Made some progress this month towards increasing our cash reserves as well as bringing down the credit cards. Was also helped by an increase in our retirement accounts.

I also closed out my HSBC Savings account which I haven’t used in a few years. I had a free checking account for quite some time with them and they sent me a notice that they were going to start charging a $3 monthly service charge on it – so I promptly closed it.

Monthly Goals

Finish my taxes is priority number one. It has been slow going as I sold a bunch of individual stocks so need to figure out the cost basis for those.

The table below shows when your federal tax refund should be deposited in your bank account or your check mailed if you efiled and your refund was accepted within the dates listed.

Not much happened this month. Was able to pay a little towards my credit cards, but the drop in net worth is due to losses in the stock market which took a bite out of our 401k accounts.

My tax documentation also has started rolling in so I can begin that journey shortly.

Monthly Goals

I am slowly trying to build the savings account back up to $18,000. Also hoping to get my credit card debt down as much as possible as well.

Happy New Year everyone! December was a pretty interesting month financially for us with some large swings.

First off, the refinance on our home was complete and our interest rate is now 4.875% which is pretty exciting. The mortgage total went up because we rolled the closing costs into the loan rather than paying them out of pocket. By my calculations the refi should pay for itself in about 18 months. Also, due to the timing of the close we ended up not having to make our December mortgage payment which is part of the reason for the cash reserve increase.

The market was also up this month which bumped up the retirement portfolio a bit. Was also to pay down a bit on the credit cards so overall I was pretty pleased with the month.

Monthly Goals

Going to have to pay off the holiday bills which is always tough. We kept it somewhat under control this year. Would like to increase my cash reserves up to about $18,000 which is where I like to see it at.

Well my cash reserves finally took a hit from the large school tax bill I paid the previous month. We also took a big hit from the value of our SUV – I think I did not input the specs in correctly last month as that number seemed high to me, so hopefully its correct going forward.

On the plus side, I was finally able to refinance our home loan down to 4.875% thought it does not take effect until next month. Pretty happy about that since our rate was probably about the highest it had been in the last 6 years or so.

Monthly Goals

Rebuild the cash reserves. They are much lower than I am comfortable with right now. Would also be nice to keep the holiday shopping under control.

I was happy to see the net worth go up this month. Had a pretty hefty school tax bill which caused the cash reserves to dip a little bit. Luckily our 401ks went up a bit, and the Zestimate of our home as well thanks to a couple strong sales in the neighborhood.

What I didn’t do was pay down much credit card balance which will be going out of 0% very soon. I have been looking for other cards to transfer them to but so far it has come up empty.

Monthly Goals

My refinance should go through this month so I will have a bit of a payment on that for the closing costs. It will bring my rate down to 4.875% though so I think it is definitely worth it in the long run.

My net worth for this month is a complete rewrite. I decided to include a couple other figured that are my wife’s into our combined net worth which caused quite a crash – mainly her graduate school student loan. We also financed a new (used) car so that loan and car value is now included on my net worth.

Pretty much feels like I’m starting from scratch at this point, but I’m obviously keeping all the history to compare to the past.

Monthly Goals

Rebuild my cash reserves after paying my school taxes – I mailed the check but they haven’t cashed it yet so its not reflected in this months net worth. Also need to continue to make progress on paying down our credit cards, I stalled a bit on that this month.

Hard to believe its September already, the summer has flown by!

This month I was able to further pay down some of our credit cards while holding the savings pretty steady. My 401k also did pretty well which helped my net worth out.

As part of my ongoing project to simplify our finances I have switched my various ROTH accounts to Ameriprise. This eventually should help me reduce the amount of information I have to sift through on a weekly basis.

Monthly Goals

Pay off some more credit cards whose 0% term will be expiring soon.

Also, I have to seriously consider refinancing. I have been playing the waiting game but the rates have held pretty steady for the last few months. Even if I can’t get in at my goal of under 5% (with no points / low fees) I still will be saving enough at 5.25% to make it worthwhile.

It has been a pretty slow month financially for me. I started paying off some of my expiring 0% credit card offers. I also was able to reduce my homeowners insurance by shopping around which freed up some extra cash.

Monthly Goals

Pay off some more credit cards whose 0% term will be expiring soon.

Well, I finally did it. The project I have been talking about for about a year – selling my individual stocks – is complete! Honestly selling them wasn’t the painful part, calculating the capital gains on them will be. I will probably have to dedicate a few days to that.

With the proceeds I was able to rebuild my cash reserves and pay off a credit card whose 0% term expires this month.

Monthly Goals

Pay off some more credit cards whose 0% term will be expiring soon.

I didn’t too great on my goal this month of rebuilding my cash reserves. Fortunately the stock market was up so my net worth took a bigger than anticipated jump. Other than that everything else was pretty stagnant.

Monthly Goals

Plan once again this month is I am also going to try to get working on my never ending goal of selling my individual stock accounts. I have said I am going to do this for a year or so, but every time I look at it calculating the cap gain on it turns out to be more work than I feel like undertaking.

Another up month for my stock investments which at the beginning of the year I had all but given up on. As expected my cash reserves dropped due to having to pay my hefty tax bill.

Monthly Goals

Try to rebuild my cash reserves up to their usual levels. This will probably prove to be pretty difficult since we have a large vacation planned for this month.

The stock market rebounded a bit (finally) so some of my investments actually went up this month! Shocking I know. Other than that it was pretty uneventful. I have been looking into refinancing my mortgage but have not pulled the trigger as of yet.

Monthly Goals

I am going to owe on my taxes this year so that will probably wipe out any gains I am able to make on my cash reserves. I think holding steady on those will be my goal of the month.

The stock market continues to take heavy tolls on my net worth. I also had a hefty property tax bill due this month which took away some of my cash reserves. I didn’t get as much accomplished this month as I had hoped.

Monthly Goals

Rebuild some of my cash reserves. Also I need to address my credit cards, some of the 0% balances are running out in the next few months so I need to see if I can move them to another 0% offer or if its time to pay them off.

I thought I would take some time to look at the interest rates of some of the top as well as the more popular savings solutions.

Quiznos Million Sub Giveaway

The coupon reads:

“This online certificate entitles you to: ONE FREE SUB, Free Small Signature Sub or Small Every Day Value Sub”

It also says “Valid only at participating locations” and some people have reported that their location is not accepting there, so you may want to call ahead.

Be sure to check the fine print on the gift certificates for each particular restaurant you are interested in. Some of them include minimum purchase amounts, exclude other coupons, and are only valid on weekdays.

The code is PREZ

Restaurant.com

So if you are looking I have found in previous years that Aldi’s market has the cheapest prices on flowers for the occasion. This year they have Dozen Premium Long Stemmed Roses for $16.99, and then assorted other flower bouquets for $6.99.

I have gotten flowers from there each of the previous 2 years on v-day and have always been happy with the quality. At least I can see them here instead of just getting whatever some dot com sends (which I have always had back luck with).

Aldi’s Store Locator

Its been quite a plunge the last few weeks, almost half a point reduction in the rate. I still am holding my cash reserves in this account, but probably one more significant drop and I will seriously be considering transferring. In the meantime I will keep my eye out for the higher rate accounts out there that hopefully are more stable.

Dollar Savings Direct

Not entirely unexpected as the USPS has increased the cost each of the last 3 years. They lost $2.8 billion in 2008, and unless there is some kind of dramatic turnaround they are expected to post an even larger loss this year. They have even asked Congress to take away the legislation that requires them to deliver mail 6 days a week.

You can continue to buy forever stamps at 42 cents until May 10, which will still be good when the rate increases with no additional postage.

Below is a look at how the prices have stamps have increased over the last 20 years. As you can see, the updates have been more frequent but generally have been less dramatic than they were in the past.

AP Article: Stamp prices to go up 2-cents in May

I can’t say its a big shock to me. Seems like every workplace is cutting back, and I would rather have them take these measures than take more drastic ones in the near future. And our CEO has been saying since the beginning of the year that things will be tight with the way businesses are spending this year.

• No More 401k Match – Our company has always had a 4% match on our 401k contributions. As of this week they will no longer be matching anything. This has me thinking about starting up a standard IRA since without the match there is no incentive for continue to fund their plan which has limited choices (at least until I get over the $5,000 limit).

• No Performance Based Raises – We will not be getting any raises based on our yearly evaluations, so my pay will be flat this year. This is probably the most disappointing change for me since I am one of the stronger members of my team and usually get a pretty good raise each year.

• No Vaction Rollover – Previously we were allowed to roll over 5 vacation days a year (non-accumulating, so not 5 this year, 10 next, etc). I’m actually not really sure how this saves the company money, but it just means I have to use 5 more vacation days this year. Personally I think they have been wanting to get rid of this for a couple years and are able to use this as an excuse.

They say they are hoping these changes are temporary and they will be able to reinstate them for next year.

While disappointing, the only other bank I see offering a significantly higher rate is Broadway Federal (4.08% APY) – however that appears to be a promo rate which won’t last. There are some other rewards checking accounts with higher rates, but you have to jump through too many hoops for my taste (10 debit card transactions a month, direct deposit, sacrifice first born…).

So I will be sticking with Dollar Savings for the time being.

Most of the time I do not close my old accounts in case the rate goes back up there. However I have found that usually when it goes down a significant amount, it never comes back up. So in the interest of simplicity I have decided its time to go through my checking and savings accounts and weed some of them down.

Accounts I’m Keeping

• Charles Schwab Investor Checking (1.00% APY) – While the rate has plummeted since I first opened this account last year I am using it as our main checking account. It would be a huge headache to switch this one over to a different bank. Plus it has some pretty decent perks which keep me around – ATM rebates, free checks, free prepaid envelopes for deposits, and a pretty good website.

• Dollar Savings Direct (3.5% APY) – This one has also dropped a bit since I opened it, but remains one of the higher savings accounts out there. It will remain my main savings account.

• HSBC Free Checking / Online Savings (0% / 2.45% APY) – I like to have a local bank just for certain situations. Since Schwab doesn’t have a local branch I will keep HSBC around as a backup.

Accounts To Close

• Countrywide Bank SavingsLink (1.65% APY) – This was my latest main savings account, but the rate dropped like a rock when the credit crisis started. I don’t see this going back up anytime soon.

• Emigrant Direct (2.40% APY) – This is one I had quite some time ago. The rate has not been competitive in years so I think its time to abandon ship.
• KeyBank Express Checking (0% APY) – This is another account I haven’t used in years. I no longer have any checks from here, just haven’t gotten around to closing it out.

Debating

• ING Direct Orange Savings (2.20%) – This is another account that has not been competitive in quite a long time. However they have a great website, and also a pretty good referral program I may use at some point.

My goal is to have these accounts closed out by the end of the month.







]]> http://www.thefinancejourney.com/personal-finance/reducing-the-number-of-open-banking-accounts/feed/ 1 http://www.thefinancejourney.com/personal-finance/reducing-the-number-of-open-banking-accounts/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheFinanceJourney/~3/5arzLqKTXwY/ http://www.thefinancejourney.com/budget/january-2009-budget-numbers-34540/#comments Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:31:56 +0000 Chuck http://www.thefinancejourney.com/?p=608 Summary

After deciding to keep closer track of my budget this year, I setup some budget tracking in my primary financial software – Yodlee. Since this is my first month I wasn’t really sure how realistic some of these numbers were so might need to do some tweaking.

We were $345.40 over budget this month. The majority of that came from 4 categories.

• Restaurants/Dining ($277.34) – We went WAY overboard with eating out this month. Something I think we really need to work on in the coming months. It certainly adds up quickly.
• Loans ($109.58) – We had a quarterly student loan payment due this month. That number should average out throughout the year.
• Gasoline/Fuel ($87.77) – This number may need to be readjusted depending on how the next few months go. Not much we can do here… still need to drive to work
• Personal Spending ($86.54) – Slightly overspent here. This is another area that will require some discipline to keep in check.

Other than the restaurant spending I’m pretty pleased with the first months budget. I think as we continue to watch and stick to it we will be closer to our goal. The complete numbers are below:

 

	Category	Goal $ Amount	Actual $ Amount	$ Variance
	Automotive Expenses	$50.00	$12.84	$37.16
	Cable/Satellite Services	$70.25	$70.24	$0.01
	Entertainment	$50.00	$0.00	$50.00
	Gasoline/Fuel	$150.00	$237.77	($87.77)
	Personal Spending	$500.00	$586.54	($86.54)
	Groceries	$550.00	$524.89	$25.11
	Healthcare/Medical	$60.00	$39.98	$20.02
	- Gym Memberships	$40.00	$39.98	$0.02
	Other Healthcare/Medical	$20.00	$0.00	$20.00
	Home Improvement	$100.00	$103.61	($3.61)
	Loans	$650.00	$759.58	($109.58)
	- Student Loans	$340.00	$466.30	($126.30)
	- Auto Loans	$293.28	$293.28	$0.00
	- Other Loans	$16.72	$0.00	$16.72
	Mortgages	$1,961.60	$1,961.60	$0.00
	Pets/Pet Care	$30.00	$0.00	$30.00
	Restaurants/Dining	$300.00	$577.34	($277.34)
	Travel	$416.00	$325.74	$90.26
	Utilities	$275.00	$308.12	($33.12)
	TOTAL	$5,162.85	$5,508.25	($345.40)







]]> http://www.thefinancejourney.com/budget/january-2009-budget-numbers-34540/feed/ 0 http://www.thefinancejourney.com/budget/january-2009-budget-numbers-34540/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheFinanceJourney/~3/e1616woE-fQ/ http://www.thefinancejourney.com/net-worth/net-worth-statement-february-2-2009-186/#comments Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:05:42 +0000 Chuck http://www.thefinancejourney.com/?p=585 Summary

The continued decline of the stock market has continued to take quite a toll on my net worth. I was able to build up my cash reserves a bit but that improvement was all wiped out by stock loses.

I keep telling myself it will turn around eventually.

Monthly Goals

With the impending credit crisis I think its wise to save up more cash to pay off some of my credit cards even though they are 0%. It looks like its going to be harder to find these offers in the future and I don’t think I can continue to rely on being able to move this around once a year to different cards.

 

ASSETS			$ DIFF	% DIFF
	HSBC Savings Account (2.4% APY)	$471.33
	DollarSavingsDirect Savings (3.5% APY)	$18,087.77
	Schwab Investor Checking (1.4% APY)	$8,575.71
	CASH TOTAL	$27,134.81	$1,840.19	7.28%
	Misc. Direct Investments	$10,694.97
	Ameritrade IZone	$2,251.21
	Zecco	$1,396.76
	STOCKS TOTAL	$14,342.94	-$1,351.00	-8.61%
	Treasury Direct	$2,761.74
	BONDS TOTAL	$2,761.74	$0.78	0.03%
	Vanguard ROTH IRA	$11,456.16
	Scottrade ROTH IRA	$585.17
	T. Rowe Price 401K	$42,178.31
	RETIREMENT TOTAL	$54,219.64	-$3,700.13	-6.39%
	House Value	$339,500.00
	Car Value (Edmunds.com)	$7,073.00
	MISC TOTAL	$346,573.00	-$491.00	-0.14%
	TOTAL ASSETS	$445,032.13	-$3,701.16	-0.82%
DEBTS			$ DIFF	% DIFF
	Countrywide Mortgage(6.75%)	$259,183.39
	MORTGAGE TOTAL	$259,183.39	-$500.69	-0.19%
	AES Student Loan (3.625%)	$2,501.33
	LOAN TOTAL	$2,501.33	-$43.85	-1.72%
	BOA MC (0%)	$14,555.00
	BOA NEA (0%)	$15,569.58
	Bank Atlantic (0%)	$4,320.81
	Citi Upromise (0%)	$11,877.18
	CREDIT CARD TOTAL	$46,322.57	-$555.81	-1.19%
	TOTAL DEBTS	$308,007.29	-$1,100.35	-0.36%
NET WORTH		$137,024.84	-$2,600.81	-1.86%









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