note: Most of these figures are in USD, but some are not (eg. mine are in AUD). Also, some bloggers post combined net worth of a couple, others are single, or, like me, only post their personal net worth.

The N/A figures are either a lack of monthly data, or where I've not included % change data because the net worth is less than +/- $100K.
I've had some appreciative comments about this regular monthly post - if you like it, please link to it from your blog, or add a link to EnoughWealth to your blogroll. ;)

Copyright Enough Wealth 2008

When is a recession not a recession?

The news services are buzzing about the prospects of a "global recession", after a statement that "The IMF now sees a 25 per cent chance that global growth will drop to three per cent or less in 2008 and 2009 - equivalent to a global recession," was released in the latest IMF's World Economic Outlook report. But what does "equivalent to a global recession" actually mean? In this case it means the exact opposite - that the current IMF forecast is that the world is NOT heading into a recession (even using the generous definition of a global recession as being growth below 3%pa - which is roughly the rate required to avoid global per capita output growth that is zero or negative) within the next two years. In fact the IMF's latest forecast is for global growth to moderate to "just" 3.7 per cent this year and 3.8 per cent next year (as measured in terms of purchasing power parity)- still ABOVE the long-term average.

All that the latest IMF report is actually saying is that the worsening US economic conditions now makes a global recession a possibility - increasing the likelihood from essentially being no chance to now being a "a 25 per cent chance that global growth will drop to three per cent or less in 2008 and 2009.". Put another way, there is now a 75% chance that the world will have growth above 3% in 2008 and 2009 - but that wouldn't make a good headline.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2008

An interesting first quarter

2008 has proven to be a very "interesting" year so far for the Australian stock market. The chart of the All Ordinaries Index below shows the massive sell-off that occurred during January, and the very bad start to March which retraced and exceeded the earlier lows before recovering almost half the losses since January 1 in just the past two weeks.



From here I expect the recovery to taper off, and the index could trade within a narrow range for the next couple of months barring any unexpected good or bad news. Hopefully the market has established a support level around 5200, and will slowly recover during the remainder of 2008 back towards 6000 or above.

Until I plotted this candlestick chart I hadn't realised that the January lows were almost as bad as the bottom reached in March. My personal net worth chart showed the March dip to be considerably worse that the low reached in January. I think this is due to the January low being very short-lived, with the market bouncing back from the lows within a day. My net worth includes several managed fund investments which often report price changes the next business day, artificially smoothing the worst of the daily ups and downs by trailing the stock market gyrations by one day (probably a good thing for my peace of mind!). In comparison the March decline was more gradual and the index stayed around the lows for several days, which allowed my net worth calculation to fully reflect the bottom.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

A not-so-cheap day out

DW's brother and his wife flew across from Perth to spend a weekend in Sydney and catch a show, so while they were here we arranged to meet them in town. We managed to find free street parking near the railway station and were planning to catch the train in to town. However the trains weren't running on the northern line (due to track maintenance) and we ended up travelling on the express bus that the railway provided. The train fares for the family only cost $10 for a round trip, and we had some fast food for lunch before meeting the relatives. After a pleasant Sydney afternoon wandering around Hyde Park, the Botanical Gardens and through the grounds of Government House we headed back past the Opera House and returned to the train station to catch the bus home. The afternoon provided plenty of time for DW to chat with her brother and the kids enjoyed running around the various parks and gardens.

The day had been very pleasant and low-cost -- up until the time we got back to our car. At that point I found that the car wouldn't start and the battery was practically dead. I phoned for my Dad to meet us and attempt to jump start our car, but we still couldn't get my car started so I had to phone the NRMA (AA) to come and replace the battery. The new battery cost $175, but at least it has a three year warranty. Since I'm planning on selling our car and replacing it with a newer, second-hand AWD (perhaps a Subaru Forrester) in two or three years time, this will hopefully be the last battery I have to buy for this vehicle.

Copyright Enough Wealth 2007