December 2008 Site and Net Worth Review (+6.54%)

By Pinyo, on January 5, 2009

Net Worth Review

The S&P 500 gained +0.8% in December and went from 896.24 to 903.25. But for a full year, the S&P 500 dropped -38.5% from 1468.36 to 903.25 — ouch!  According to NetworthIQ, my net worth rose +3.44% and my net investable assets increased +6.54%.

Highlights

• Home value actually went up slightly in December, but for the full year it was down -7.8% or -$48,344.  I am not sure what caused the rebound in December — may be it’s the currently low mortgage rate.
• Retirement investments increased +6.1%, but dropped -26.7% for the year.  The drop wasn’t as bad as the S&P 500 because I added money to our retirement accounts throughout the year and our retirement portfolios are diversified — i.e., bonds, REITs, and international equities.
• I will write more about peer-to-peer lending this week.  In short, I haven’t done much with Prosper since it doesn’t accept new loan, but I have been reinvesting money in my Lending Club account.

Overall, my net worth is down -13.0% and my investments are down -24.3% in 2008.  Not good, but not terrible considering what’s going on with the stock market and the economy.

Alternative Income

I closed out the year with alternative income from my web businesses exceeding the 17% goal by almost a full percentage point.  Basically, my projected alternative income against my total income (salary + alternative income) ended up at 17.93%.  For 2009, my goal is to double my alternative income, which is approximately a 32% goal — aggressive, but achievable.

Blog Review

This month, I made some improvements to the blog, which you may have not noticed.  Some of the changes include:

• Updated left sidebar on the home page to make several features more accessible.
• Changed to the main navigation bar to make key features — e.g., financial directory, freebies, credit cards, making money, frugal living, and investing — accessible from all pages.
• Addition of financial definitions with Wikipedia-style links from various articles.

Performance

December was a rather slow month due to the holidays, and many key stats dropped considerably. Here are the results:

• Subscribers dropped slightly from 2,224 to 2,219
• Search traffic dropped -20% from 36,681 to 29,364
• Visitors dropped -22% from 60,499 to 47,016
• Page views dropped -20% from 88,144 to 70,380

Top 5 Most Viewed Articles

Anything related to the economic crisis, making more money, and saving more money was popular in December.

1. What Caused The Financial Crisis Of 2008? from 9/22/2008
2. 40+ Alternative Income Ideas and Resources from 3/4/2008
3. Where To Sell Used Books And Textbooks from 9/24/2008
4. 50+ Frugal Tips, Ideas, and Resources from 1/31/2008
   
5. Obama’s 401k Plan Is A Double-Edged Sword from 11/12/2008

Top 10 Referrers

Thank you to all 769 web sites and blogs that sent visitors my way. Despite listing only the top 10, I do appreciate everyone’s help. Here are the top referrers this month:

1. Cash Money Life *
   
2. MSN Smart Spending
3. Being Frugal
4. Bogleheads.org
5. I’ve Paid For This Twice Already… *
   
6. My Two Dollars *
7. Mrs. Micah
8. The Dough Roller *
9. My Dollar Plan *
10. Five Cent Nickel

* Indicates the winners of 125×125 banner ad spot.

Again, thank you to my readers and fellow bloggers for your support.

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Pinyo is the brain behind Moolanomy personal finance blog and a few other web sites. If you like this article, please subscribe for free daily email updates.

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