January 2008 Site and Net Worth Review (-7.35%)

By Pinyo, on February 4, 2008

Net Worth Review

January was a bad month for the stock market despite two rate cuts by the Fed. The S&P 500 index dropped -6.12% from 1468.36 to 1378.55. According to NetworthIQ, my net worth went down -1.66% and net investable assets went down -7.35%, or from 23.93% to 22.18% of $1 million goal — 2 down months in a row!

Highlights

• We are still a single income family with my wife staying at home with the baby; so we are definitely seeing our cash reserve go down.
• My alternative investment through peer-to-peer lending networks grew:
  • On Prosper, my portfolio grew from $100 to $251.67. The $1.67 is interest on my first payment of my first loan.
  • On Lending Club, my portfolio grew from $0 to $50.61 — the $0.61 was a test deposit.
• We were able to reach the maximum contribution limit for my 401k and both of our Roth IRA for 2007. The last $4,000 was deposited to our IRAs early in January. So, this was the big win for the month.
• My retirement portfolio dropped by -3.08% due to the market decline, but was buoyed by new contributions.
• My estimated home value increased by +0.77%. This is surprising considering the weak housing market. But the explanation could be a regional thing, or the two Fed interest rate cuts. I am not an economist, so I am not sure about this one.

What my friends are saying about their net worth

• January Net Worth Review at Single Guy Money
• January 2008 Net Worth Update: -3.7% at My Dollar Plan

Blog Review

At the end of this month, members of the M-Network got together and started a blog to help new bloggers. If you have chance, please visit us at Blogthority.

As always, I owe the success of this blog to the support from my readers and other bloggers. So a big THANK YOU!

Performance

This is a month of incredible growth for Moolanomy. There are a lot of factors that contributed to this, but I would like to say a special thank you to Lifehacker.com for linking to my post about 35 common sense rules of investing.

• Subscribers grew +63% from 537 to 876 — if you are not a subscriber yet, subscribe now…it’s free.
• Search traffic grew +28% from 3,008 to 3,847
• Unique visitors grew +129% from 18,605 to 42,562
• Page views grew +178% from 31,884to 88,609

All four stats are at their all-time high!

Top 5 Most Viewed Posts This Month

1. 35 Common Sense Rules for Investing from 7/31/2007
   
2. 12 Investing Mistakes I’ve Made, and How You Can Learn From Them from 12/12/2007
3. Personal Finance Blogosphere Best of 2007 from 1/15/2008
4. 7 Steps Debt Reduction Illustrated from 11/28/2007
5. Using Simple Rules to Predict your Retirement Needs from 12/6/2007

Top 10 Referrers

Special thank to the top 10 referrers.

1. Lifehacker.com
2. Get Rich Slowly
3. Cash Money Life
4. Being Frugal
5. I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…
6. The Kirk Report
7. Free Money Finance
8. Gather Little By Little
9. Plonkee Money
10. The Dough Roller

Again, a big 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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1. January 2008 Net Worth Update: -3.7% | My Dollar Plan