Well net worth is up $2226 for the quarter and up $4362 for the year.

Kind of pathetic!

My goal is $25k-$30k for the year - so a long way to go.

At least our retirement is up for the year - have contributed more than we have lost in the market. (Totals up approximately $1500 for the year).

Cash is up about $1k.

Regular mortgage payments are IT. $2k off the mortgage, and that accounts for most of our net worth progress.

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I can't help but gloat since so many people told me years ago it was stupid to pay down our mortgage and not just get ARMs. "You pay so little principal in the beginning - it's just stupid."

We've paid off on average $3k/year, or about $18k to this point. I guess $18k is no small beans to me.

Plus after 6 years in this house we are getting to the point where we will pay off $4k this year, and this amount is growing rather rapidly.

(ETA: the assessed value of our home is $316k - more than what we paid - and I just saw the final sales price on our neighboring foreclosure. $300k for a house half the size. & it sold FAST. Not bad... I am very pleased...)

Anyway, we paid $10k off our first home in less than 2 years, and put $70k down on this house, on top of that. So yeah, I am happy to be well on the way to mortgage-free in our 40s.

I guess also, putting so much down, means we pay more than pennies on the principal. I'll give you that. But we rather put more down on the front end, and lock in an awesome rate for "life."

But yeah, I know one of these people owned a home in Sac and a home in Nevada - both with ARMs and no money down. I remember she seemed to have no clue when home values tanked here, and haven't heard from her lately. I can only imagine the whole ARM thing isn't working out so well.

I got other people who poo-pooed my lifestyle who are losing their homes.

Talk about bizarro.

Anyway, when we had first had kids we cut back a lot, and we never much lived up to our higher incomes when we both worked. I think we have a much higher life style now, on 75% of the income, honestly. Though I do admit our take-home pay is getting pretty close to where it was before kids. (Tax breaks!)

But in the past we gave up a lot of "stuff" to be home with our kids.

I never really thought it was that much. Having moved somewhere so much cheaper we have been able to have a fair amount of luxury. Sure we drove old cars and rarely ate out, but I am not sure you could call us deprived with our nice home, toys and overall financial peace.

But these days we have so much more than I imagined we would with wee little ones. We have a gardener and the kids both were able to go to preschool for a time. Dh and I have started instituting date nights and we have even been eating out once in a while.

All that and we have resumed payments to our IRAs (stopped for a time so we could be home with the kids).

I wouldn't do anything differently and am very happy with the luxury we can afford a few years in.

We've always been good at prioritizing our wants/needs and all that financially. But I think since joining pfadvice we had to step back and re-prioritize. So I am happy with the results. I feel like we are both saving more and enjoying our money more.

So I got all these people around here calling me deprived as they sink with their houses. What the heck? I guess I am deprived because I care about a budget. BEcause we say no to certain things (mostly thing we don't care about).

It's times like these that the frugalites shine.

I was thinking about it because I was looking through some old pictures. It is insane what our kids have been able to do, particularly with the help of grandparents. They have already been to Florida and Hawaii and Yosemite and it's funny because I think I let those people get to me. I was perusing old photos and I Was absolutely floored with all we have done with our kids the last 3 years. Regardless of grandparents' help, we still did plenty without them. I am so used to hearing we are so boring and deprived, I guess at some point you sort of believe it on some level. LOL.

Hey, all that FUN and I can still afford my mortgage, imagine that.

Some part of me was thinking because we don't stay in luxury hotels and go to Disneyland every month that there is some deprivation there.

I now just realize I live near a lot of absurd people. Who have been clearly been living well beyond their means, even with 2 incomes. Egads.