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Update on 2009 Goal Status

September 3, 2009 by Future Millionaire

It is September and with only 4 months left this year I figured I would post an update to where I am with my goals.

1) Take care of my body and give birth to a healthy, happy baby around July time frame. — DONE!!

2) After the baby is born I will lose 20% of my weight to aid in the ultimate goal of 145lbs. — In progress.  I lost the initial baby weight and I ’settled’ at about 205.  With that being said I have 40 lbs to lose by the end of the year…um, ain’t happenin’!  So I will re-adjust this goal and work towards 5 – 10% which is a little more reasonable. 10 – 20 lbs in 4 months is a much healthier goal to try and hit.

3) Attend at least 1 marriage counseling session with my husband regardless of the status of our marriage. — DONE.  I am cheating a little on this as we did a marriage seminar earlier this year.  It wasn’t face to face counceling but it did do quite a bit to remind us about the things that matter most in our marriage…us.

4) Go on 1 Vacation that is at least 3 days long and gets me out of the area I know and grew up in. — In progress.  My husband and I are taking a trip to ‘Sin City’.  No not to gamble as we didn’t save much for that.  One of my husband’s college buddies is getting married there.  Should be a blast as I have never been to Vegas.

5) Make a point to see all my siblings at least once at their home. — BIG FAIL!  I haven’t even seen one of them at their house this year, and don’t forsee any time soon where I will get to visit them.

6) Reach $100,000 in savings/investments to put me on track for $1 Million by the time I’m 36. — FAIL!  This is a goal I am no longer motivated by.  I like the ‘idea’ of being a millionaire…but I have not been motivated enough to do anything about this.  There are too many more important things to do first…like become financially free…or stick to a budget.

7) Live within my means and continue to keep no balance on the credit cards. — HUGE SUCCESS!  My husband and I have been living credit card free for almost a year and a half.  We only use the money in our actual bank accounts and savings accounts to pay for everything.  We still need to continue working on living within our means especially now that we have added someone else to the family.

8) Track my progress with my goals. — In progress.  I have not been tracking as often as I would like but I am still keeping tabs on my goals.  I started earlier with monthly goals but got side tracked from that once the baby came.

9) Complete the registration with Park University and continue to attend at least 1 class per semester not including the first 8 week session starting in Jan.  (still in registration). — DONE!  I have completed one class, taking another and ready to sign up for the last session of the year.

10) Complete registration for GI bill benefits to pay for my schooling. — DONE! And I have received the first benefit check…that is VERY nice.

11) Read at least one book a month for a total of 12 books. (need to increase the amount of reading I do.) — HUGE FAIL!  I started off right at the begining of the year but I have rapidly declined.  Reading is just not something that gets me going…which is why I want to try and increase my reading.  I will have to work harder on this one.

12) Get my piano tuned every 6 months to accommodate my students. — FAIL.  I have not gotten my piano tuned ONCE this year.  I’ll have to fix this.

13) Get Term Life Insurance for both my husband and myself. — In progress.  I started this at the begining of the year and let it fall to the back burner.

14) Make a will!  After all, we will have someone to leave everything to come July! — In progress.  I have the paperwork from the lawyers and now I just need to sit down with my husband and fill it out.

All in all I think I am doing fairly well.  I am on track to achieve most of my goals by the end of the year.

Want a challenge?  Set goals for yourself and see where it takes you.

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Back in the Saddle

September 3, 2009 by Future Millionaire

Wow…2 months have gone by very quickly and it time for me to get back to the real world…work.  I have enjoyed my two months with my child but it’s time to get life back to “grown-up” land.  This also means it’s time to take back all the responsibilities I let slide while I was learning to be a new mommy.  Some new things on the to-do list:

  • Weekly ‘budget’ updates
  • Work on the 2010 budget
  • Consolidate all our accounts
  • Figure out how much it REALLY costs to have a child

I also need to update my net worth and get that posted.  There is nothing like keeping yourself on track as when you post it up for everyone to see.  Oh, and I need to update my 2009 goal status.  I have accomplished some of my goals, and I am no where near completing others.

I came across another financial blog I like.  Check out Ms. Money Savvy.

Posted in Random | Leave a Comment »

A New Addition to the Family

August 11, 2009 by Future Millionaire

On July 14th my husband and I welcomed a new little baby boy to our family.  This has, of course, kept us very busy.  However, it has also caught us spending a lot more money than we had originally planned.  We have gotten carried away with the “new” gadgets that are available for children.  This is something that we still need to try and wrangle in.

My life has been completely consumed with my child since he was born that I have neglected to post.  I have also neglected to run my weekly financial reports so I am in a pickle…I haven’t run reports, and I have been spending money that has been unchecked.  This is a HUGE recipe for disaster when it comes to the budget let alone money in general!

I will try to get an updated post with my net worth posted in the near future.  This should be a huge wake up call for my husband and I to get back into the mindset of a budget and start our little man off on the right foot, no debt and financially responsible parents.

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Last few weeks – Budget Updates

June 30, 2009 by Future Millionaire

It has been a few weeks since I last posted and I figured I would give everyone an update on what I’ve been doing.

My husband and I have been working diligently to create a working budget that can incorporate our future addition of a child.  This is one of the most difficult things I have ever done.  I started with a blank excel spread sheet and listed the categories I thought were important.  Then I pulled some information from Quicken on “Monthly Averages” for those categories.

Every week since initially creating this budget I have run a weekly report to track the progress of my budget.  This has been a real eye opener for me…There is a LOT I don’t know about where my money was going.  Also, just how difficult it is to start a new budget.

In the next few days I will close out our June budget sheet and prepare for July.  There are some changes that need to be made and a LOT more sacrifices that we need to make to ensure we can provide for our child.  I’m also getting ready to post another net worth/goals update.  That should be posted in a week or so.  I think I need to pay more attention to my goals…I let them slip a lot this month.

Posted in Budget | Leave a Comment »

Update on Mint.com

June 9, 2009 by Future Millionaire

mintMy husband and I are really starting to like Mint.com.  There are a lot of features that have come in really handy.  One of the things that I didn’t realize before was that it will email you a weekly view of your account status.  It will also send you the status of your budget.  You can set up additional alerts that will either email or text you for things like low balance, over budget and deposits.

I also am learning to really like the automatic download of my account status every time I log in and the amount of accounts that Mint seems to have access to.  (Much more than my standard Quicken Software).  This software, for being free is really one of the best out there.

I don’t pay any attention to the services that they try to sell me on, the better interest banks and CDs and other items like that.  If those links and services are needed to make this great site free for the user then I’m all for it.  I do my own research when it comes to where my money goes and it helps to have such a quick picture of where I stand from anywhere I have an internet connection.

While I’m still not ready to completely change over to Mint I am patiently waiting for them to add the one feature holding me back.  Import of old data.  Mint is great if you’re just starting out but for those of us that have been tracking our data for sometime there is still no way to import all your old data…YET!  They are working on that problem.

Posted in Financial Software | 1 Comment »

Net Worth May 2009

May 28, 2009 by Future Millionaire

networth

My net worth calculation went up significantly this month because I found out exactly how much money was sitting in my TSP account. I also tracked down all of my husbands retirement accounts.  Our savings went down because of the change in how I am recording our cash savings.

Also, the market gods seemed to think that our house appreciated a little in value. Since I have no expectations of selling the house any time soon I’ll just have to take their word for it. Here are the three websites I use to calculate my average home value: Zillow, CyberHomes, and ColdWell Banker.

Here is the status of my May monthly goals and if I have completed any yearly goals:

Monthly:

  • Create a budget – ensure EVERY penny is accounted and spoken for.  Ensure a savings plan is in the budget – Done!
  • Order School books for CS 140 - Done!
  • Post Book Report for “The Millionaire Next Door” – Done!
  • Join Pre-Paid Legal – Started the Process, follow up next month
  • Make a decision on Life insurance and start the paperwork (USAA or Zanders) – move to next month

Yearly Accomplished Goals:

  • Complete the registration with Park University – Done!
  • Complete registration for GI bill benefits to pay for my schooling – Done!

Setting new goals for June and or rolling goals over from May the were not accomplished:

June Goals:

  • Start Class
  • Re-evaluate the budget and how it’s going.  Start planing on expenses for the Child.
  • Verify on GI Bill website that I am taking a class this month (end of Month)
  • Post Book Report for Angels and Demons
  • Continue working on the paperwork for Pre-paid legal (Roll over from May)
  • Make a decision on Life insurance (Roll over from May)
  • Create an account for the GI Bill money
  • Fill out a Will and get it properly signed and saved

Got any ideas on how I can improve my calculations and figuring out my net worth?  Please feel free to leave comments and questions.

Posted in Goals, Net Worth | Leave a Comment »

What to do with additional money?

May 27, 2009 by Future Millionaire

I recently got a raise at work.  I literally just asked the boss if I could get a raise and he said yes.  Now the dilemma I have is what to do with the extra money!  Not that it’s a bad situation to be in.  Talking it over with my husband we believe that the most financially sound decision is to continue to act like I don’t have the raise and put all that money towards the emergency fund until it has been funded for at least the 3 months we currently have.

All our current bills and other expenses are taken care of so why feel the need to create more just because more money is coming in?  The other idea we had was to use my entire raise towards retirement funding.  If I take my whole raise and sock it away for our golden years it’s not like it’s money we will be missing now, we didn’t have it before!

Either way, it’s a good conundrum to have.  We also found out my husband should be getting a nice bonus this year….hmmm what to do with that money?  Investments? Retirement? Heck even a cash-paid vacation?  Ahh, the decision of the financially responsible.

Any ideas on how you would handle a raise or bonus money?

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Online financial software – Mint.com

May 23, 2009 by Future Millionaire

I have been using Quicken for the last 2 years and I really like it.  There are some limitations with this popular financial software.   Mainly it’s not portable.  I have it on my laptop, but that’s the only computer it’s on.  My husband has to log into my computer, or constantly bother me, if he wants the snapshot picture of our finances.  My brother in law said that he uses Mint.com and is very impressed with it so I decided to check it out.

mintI have opened up an account to start playing around with it.  Some of the features I like:

  • It’s FREE!
  • It automatically updates your account balances for you
  • It’s online, so not restricted to one computer and backups are taken care of for you
  • It allows you to remember changes made to transactions and applies them to future transactions
  • Connects to ALL of my accounts, unlike some other software I’ve used

Some things that initially concern me:

  • I can’t change the main categories for transactions, only the sub-categories
  • I only get the most recent of data that is stored online from my bank accounts during initial set up.  Thus limiting the amount of data used to ‘create a budget’.
  • No import ability YET!  They are however working on adding that function.

I am going to play around with it for a month or two and see if I really like it enough to switch from the tried and true Quicken.  I’ve also had my eyes on quicken online to see if that is worth it.  But that’s another review.

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Changes in Net Worth Calculations

May 22, 2009 by Future Millionaire

Cash Savings:

For the last two months that I have put together my net worth I have used ALL accounts that hold money to create this number.  However, thinking more about it that way of thinking is flawed!  Since my cash savings is supposed to be my safety net for the “OMG something is happening in life” then adding my bill pay checking account does me no good.  I have also decided that any ‘fund’ savings that I have is NOT part of my cash savings.

This change is obviously going to effect my net worth but I don’t see that impacting the ultimate goal by too much.  It will also give me a much better understanding of where I am REALLY.

The accounts I use to hold my emergency funds are Emigrant Direct, Dollar Savings Direct, ING and a local bank for the non-interest checking access.  I also have a safe in my house that holds cash for those rarest of emergencies that can’t wait the 24 hours to get money moved.

Total Emergency Fund Savings: $46,102.44 as of May 21, 2009.

  • Emigrant Direct: $150.00
  • Dollar Savings Direct: $25396.43
  • ING Direct: $10397.97
  • Local Checking: $158.04
  • Safe Stash: $10600.00

Retirement Accounts:

So far I have only included my retirement accounts in trying to calculate my net worth.  This is also flawed as since I am married and my husband and I share everything I need to include his accounts in the overall net worth as well.  I’m not in the game of trying to figure out what is “his” money and what is “my” money as that has a tendency to lead to more than just a split of money.  We are both a team and OUR goal is to become financially free with a net worth of over 1 Million dollars.

Posted in Net Worth | Leave a Comment »

High Yield Online Savings Account

May 21, 2009 by Future Millionaire

smartypig

I have been on the lookout for some high interest savings accounts for quite some time now.  I have used a few and have watched the rates go down significantly for many of them.  I saw a review of Smarty Pig from a blogger at myfinancialjourney.com and was impressed with the high interest rate that they are still offering.

There is one down side to the account.  It’s a goal oriented savings account.  That means that when you set up the account you have to set a savings goal, and then set up automatic deposits into the account.  When you have reached your goal it is an all or nothing removal.  You can’t just take out a little bit of money at a time, you have to take it all out.  Now, there is a way around this.  You could either change your goal amount and then withdraw all your money, or set up the minimum $250 goal, deposit $250 and then just continue to make deposits as you chose (no automatic deposit needed).  But again, you’d still have to withdraw all your money when you want to take some out.

All that being said, if I was to put my emergency fund into this savings account at 3.05% APY and just let the money sit there making me money that blows away what I am getting from all the other online accounts.  I still think I’ll keep some money in my ING account for the liquidity of the money, but I am going to move all the rest of my funds into the Smarty Pig account and take full advantage of the higher interest rates.  If they ever slash their rates to lower than what my other accounts are offering I’ll close down the account and move the money back over.

When I went to set up my account with them they did a verification against my credit report for my mortgage to verify I was who I said I was.  The only problem was that I failed!  This is a huge problem for me because I know about my finances and where my mortgage is and how much I pay on it so I’m not sure why I failed.  I called their support line and they couldn’t tell me either.  So now I have to wait for them to mail me a form for verification, sign it and fax it back into them.  It’s worth it for the almost double % in the account but this is a little disappointing.

Oh well, time to let my money start working harder for me!

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