November 2007: Quest for $1,000,000.00 Dollars

Nothing terribly notable this past month.

My assets remained relatively flat while my debts kept pace in the right direction resulting in another “positive” month.

The Government Bonds were the big negative this month — I cashed out all that I could earlier this month because the money could serve me better elsewhere.

Where’d it go? Well, it got me ahead on my mortgage again (next payment is due in January) and it knocked off some of the credit card debt.

And speaking of credit card debt, I ending up throwing well over $2k towards the debt hoping to really get a good jump on knocking out one of the cards before the end of the year, but the unexpected expense of the hard drive crash swallowed up any of the noticeable drop.

That’s okay though. Under the new plan, November’s looking pretty good already.

Posted on November 1st, 2007 at 11:17 am by Brainy Smurf
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October 2007: Quest for $1,000,000.00 Dollars

Another month headed in the right direction!

That’s what the numbers say, anyway… I didn’t really *feel* like I made any progress in September.

I mean, I’m the type who usually pays the mortgage nearly a month in advance and I was only able to afford it three days before it was due this past month. I hate cutting it that close.

Obviously, the big jump came from my 401k. Over three quarters of the increase is tied up where I can’t touch it. I’m still *very* cash poor and that’s mostly due to the fact that a number of my clients are behind on their bills. One of these days, my mailbox should have a decent number of checks waiting in it.

Until then, I’ll continue to tread water.

Posted on October 2nd, 2007 at 7:26 am by Brainy Smurf
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September 2007: Quest for $1,000,000.00 Dollars

Back on track. Phew!

After a few months headed in the wrong direction, finally I’ve managed to right the ship despite the stock market woes.

Speaking of the stock market, a late month rally put me ahead for the month on my 401k balance. Taking that out of the equation, the assets side of things pretty much went no where.

That’s okay though — the plan is to wipe out the liabilities side first and foremost and everything there is dropping. Not much of a dent in the auto loan, but I don’t actually have a payment due until 2008, so I’m focusing more on the credit card balances.

I’m happy with the $1753 drop there, but it should have been better. I still managed to charge around $425 dollars. That’s still $600 less than last month, but I can cut it even more I’m sure. That will be the goal this month.

In the end, a 6% gain is something to be content with…especially after two consecutive months of double digit drops.

(Still can’t explain the wonky rising car values… Another few months of this, and I may drop them from the calculations.)

Posted on September 4th, 2007 at 8:33 am by Brainy Smurf
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August 2007: Quest for $1,000,000.00 Dollars

As expected, another month headed in the wrong direction. Both losses come on the assets side this month — the tumbling stock market is having an impact on my 401k (like everyone else), and though the chart indicates that I only dropped 2.26%, if you were to just take the second half of July, the losses are closer to 4%. Ouch.

Good thing I’m still young and in it for the long haul. At the same time, it also appears that I’ve timed the market perfectly as I just increased my 401k contributions last week.

Okay, that might be a stretch… I’m not actually expecting it to have a large impact in the short run.

The other sizeable loss came in my checking accout; due almost entirely to the siding project. With that behind us, and just a small electrical project on the horizon, the home improvement expenses are done.With that, the ship will be righted in August as there are no large looming bills, besides a dental bill that might actually fall in September, but in comparison to the renovations, it’s a negligible amount.

Unfortunately, the trend of increasing value on my daily driver (it actually went up $25 in June!) did not continue this month. I didn’t really expect it to, but it was nice while it lasted.

On the liabilities side, it was all good news. All balances, credit cards, auto loan, and mortgage dropped in July. The credit cards didn’t fall as much as I would have liked, but they’re still falling and now, again, with the siding bills paid, my income can be directed at them more aggressively.

Posted on August 1st, 2007 at 10:13 am by Brainy Smurf
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July 2007: Quest for $1,000,000.00 Dollars

Not as bad as I thought it would be…

The siding project is nearly finished and there is one more $8k payment due at completion. That will wipe out my cash reserves entirely. I think that’s when it will set in — all gains to this date so far are gone in the span of a month. But… the house looks nice!

The big movers this month, again, were the savings account and the credit cards. Both are 100% to finance the home improvements.

My 401k also tanked this month. Actually, dropping less than 1% isn’t that big of a deal, but with all of the volatility lately, it seems like it’s swung a lot further than that over the whole month.

Something very strange, and something I’ve never seen happen, was that the trade-in value of one of my cars actually went up! It’s a model year 2005, so it’s not like its hit a “collector” status or anything. Maybe the value of cars getting 45mpg is going up? I dunno, but I’m not complaining. It’s likely a fluke. And probably one of the reasons many people don’t include their vehicles in their calculations.

My sneaky plan to pay down the mortgage has already made a noticeable difference in just two weeks. I’m not about to get more aggressive than $25/week because I know paying down your mortgage is kinda stupid at the point I’m currently standing, but even an insignificant amount like $25 is truly putting a dent in it. To think, year to date, I’ve only knocked off a little over $1000 on the balance, but just last month with a couple of $25 payments, it took off nearly a quarter of that. That’s HUGE and it costs nearly nothing to me.

In the end, once the renovations are complete, overall, I think my net worth will have dropped around $16k. Not too bad considering we’ve spent right around $26k on renovations, but it still feels like a kick in the stomach.

I’m trying my best to look at it like a 6-month setback. Hopefully I can keep on the same track (of debt re-payment) that I’ve been on since January, but it might be tough over the next couple of months as I’m not real comfortable being cash poor. And as I said, when we write that final $8k check, we’ll be broke.

Posted on July 6th, 2007 at 8:30 am by Brainy Smurf
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June 2007: Mid-Month Review

Not much movement on the bottom line so far this month.

Lots of movement within though, as I’ve been moving money over to my checking account from credit cards and my ING Direct account to pay the last two-thirds of the home renovation that should be complete over the next couple of weeks.

That’s when the bottom will fall out and I’ll be right back where I was in January 2007 hovering around a net worth of $50k and carrying a lot of credit card debt.

The difference this time? I have a nicer house, I have a savings account generating interest, AND, best of all, all of the credit card debt is at a low rate.

Though it’s now very unlikely that I’ll reach my 2007 goal, I’m still feeling pretty confident.

Back in September of 2004, my various credit card balances put together topped out at over $26k. And all of it was sitting there at 15.99% or higher. Oddly enough, I was never in a panic mode.

The situation I’ll find myself in later this month is nothing compared to that. My income has increased a bit since 2004 and my expenses have definitely decreased since 2004. (Oh, and have I mentioned that I own my own plane now too?)

This time, I should be able to chop the balance down over a few months, rather than a few years.

Just a bump in the road.

Posted on June 15th, 2007 at 7:44 am by Brainy Smurf
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June 2007: Quest for $1,000,000.00 Dollars

Another month passes, another step in the right direction.

A gain of roughly $4k was less than I’d hoped for, though it’s been our average gain for the first 5 months of the year, but we’ll need to step it up a bit if hitting $100k by the end of December is going to happen.

Since the mid-month report, I’ve added back in the trade-in value of my second car that was involved in the accident. We don’t have it back yet from the body shop, but apparently it’s going to look as good as new — but with that amount of body work on record, it’s value dropped over $1k. That’s okay though — I can’t say there was ever a real solid plan to sell it or trade it in anyway so it will continue to “decorate” the garage.

Another good month on the stock market too. While the 401k didn’t go up as much as it did in April, it’s still becoming very apparent that the secret to wealth lies there. I really don’t have much in there and I’m sadly not contributing much while I attack my debt, yet it manages to go up well over $1k per month consistently — and almost $2k for the past two.

On the liabilities side, we wiped out the home improvement loan I’ve complained about, which is a huge load off of my shoulders. Since March, we took it from over $8k down to nothing, perhaps making this the last month (finally!) of really aggressive debt reduction. Right now, we don’t have anything left sitting at a rate higher than 5.35%.

On the flip side… there is the credit card debt. It nearly doubled this month, but that’s due to the 0% transfer we’re taking advantage of to finance the home improvements we’re planning to make this summer. The balance is currently sitting in an ING Direct account making us about 77 cents each day so it doesn’t really feel like debt. Get back to me on that next May!

Posted on May 31st, 2007 at 8:04 am by Brainy Smurf
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May 2007: Mid-Month Review

Ouch.
Ouch. Sorry, had to say it again.

This time I’ve highlighted the negatives.The largest loss was due to the accident I was in this past weekend. I still haven’t heard yet if my insurance company considers it totalled, but until then, I’ll consider it a total loss.

Also relating to the accident, having to put a rental car on plastic, even just to get home, threw that all off track as well. In the coming week, I’ll also be taking a cash hit as I’ll have to pay my deductable on the insurance policy.

Not looking to be a great month financially.

On the flip side, the balance on the original home improvement loan continues to shrink.

I think we’re still on track to finish it off this month barring any additional unexpected expenses relating to the car accident.

I’m still overpaying the auto loan each month — and thankfully the automobile in the accident was paid for — but it’s not really beneficial as the rate is so low anyway.

Last week I also stepped on to the 0% balance transfer bandwagon. I applied for one of the CitiBank cards that boasts 0% for balance transfers for 12 months with no transfer fees.

Unfortunately they only gave me an insultingly low limit of $6800. I was hoping for more, and expecting more, but I guess it’s probably a better thing that it’s not a lot of money being tossed around on my first go around.

Right now, we’re thinking to just use $6000 of it and drop it into an ING Account until we’re ready to tackle phase two of our home renovation.

That way, we’ll have over $10k available in savings and some additional cash from my wife’s side to pay for the work. (I don’t include her finances in these reports as we don’t have any joint accounts, and, if we can manage to survive and gain wealth on just my income, well, the money she brings in is just a total bonus!)

When it comes time to pay back the roughly $5k balance on the 0% transfer twelve months from now, I’m confident we’ll have saved up enough to pay it off entirely and not have to pay a dime in finance charges.

We won’t make any money on the transfer like some people do, but it will give us the funds NOW and at no cost — which is exactly what we need.

Another scenario would be to pay down the credit card debt I’m carrying, but I’m reluctant to do that as it’s not reported on my credit report.

I own my own company and $7k of the credit card debt is on the company card.

My personal credit cards are used for gas, to pay the home internet bill, and the monthly fee for a storage unit I rent… oh, and unexpected car rentals! How could I forget those?

Posted on May 16th, 2007 at 3:55 pm by Brainy Smurf
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