It will be nice when I can report that our accounts actually made money during the month! Thankfully, everything is still at least positive...but only because of our contributions. I have to figure out a better way of reporting this stuff. Anyway, our net worth is up about 1.5% for the month again all of that is from contributions.
Some how we managed to be way under budget this month. It helps that my wife had some overtime and an extra paycheck in August. Our gas bill (for the cars) went down a bunch thanks to the recent price drop at the pump. Don't get me wrong, I'm still for higher gas prices, but I won't complain when I've got extra cash.
This is especially true now that it seems every other bill is going through the roof. Last week I paid our Verizon bill which went up 17% in one month. We didn't add any extras or have any sort of limited time offer that expired. I have not called to complain or at least find an answer to the increased cost, but I will be soon. The only reason I haven't is because I love our Verizon service...and they just added a bunch of HD channels for me : ) I probably should cancel the cable all together, but for now I can afford it and there's just nothing that beats coming home to watch Barefoot Contessa in HD!!
Showing posts with label personal finance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal finance. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
July $ Update
The markets continue to not help us out this month. But I know every $ we put aside now means we're buying shares on sale : ) Just can't wait til November...in hopes that the election will bring about some stability.
We managed to be under budget this month thanks to George W's check finally arriving. Too bad my speeding ticket and an ER trip ate into good chunk of that. Next month should be sweet if we can keep our spending under control since my wife will recieve an extra paycheck. Perfect timing because I want to go on a short vacation : )
Net worth was up ~1.7% for the month...mainly due to my company finally depositing my profit sharing contribution into the 401(k). If the markets will cooperate a little more, we'll be on track to meet our net worth goal by the end of the year.
We managed to be under budget this month thanks to George W's check finally arriving. Too bad my speeding ticket and an ER trip ate into good chunk of that. Next month should be sweet if we can keep our spending under control since my wife will recieve an extra paycheck. Perfect timing because I want to go on a short vacation : )
Net worth was up ~1.7% for the month...mainly due to my company finally depositing my profit sharing contribution into the 401(k). If the markets will cooperate a little more, we'll be on track to meet our net worth goal by the end of the year.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Why I hate Politicians
I tend to not want to get involved in politics. Usually because people are so 'passionate' about their 'side' that anything that goes against their side becomes offensive. Not always the case, for sure, but more then not, it is. Just the sad truth.
As a responsible tax-paying citizen it infuriates me that our government is even considering bailing out banks and homeowners over this mortgage mess. I mean, seven years ago the government turned a blind eye to all of these mortgage brokers getting FILTHY rich off uneducated (in mortgage terms) home buyers who purchased too much house with too little money. What drove it all? GREED. The mortgage brokers quickly got used to large paychecks making these deals and home buyers wanted bigger more expensive houses.
Now the politicians want to use our tax money to bail these people out? Excuse me? Are you (insert bad word here) kidding me? Turn a blind eye to bad behavior and then reward it with a slap on the wrist and forgiveness? Unfortunately, I think this is just the beginning of this mess.
In the interest of being fair and full disclosure, my wife and I purchased two homes in the last five years with ARMs, not because we could not afford the fixed rate counterparts, but because we knew we would not be in those houses for more then five years and had already calculated what our potential mortgages would be (and made sure they were within our budget) if rates went up. By the time we bought our current house (two and a half years ago) I had already figured out that the cheap money wasn't going to last forever so we locked in a fixed rate...all the while the mortgage broker telling us we could 'afford' twice the house we purchased.
Thankfully the Richmond real estate market doesn't seem to be doing all that badly. Though we would take a small loss if we were to sell the house today.
As a responsible tax-paying citizen it infuriates me that our government is even considering bailing out banks and homeowners over this mortgage mess. I mean, seven years ago the government turned a blind eye to all of these mortgage brokers getting FILTHY rich off uneducated (in mortgage terms) home buyers who purchased too much house with too little money. What drove it all? GREED. The mortgage brokers quickly got used to large paychecks making these deals and home buyers wanted bigger more expensive houses.
Now the politicians want to use our tax money to bail these people out? Excuse me? Are you (insert bad word here) kidding me? Turn a blind eye to bad behavior and then reward it with a slap on the wrist and forgiveness? Unfortunately, I think this is just the beginning of this mess.
In the interest of being fair and full disclosure, my wife and I purchased two homes in the last five years with ARMs, not because we could not afford the fixed rate counterparts, but because we knew we would not be in those houses for more then five years and had already calculated what our potential mortgages would be (and made sure they were within our budget) if rates went up. By the time we bought our current house (two and a half years ago) I had already figured out that the cheap money wasn't going to last forever so we locked in a fixed rate...all the while the mortgage broker telling us we could 'afford' twice the house we purchased.
Thankfully the Richmond real estate market doesn't seem to be doing all that badly. Though we would take a small loss if we were to sell the house today.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
June $ Update
Did anyone else happen to notice the stock markets sucked the life out of everything in June?? We ended the month down 1.7%, which actually wasn't too terrible considering the stock markets as a whole were down way more then that. I'm sure we're in for a rough couple of months until the election is over. In the meantime, the wonderful media will surely be continuing to feed on the gas and food price climb and adding fuel to the market volatility fire.
On our budget, we some how managed to stay on track overall. Our gas and food portions where way off the charts, like most people these days.
On our budget, we some how managed to stay on track overall. Our gas and food portions where way off the charts, like most people these days.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
May $ Update
I haven't fully discussed all of the info I want to share on here with my wife yet, so for this month we'll keep it simple. Basically this month we were over budget due to the pond, patio, patio furniture, etc which was spent now knowing George W. would be sending us a check soon to cover it. Even with all that, our networth was up ~3% due to the stock markets continual recovery from the first quarter.
Every month I update an Excel Spreadsheet with our budget and net worth. There are several reasons for this. First being I'm a financial planner and therefore I feel like in order for me to preach at clients the importance of budgeting (or at minimum, keeping track of what you spend) I need to do the same.
Second, my wife is an engineer. I love her dearly, but she has this need to know where our money is at all time and that we are going above and beyond what is necessary so that she can retire earlier rather then later. Plus over the last few years, our marriage has changed from her keeping track of every last penny to relying on me to pay the bills and manage our portfolio. Her job doesn't allow the time required to do this. So the monthly update has been any easy way for us to communicate how we are doing financially.
The net worth evolved from updating the budget simply because I had to easy access to all the information needed. I've found over the years it is a great way to encourage us to continue putting money aside and paying down debt. Plus on those months that I spent a little too much at Lowe's, I was able to show my wife that even though I went well over my budget, our net worth was still increasing! The power of compound interest is awesome to see in real life!!
Why this works for us? I'm the half of the relationship that likes to spend. My wife would be perfectly content hoarding away everything. I'm more then okay with this!! So by looking at our finances each month, we're able to keep ourselves accountable to each other and we now only purchase larger ticket items when we know we have extra income one month, or cut back in a different area. Plus we have the habit of not purchasing anything without the others permission...even down to a trip to the local Krispy Kreme. Yeah, it might sound very extreme to some, but as the spender in the relationship, it's helped us amass what we have and enjoy our money working for us instead of us working for the money.
If anyone is interested in the spreadsheet template to use for yourselves, just drop me an e-mail!
Every month I update an Excel Spreadsheet with our budget and net worth. There are several reasons for this. First being I'm a financial planner and therefore I feel like in order for me to preach at clients the importance of budgeting (or at minimum, keeping track of what you spend) I need to do the same.
Second, my wife is an engineer. I love her dearly, but she has this need to know where our money is at all time and that we are going above and beyond what is necessary so that she can retire earlier rather then later. Plus over the last few years, our marriage has changed from her keeping track of every last penny to relying on me to pay the bills and manage our portfolio. Her job doesn't allow the time required to do this. So the monthly update has been any easy way for us to communicate how we are doing financially.
The net worth evolved from updating the budget simply because I had to easy access to all the information needed. I've found over the years it is a great way to encourage us to continue putting money aside and paying down debt. Plus on those months that I spent a little too much at Lowe's, I was able to show my wife that even though I went well over my budget, our net worth was still increasing! The power of compound interest is awesome to see in real life!!
Why this works for us? I'm the half of the relationship that likes to spend. My wife would be perfectly content hoarding away everything. I'm more then okay with this!! So by looking at our finances each month, we're able to keep ourselves accountable to each other and we now only purchase larger ticket items when we know we have extra income one month, or cut back in a different area. Plus we have the habit of not purchasing anything without the others permission...even down to a trip to the local Krispy Kreme. Yeah, it might sound very extreme to some, but as the spender in the relationship, it's helped us amass what we have and enjoy our money working for us instead of us working for the money.
If anyone is interested in the spreadsheet template to use for yourselves, just drop me an e-mail!
Friday, May 9, 2008
Personal Finance
I am in love with Personal Finance Blogs. I've been silently reading a number of them for over a year now. I'm still in debate over what all I will share on this blog. There has to be some balance between privacy and sharing useful information that might help a reader out. I think for now I'm going to work on showing a monthly Net Worth update (which I track already anyway) in percentage form and somehow do the same with our monthly budget (again, already keep track of this info).
Any thoughts?
Any thoughts?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
