Race to $1 Million – February 2012

Hold onto your hats folks. This was a CRAZY month for the Race to $1 Million.

Let’s review some of the really huge things that have happened in the last 31 days.

The Good Stuff for Me

• I was paid back on a $3k personal loan
• I made about $2k in revenue from my web businesses
• Thanks to my commitment to P90X, I have stopped eating out about two weeks ago
• I paid off a $3,300 student loan!
• The stock market was very generous this month

The Bad Stuff for Me

• I spent $2,800 out of my health savings account for Invisalign (woot for straight teeth, will post about this soon)
• I had over $600 in expenses for my web businesses (a large part of that is FINCON12 expenses)
• I bought a 1 week vacation in Cancun plus air travel, scheduled for right after Tag and I finish P90X
• I have spent over $300 in preparation for two weddings in March, including a tux rental and a hotel in college station.

While I did have a lot of expenses, overall I think I’m looking pretty freaking good for this month. But the even bigger story is how much money The Hoff has been spending this month. As you probably know by now, he is getting married at the end of the summer. That means he’s paying for a wedding and a big fat honeymoon.

Well a lot of those expenses hit him this month. Let’s take a look at where we ended up in January:

Despite the very strong performance of the stock market (The Hoff tells me his 401k increased by about $3,000 this month), he still couldn’t manage to break even on the month. Of course, it’s hard to break even when you pay for your honeymoon to Maldives. What a lucky lady the future Mrs. The Hoff is going to be!

What’s My Goal for the Year?

After such a big month, I’m starting to believe that this might be the year where I pull even with The Hoff? Is it possible?

As I’ve said before, he’s getting married and adding his future wife’s net worth and income to his balance sheet. He tells me that he expects her net worth to be roughly zero when they marry, but she will have positive cash flow which will grow his net worth faster.

Then again, they have to pay for a wedding this year, and I know they aren’t close to being done paying for everything.

I’m going to give myself a really big stretch goal this year: I will pull even with The Hoff by December 31st, 2012. That is, if the world still exists.

It’s gonna be really hard, but I think it can happen as long as I continue to make money with this website and other side jobs, and he continues to spend a bunch of money on a wedding. Wish me luck!

My Net Worth Tracking

As always, here are the net worth tracking graphs I use in my customized Net Worth Tracking Spreadsheet that is free to download. The two biggest things I noticed this month were the reduction in debt thanks to paying off a student loan, and the increase in 401k and Roth IRA because of a very nice month in the stock market.

By the end of the year I hope to pull even with The Hoff and show a big fat ZERO in the student loan line (blue installment line in the debt graph). Again, wish me luck!

Kevin McKee

Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.