Picking up Nickels

Monday, May 12, 2014

May 2014 Financial Asset Roundup

Here are my current financial assets as of the market close on May 9th, 2014:


Asset Apr
2014
May
2014
Change
Checking 6,585 3,783 -2,802
Money Market 50,456 47,499 -2,957
Savings Bonds 82,067 92,177 10,110
Treasury Bills 0 0 0
CDs 62,477 62,648 171
Brokerage 120,249 123,884 3,635
401k 137,834 140,026 2,192
Roth IRA 87,884 89,526 1,642
SEP IRA 433,380 445,471 12,091
529 Savings 102,812 104,960 2,148



Total Assets $1,083,744 $1,109,974 $26,230
   
 
2.42%


The S&P 500 has rebounded over the past month, rising 2.48% since the last update:

(chart courtesy of msn.com)

On the jobs front, the unemployment rate for April fell to 6.3% from 6.7% with 288k new jobs added. Oil prices fell slightly from $104 to about $100 over the past month.

On the financial front, my assets have once again surpassed their previous all time high from March, breaking the $1.1M threshold for the first time. I also bought my annual allocation of April 2014 issue Series I savings bonds at treasurydirect.gov and had enough surplus cash in my S Corp to make an initial 2014 SEP IRA contribution.

As for the other stuff, I am pleased to have signed on with my largest customer for another year. They're a great bunch of people who are a pleasure to work with. :) And now that the nice weather is here, it looks like we will be performing some additional upgrades to the Frugalson homestead over the next few months. A new Weber gas grill and a Bosch dishwasher are already on hand and it appears that some new kitchen counter tops are next. Hopefully the upgrades this year will be less painful than the swimming pool/new car/air conditioning fiascoes of 2013.