For those who have been following this blog, I want to begin with an update on my eye. I have come out of hell successfully. The betadine magic worked rather well in curbing the Ad-CS. While I still have minor inflammation in my eye and am continuing to use eye-drops, all the classic symptoms of Ad-CS and the associated pain has disappeared.

On to net worth numbers— The table below provides a snapshot of our net worth as of this writing. For comparison, I have included numbers from last monthly update. Our net worth now stands at 52.13 % of our FI number!

A few points worth noting for this update

• Our checking account cash balance reduced by >15 %. This was primarily because, some of the funds were moved to high-yield savings account and some were invested in the markets.  I feel, we still have cash problem and am constantly thinking of ways to get cash working for me rather than just sitting in a checking account
• Non-retirement brokerage account saw a gain of 7.96 %. This was a nice surprise, given how volatile the markets were this month. Part of this increase has come from equity bonus from my day-job.
• CC expense for the month increased by 50 %. I attribute this to homeowners pains. For a while now our fridge has been acting out. I tried several DIY methods (for example, here and here) to resolve this problem to no avail. Finally, we gave in, and decided to splurge on a brand new fridge.
•  As usual, we saw a healthy contribution to our 401-K plan and even with market gyrations, our 401-K portfolio saw gains for the month. Overall a nice increase of >14 %

Talking of market gyrations, below is a snapshot from Personal Capital of our portfolio gyrations for the past one month.

As is quite evident from the chart, there were 3 significant declines (of atleast 2.6 %) with the worst decline of the year happening on Aug 5th. The CBOE volatality index, also known as the “Fear Index”, which, provides a measure of market risk and investor sentiment, gyrated to as high as $24 .81 to a low of $15.80.  CNBC just put out a nice article summarizing the wild month of August, definitely worth a read.

Personal, these are great times. I am a risk averse investor with a long view and when markets are choppy, I not only tend to do better, I also see a lot of opportunities to get some cash into play. For the past month, I pulled a trigger on DIS (90 stocks at $135.49) and BA (9 stocks at $332.92), both adding to my non-retirement stock portfolio.

A few comments on the fridge purchase. While, the type and the model of fridge to purchase is a personal choice, where to buy fridge from, can be optimized. In our case, we ended up buying at Best Buy for two primary reasons: (a) Price-match policy (they even match to Costco discount pricing). If one is lucky, in addition to price-match, one could also avail Best-Buy promotions, in our case, $50 in-store coupon, and (b) Delivery and haul away service. Getting fridge in the house and taking out existing fridge out of the house is going to take some work, given the size of the fridge and the size of the door-way-entrance. For a nominal cost ($19.99), Best-Buy folks assured me that they will even remove the door if need be, to get the fridge in and out of the house.

Given this is a long-weekend and time of the year when there is scramble for back-to-school prep, I will keep the post short and end with a new idea that I am toying. Starting with this post, at the end of every weekly post, I will post a link to one article, blog, book, podcast that I heard, or read and found fascinating.

On that note, I want to share the podcast #936 from Planet Money,  The Modal American. Its a fascinating take on one of the least understood statistical concepts, mode, and its application to identify the most-prototypical living American in today’s day and age.