April 30, 2008
| Retirement Savings |
Rollover IRA: $1,357
Roth IRA: $3,669
401(a): $3,742
403(b): $16,129
Total: $24,897
|
| Emergency Savings |
15,004
|
| Goal Oriented Savings |
Car Maintenance: $21
Savings for taxes: $4,800
Total: $4,821
|
| Investment Loans |
Prosper-ish: $12,630
Personal Loan: $5,000
Total: $17,630
|
| Total Assets |
Non-Liquid: $24,897
Semi-Liquid: $17,630
Liquid: $19,825
Expense Acct: $3,691
Total: $66,043
|
| Debt and Liabilities |
Truck: $5,847
Citi: $2229
American Express: $153
Chase: $358
Rent: $1,360
Total: $9,589
|
| Net Worth |
$56,454
|
Most of my gains were due to retirement contributions during the two months between this and the last snapshot I put together. I’m surprised that I, at least, kept the amounts I contributed, considering the market’s performance. Still need to re-examine my allocations, using Moom‘s Madame X series as a guide.
I’ve paid my tax bill, which was offset by a state refund, so the cash situation is half settled. I haven’t received my rebate yet. At that point, I think I’ll decide what to do with the lump sum of tax savings money. It’s mainly going to be divvying it up between the other smaller savings/expense accounts that have been neglected until now: auto maintenance was drained, insurance is perpetually lonely, the intermediate emergency fund has been languishing, and a little has to be set aside for upcoming Con. If there’s anything left after those are taken care of, I’d love to open a vacation/fun fund. That’ll be a first!!
Oh, and I need a moving out fund. I vaguely envisioned funding that from paychecks and miscellaneous income through the rest of this year, since the other major savings goals may be set. Regardless of the source, I need to set an actual number for that.
April 4, 2008
I’ve decided to move the monthly snapshots to the end of the month rather than doing them early or mid-month. I think I started that way because that’s when it occurred to me to do them, but it doesn’t make sense to call the January Snapshot “January” if it doesn’t actually include that month’s changes.
Just a little housekeeping.
March 3, 2008
| Retirement Savings |
Rollover IRA: $1,395
Roth IRA: $3,743
401(a): $2,834
403(b): $13,773
Total: $21,745
|
| Emergency Savings |
14,132
|
| Goal Oriented Savings |
Car Maintenance: $520
Savings for taxes: $5,225
Total: $5,745
|
| Investment Loans |
Prosper-ish: $12,630
Personal Loan: $5,000
Total: $17,630
|
| Total Assets |
Non-Liquid: $21,745
Semi-Liquid: $17,630
Liquid: $19,877
Total: $59,252
|
| Debt and Liabilities |
Truck: $6,224
Citi – $860
American Express – $356
Chase – $690
Rent – $1,360
Total: $9,490
|
| Net Worth |
49,762
|
I was strongly tempted to skip this month’s roundup because the upcoming expenses listed in Yodlee are so depressingly high that it almost makes the savings above seem inconsequential.
I’ve an upcoming charge for the $500 deductible for the sedan’s repairs due at the end of this week. Argh! This doesn’t even include the other $500 deductible for getting my car fixed before I sell the danged ole truck.
But that would be cheating. And I’m no cheater! I’m facing up to the fact that the bills are far greater than they should be for some reasons beyond my control, like gas prices and my parents driving so very much this past month ($300 on gas alone!!) and the next insurance installment came due, albeit in a much much lower amount, and the car registration on my car was paid.
This is a rough spot, and I’ll get past it. Just gotta keep the chin above water and ride it out. Meantime, I’m eagerly awaiting my supplemental income check to come through, and not so eagerly pondering the payment of taxes. I’m still undecided as to the best way to pay them.
Also, I have to be careful because I’m more susceptible than ever to Sad Spending Syndrome. Even if I’m not going out and spending wads of cash on stuff, I’m still less careful about the little expenses like an odd lunch here or there, or just loosening the purse strings overall because I’m kind of stressed, lonely and/or grieving. I’m only good at controlling expenses when I control the urge to acquire, and that urge is best controlled by a strong sense of satisfaction. Obviously, when stressed, etc., satisfaction isn’t the strongest feeling, so I’ve really got to keep on top of this.
*edit: I prefer to include expenses as liabilities this time, since they will be paid from the assets above instead of just my usually invisible expense account. Also, I’m going to start explicitly stating what my total net worth is.*
February 4, 2008
| Retirement Savings |
Rollover IRA: $1,480
Roth IRA: $3,749
401(a): $2,572
403(b): $13,331
Total: $21,132
|
| Emergency Savings |
$14,819
|
| Goal Oriented Savings |
Car Maintenance: $646
Savings for taxes: $5,016
Total: $5,662
|
| Investment Loans |
Prosper-ish: $12,630
Personal Loan: $5,000
Total: $17,630
|
| Total Assets |
Non-Liquid: $21,132
Semi-Liquid: $17,630
Liquid: $20,481
Total: $59,243
|
| Debt and Liabilities |
Truck: $7,002
Total: $7,002
|
At first glance, it suddenly looks like I’ve done remarkably well since the last snapshot at the end of 2007. As usual, there are quite a few things this doesn’t show.
First, I paid off the balance transfer, and that means I’ll be losing a source of passive income that was a steady $40ish/month. Of course, with the interest rate dropping like a rock, I wasn’t assured that same return through this year. I’ll consider doing another BT this year, because it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to post the kind of savings I’d need to put towards the real estate investment my friend and I had discussed.
Second, my spending has been well over my income for a few weeks. A few hotspots:
A) I overpaid the insurance premium in January because I still hadn’t received my revised premium statement by the billing due date. That’s an extra $300 I’m basically prepaying. It was on my credit card so I have the short grace period, but that’ll still have to come out of the checking account.
B) I forgot to reduce my retirement contributions in time for January’s paychecks. I’ve changed it for February from $500/check to $300, but I should have reduced it even more because I need the extra cash flow. And the contribution was taken out of my extra January paycheck too! Gah. I didn’t think that it would be.
C) Thanks to Ma’s accident in the sedan, it’s been out of commission for over a month. Haven’t been able to sell the truck, so another [-$400/month].
D) Best friend’s wedding last month did a doozy on the budget because I was just too stressed to clamp down as strongly on spending as usual. Eating out? Uh, sure! Buying new sunglasses? Yep! More food? Ok! Cold at night? Heater’s on! More stress eating? Let’s get another bagel sandwich!
Meantime, I’m trying to parse out how rent and all the other bills work out without tapping into the emergency fund until my supplemental income check comes in, whenever that’ll be.
January 7, 2008
Monthly Expenses
(some are close estimates, as the cost may vary slightly)
Fixed
Rent: $1360
Trash/Water: $80
Cable: $26
Landline: $37
Cell phones, Padres: $75
Cell phone, mine: $50 currently, will go up. A lot. Est, $80
Gas, home: $30
Electric: $125
Internet: $18
Gas, auto: $300
Groceries: $200
Truck payment: $400
Auto insurance: $300
Total: $2631
Variable Categories (personal, unbudgeted)
Eating out
Clothing
Travel
For the last section of variable categories, I don’t have a budget other than “as little as possible” because the fixed expenses have crept up to more than I make. It’s usually no more than $200 per month for all of the above, though, which isn’t much because even a cheap flight is about $120.
My plan to bring down the expenses:
1. Truck payment
Goal: Sell that sucker!
Deadline: By the second week of February. [After the wedding!]
Action: I have a figure in mind that I want to sell it for. I’ll get a quote from CarMax to see if they can match that price first. If they can’t, then I’ll take photos, and post it on Craigslist and perhaps AutoTrader.
Associated benefit: the auto insurance should come down quite a bit as well.
Savings: $400 + insurance reduction
2. Cell Phones, Ma/Pa
Goal: Change plan
Deadline: By Feb 22nd, the end of their next billing period
Action: Reduce their family plan to the cheapest one available.
Savings: $10/month.
3. Cell Phone, mine
Goal: Maximize minutes, minimize costs
Deadline: Feb 1st
Action: When I activate the iPhone, I’ll ask for the plan with the MOST minutes (6000) for the first month, then reduce it to the cheapest plan available. Since AT&T/Cingular has rollover minutes, I plan to bank the remaining minutes for use through the rest of the year. I do need to verify that they don’t penalize for changing plans, nor do the minutes expire.
Cost (before tax):
$880/year for 10,950 minutes
vs.
$720/year for 5,400 minutes
The difference is an extra $160 for 5,550 minutes. This is a situation where I’ll have to spend to save more overall. There’s no way I can use only 450 minutes/month when no one other than my officemates are on AT&T, and I am not paying any 40 cents/minute overage!
December 29, 2007
Egads, but this year flew by! This Ducky’s fiscal travels were all over the map this year. I covered the balance tranfer/App-o-Rama adventure, the lending money debacle, the frantic savings race, and the monthly bills marathon. So let’s take a look and see what kind of shape 2007 turned out to be.
Originally, I decided these were my goals:
1. Mini e-fund: 3200 (01/07-04/07)
2. House fund: 6400 (05/07-12/07)
3. Roth: 4000 (1/07-12/07)
4. Car: 2640 (01/07-12/07)
= 1353/month
= 16,240/year
while budgeting 28,320 for bills and rent and increasing the pre-tax 403(b) contribution to 500/month.
What really happened:
At the time of last year’s goal-making, I didn’t make any special note of the regular emergency fund, because it was full. These are the major highlights:
- February: I had the emergency trip to Vietnam. Cost: ~ $4200
- (Feb) Made the biggest financial mistake I’ve made to date, and lent BroDucky $20k. I received $4k back midyear, and haven’t seen a dime more since then. He also stopped his car and insurance payments which were $700/mo. Total Cost: $16,000 + $4200 = $20,200. I had to foot the rest of the auto-related bills and the $16k. [*ow*]
- In July, I got the word that a major raise was coming my way. Only the first 5% kicked in at that time, as well as a small quarterly bonus and cell phone stipend, the rest of it came in a lump sum later on.
- October: all OT ceased and my income went down to an absolute base amount. Again, ow. That costs, on average, $600/month. Cost: ~$1800
- Received the fat supplementary-income bonus check, split it up into taxes/savings/spending deposits. Did the same with my Christmas bonus. Plus: $16,500; setting aside $4465 for taxes.
I sure wish that I had a Day of Reckoning for 2006 for comparison’s sake. There was so much upheaval, though, that it’s going to take way too much time to figure it all out manually. Instead, I will create the starting point for whatever information I can access now, similar to the monthly snapshots, and that’ll be my baseline for next year.
|
2006 |
2007 |
| Cash |
$15,000 |
$14,800 |
| Retirement Investments: Roth |
$0 |
$3,601 |
| Retirement Investments: 401(k) |
$0 |
$2,217 |
| Retirement Investments: 403(b) |
$4,238 |
$12,245 |
|
| Wamu: Rollover IRA |
$1,385 |
$1,497 |
| Investments and Loans |
$17,630 |
$17,630 |
| Total |
$38,253 |
$52,190 |
What the table doesn’t tell you
Cash Savings (not income meant for bills): Unexpected Expenses – $28,600
I saved enough to nearly refill the emergency fund and to cover the lost $16,000. Originally I was going to use the rest of the e-fund, but saved really diligently to try and cover as much as possible out of this year’s income instead. I’ll be paying the saved $16k back out in a month, so the year-end cash total I’ll be keeping is a shade less than I started out with this year. *one last sigh for lost savings*
Retirement Investments:
Vanguard rescued this disorganized PF idiot by providing year-end balance comparisons. They don’t break out the contributions versus earnings, but I guess that doesn’t matter.
A huge driver for the increase in retirement savings is the fact that I received a great deal of untaxed bonus money to supplement the shortfall of income. Saving that much pretax money also saved me approximately $2000 worth of owed taxes.
December 4, 2007
| Retirement Savings |
Rollover 401(k): $1,571
Roth IRA: $3,677
401(a): $ 1,938
403(b): $11,236
Total: $18,422
|
| Emergency Savings |
$11,754
|
| Goal Oriented Savings |
Car Maintenance: $641
Savings for BT repayment: $16,760
Savings for taxes: $3,929
Total: $21,330
|
| Investment Loans |
Prosper-ish: $12,630
Personal Loan: $5,000
Total: $17,630
|
| Total Assets |
Non-Liquid: $18,422
Semi-Liquid: $17,630
Liquid: $33,084
Total: $69,136
|
| Debt and Liabilities |
Truck: $7,372
BT (Brother): $16,760 due 02/08
Total: $24,132
|
I’ve some small gains in my retirement accounts, but that’s because the market ticked up just in time for my monthly round-up. It’s been up and down all month, and mostly down for three of the past four. It would be tough on more than just morale if I depended on it for income in the short-term.
The liquid savings was knocked back a little because the truck payment is draining my expense account every month. So far I haven’t been forced to pull money from savings to pay it yet, but I am taking savings out to pay for the costs of the NY trip as I mentioned before. I’d really like to sell it soon, but it turns out I still need the convenience of a third car at home during this difficult time.
Pa was recently downsized so if he doesn’t get a new one soon, we won’t need three cards for three people and I’ll sell the truck in January.
Overall, the assets increased by 1.5%.
Debts are decreasing steadily as well, and by equally small amounts. Due to the recent events, and all the nights I’ve spent with BoyDucky at the hospital, I haven’t killed off the BT debt to start a new one yet. I have, however, taken credit limit increases across the board for all my Citi cards in anticipation of the new BT. That increased my total credit line available for a future BT from 18k to 24k. I took advantage of Citi’s credit limit increase feature on the website to avoid any hard pulls on my credit.