Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Good-bye Chase Checking

It's been real. But your new rules are too much for me. At least $500 direct deposited per month or 5 debit card transactions per month are just not in the cards for me. I have 3 other checking accounts and I'm sure I'll find what I need somewhere else. Thanks!

Yearly Goals

2010

My one and only goal for 2010 was to pay off my car. Fail. I have $304 left. That's not too bad though. With a little luck I will whack the rest in January. Worst case I will take my tax refund and put the car debt to bed. But I don't think it will come to that :) Looking back I can think of a few purchases that derailed that goal, especially in the last month. In the last month I bought a cabinet for the bathroom ($113), a WII and Guitar Hero ($180), and a blu-ray player ($100). That's the rest of my car loan and extra right there. No regrets on the first two. The blu-ray player I bought before I decided I wanted a Wii, for the sole purpose of streaming Netflix. So really now it is not necessary. But I still love it for its purposes. I thought I may sell it on Craigslist or eBay to recoup some costs but now I think I will keep it.

2011

1. Net worth = $45,000.
I don't think this will be a struggle if the stock market continues to behave.

2. Pay back what I owe myself - around $700 to my Roth and around $900 to my savings. I didn't actually take money from my Roth but I had a deal with myself :) that I would put my homebuyer's tax credit into my Roth as I paid off my car. At some point I must have paid off my car without putting the same amount in my Roth. I honestly can't recall the circumstances but if my spreadsheet says it is so, I'm sure it is so.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Dividend Time

It's dividend time, one of my favorite times of the year. My Schwab funds pay out once a year in December. My American Funds fund pays quarterly and one of the payments is in December. This year I received a total of $154.20. Not much but growing :)




Friday, December 24, 2010

My Favorite Rewards Credit Card

I can't remember if I wrote about my favorite rewards credit card ever but I've been thinking a lot about this card lately. It's from Pentagon Federal Credit Union. I will say straight away that they can be a little picky with credit. If you have a FICO score under 700, take a little time to work on that before you apply.

Why do I love it? Rewards are 5% on gas, 2% on groceries, and 1% on everything else. No tiers, no limits. They give you a credit on your statement every month so there's no waiting till you hit $50 to get your money. It's the easiest thing ever. They've also given me the most generous credit limit I have yet. My other cards are from Chase, Discover, and Citi. I honestly can't tell you what the APR is because I've never carried a balance.

To get this card you will need to be a member of a military family or you will need to join the National Military Family Association. It costs $20, it goes to a great cause, and you only need to join the first year. You will also need to open a free savings account at Penfed where you will need to deposit $5.00. So $25 the first year and that's it. Ever. I easily earn $10-20 a month in rewards so those costs are covered within two months for me. I'm not a huge spender, I don't have a big family or anything.

So if you prefer to use a rewards card and you would like a new one for your arsenal, check it out.

Merry Christmas

Just popping in to Merry Christmas! (If anyone's reading ;) )

I feel fortunate to have off today. I'm spending this morning with a present to self, a refurbished Wii ($99.99) and Guitar Hero ($69.99). I'm getting addicted. I will be running some errands and feasting with family today. I love this holiday :)

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Monthly Update

Pay off car loan - 95% (Up .2%)
Pay off student loan - 14.9% (Up .2%)
E-fund 2 - 69.8% (Up 1.1%)

The two new ones..
Put $2500 back into house fund - 63.8% (no movement)
Put $768 into Roth IRA - 10.4% (no movement)

Yikes. Not much happening here. Still recovering from last month's blow. I'm hoping for good things in December. If nothing else it's a 3 pay check month. Yay :)

I just canceled my Scorewatch subscription. It's a cool product but I really don't need it anymore. I accomplished my goals, credit-wise. The only thing that will help now is time, since some of my accounts are still new. My main goal was to have my score where I needed it to get the best rate on my mortgage. Mission accomplished. As of this week, my Equifax FICO is 769. I have no idea where the other two are at. Experian is not available and I haven't bought Transunion for awhile. Maybe I will check TU soon.

Hope any readers had a great Thanksgiving! I imagine everyone is gearing up for Christmas now.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Late Monthly Update

Pay off car loan - 94.8% (Up 9.3%)
Pay off student loan - 14.7% (Up .3%)
E-fund 2 - 68.3% (Up 4%)

The two new ones..
Put $2500 back into house fund - 63.8% (Up 4.3%)
Put $768 into Roth IRA - 10.4% (Up 5.7%)

Wee. We got an award from work. I threw most of it at the car loan that's on a credit card. It feels so good to have some extra breathing room on that one. I took $100 toward my pup's surgery, however I have to come up with the other $500 from that ordeal this coming month, so progress will slow in November. At least we got some good news from that one (tumor's benign :) )

Now that we're nearing the end of the year, and the rest of it goes so fast with the holidays, my thoughts are starting to turn to what I will do with my tax refund. So exciting. So many more options now that I own my (fixer-upper-ish) home. I would like to save for a house project (windows, driveway, fence, the list goes on). But I think the refund should cover the $$ I owe to my savings/Roth IRA and cover the last of the car loan. That would be like starting the new year with a clean state. Plus there might be a couple of hundred extra to buy the linen cupboard I've wanted for my bathroom for the past year. Hm, decisions. Well, still a few months to think about that one.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Cheap Hypoallergenic Dog Treats

If you follow my blog you may remember me whining about vet bills. Turns out all that scratching was due to food allergies. We're still deciding which foods. I've found one culprit but there appears to be another. In the mean time we are carrying on with our limited diet. "Hypoallergenic" dog treats can be quite pricy. Often they'll use meats like duck or salmon or sometimes they'll use things as simple as sweet potatoes and you find yourself paying twice as much for treats. My dog is very food oriented so I like to have a variety of treats around. Here's a super easy recipe. Even if your dog doesn't have food allergies you can appreciate the simplicity and the healthy ingredients.

1 cup of peanut butter mixed with half cup of milk
1 cup of mashed potato flakes (read ingredients, skip the packs with additional ingredients like garlic, etc) - add to mix above

Keep adding potato flakes until you get a dough that's fairly easy to work with. Then you can do whatever you want. Roll them and cut them into shapes, drop them onto the pan like drop cookies. I roll into little balls and flatten between my hands. Bake at 375 degrees until done. This is 16 minutes for flattened cookies about the size of a quarter. Longer for drop cookies. These store for a few weeks. I keep some in the refrigerator and put the rest into the freezer until I need them, just to be sure.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Monthly Update

Pay off car loan - 85.5% (Up 8.2%)
Pay off student loan - 14.4% (Up .4%)
E-fund 2 - 64.3% (Down 3.2%)

I'm adding two more this month -
Put $2500 back into house fund - 59.5%
Put $768 into Roth IRA - 4.7%

It was a good month. I bit the bullet and paid off one of the credit cards which has some of the car loan on it. That's why there was a good bump in the car loan. I didn't really have any influx in cash so I borrowed it from the money I was going to put in my Roth IRA. That's why I have the new item above. And the other new item is the $$ I used from the emergency fund to refinance. Did pretty well this month, and the stock market had a nice improvement.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Monthly Update

Pay off car loan - 77.3% (Up 1.2%)
Pay off student loan - 14% (Up .5%)
E-fund 2 - 61.1% (Down 1.4%)

Overall a pretty good month. Last month I mentioned re-financing. That went through and the closing costs were less than I expected. I may not put all of the money back into my e-fund and instead opt to put the money in my Roth IRA. I've had a change of heart as well about making the same payment as before. Seeing as the interest rate is what it is (4.25, yay!) I think I will just make the required payment and put the extra $40 or $45 into the Roth IRA also. Financially that makes sense, even though it's really exciting to think about having a home I own free & clear.

I re-vist the same struggle fairly often with the student loan. I would love to hammer that one and take it out but it really doesn't make financial sense since the interest rate is so great (3.75, tax deductible, yay!). So for now it stays for another 15 years..

On that note, I was really planning to have my car loan completely gone by the end of 2010. As I look over the next 4 months, I just don't see it happening. From the impending vet visits to the yearly furnace inspection to the car maintenance recently, I just don't think I'll be scraping up another $2300 :) Of course, I got de-railed by many other things. Some which weren't necessary at this time (new floor in spare room, new fan, new light fixture). Some which were necessary (sick cat, getting to bottom of dog's allergies). Overall I'm not too disappointed because the balance that won't be paid off by the end of 2010 has zero interest until the end of 2011. It will be gone by then! Barring more unforseen circumstances..lol. Life has been good to me the past year and I'm grateful for what I have.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Monthly Update

Pay off car loan - 76.1% (Up 1.1%)
Pay off student loan - 13.5% (Up .3%)
E-fund 2 - 62.5% (Up 5.5%)

Yay for another good month. Slow and steady..hehe. Somehow in July I didn't make the progress I expected but at least there was still progress in the right direction. E-fund 2 got a nice boost due to the market, not me putting much more in there. Next month won't be much for progress either. I'll be refinancing my house and it will be coming from the emergency fund for now so I'll have to boost that back up a bit. I snagged an awesome rate and I'm pretty sure I'll never have the opportunity again.. I'm still debating how I will balance out repaying the money I use from savings for closing costs but yet I would like to make the same payment I was making before so I can pay the loan off in less than the original timeline. We'll see.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Monthly Update (June)

Pay off car loan - 75% (Up 1.3%)
Pay off student loan - 13.2% (Up .3%)
E-fund 2 - 57.0% (Down .9%)

I'm a little behind with my updating this month but I've been busy, and I'm enjoying it. I won't mind if things calm down in the coming weeks though. So, it looks like I'm holding steady minus the whole stocks and mutual funds going down. That's good. I'm happy with that for now. This includes purchasing new flooring for the spare bedroom. I'm installing it myself to cut the cost almost in half. Other than that no big bills this month, thankfully. I think July or August will be another vet appointment and testing for the pup. September is shots at the vet for the cat. October is shots at the vet for the pup. Better hold down the spending here so I can hopefully pay out of pocket and not out of savings :)

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Monthly Update

Pay off car loan - 73.7% (Up 1.1%)
Pay off student loan - 12.9% (Up .5%)
E-fund 2 - 57.9% (Down 2.4%)

I'm officially back to making full payments on the student loan. I had paid several months ahead a few years ago and recently I've been making half payments and letting it "catch up." I'm sad to be making slower progress on the car loan but it feels good to be making headway on the student loan finally. E-fund 2 for a refresher is the back-up emergency fund which I have in more volatile stock funds, that's why there's a decline.

Overall not too bad. Credit card got put to use again this month for a couple more vet bills and some supplies for my handy man. I think we are done with projects for awhile and the pup's current skin issues trial will go on for almost 2 more months so we should be free of vet visits next month (crossing my fingers).

Oh, in my last post I mentioned it would be nice to have a dehydrator. Well I ordered one from Amazon yesterday. Between the free shipping and a gift certificate I got with my rewards from MyPoints, I got a dehydrator with the jerky kit for less than $15. Woohoo! I've been looking up fruit leather recipes in anticipation of it's arrival. If you aren't familiar with MyPoints, you basically tell them what kind of ads you would like to see in your email and then when you click through the links you get points. When you have enough you choose your reward, in the form of a gift card. They have many options. My activity usually amounts to maybe $25 per year. No jack pot but a nice way to treat myself. Also good for the online shopper. If you start there and then go to the website, you can earn points based on the $$ you spend.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Inexpensive, Healthy Dog Treats

We are on step 4 of ruling out causes for my pup's skin problems. Step 4 in my vet's method is a hypoallergenic diet. This goes on for a couple of months and you are expected to stop all treats, rawhides, pig's ears, table scraps, etc. Yikes. The new dog food mainly consists of fish and potatoes. I set out to find treats and pretty much all I found was expensive salmon sticks ($5.89 for a few sticks my dog would wipe out in a minute flat) or dried sweet potato. But there is good news, these are treats I can make in my own kitchen! The sweet potato is easy. Thoroughly clean the sweet potato, nuke it on low power for several minutes until it starts to soften. Cut them up and either place in a food dehydrator or in the oven at about 250 degrees for a couple to a few hours depending how big you make them. Super simple, no chemicals, fake coloring, etc. The salmon I won't be trying. While it is easy, I've been warned that it is a very stinky process to dehydrate fish. I don't have a dehydrator so I can't really do this any other place than my oven. If her issue is truly food allergies, I'll run out and buy a dehydrator lickety split. I may do that anyway because there are good options even if your dog doesn't need special foods. You can dehydrate pretty much any lower fat meat. Find whatever's on sale and go to it - lean beef, chicken, turkey, venison.. Bonus points if you can use something hormone and antibiotic free!

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Monthly Update

Pay off car loan - 72.6% (Up 2.6%)
Pay off student loan - 12.4% (Same)
E-fund 2 - 62.3% (Unsure, forgot to record last month)

It was kind of a rough month this month. I'm not quite sure what happened. I can pinpoint a few things. I bought a piano and my piano fund was about $100 short. My disability insurance came due. I knew that was coming but sort of forgot about it. We started trying to find a diagnosis for my pup's skin problems. My "handy man" became available and I bought a few fixtures for my house. That all amounts to about $650 or so in one month. I know in many parts of the world that's chump change but in my world that's almost a whole mortgage payment :) Fortunately this month I got a refund on my escrow account of a little over $300. That will help. I may have to snitch from the e-fund though and I made minimum payment on the car loan that's on a CC at 1.9%.

For a little good news I thought it would be good to check out my wealth accumulation progress. I'm at about 27% of my desired wealth. Last time I checked many months ago I believe it was in the neighborhood of 14%. Now I have a birthday soon so if I had already had the birthday it would be down to 26%. Interesting, eh?

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Pet Food

Are you ever astounded at what kind of garbage they throw in a bag and call premium pet food? And charge premium price for? For some reason I just can't get over it. I think all of my friends and family have heard this gripe before so I thought I would share it with you.

I recently started taking in foster cats from the shelter and they send home Science Diet to get you started. If you're familiar with pet foods, Science Diet has long been touted as veterinarian recommended and all that jazz. Well if you check the ingredients, the first two are by products (chicken beaks, feet, etc. that can't be fed to humans) and corn. Last I heard cats were carnivores and they didn't eat junk like that. Now for pricing.

Science Diet - 4 lbs for $12.49

A cheaper alternative?

Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul - 6 lbs for $10.95!

Now, Chicken Soup isn't the cream of the crop. You may be able to find a higher quality food depending who you ask. It IS free of by-products and corn and the first two ingredients are chicken and chicken meal. How cool is that? To re-cap -

Science Diet - $3.12/lb mostly by-products and corn
Chicken Soup - $1.83/lb no by-products or corn

To throw another brand into the mix, we can look at Nutro Natural Choice. This is what my cat currently eats. However, they recently "improved" the formula and now the first two ingredients are chicken meal and corn. I honestly can't remember the old formula but I doubt I would have bought it in the first place if corn was the second ingredient. And pricing? 7 lbs for $21.99!!

Nutro Natural - $3.14/lb with lots of corn, but no by-products

These are pet store prices on Science Diet and Nutro and I know you could find them cheaper if you buy them at a feed store, as I did with the Chicken Soup. But Chicken Soup will still be cheapear (and still be a higher quality food for your beloved cat). Needless to say, I'm switching my cat to Chicken Soup as we speak.

I've yet to do a compare on dog food regarding pricing. I know which brand I'll be getting for her next, though. And again I suspect it will be cheaper than what I'm currently buying.

One of the interesting theories I've read is that quality pet food companies get bought out and the new owners tend to switch to crappy ingredients and raise the prices. This is a double whammy and I believe this was the case with both Science Diet and Nutro. Hopefully it doesn't happen to Chicken Soup.

If you can't find Chicken Soup in your area (tends not to be sold by the big box stores), use their store locator or check out another option like Blue Buffalo. Blue Buffalo is still cheaper than Nutro Natural and is also free of by products and corn.

No affiliation with either of the brands I recommended. I just hate to buy expensive crap if I can spend the same amount of money for a higher quality item, you know?

Sunday, April 11, 2010

New Rules for Money Market Accounts

I had to laugh when I read the Kiplinger's article on the new rules for money market funds. You can find the full article here. You see, the one money market fund I participate in, American Funds Money Market Fund, hasn't paid out a dime of interest since July of last year. They're struggling to hold the value of my dollars apparently. I know not every fund has taken their returns to zero, but they're probably close. Bankrate tells me the average money market account is giving out .79% right now. But I tend to have a bias for American Funds, my humble opinion only of course. Plus it is a super-easy to access portion of my emergency fund. When my 32 year old, oops, going on 33 now, water heater finally kicks the bucket, I'll be able to whip out my checkbook and write a check to the plumber.

Anyway, the new rules are written to protect us but in the end they'll take away another .1% of our return. The rules in a nutshell require increased liquidity, better disclosures, and higher quality. If I wanted a super safe spot for my money I would have put it in an FDIC insured savings account. I think the benefits of most money market funds are enough to overcome the small risk that your dollar might turn into 99 cents for a short period. I tend to be a firm believer that if you're going to put your money somewhere, it's your responsibility to understand where you're putting it. If you need help, hire an adviser. I must have missed the news on the money market crisis that ruined everyone's life.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Monthly Update

I'm doing my monthly update a little early. I don't foresee anything changing in the next 3 days besides the usual stock market swagger.

Pay off car loan - 70% (Up 3.4%)
Pay off student loan - 12.4% (Down .1%)
E-fund 2 - % (Up 2.9%)

Unfortunately I'm still treading water on the student loan while I work on the car loan but I'm making good progress. 9 short months to go..

Not reflected here is my employer's yearly gift into our 401k. It came this month and it always excites me. Kinda like something for nothing.. On the flipside I tend to wonder how many more years we will have this policy..

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Car Loan

Have I mentioned how super excited I am to be on track to pay off the car by the end of 2010? It's like giving myself a $300/month raise. It will probably be the only raise I get this year. My mind is drifting ahead to how I want to allocate that money. So far I know I want $100 to go to my Roth IRA. I also intend to use $100 to use on house projects. I'm not sure how I want to use the last $100. Part of me wants to bolster my cash-equivalent savings and the other part says I'm already contributing the Roth so why bother. Maybe it will be split between the Roth and the house improvement fund.

Offhand here are some of the things I know I would like to accomplish-
New windows
Refinish hardwood floor in the office
New kitchen countertop
Carpet the upstairs
Grade soil around house
Replace two fans
Cabinet for the bathroom
Table for the living room
Tile tub surround
Replace parts of sidewalk
Replace parts of driveway
Replace back stairs
Siding and gutters on the garage and maybe a small window
Fence
Kitchen cabinets/remodel - someday

As you can see, no shortage of ideas, and probably some are missing. And always I'm torn between handling the things that are more important to me or handling the things that will improve the value of the home/look good to a future buyer. Fortunately many overlap.

Also I bit the bullet and bought a refrigerator to replace my ailing unit. Unfortunately I dipped into the piano fund when I spent more than I originally planned. I think the piano will wait until fall, because I'll be busy outside this summer and hopefully by then my workplace will be on more firm ground. Maybe I will have replaced the $ I used on the refrigerator too.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Monthly Update

Pay off car loan - 66.6% (Up 2.9%)
Pay off student loan - 12.5% (Up .2%)
E-fund 2 - 58.6% (Up 11.2%)

My tax refunds arrived, including the amendment due to TuroTax's boo boo. They are nestled safely in savings but already itching to spend those. We'll see..

Sunday, February 21, 2010

How Long Could I..

afford to eat if I lost my job? I decided I better sit down and find out. First stop, my spreadsheet tracking what I spend. Unfortunately I've been half-assed at the whole tracking thing lately but it's the best I have. It looks like I've been spending around $2200 a month. Now some of that is a student loan that could be deferred or put into forbearance if needed. Another chunk of that is me paying over the minimum on my car loan. Another chunk of that is home improvements that, let's face it, I wouldn't be doing if I were living on my savings. So we'll say $1900 if I had to cut back.

Next stop, let's check the touch-able assets. 6 and a half months in cash and cash equivalents. 3 months in taxable investment accounts. When I move my refund as needed that will be another month. So 10 and a half months. Not too bad. Kinda makes me want to spend my refund as previously planned. But for now I'm making note of it and sending it away to savings.. I dunno when I'll feel comfortable spending it.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Unexpected News

The company I work for started layoffs this week. By my calculations they've done about half of the planned layoffs for the year. I survived the first round but no one knows when/who will go next. The good news is my tax refund, most of it at least, landed in my account today. Unfortunately TurboTax mucked up my state refund. I live in one of the four states that counts HSA contributions as taxable income. To top it off, TurboTax counted it twice. Then instead of admitting the mistake, it just automatically corrected it - after I filed my returns. So now I can't even use TurboTax to amend my state return since it still believes nothing changed. I love TurboTax, but that is a stinky bug. I filed my amendment today at the state's website so hopefully I have the rest of my refund soon. Mental note for next year - use the state's website to e-file my tax return and save $20!

Anyway, now I'm becoming very indecisive about what to do with the refund. $1000 is definitely spoken for - having been spent already or being spent soon. The rest I feel should be put in savings but in my heart I still want my piano. And the freezer on my refrigerator is not behaving. To be honest I'm sure it's been that way for awhile. I may just ignore awhile longer. Yay for having money to be indecisive about :)

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Tax Refund Time

Yay, one of my favorite times of the year. Now I know there are naysayers out there who think you shouldn't give the government an interest free loan. If you're one of them, you'll be disappointed to find the interest rate on my savings account is just over 1% at this time so I'm missing out on like $20 worth of interest. Seriously. I'll rethink my strategy when the interest rate nears 5% or if I ever have high-interest credit card debt.

So my plans are like this. 1/3 is going to my emergency fund to replace what I borrowed last month. 1/3 will be split between getting the tree trimmed and paying some down on my car loan. I'm about 90% sure the last 1/3 will be getting me a piano. My refund is around $2500 this year so I'm talking starter piano. I was delighted to find it will be much cheaper than I had figured to trim the tree, provided the neighbors let me use their backyard. They ought to, since they use my driveway at will and since they requested the tree be trimmed..

Hope your tax season is going well!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Roth IRA

Woohoo! I opened a Roth IRA. My hold up had been that Schwab required a $1000 minimum opening balance. I missed the other option, $100 monthly automatic transfer. I love Schwab, but I hate their money transfer interface. It's gotten slightly better than it used to be. You used to be required to mail forms in. Who does that anymore? Now you only need to mail forms in if you want to set up a recurring transfer. I'm one of those wackies who would rather log in every month and make my transfer than deal with mailing papers around the country only to find out you filled them out incorrectly and your request has been canceled. Hopefully I don't get dinged with a service charge next month.

On a side note, apparently they have until the 15th of February to mail my 1099. The 15th!! I think that is due to some new rule last year but I'm not entirely certain. At least I have a good idea how much I'm getting back so I'm rolling ideas around in my head :)

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Monthly Update

Pay off car loan - 63.7% (Up 1.9%)
Pay off student loan - 12.3% (Up .4%)
Short term fund - 28.2% (Up 11.6%)
E-fund 2 - 47.4%

Kind of a rough month again in terms of car depreciation. I also took money from my emergency fund to cover the insulation and ventilation for my attic, which should prevent the ice dams on my roof next year. I'm almost finished with my taxes and things are looking pretty good so I can put that money back soon. Now to decide how to use my refund. I can't quite finish my taxes because I'm waiting on one last 1099. Nothing like waiting till the last possible moment (Monday) to send it out. Blah. And it's for like $40 worth of dividends. I guess at least I can estimate my refunds pretty well 'cause that amount won't affect my taxes much.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Blippy

Hm, any fans of Blippy out there? I'm not really seeing the benefit of having a website that tells me Chrisbaker spent $41.73 at Wal-mart. Congratulations? I suppose I would see more of a benefit if it posted an itemized receipt but still, for the most part I have better things to peruse. It would be neat if it went a step further and combined it all and posted that you could get CD XYZ for $12 at Wal-mart or $12.50 at Best Buy. But we already have websites that do that, so yeah, no benefit for me. We'll have to see if it morphs into anything more useful.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Bonds and a Credit Limit Increase

I decided I was sick of getting a measly 1.4% interest on my savings so I put $200 worth of my emergency fund into a GNMA bond fund available at Schwab. This will satisfy me for now while I do some more research. Bonds are a little more complicated and thus far I've stayed away because I haven't wanted to take the time to educate myself and understand. I do understand the value fluctuates as well as the earnings on them, so that's part of the complication. Now that I think about it, I don't really understand how stocks work either, except that most people have to stash either a huge portion of their income in other more conservative investments OR they can rely on stocks (single companies or stock funds) to get where they need to be in retirement. I'm in boat B, saving what I feel comfortable saving but realizing that I need to take on the riskier investments to optimize my chances of success. And I'm comfortable with that. I realize I don't quite understand them, and the value may fall, but if I wait long enough and diversify well enough, eventually I will bounce back.

Onto the credit limit. Penfed just waived a $13k credit limit in front of me. I took it. I expected it to show my revised $20k credit limit immediately but it hasn't shown up yet. I thought since I was pre-approved, it was automatically applied if I accepted it. We'll see. I also took the opportunity to change my address so I hope that didn't mess things up. I don't need the extra room apart from the fact that my overall utilization these days is somewhere around 25% because I moved my car loan to a credit card. This would help bring the utilization level down a few notches.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Increased Retirement Savings

I increased my contribution rate by 1%. Not much, but heading in the right direction is always good. I previously contributed enough to collect the whole match. I had done this in early 2009 but then I found my home and got worried about making ends meet, so I notched it down again.

I have to say, at this point in my investment education, I feel like I've seen most everything at least once. But I still subscribe to a couple of magazines. This is a good example of why. I read an article about how two featured folks weren't contributing enough for their later years and it motivated me to make a change in the right direction.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

2010 Goal

After mulling over it, I've decided my one and only goal for this year will be to pay off my car. This is $3800 at 1.99% until 2011. It will be a little bit of a push since I normally pay around $2600 a year. The challenge will be to come up with the extra without busting into my savings.

If I accomplish that my net worth should grow a minimum of $6000, provided the stock market doesn't take a big dump. I'll also be able to invest the $3800 I have in savings for the car (just in case). This will also cover my goal of working towards a back-up emergency fund.

Note to self- start Roth IRA in 2011.

Yay for a renewed sense of optimism! Hope y'all are feeling it too :)

Friday, January 1, 2010

Monthly Update

Pay off car loan - 61.8% (Up 1.9%)
Pay off student loan - 11.9% (Up .1%)
Short term fund - 16.6% (Up 7.2%)

Back to slow mostly steady progress on the car and student loans. I'm having a little trouble with the whole short term savings. I thought I would be able to put away more than $50 a pay check but lately I'm struggling to find more than $50. The dog spaying is next month. I'll just make it if I put away $50 from my next three pay checks. Then after that I will have two-ish months to find $$ for the tree trimmer. I think that will be tricky. Must batten down the hatches.

I'm still mulling over goals for this year so I'll post later on that. Happy new year to any readers!

Oh yeah, my net worth took a little dip because I got the annual mass depreciation on the car. I forgot that was coming..