Not a bad couple of months overall as was indicated in my Income and Expenses, overall a couple of good months for my net worth overall. Now, it is a bit of a pain to do this monthly as some companies only offer quarterly statements and if I don’t look at some of the balances right at the end of the month, it is a bit of a pain. So from here forward, I plan on only doing quarterly updates – so December’s update will be available in January. Continue reading
Financial Independence
Income and Expense Update: September & October 14
Back to getting my regular financial updates in, starting with income and expenses before updating my net worth. This update contains the past two months separately as I did not do an update in October for September. Overall I feel that the months went well and I am very happy with our overall spending while maintaining a great lifestyle.
Recent Stock Purchases
I mentioned in my post about Loyal3 that I have added some positions in Microsoft (MSFT) and Kraft (KRFT). I also have some small auto purchases being made, just $10 a month, into several stocks. The purchases that occurred during September include Coca-Cola (KO), Walt Disney (DIS), Pepsico (PEP), Walmart (WMT), Unilever (UL), and McDonald’s (MCD).
The only positions that had subsistence really were the purchases of MSFT and KRFT. Being that Loyal3 is fee free, I am able to put in just a few dollars at a time. Also, the added bonus is this makes my financial planning easier as I now have 10 automatic purchases set up I will automatically earn interest in my checking account which is usually over $15.00 a month. Now I don’t need to worry about the amount of times I use my debit card at the store and I can focus all of my purchases on reward credit cards while knowing I will be maximizing the return of my cash.
With that said, let’s go into a little detail about these stocks that I am purchasing. Continue reading
Frankly Frugal Finance: Weekender Edition #10
What, 10 weeks already? That is absurd, who told time to travel? Anyways, all joking aside, this was a very busy week! As a result I didn’t get around to blogs as much as I would have preferred, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t come across some great articles!
First off, I had a couple new posts this week per my Tuesday – Thursday posting schedule.
Disadvantages and Advantages of Loyal3
Wondering what Loyal3 is in the first place? Well it is a brokerage account. But not your typical brokerage account either. There are zero fees.
Income and Expense for August 14
August was a killer month here! Had a HUGE savings rate which really helped build our Net Worth up in August. Not every month will go like that, but you can dream, right?
With that out of the way, here are the highlights of the week! Continue reading
Income and Expense for August 14
I did things in inverse order this month where I updated my Net Worth before my savings rates. To me the savings rates is the most important battle, I have even created a new page to track my progress over time. Every dollar I don’t spend can either be invested in the future, used to pay down debt, or help bolster one of the layers of my emergency fund. I may track my income and expenses different than other bloggers, mainly because I use this as a purpose of updating my Net Worth. So any action that will increase my Net Worth, such as paying down the principle on a loan, or savings into a HSA, is savings in my mind as those actions will increase my net worth.
August overall was a grand month with extra paychecks from the daily grind. I had expected to pay $2,500 more for my house due to storm damage in April, however that hasn’t happened as of yet. I guess I will need to double check my paperwork to see where I stand on this, but I am holding those funds aside for now as I plan on paying it at the present time. Continue reading
Disadvantages and Advantages of Loyal3
I have read a few other bloggers talk about Loyal3 and it seems like they are a pretty good way to invest, but only in a few select companies. Other bloggers talking about them include Retire Before Dad, who uses a credit card to earn rewards on his monthly purchases from Loyal3. Dear Dividend is perhaps the first place I read about Loyal3 in his post about cheap or no fee investing. Also Ryan at impersonal finance did a great summary about Loyal3 as well. So if everyone is talking about it, it must be all good right? Well there are a few things that I don’t like about the service but also many things that I do like. Continue reading
Frankly Frugal Finance: Weekender Edition #9
Here we are with the first weekend in September! Time is flying by a bit too fast for me, as I have a few summer projects to get done. One problem is that is has been raining before the weekend so I can’t stain the deck. Second problem is I have been a bit lazy to get the back door on my garage taken care of. That and I am a bit nervous about doing that one, but it should go ok.
Anyways… my blog has made it around the inter-webs quite a bit recently. Recent mentions include the following:
RockStar Finance
Roadmap 2 Retire
Our Big Fat Wallet
Cash Syndrome
Debt Discipline
No More Waffles (Which unfortunately still is not loading with AT&T internet)
Million Dollar Ninja
Living at Home
Indebted Mom
I think that covers the recent mentions between 4 different articles getting some love on the inter-webs. So thank you all for the mentions!
My most recent articles this week include the following:
Net Worth Update – August
The Road to Financial Independence
Ok, time for the round up posts!
Continue reading
The Road to Financial Independence
I have had a vague idea of when I would become financially independent. Somewhere between age 46-50 was the general idea. I can’t say when it will happen for certain, circumstances change, inflation happens, or life events. But I can say if everything cost wise and lifestyle wise were to move in the same direction as where I am today, that I know when I can retire. The good news is I am a bit of an optimist and I hope I can create a larger spread in savings, paying off debt, and make a little more income than inflation. Who knows, if this blog starts to make a little money a couple years into the journey that is all money that will speed up this process.
After reading a detailed post from Big Guy Money on his journey to financial independence I thought maybe I should share my thoughts on the time frame for my journey here. So this post will kind of give you an idea of where I am going now and how I plan to get there. Kind of like a travel guide subject to changes due to unforeseen circumstances. Continue reading
Net Worth Update – July
Well it is about time I updated this for all those people coming from Rockstar finance, huh? Well, to be honest I didn’t want to just squeak by last week doing an article on my Income and Expense as well as my net worth update. I would rather get out an article with some of my personal finance philosophy out as well. It makes me a bit less dry in my opinion. So you may wonder, why do I track Net Worth? For me it is the best method to see if I am on track for reaching financial independence. I am not too worried about market fluctuation such as we experience at the end of last month, but I do like to see that my efforts are moving in the right direction long term. Being the majority of my net worth is going towards reducing debt currently, it is a bit difficult not to experience growth even with the recent pull back in the stock market. Continue reading
Valuing Your Time
Recently I mentioned that life is short and we only live once. In my line of thinking, this means that the time that I have remaining on this earth is valuable and I think everyone on the path of financial independence values their time highly. Even those who aren’t working towards financial independence value their time highly by seeking out the highest paid job available. But did you know that a single person, whether knowingly or not, values their own time multiple ways? I believe there are four main ways that we each spend are own time. Continue reading