This is small potatoes compared to some of the recent posts here (and probably doesn't qualify for badassity), but its been about a year since I started reading MMM and getting my shit together.
I was just playing around in Mint and ran my net worth over the past year, just to see. It went from -$73,000 (oh, student loans) to +11,500 from February 2013 to today. Granted, a bit of that is the "equity" in my house (about $15,000 based on whatever Zillow says the value is, which seems pretty accurate given the two other homes that sold on our street recently. I won't use it to calculate retirement net worth, but for now its interesting to see the full picture). Another $10-15,000 is the increase in my rollover IRA from the recent stock market uptick.
The bigger change was getting my act together, ratcheting the budget way down and saving about 65% of my net pay. With that savings, I've been paying off my credit card debt (all at zero percent and being paid such that it will be gone before the promo rate expires, still stupid but slightly less so), maxing out my 401k and HSA (and maybe Roth IRA, if I get a bonus this year), paying extra on my student loans, and adding a bit to my cash savings cushion.
In 2014, the credit card debt will be gone, and that $1200 a month can go to the Roth, then extra student loan payments, and maybe some index funds. I'm all ears for suggestions if anyone has ideas for the most efficient allocation of this (student loans are 7%, so its sort of a wash as to whether that is a better investment than the market. And I hate them and want them gone, so they've been my focus so far).
Anyway, I just wanted to make myself accountable for continuing this trend, and to thank MMM and the many wise folks here who gave me the occasional face punch and some encouragement last year.
