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Here's the DH net worth update for February 2009:

February was a slow cold month.  And some of that rubbed off on my finances.  My investments took a VERY big hit, but as I mentioned before, I'm quite alright with that. 

You'll also see quite a jump in our vehicle assets.  No, we didn't add a widescreen TV to one of our cars.  Instead, I went back through Kelley Blue Book to revalue our cars.  This is something I typically do once every few months.  There tends to be a gap because I take an aggressive depreciation on these assets on a monthly basis.

Here's to hoping for a stronger March!

As many people know, individuals are able to pull their credit report from the "big 3" on an annual basis.  The "big 3" of course being Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian.  See here.  I HIGHLY recommend for everyone to pull their credit reports EVERY year.  It's essential for folks to check for any potential discrepencies on their reports, because the impacts of these discrepencies could be (and often are) far reaching. 

However, I should note that this does NOT include the ever important FICO score - the score based off your credit reports that ranges from 300 - 850.  Lenders rely on this determining loan offers.

In steps Credit Karma.  This new startup pulls your TransUnion report and comes up with it's own FICO-like score, that also ranges from 300 - 850.  While it likely won't match your FICO score exactly, it should be a good approximation.  The best part - it's completely FREE!  They are completely ad-supported, not unlike Mint.com.  All-in-all, it's a great site that I'll be using plenty from here on out.

Here’s the DH net worth update for January 2009:

Thanks to a rather significant drop in our car loan and a sizeable increase in retirement, our net worth headed back in the right direction this past month.  Due to a restructuring in my debt payoff strategy, I will be attacking that car loan more aggressively in the coming months.  I’ll discuss this more later.

As you can see from the net worth graph in the right column of this site, it looks like my wife and I are spiraling out of control.  While it’s not heading in the direction I’d like, I think we’re doing our best to help our bottom line and pay down the debt we have.  So why is our net worth graph heading so far south? 

Our House.  We were fortunate enough to buy our house almost exactly at the peak of the real estate market – April, 2006.  And because we fully financed our purchase, we now found ourselves upside down in our mortgage.  This removes any possibilities we had of refinancing to take advantage of some of the lower mortgage rates currently available.

Top Line - House Prices in Area, Bottom Line - My House

As depressing as this is, my wife and I do our best to look at the bright side.  As of now, we’re happy where we are, so we don’t feel too trapped.  And although we fully financed our house, we did not finance with an ARM, so we aren’t running the risk of foreclosure that many other homeowners are if rates go up.