March 2010 Financial Asset Roundup

Here are my current financial assets as of the market close on March 10th, 2010:

Asset	Feb 2010	Mar 2010	Change
Checking	502	515	13
Money Market	39,603	40,471	868
Savings Bonds	25,963	25,985	22
Treasury Bills	0	0	0
CDs	112,180	112,576	396
Brokerage	82,817	87,284	4,467
401k	81,166	87,393	6,227
Roth IRA	38,046	40,350	2,304
SEP IRA	187,979	199,342	11,363
529 Savings	41,008	43,378	2,370
Total Assets	$609,264	$637,294	$28,030
			(4.60%)

I've actually recovered from my net loss last month as the S&P 500 index has gained 7.25% since the last update:

(chart courtesy of msn.com)

On a positive note, the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7% in February. Hopefully this is a leading indicator of the beginnings of economic recovery. The price for crude oil has continued to track the stock market, rising to $82 per barrel of late. With the warm weather on the way, it sure looks like $3 per gallon gasoline is on the way back.

My main priority of late has been getting my 2009 personal and S Corp tax returns wrapped up. My personal returns are good to go, although I had to file extensions for my business returns to give me a little more time to fully fund my 2009 SEP IRA contributions (due to lower revenue in 2009). Next up after a stint on jury duty is discussing a contract extension with my largest client. I believe that we're in a strong position to continue our relationship for another year, but my past experience has taught me that nothing is guaranteed when it comes to negotiating with clients. :)

Moneywise, I have a one year Bank of America CD @ 2.65% APY maturing later this month and will probably use the proceeds to max out on paper and electronic Series I savings bonds in April. With rates on savings accounts starting to trend toward 1% APY, I'm also considering putting some cash in another Penfed 5 year @ 3.50% APY CD once I have my contract situation ironed out. Other than that, I'm wondering if Shaw's Supermarket will have another gift card reward promotion for the third year in a row and hope to start blogging a bit more now that work has calmed down a bit and I've finished upgrading most of my home IT infrastructure. I hope to provide a 2009 grocery inflation update in the near future and plan on talking about the powerful (and frugal) networking technologies I now have running on my home network.