I did December’s net worth yesterday, and decided to compare it to the previous couple of years while I was at it. Ouch!

There’s a wake up call for me if I ever saw one. You see, my net worth has declined about $4400 from 2008 to 2009, and about $1800 from 2007 to 2008. So overall it’s gone down about $6200 since December of 2007.

The thing is, the decline isn’t really due to the financial crisis or events outside of my control. (I’ve nearly recovered my once-40% losses in my retirement funds.) Nor is it due to a lack of income. My income has actually increased over that time period. Instead, it’s mostly due to me spending like there’s no tomorrow.

So I’ll be re-framing things big time. (I’d already planned to stop the massive spending beginning in February, but I’ll be taking an even harder look at what I’ve been doing too, since clearly this is not a new issue for me.)