Bill's Personal Finance Blog

I'm picking up momentum in this debt thing and have surpassed $10,000.00 in debt paid off this year. My next bench mark is $20k and hope to have that in another few months.

My Chase Freedom is on a Use/Pay system. I am using to purchase groceries as i receive 3% back in form of rebates + 25% bonus when reaches $200.00

I have knocked about $2400 from AMEX alone, hopefully this month I CAN FINISH IT!!!!

I am GAZELLE INTENSE and the more I pay, the more i want to pay to be done....

This was a month that i tried to save as much as I can and not let temptation lead my way.

For the first time in a long time, i am now under $50k in debt. Hopefully if i can continue this track i'll be somewhere around $30k at the end of the year.

I am now attacking my American Express Card like there is no tomorrow and want to have that paid in 2-3 months time.....

My 2008 is now fully funded to take advantage of this down market. My new allocation is as follows.

Large Cap - 21%
Mid/Small Cap - 35%
Fixed Income - 10%
International - 34%

So far so good.

The end of this month, my Lowes will be completely paid and my next target attack is AMEX...

I saved $2004.00 by switching to progressive insurance. I made the switch on their first day here in Massachusetts and when the rep read my quote, i could not believe it.

I'm going to be paying $588 for every 6 months of policy which is about $1176.00 a year.

I was with commerce insurance paying $265.00/month for a 12 months which was $3180.00, what a rip off was this state regulation. Let the market self regulate........

I have accumulated an enough points to cash in my $250.00 check from my Chase FreeDOM card.

Its going right back into paying it off.

My next target is the Lowe's CC that i used to do some bath remodelling.

People usually say go with the highest interest first. the truth is, go with the smallest balance with work through the highest and its easier to achieve the goals and see the debt really go down.

I have manage to pay another two credit cards.

I have paid the Juniper and Best Buy.

I have another $1000 to receive from my rent payment will will probably send that to the Lowe's with this weeks salary to pay off the lowe's.

I have also taken the emergency fund to pay off the card. Since I want to tag every possible little income to pay off my debt ASAP. Every time i have 1000, i'll send it to pay off the card.

My first year with an IRA and i am pushing on all cylinders...

2007, Fully Funded $4000
2008, 65% at $3241

I have diversified my portfolio more. thanks to some advice from SA readers.

U.S. Stocks 29.82%
International Stocks 38.80%
Fixed Income 26.93%
Cash 3.85%
Other 0.61%
Not Classified 0.00%

Type Mine SP500
High Yield 2.64% 9.51%
Distressed 0.60% 0.58%
Hard Assets 16.58% 14.00%
Cyclical 17.94% 18.80%
Slow Growth 7.36% 8.10%
Classic Growth 32.91% 32.69%
Aggressive Growth 15.11% 14.11%
Speculative Growth 6.80% 2.17%
Not Classified 0.07% 0.04%

Funds
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I have started to streamline my financial life.

I have combined my Funds to one big EF/LT Fund. I have transfered all the balances into an EmigrantDirect acct that is paying a misly 2.75% APR.

The total amount I have in the account is $909.01

Real Estate
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I received my bi-yearly tax bill remainder for FY08. A whooping $1972.00 which I have been putting away.

Water bill went down from $230.00 to $185.00 for the quarter. This is the lowest i have ever received for a water bill. I have managed to go from $400.00/quarter to half of that. Little things come a long way.

I have spent the day on my front garden putting some top soil and re-seeding my lawn so i can have a decent lawn this summer.

God is good.

I was able to fully fund my 2k7 IRA with 4k. I am now working on a goal for the 2k8 for 5k

My portfolio breakdown as follows.

U.S. Stocks 0.12%
International Stocks 87.62%
Fixed Income 11.72%
Cash 0.47%
Other 0.06%
Not Classified 0.00%

Regional Breakdown
U.S. & Canada 0.13%
Europe 1.85%
Japan 0.00%
Latin America 55.00%
Asia & Australia 34.75%
Other 8.27%

My Style
80% large caps intl
20% mid caps intl

Income was a little bit less then February, i was able to allocate $93.16

Emergency Fund got $14.94
Short Term Fund got $17.49
Long Term Fund got $60.73

I am still on track for my 36 month dead line on having everything fully funded.

I was able to fund my IRA $2k today for 2007. hopefully next year i can do $4k.

Investing very heavily in Emerging Markets.

I am almost finnaly through doing my taxes. I been using TurboTax for the past 5-6 years and i simply love the interface. It took me about 3 hours to gather everything and put it and make sure everything is correct. I am go over once more just to make sure i didn't miss any deductions and send it to uncle sam.

CC#1 is completely paid off. 1527.34 with fin charges... Next Target is CC#7...

I am so proud...

This month ended very well for me. I had about 28% of my total income left for me to do whatever which equaled about $3356.23

I contributed
$15.79 to my Emergency Fund (0.170%)
$18.78 to my Short Term Fund(0.199%)
$64.18 to my Long Term Fund (0.691%)
for a total of (1.060%). I hope to be able to this every month. I figure i calculate a little percentage then it seems like its a TAX.

About $900.00, I left in my Cash Reserve acct at Etrade. and the remainder i sent in to blitz CC Debt... Hopefully i can do this every month...

After reviewing old bank statements, i found this in an old acct. I immediately initiated an ACH transfer to my Household acct. Going towards lowering CC debt.

Every since i started writing things down, like CC balances, I have seen my self question things a little bit more now..

Yesterday I received a rebate check i had forgotten about, a whole 10 dollars. will go into ST fund.

I love my cell phone company, since i use my cell phone primarily for business, i usually go through about 5000-7000 minutes a month. I had their best plan which was 5000 minutes plus free weekends/nights/mobile2mobile for 160.00, i just received a letter that a new better plan was available for 99.99. i am so happy because now i do not need to control my minutes and every month will be the same bill.

I will take the difference and hopefully be able to contribute to my LT fund.

Woohoo, one more credit card paid... I am on a roll, hopefully next month i will be able to cancel the balance on my AMEX Blue which is $2663.10....
The way i am working is i am using MS Money to plot out based on Interest Rate...

Next Month,
Amex $2663.10
Juniper $1367.47
BBuy $794.88 ( No Interest Plan )

Cheer for me... heh

Yesterday i went to my local credit union which i have an account a very long time that i did not give much attention too. What brought me back was a neat little coin change machine that is offered to its members. My oldest daughter had a piggy back which was getting pretty heavy so i decided to go cash in and deposit into the savings acct there. Its now up to $259 just in spare change.....

in 3 months hope to be able to add more.

Finally, E*Trade got my application right, after 22 days, I finally spoke with someone that knew what she was talking about and got it done. After trying to speak their CSR dept over-seas which I rate (substandard) to what a bank should have, doesn't matter if you have no branches or branches, you should have people that know what they are talking about. But anyway, i finally can have my Max-Rate checking for my DBA for checks I have outstanding which i totally love, before i used to have 9-11k on the acct average every month and no interest, i least now i can earn a little bit....

Today I opened an account with Revolution Money Exchange, a service simular to PayPal. As soon as you sign up, they give a free $25.00. Offer expires February 29th


Money is going to be distributed amongs my funds.
[url] https://www.revolutionmoneyexchange.com/Registration/RegStep1.aspx [url]

Well, that audit that happen 3 months later from BofA dinged my Household Acct. Because I was not planning on getting withdrawn 400 on a Thursday from a bad check that happened 3 months earlier. Because my wife had used our check card to pick up a few things at a local store. The two small transactions posted after the large one( bank rule ). so i am down $70.00 in Overdraft Fees and because of some careless on their part, they did not setup the overdraft acct link(why have one then if its not setup for that purpose). This is how my Saturday started...

Today, I logged into my Online Banking Acct to see what was going on (see if dd hit it) and i was shocked to see a $400.00 debit on the acct. I immediately googled the company name which was AAERC and nothin came up, stopped by a branch and after 20 minutes researching, it was a check that was deposited on my acct in November from a person that owed me money. The check was good, except that instead of writing $450.00, he wrote fifty dollars, the number was correct, but not the wording. I asked why it took so long to catch it and the CSR said, "Well, every transaction is manually checked and audited to see if there were no mistakes during the automation process and usually because of high volume towards the end of the year, sometimes it takes up to 6 months to catch it.

I was angry, had a major headache and didnt know if I cussed BofA or the person that deposited the check. This serves as experience. "You should be the only one depositing into your account" so this crap doesn't happen again. Oh well, time to go chase the person that owed me money. Now this is the bad part......

After playing around with some numbers. I have set some goals for my Emer Funds.

For my Cash Reserve i want to have $24,000.00 - I'm almost half way with $11,315.44. about 47% there.
For my Emergency Fund(Household Maintenance/Car Maintenance) I have set $12,000.00 with $104.87 in acct for that( it will be Keep the Change Transfers + Whatever is leftover on my household Budget. and Rainy Day/Vacation Fund is set at $6,000.00 with $184.45 - This is everything that I save with Coupons, Credit Card Rebates (ie. 5% cashback on Gas, Cell Phone Bill through AMEX SimplyCash) (3% on Groceries through Chase FreeDOM) and 1% on everything else. I opted for cash instead of points because Cash, i see everyday, points, it takes an eternity to see any thing relevant that can be done... I'll post an update on this next month to see how i am handling this agressive goals. My Debt is as follows

$ 54,514.07 - Unsecured Debt
$410,289.85 - Mortgage

I been doing some research into store insurance on merchandise and on the back of my head, this idea has been bothering me. I'm thinking of setting up my own Mini Insurance Company. Take the money that the store charges for insurance. ie. New Laptop ($149.99), take that money deposit into this insurance account(ing/emigrant works great), then another product and etc... I have been attacked at all these stores trying to offer you extended coverage (very profitable) and I am about to chip away at their profit since I buy alot of electronics in general. I remember paying $300 to insurance my Plasma TV for 3 years a few years back. The TV is still Humming and there is no holding back. I could have taken that money in put at these online savings acct and have around 330-340 with the interest compound... The product breaks down, i have a insurance..

I have an acct with BofA which I use mostly for house expenses.. Taxes.. Insurance.. Mortgage because of the Ease of Access to Deposit the money I receive from my Renter + plus a part time I Job I have. Buy groceries with the Debit card and recently signed up for the KTC, I think that is a very clever idea. You figure, you are chipping away cents here and there and it builds up. I'm already at almost $100.00 just with little change + the 10% match that BofA does (you have to take everything your bank gives) and this will be my official Rainy Day Fund/Gifts fund. Lets see this holds up 12 months from now. I figure its an easy non-intrusive way to save.

What terrible csr dept that e*trade bank has. I have spoken with about 6-7 diff people from diff locations(accents) and everyone tells me something different than its on the web site. I'm thinking of parking some cash for my operating account, just because, their checking acct is paying 3%, more than what BofA is paying 0.01% which, come on, is unreliastic. and while payment is in transit, i can earn a little here and there.. Counting the pennies guys, counting the pennies... thats where it starts...

Starting Off with a little about me. I'm a IT consultant out of Boston and i'm trying to work my self into a monthly budget. Maybe some sort of an excel sheet and diverse what whatever money is left at the end of each month. Since i'm in the middle when it comes to investing. I plan on putting about 60% in to cash (CDs/Online Savings Accts) and other rest in maybe some foreign etfs. I'll give you guys an update of how time goes... and an update on the budget.