With hardly any investment income from my self-managed portfolio, I feel quite lucky that I can still post a modest positive net worth growth of $3,438 in June -- several extra sources of income more than offset the bleeding in stock option value. This also wrapped up the bumpy but still fruitful ride of 1st half, which put us in a good position in achieving our stated annual financial goals:

1) We achieved a net worth growth of $125K in the last six months, or more than half of our annual growth goal of $230,000. With a sizable bonus and more vesting of stock option and stock awards coming in September, we should be able to overshoot our year-end goal of $850,000 in net worth.

2) My investment also performed well with benchmark-beating year-to-date return of 7.7%. This is only a bit shy of our annual absolute return goal of 8%.

3) On the self-income side, we recorded a total of $47K income in H1, compared to our 2007 annual goal of $80,000 and 2006 whole-year booking of $70k.

MONTH-END BALANCE SHEET

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE MONTH

Our life was very busy in June, making this month's financial reporting a very eventful one:

1) As mentioned earlier, we will send our son to elementary school starting this fall. We paid out approximately $5,000 in June for the tuition of the fall semester.

2) We also moved to a more spacious apartment (and surprisingly, we found an ideal suite in the same building). We paid out another $4,000 as deposit (only cash flow impact but no net worth impact) and $2,000 as the first-month rent for July. We have yet to receive the deposit back from our old apartment though.

3) The family also took a vacation in Hawaii (3 days in Oahu and 4 days in Maui). It is such a nice relaxation after a super-busy spring. Of course, even with company footing most of the bill, that is four-figure "incidental" charges.

4) On the income side, I was granted a couple of cash awards in June for outstanding performance and service to the company. Although, I will receive the true cash in my paystub for July or August.

5) KPMG also finished my 2006 tax return, and I'm due for a refund of about $800 and additional one-time tax assistance of $3,500 from my employer for the material tax change to expatriates in early 2006.

WHAT'S AHEAD

- I have yet made the $10,000 contribution to SE 401(k) account for tax year 2006.

- More portfolio reengineering to do; I hope I can gradually reach my allocation goal by the end of Q3 without taking too much risk catching a market inflection point (read: buying massively just before a market downturn).

- My wife's laptop is literally breaking apart now. Time for shopping a new one now.

- July won't be an easy month too -- I already have three weeks of business trips planned for the month.