Bought some int'l mutual fund since last month. Also a little GE after it got pounded.

Stocks are up over last month. And the pre-tax regular additions to both of our 401ks and the HSA are putting aside a good chunk of money regularly.

In April we managed to put aside over 4k into savings and tax deferred accounts. That has kept our monthly average savings of wages at $4.5k per month. The numbers here say we're finally back over 500,000, but that includes the value of the cars and household items. I don't have those valued very high, but still, it would be impossible to liquidate them and still get by. So to me it still looks like we are a little under that milestone. I am still selling CDs and books regularly, and putting that money into an S&P index fund so that I don't feel like it just goes into the pile and gets lost.

Also: Got my new rent number for the next 12 months. Still under $1300 per month, which is great. the mkt value of our apt is probably double that, so that extra money gets saved every month. How much longer here? Maybe 1 or 2 years.

Reading: The Voyage of the Short Serpent and Pollan's In Defense of Food. Growing tomatoes.
Will continue to try to buy on significant stock market dips with all of the extra cash.

Cash is lower thanks to tax season. On top of deductions from every paycheck, we had to pay an additional $2200 or to the feds and California. All the big deductions (kids, house, owing a business) we don't have, but we do have the passive income of investments, which means when most people are getting refunds, we're writing more checks.

There continues to be large expenditures every month for one reason or another. I'd love a couple of months to go by without plane tickets, or some big purchase or other. It's not much really. We're still saving quite a bit, but I'd like to keep a low profile for a couple of months and really sock away the extra cash.

Have bought some SPY in March and and PFE right after it got hammered. Stock prices have come back somewhat, leading to higher numbers posted here. Hopefully I was able to buy some stuff at depressed prices. Also both of us are now maxing our 401ks, despite no match as well as our HSA, which should shield income, allowing us to keep our AGI under the limit so we can also do IRAs and get our year end taxes a little bit lower.

It should also mean that our retirement numbers should go up even if the market continues to go down.

Reading: Bad Money by Kevin Phillips. Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker.

Selling 30,000 worth of stocks from Sept. to Dec. last year must have helped me protect some money, but it's sure not obvious by looking at the results today. I have bought back much of it from Jan. to March and at significantly lower prices than what I sold them for. Still, the falling market is definitely sapping away a lot of money. I have lost close to 40,000 this year in investments, which is close to 8% of my total worth. Taking cash out of the picture, the number would be well over 10%.

If the market continues to drop, I will continue to use part of the 40k in cash to buy index funds at lower prices. Hopefully in ten years it will seem like it was a smart move.

We are continuing to try to save $4000 per month, though much of that is now going directly into tax deferred accounts: My 401k, our HSA, and Dayna's new 401k, which has zero matching, but at least will lower our taxable income for 2008 somewhat.

-Oh yeah: Taxes in April: Will pay another $3000 in state and federal. The federal taxes will be offset by the boneheaded govt rebate checks. at some point. Still, it will take a big chunk out of next month's savings.