| The stock market was flat this month, though it went down and back up over 1%. The Fed had raised the rate .25-.5% for the first time in like 7 years or something, plus oil continues to be pretty low. Business was pretty good considering we nearly had a snow day and had to cancel 9 appts for one day. We ended up with 5 that day, so that was nice. In addition, my mother's funeral was December 4th, so I didn't have clients that day. December is usually a slow month with two holiday weeks, but it was the best month since August. We visited Marcella for Christmas with Emilie and Brandon and his family. She gave all the grandchildren and great grandchildren $5000, so that increased the monies we have in our grandchildren's college fund by $20,000. The net worth above does not include the grandchildren's college fund. Due to Mary Sue's operation in November, the medical bills started rolling in. Her bill reached $150,000, and we don't think we've received the operation or surgeon bill yet! However, insurance covered most of that. The "Other Debts" above is the rough estimate on her medical we've received to date. We paid over $800 in medical bills this month on that. Most of that was from Mary Sue's HSA at work, so that helped knock off the smaller medical bills. The "Credit Card" above is now the furnace and air conditioner. We only knocked off $10,000 on debt this year due to updating the kitchen sink and faucets, replacing the back door (long overdue) and the furnace and air conditioner (air conditioner went out) and a new La-Z-boy chair for the Urbandale office. Those items came to $13000, of which we have $1600 left. We also celebrated our 40th Anniversary in Michigan and camped in Sibley State Park near Willmar, both for a week, taking more vacation time and time away from work than normal. The stock market was relatively flat for the year. Most of our gains in our total Net Worth were from our own contributions to our retirement funds which totaled around $25500, the most we've ever saved in one year. Also while Mary Sue was hospitalized and in recovery she was on disability pay which is at 80% of her normal salary. Still, we are grateful our debt is now under $100,000, most of which is our house. Earlier in the year, in February, I invested $5000 in Thriving Productions, LCC with Brandon. We have not income for that company in 2015, although we continue to write and produce products we will eventually sell. For the year the DJIA was down 1.2%. We contributed over 27,000 to our retirement fund, which brought up our account 7.33% |