Yesterday, I made my first political contribution. $100.

The day before, during the co worker going away lunch, I sat next to another co worker who I had worked with off and on for about 6 years (right now, off). I was pleasantly surprised to find out two things - 1.) he lived fairly close, in the Licton Springs/Northgate neighborhood (another North Seattle neighborhood) 2.) he was running for the Seattle school board.

I found out some interesting things. It costs about $30,000 to run a school board campaign, and currently he has about $2000. He has nearly got a website up and running which means that he can take PayPal, however, he's running into a chicken and egg problem (needs money to get the website up, but the average high-tech Seattlite is loath to write a check). We had interesting chat about the Supreme Court decision against the Seattle Public Schools.

I asked him for more information, he provided it, I wrote him a check large enough so that I'm memorable. I consider it my version of Prosper.com. We'll see what happens next.

I also promised to link his campaign site to my blog. I'm only going to link it to Sites I Frequent so as not to be too obtrusive. (this blog's about me, darn it!) If you are reading me from North Seattle, check the link out.

Snapshot of net worth, first half of 2007

$128,217.03 IRA/403(B)*
$13,387.24 stock (4 DRPs)
$25,812.64 EE bonds, I bonds, T bills
$7,227.60 ING, PayPal savings
$1,777.12 immediate cash in checking/savings
----
$176,421.63 grand total

*Again, I've added about 40K to Vanguard, which I plan put into Roth IRAs in subsequent years.

I received the 3rd disbursement of the inheritance in March, which is why it jumped so. (No brilliance of my own, only the ability not to spend it!) I received a 4th disbursement in very late June. Because a chunk of it will be sent to sister to fund the joint account that will take care of the farmette, I decided to wait and count what was left of the funds in December 2007.

My ING/paypal accounts dipped a bit due to the Paris trip.

June 2007 ($176,422 total, $48,205 in taxable accounts)
By comparison:
Dec 2006 ($132,062 total, $40,329)
June 2006 ($120,261 total, $65,148)
Dec 2005 ($67,778 total, $23,740)
June 2005 ($46,115 total, $11,293)
Dec 2004 ($38,338 total, $7,558)
June 2004 ($29,050 total, $4,533)