September 2011 Financial Asset Roundup

Here are my current financial assets as of the market close on September 9th, 2011:

Asset	Aug 2011	Sep 2011	Change
Checking	2,221	2,405	184
Money Market	33,108	33,124	16
Savings Bonds	47,098	47,154	56
Treasury Bills	0	0	0
CDs	99,358	99,784	426
Brokerage	92,534	88,019	-4,515
401k	88,600	89,544	944
Roth IRA	47,106	46,131	-975
SEP IRA	256,504	253,194	-3,310
529 Savings	52,925	52,904	-21
Total Assets	$719,454	$712,259	-$7,195
			(-1.00%)

The S&P 500 has remained volatile since the last update, dropping 1.56% during that time:

(chart courtesy of msn.com)

On the jobs front, the unemployment rate for August remained at 9.1% while the President is proposing a new plan to attempt to lower that number. Oil prices have remained somewhat flat, rising slightly from about $85 per barrel to around $86 per barrel. And somehow, all of our financial woes don't seem so terrible when compared to the memories stirred up by the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

On the financial front, my 4 year Penfed CD @6.00% APY from September 2007 is due at the end of the month. I'll put $5k of that toward some Series I savings bonds at treasurydirect.gov, while a quite a bit more of that cash will be put toward paying the final tuition bill for Mrs. Frugalson's graduate school education (yay!) as well as the down payment for braces for the eldest of the Frugalson offspring (ouch!). Perhaps I'll take the left over cash and à la Trading Places, maybe I'll go to the movies... by myself. :D

And finally, a bit of thanks to Hurricane Irene for not flooding or causing our property a bunch of damage. Despite that, we were without power for 50+ hours and even that modest outage has motivated me to research a portable generator purchase. At least the next time we have an extended power outage, we will hopefully have running water and heat (for winter storms), and not have to throw away the contents of our fridge and basement freezer. Zut alors!