August 2015 Financial Asset Roundup

Here are my current financial assets as of the market close on August 10th, 2015:

Asset	Jul 2015	Aug 2015	Change
Checking	3,163	1,945	-1,218
Money Market	66,871	61,531	-5,340
Savings Bonds	95,244	95,380	136
Treasury Bills	0	0	0
CDs	46,154	46,267	113
Brokerage	130,751	130,725	-26
401k	137,616	138,307	691
Roth IRA	103,393	104,169	776
SEP IRA	513,714	517,202	3,488
529 Savings	123,553	125,639	2,086
Total Assets	$1,220,459	$1,221,165	$706
			0.06%

The S&P 500 has rebounded since the last update, rising 1.33% during that time:

(chart courtesy of yahoo.com)

Nine years ago this month I started this blog! The growth of my assets over that time has been remarkable:

In hindsight, it's certainly interesting to see how the recession from December 2007 through June 2009 is represented by such a small blip on the graph.

On the jobs front, the unemployment rate for July remained unchanged at 5.3%, with 215,000 new jobs added. Oil prices have continued to fall to the $43 level, with talk of gasoline below $2 per gallon when the switch is made to winter blend gasoline.

On the financial front, I decided to hold off on making an additional 2015 contribution to my SEP IRA until after I run my next payroll this month. I do wonder if we may see a surprise Penfed CD deal this fall since there has been talk about the Federal Reserve raising interest rates.

In spite of my efforts to focus on saving and investing, spending seems to be the current trend in the Frugalson household. Between a brief family vacation, getting our house painted, and the new refrigerator we will be buying during the Massachusetts sales tax holiday weekend, we seem to have started our own economic stimulus program. Hopefully we will be able to reverse that trend sooner rather than later.