Archive for the 'Personal Finance' Category

Choices, Sunshine, Happiness

Published by
MiserlyMike
at April 30, 2008 in Emergency Fund, Karma, Personal Finance, Spending and Weekend Recap. 0 Comments

After three weeks back in Syracuse, NY, I’ve returned back to Florida, and I must say I love the weather here.  As nice as it was back in NY, we really don’t hold a candle to Florida.  Anyway enough of that.

I have been assessing my current financial situation and reflecting on the recent market activities and I am a little torn on what to do.  I currently have 3500 in cash in my Roth IRA from this year’s contribution.  I didn’t contribute the maximum, due to the recent loss of my job, though I probably could have.  I like to play it safe and keep that cushion.  I have available credit, other than my parents that I could really draw upon in case of emergency — and I like it that way.  Cash is king in my life, except for the largest of purchases;  tuition, mortgage, etc.

I have $2,500 remaining in my checking account, and another 1100 from my last paycheck.  I also collect $250 a week from unemployment.  This gives me a grand total of $4,600 by the end of april.  After bills and the like I’ll be down to roughly $3600.  If I live an extremely meager lifestyle, I should be able to sustain solely on my unemployment checks and keep around $3,000 in my checking account.  The choice I have to make is whether I want to continue this lifestyle, unemployed and living in the sunshine and doing as I please, or go back to work and make money again.

Ideally, I could do both.   To those that are, you live my dream.

New Beginnings?

Published by
MiserlyMike
at April 23, 2008 in Personal Finance. 0 Comments

After a little pushing from an old friend, I figure I might try to start writing here again.  I never really got off the ground last time, as I got extremely busy with work and lost the motivation and lacked the free time during the work day to write posts.  Anyway, I am working for myself now.  I’ve been learning the Facebook application api lately, preparing for my first full fledged facebook application.  I’m also going to be working on setting up a couple affiliate marketing sites, and see if they can generate any income, in addition to doing side work for some miscellaneous websites.

I will keep posting hopefully steadily daily.  I am going to try to have markedly shorter posts than previously, though.  I think the length of my original posts were one of the reasons I never could keep motivated at writing.

Thank you Andrei.

Debt: My student loans.

Published by
MiserlyMike
at August 21, 2007 in Budget, Consolidation, Debt, Interest Rates, Personal Finance and Student Loans. 1 Comment

After ~5 years of private university, (I wish I went to public uni!!) I amassed a fairly large sum of money in student loans. Thankfully, my mother was in a very low income bracket for which I received substantial financial aid packages, one of the perks being all my loans were subsidized by the government until repayment began after graduation. This meant that the money that I borrowed didn’t/doesn’t accrue interest until repayment when you are no longer a full time student.

Unfortunately for me, graduation has since come and gone and I’m entering repayment on what I have realized is a lot of money with high interest rates(~7%).

Let me first break it down into cold hard numbers. You’ll notice that I rarely talk about anything financial without associating the talk with hard pen and paper numbers(yes, I actually write this stuff down compulsively on scratch paper).

First off I have a $3,000 loan that is a federal perkins loan with RIT. This hasn’t gone into repayment yet, but will in the next month. I also have another $3,000 loan for Georgia Tech that is the same. I have a citibank subsidized stafford loan with a balance of $2,362.99. This loan has a payment of $100.61 a month.

The mother load resides in Direct Loans that are federal subsidized Stafford loans as well. I have a balance of $12,738.90 with a fixed interest rate of 7%, and a payment of 150.13 a month, for what seems like eternity. I consolidated this before the recent interest rate hike of .08%. Still not sure how I feel about this, but what is done is done and I’ll have to live with my decision.

Loan Summary:

Institution || Principal || Rate || Payment

Georgia Tech ||$3,000 || — || —

RIT-Perkins || $3,000 || — || —

Direct Loan || $12,738.90 || 7% fixed || $150.13/month - 10yrs

Citi || $2,362.99 || 6.97% variable || $100.61/month - ?

—————————-

Total $21,101.89

OUUUUCHHH….

I’m not sure what I should do at this point. Interest rates are at an all time high, but at the same time, I’d like to start getting some nice borrower benefits through the consolidation company. I’ve been mulling it over for a few weeks now and I decided I’ll probably just keep my rates where they are for a year and make the payments every month and see if Congress is going to step in anytime soon and help out borrowers.  Right now I’d say we are getting the shit end of the stick.

Catching Up on my Wallet — Part Two

Published by
MiserlyMike
at August 17, 2007 in Budget, Emergency Fund, Personal Finance and Spending. 0 Comments

Yesterday I combed through the massive amount of purchases I have made in the last month. I was a little bit ( a lot bit ) depressed seeing my balances and where the money actually went.

Here is a breakdown of the graph generated by yodlee. These numbers are all very accurate and account for every single dime I spent in the past month and how it was spent.

Rent: $563.00 –Pretty self explanatory. Rent is $550 a month and I owed my roommate :10bux:

Travel: $475.21 –This is for two plane tickets, and the money spent in the airport on food and also my rental car.

Pets/PetCare: $467.50 –This one actually has nothing to do with pets. I had owed someone money and it was a one time payback. I categorized it under pets since I don’t actually have pets so I would remember what it was.

Automotive Expenses: $415.75 — The cost of having my brake line repaired and the diagnostic fee at the dealership.

Clothing: $372.31 — This is the cost of the suit and shirts I bought and also the two pairs of shorts I bought when I moved to Florida.

Entertainment: $322.75 — Sadly, this is how much money I spent at the bar…Looking to cut that number down quite a bit.=/

Electronics: $210.28 — HDD, phone, HD enclosure

Restaurants: $ 200.74 — Not bad I must say, this is lunch every day @ work and all the money I spent eating out.

Groceries: $128.27 – Again, doing okay in this category for a month.

Gasonline: $121.53 — Little below average since I didn’t have a car there for a bit.

From this I look at where my money actually goes and was a little disappointed with myself. $322 on bar tabs is quite the cost. That was only money spent in bars too, nothing else. I know I did have a little excess here this month because of the move and the wake and meeting new people, but still, that number needs to go way down. I am looking to keep it under $150.

Things that should trend toward $0 this month are automotive expenses, pets/petcare, and probably travel. These three things amounted to about $1350, which came out of mostly my emergency fund. They make this month look very bad on paper. With any luck, I won’t have any “emergencies” anytime soon.

Clothing was another $372 which also came mostly out of the emergency fund. I’d like to cut back to $0-50 for this upcoming month. I think I’ll need some new socks, maybe a pair of shoes.

The other things on the list were misc. expenses, gas, household items, haircuts, and books. I did very well on my casual spending this month.

Overall, In the past 30 days I spent $3421. 60. An astronomical number. If I subtract the bulk of my emergency expenses, and $300 in clothing costs, I get ~$1800 in expenses. This is a lot closer to what I want to be spending, but still a fair amount over. Under $1400 this month is the goal.

I’ll need to cut down on my entertainment costs and not buy anything this month. It is time to tighten my belt for the next few months. I have my sights on buying a motorcycle, so I really need to start putting some extra away for that. This should help save on the rising cost of gasoline and also the future repair costs on my car.

Catching up on my Wallet — Part One

Published by
MiserlyMike
at August 16, 2007 in Budget and Personal Finance. 0 Comments

Reckoning time has come for my wallet and I. My spending over the past month has been largely unaccounted for, due to a number of circumstances that I spoke to in past entries. Now it is time to go through all my records and figure out how much I have spent in the past 30 days and what I have spent it on.

Luckily, I keep pretty meticulous records thanks to my friends over at yodlee.

I am not a very meticulous record keeper (hell I’m not that meticulous with anything). Thus keeping track of my finances is something I have had difficulty with in the past. I have solved it by doing the following. I open up a checking account with direct deposit. For this I used ING Direct. Then I sign up for their check card. They have 3% APY and give cashback. Then I signed up for a yodlee account and linked it to my ING Direct account. Then I make all my purchases. Every single one of them, on my check card. Where I can’t do this I take money out of an ING ATM to avoid fees and categorize the transaction.

I also save EVERY receipt, though I just throw them in a box. This is because I am going to deduct EVERY single purchase I make while contracting to offset my tax burden. In case of an audit, it will be good to have these in my records. Using yodlee is much more convenient for me than balancing a checkbook or keeping track of a budget. With a few clicks I can categorize a transaction into a category or set up automatic rules for places of frequent purchase to move them into their related categories. It also has a ton of other nice features like bill reminders, billpay, portfolio manager, spending reports, net worth statements, budget thresholds, budget goals, etc.

Today I went through and categorized all my previously uncategorized purchases and this is what came up when all was said and done.Expense Report

I do the same with all my other financial institutions as well.

An In depth analysis and discussion to come tomorrow.

First Paycheck!

Published by
MiserlyMike
at July 23, 2007 in Personal Finance. 0 Comments

Well, I received my first paycheck this past Thursday after relocating to Jacksonville, FL from Syracuse, NY. I was pretty pleased with that. It feels so odd to be so far away from everything I am used to, but I am starting to get settled in, in both my personal and professional life.

Living down here has been fairly cheap so far, I am renting out a room in a house for $550 a month, which includes utilities, and it is a pretty nice place with good roommates. I have been spending a lot less money lately, but I think that is because my girl and I split up after almost a year, when I moved down here. As such, I’ll probably save a considerable amount of money, especially since she had fairly poor spending habits by my standards. Still, It is hard to put a price on companionship.

While many of my costs have gone down, food expenses have gone down drastically(she loved to dine out), my entertainment costs have gone way up. I imagine that this is because I am spending a lot of time out and about, trying to meet new people, since I moved down here without knowing a soul.

I signed up for yodlee a few months ago and have just begun to realize the awesomness of it. Basically, it allows you do aggregate all your financial institutions into one easy to use site. For example, I have 3 bank accounts hooked up with it, two student loan account, and a line of credit, and two investment accounts. Having all this information consolidated into one location not only saves me a great deal of time and effort, but it also has forced me to keep a better eye on my finances.

I’m going to have an entire writeup on yodlee soon, but suffice to say, for the personal financier, it is quite the little wonder tool.

Anyway, here is a quick log of my finances at the moment, in terms of cash on hand and its various channels of distribution.

Checking: $3,332
Cash: $888
——-
Total: $4220

So right now in spendable money I have $4220. End of the month in coming and I need to set aside at least $1016 of that based on my earlier calculations.

(I like to set aside the whole thing right up front of every month, that way I just pretend like it never existed in the first place, and I budget around that fact, which definitely helps me personally to live just a little more frugally. )

Total: $4220
Expenses: $1016
Liquid: $3204

What this number is basically the amount at the current moment I have to spend as I see fit. I always always always, let this number dictate my spending. I make a lot of spending forecasts and budget plans, but those are just guidelines that I like to stick by to help me reach my goals. I spend according to the number up there labeled as “Liquid” so that if I do go way over my budget or spending plan, at the end of the day, everything is all paid off, and that number is just extra spending money. One thing I would like to include in this number very soon are my investments. The faster I get automatic investments set up, the better. This will allow me to incorporate most of my investments into the “just another bill” category, which is great.

Ok, so I have about $3200 left over right now after all my bills are paid for all of next month. That is pretty good for me since I haven’t even taken into account the money that will be coming in during that period (until the end of August). A quick look at the calender tells me I have paydays on the 3rd, the 17th, and the 31st. If I assume I won’t miss any days of work during those pay periods, more likely than not, that is another $6,111.80 I will have by the end of August. That number is what gets to me, after taxes and a 7% 401k contribution (That is currently unmatched). I make this contribution now, because I am on a contract assignment that is up in 6 months, at which time I’m going to roll over my 401k into my existing Roth IRA.

All said and done at the end of August I’ll have had $9,311.80. I imagine I’ll spend around $600-$700 of that over the month on food, entertainment, and the like, which is higher than my initial estimates, but we will see when I go through my purchases at that time. I like to keep around $1000-$1500 in my checking account at any given time, just in case. That gives me about one month of bills I can pay should the need arise. That leaves me with ~$7,000 after my expenses estimate of $700 and my $1,500 cushion.  This remainder is what I will expected to be invested in before that time.

After all that, my end of August goal is to have an $8,000 addition to investments.

This is going to be a  pretty difficult and lofty goal since it means pinching about $1,000 out of my estimated expenses one way or another, but if it weren’t difficult it wouldn’t be much of a goal anyway.

Weekend Spending Recap (old)

Published by
MiserlyMike
at July 20, 2007 in Personal Finance and Weekend Recap. 0 Comments

This (past) weekend was an expensive one. I spent about $120 on “entertainment”, most of which was food and drinks while out meeting new people. I can tell already that it is going to be difficult to remain within my budgeted spending money without a significant amount of sacrifice. It is important when making these sacrifices that you don’t negatively impact your standard of living to the point where you are no longer comfortable or happy with your life or the spending choices you are making.

There has to be a balance between frugality and happiness. Once your frugal ways begin to take toll on your overall happiness it is time to reevaluate your situation and realign your spending habits with your priorities. At the same stroke, you must be willing to forgo a many of the frivolous things you’ll see others spending on.
—
The first step in becoming financially independent is changing your spending habits. It is an almost too simple concept. If you spend less money, you need less money to live. This has a two-fold benefit for you.

First, by spending less, you can allocate more of your income toward expanding your wealth base. This is done by pursuing various investment opportunities and building your retirement fund. Putting more of your money into investments sooner rather than later is extremely important because of the effects that compounding interest. The earlier you start putting away sizable chunks of money, the more your money will grow. The old adage is true, it takes money to make money. The more you put in, and the earlier you put it in, the more you get out, and it is a lot more.

Second, If you need less money to live, then you’ll need less money to jump off the treadmill and out of the rat race. This means the amount of money you need to save to reach your retirement goal just became a lot less.

As for me, I plan to live high on the hog when I get out, but I can still apply many of the principles I’ve learned along the way, so that when I get there, I will be able to manage my personal finances well enough to last me well after my eventual death and have a sizable estate left to keep providing for my family after I’m gone, and giving my children all the opportunities I had, plus a big head start to pursue their dreams and live their life independently.