September 2024 Financial Asset Roundup

Here are my current financial assets as of the market close on September 12th, 2024:

Asset	Aug 2024	Sep 2024	Change
Checking	1,399	1,848	449
Money Market	74,346	78,084	3,738
Savings Bonds	242,768	243,533	765
Treasurys	100,000	100,000	0
CDs	51,495	51,828	333
Brokerage	441,526	492,227	50,701
401k	400,822	416,376	15,554
Roth IRA	300,729	308,792	8,063
IRA	1,466,791	1,500,048	33,257
529 Savings	180,297	183,165	2,868
Total Assets	$3,260,173	$3,375,901	$115,728
			3.55 %

The S&P 500 had a strong month, rising 2.83% (+15.21% YTD) since the last update:

(chart courtesy of nasdaq.com)

On the jobs front, the unemployment rate for August fell to 4.2%. A solid 142,000 new jobs were added, showing a stronger number after July's numbers were revised downward. Oil prices fell to the $67 level (from $79) from a weakening demand outlook, with that $67 price reflected in a local unleaded regular gasoline price of $2.99 at my last fill-up.

On the financial front, my assets have again hit an all-time high, surpassing the previous high from July 2024! I did the usual Fidelity 401k transaction (FSKAX) and Vanguard VTI purchase in my taxable brokerage account. I also took an S Corp distribution and my 13 week T-Bills (5.395%) matured and were rolled into new ones at 5.103%. I also opened some Navy Federal add-on CDs as an interest rate hedge and started the process to rollover excess Fidelity 529 plan money to existing Vanguard Roth IRAs for my children. Once that is completed I should probably dedicate a post to documenting the process since I had to reach out to Fidelity and Vanguard to get the details correct.

Another thing I recently learned was that as of January 2025, you will no longer be able to buy paper Series I savings bonds with your tax refund (hat tip to David Enna of tipswatch.com). After conversations with my CPA over the years I'm sure this wasn't a terribly popular program with most taxpayers, but it looks like I won't be making any more supersized January estimated tax payments to help bulk up my paper I Bond holdings. I should probably consider converting everything to electronic format at treasurydirect.gov to make future redemptions easier, but that might be a project for next year.

As for the non-financial, everyone is back to school and the bills are finally coming due for our family vacation last month. I'm also working to update the old water conditioning equipment we have for our home's well water, which testing has confirmed to contain PFAS "forever chemicals". It's kind of scary that everyone has probably been ingesting this stuff for years without knowing it.