Housekeeping: All Pages Updated

Hello!

Quick housekeeping note:  All pages have been updated to 3/31/2018 excluding the dividend page. Not much going on - no recent investments to Vanguard but monthly savings continues.

Pru

It's been awhile...

Hello Y'all!

*Pru waves*

I'm still here but need to give a bit of an update.  Firstly, work etc has been very hectic (lot going on there) and I have been organizing my financial affairs a bit to do my taxes.  Thankfully those have been submitted and now I just need to pay what I owe.  Taxes are always a stressful time for me so I'm glad that for the most part I'm done for the year.  Next year will be an entirely different story as I will owe a lot given the new tax bill that was passed in 2017.

March has also to date been a stressful and expensive month.  Sadly, we all experience times like this when there is nothing we can do but keep paying out cash.  Yup, one of those months.

Most importantly, as affects my plan here on this blog, I may not have a job in a few months.  So.....yeah...there's that.  Lots of thinking has been going on in the Pru household.  

As this impacts the blog, until I know for sure where I stand in terms of employment, I am not sending any money to Vanguard.  I will continue to fund my savings accounts because if I need to touch that money, I will.  I am also just paying the minimum to my mortgage.  (It's all about conserving cash as much as possible.)

Yup - that's where I am.  Hoping to get back to posting weekly again even if it's just links to read.

Pru

Housekeeping - Computer Problems

Been having some difficulties with this computer hence the lack of posting recently.  It is sadly quite old and I am trying to eek out as much life out of it as I can.  All in the interest of saving money and avoiding chucking something before I can get the full use out of it.  Bear with me!

Pru

Savings Increased Slightly

Not sure why I didn't combine this with the last post...but my savings information has been updated in the Ultimate Goals page.  I did some reorganizing of accounts and took the opportunity to top them up a bit especially the 2nd Home account.  Every extra penny helps!

Pru

Brokerage Account Portfolio Update

My Brokerage Account Portfolio page has been updated as of 2/2/2018.  The total has dropped as a result of the market's drop this past Friday.  No surprise as sooner or later the market will drop.

In January I purchased 7 shares of the BND ETF for $500-something.  I keep forgetting to double check the exact price that I bought at...will do...will do...

Pru

Investing Update

The 6 shares of the new bond (BND) ETF are in my account.  I paid $487.98 for them.

Also, I have calculated my investments for 2017 and it came to a grand total of $11,456.74.  This means that I am on track to reach my 10-year investing goal!  For the first two years of my rewire plan, I have invested a total of $23,353.05.  Not bad!

For 2017, most of that investment came in the form of one day's trade into a brand new mutual fund for $10,000...all good of course!

I have updated my Actuals page to report all the investments made to date.  Also, I removed the actual savings since I hadn't updated that section since 2016 and frankly that is too tedious to keep up with.  The savings totals on the Ultimate Goals page will have to suffice.  

Next up is the Dividends page and I'm really not looking forward to that :-(

Hope everyone is doing well! 

Pru

Hello World!

Helloooooooo out there!  

Guess it's been a long time since I had the opportunity to post anything.  It has been a long and toxic year for me.  But I have missed blogging and I feel I am ready to add this back into my life.  I am not sure if I have any readers out there but it is still good to type type type for little ole moi.  And it is good for me to see that I am moving forward inch by inch on my financial goals.  (Btw all is good on that front.)

Over the next two weekends, I am going to revisit this blog and post up some goals for 2018.  Nothing overly exciting I expect but it will still be good to stretch the blogging legs a bit next year.
:-)

For anyone celebrating Christmas, I hope you have a very merry holiday.  For everyone else, I hope you have Monday off and a nice long weekend!

Pru

Housekeeping & A Catch-up- 3/31/2017

Hello!  Still here (barely!)

Lot going on in my life (both work and personal) but I'm still keeping on with the financial goals.  

Bit of a reorganization going on at my office so I'm dealing with that.  Not sure how that is going to work out as people are not very happy.  I'm not ecstatic either to be perfectly honest.  Needless to say things are bit rough at the office for my entire team and a few people have separately told me (late at night when no one is around) that they are planning to look for jobs in the coming months.  

I too would like to look for a job but I am in a financial catch-22.  I need my bonuses to pay down my mortgage quickly and invest monies.  I think I get my bonus sometime in may-end june.  With the craziness going on in politics and the uncertainty, I do not know how likely people are to be hiring.  This means I could be stuck at my current job.  (Yes woe is me...)  

On the flip side, if I get a wonderful bonus then (and I struggle with this internally), I should do the logical thing and stay with the current job for at least one more year to make another sizeable dent into the mortgage.

No easy decisions in life eh.

And then there are my taxes.  Still not done.  Need to be done.  In the next 2 weeks.  Double sigh.

So the next few weeks sees me working on getting my taxes filed (on time), adjusting to a new work environment, organizing a few things at home, reviewing my financial status (always good to do at tax time), and getting ready for the warmer weather.

There is a bit of a need to spend some money on clothes etc.  I am trying to minimize that need as much as possible and make do where I can.  But I am also being realistic - my orthotics shred my socks so new socks are being bought today also my sneakers have work thin on the soles so sneakers will also be bought (wear them every single day so a must!).

I haven't kept up with other people's blogs and I am very annoyed at this.  I do think about others (Jill!  Frugal Desperado!) and hope they are doing well.

Should be in a better position in 2 weeks (post-tax time) and will start catching up and blogging more.  Stay tuned!  Hopefully you will all still be here then :-)

Pages have all been updated through 3/31/2017 (except for the historical actual savings amounts):

Ultimate Goals

Brokerage Account Portfolio

Dividends

Actuals

Hope everyone has a good week!
Pru

Looking ahead, making transfers and cut cut cut

Hopefully everyone's week is off to a good start!

I have spent this long weekend tackling my budget deficit and nearly succeeding.  I'll have to see my other January paycheck to know what I'm really working with so must wait for that.  This has largely consisted of me cutting down some of my variable expenses.  I will need to get smarter with food purchases and look for free/cheaper entertainment.  

Speaking of food it is amazing how much money you can save if you eat at home, consistently cook a lot from scratch (for most things), eat less meat, etc.  I have spent the past couple of days figuring out food for the week, trying to make certain things ahead of time that I can store in the freezer and thinking ahead for next week so that there is some coordination with my grocery shopping and cooking efforts.

It is not easy is always the conclusion I come to.  You need to be organized and just keep at it.  It is all about consistency.  (Hmmm...like most things in life...)

I also transferred some money to one account (2nd home) that should go through tomorrow me thinks.  Transferred some money to the brokerage account (about $400) and have written the check for the mortgage payment (and over-payment) so that will clear this week.

And with that I feel somewhat accomplished.  Now to relax for a couple of hours and then head back to work!

Good week all!

Pru

Auld Lang Syne - Goodbye 2016

Well we are finally about to turn the page on another year! (Thank you! Thank you! Thank you Universe!)

I think I have finally come to terms with how my personal financial year turned out.  I am very thankful that I was able to make gains on my financial goals.  However, given the state of the world I am feeling particularly anxious and want to super charge as much as possible in the coming years.

But now it's time for a review of my financial 2016.  First and most importantly, I met my goals:

2016 Financial Goals: 1) Overpay my mortgage by an extra 3%.  I overpaid by 4.17%  (overpaid by 0.88% this month to get below a certain dollar threshold). 2) Invest $6,250 into my new brokerage account.  I invested a total of $11,896.31 - nearly doubling my goal and putting myself on the right track to meet my ultimate goal. 3) Save $625 into my Rewire account.  I saved $660 ($55 each month). 4) Save $625 into my G2H-FU account.  I saved $660 ($55 each month). 5) Save $2,500 into my 2nd Home account.  I saved $2,520 ($210 each month).

My brokerage account balance grew by a good amount but it was mostly due to my investing cash into it.  The original balance as of 1/31/2016 was $37,516.  I invested $11,896 bringing the balance to $49,412.  Reinvested dividends and capital gains gave me an extra $1,737 (woot!) bringing the balance to $51,149.  Gains in the market values thus only totaled $2,610.  It's not a huge amount and it is before tax.  But I must focus on the long-term.

And this year was a decent slaying of a part of my mortgage with a total payoff of approximately 7.31% and moving the needle so that I now have less than 60% remaining of my mortgage.  Very happy about this.

Well that's it for me.  My Pages have been updated:

Ultimate Goals

Brokerage Accounts

Dividends & Capital Gains

KILL My Mortgage!

Actual Savings & Investments
*Savings part not fully updated yet...

Hopefully, for those reading you are ending 2016 on a decent note financially and have made a plan for next year.

Happy New Year's Eve! I will be back soon to post 2017 goals.

Pru

Updating brokerage account - where I stand

Aside from being depressed and buying 50 shares of Unilever (UL) earlier in the month, I have basically avoided looking or thinking about my investments.  I'm not sure why but it might have had something to do with the fact that when I did look at my shares the font color was red since the share prices had all declined!

Not a pretty sight.  But I kept telling myself think long-term, think long-term.  In the long-term, my investments will grow above and beyond the cash that I am investing.  They will grow through dividends and through increased value.  But right now - ugh!  Considering that I invested $2K with the UL purchase, my total investments are lower than the total at the end of September.

Sigh.  Think long-term.

Brokerage Acct Portfolio Page is updated (except for the cash invested to date - will update that later).

Pru

Housekeeping

I deleted a bunch of comments from Trumpians.  I was pretty clear that they were not welcome.  If your comment was not coming from a Trumpian then all I can say is sorry but it probably looked like a Trumpian comment.

Also, I've been having some weird issues with blogger.  Just saying if things look a bit odd on your side.  I am not even going to try to figure out what is wrong - it usually works itself out.

Pru

Housekeeping Update

Hello again!    I have updated my pages as best I can.  I need to make some savings account transfers in the next week and today I set up a transfer of funds (about $600) to my brokerage account.  I am going to buy some stock next month so will not make a purchase this month so that I can accumulate a bit of funds there.

(Side note - oh the stock market is hitting my accounts hard lately.  I'm trying very hard to not think about it.  Focus on the long-term Pru!)

Mortgage will be paid this week as well.

Unfortunately, I have not been reading as many financial articles/posts as I would like.  I am suffering from Election 2016 and am inhaling everything I can at this moment and it is affecting my ability to sleep and concentrate.  Actually had a nightmare last week - I don't want either Trump or a Clinton in the White House.  (Ugh to be an American right now...)

Onwards and upwards I hope.  Need to focus on getting back to watching the pennies and saving/investing as much as I can!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Pru

A bit of this and a bit of that

Oh man things are not well in my world at the moment.  Situation with my flatmate is not good and now I have a ton of stress at home - something I try really hard to avoid since there is so much stress elsewhere.  And then there is this thing called the election - I'm so stressed about that.  Finally, there is a little something called work.  I'd like to completely forget about that last topic but at least for the next 10 years I gotta work!

Moving on to more important things - little tiny things that will help me rewire in 10...or almost 9... :-)

My transfers for the month have been set up (late but still gonna happen in September!).  And I held off on buying the Ford (F) stock because I wasn't sure but I've read up on it and I want it.  Again I am planning to hold my stock for the long term so I'm comfortable with it.  Now to get organized and pull the trigger before month end!

Hope everyone is doing well.  Need to catch up on a few comments (thanks for commenting!).  

I'll will be back on track soon enough.

Pru

I'm still here!

Sorry for the ridiculous gap in writing.  I'm here but now have a new roommate and I'm dealing with that.  

I will update my blog pages this weekend.  (Promise!)

And my next purchase is going to be Ford stock.  Probably 100 or 150 shares.  I have already transferred money into my brokerage account for this month.  Am going to try and purchase this stock this week.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Pru

Happy Saturday!

All the pages have been updated (finally!).

I saw a tiny snippet in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that MetLife, a very large company, is planning to cut costs by 11% between now and 2019.  Another reason for Pru to start tightening her belt.

I looked at how my investment balances have slowly grown this past year - primarily from me putting the green employees to work.  But also from dividends that were reinvested.  It is nice to see but it does remind me that when it comes to investing you really need to take the long term view.  I can't look at my balances on a daily basis.  The market goes up and down and on those down days seeing all the red is a tad frightening.  Especially when you consider that most people are investing for their retirement.

Slow and steady - well that's all I can be at this point.  I entered the race a bit late but I'll keep dripping in money each month :-)

Now for some links:

Shifting Gears From Saving to Spending in Retirement
This does scare me a bit.  Spending (no pun intended) a lifetime putting money into an account and then getting to the finish line when you have to carefully take it out. 

11 Budgeting Skills Everyone Should Master

6 Sneaky Ways You Cheat on Your Budget
I should probably up one or two categories in my budget.  I regularly overspend in those categories each month and pull from other categories to cover them.

6 Terrible Money Situations You Need to Stop Getting Yourself Into

8 Financial Wake Up Calls — And How to Deal With Them


Happy reading!
Pru

Everything is updated and the week ahead

So about a month later Pru finally gets around to updating all the pages..for June 2016...

As a recap, I transferred funds for my Rewire and G2H accounts in May 2016 (covering both May and June amounts).  This left one transfer to my 2nd Home account in June 2016.

I also invested a bit of money into my brokerage account.  I increased my usual monthly amount due to receiving a bonus in June.  I primarily bought 25 shares of Unilever, but also purchased 4 shares of my Global REIT ETF, 1 share each in my U.S. and international dividend ETFs and finally I invested $85 into my Energy mutual fund (netting 1.75 shares).

Today I made the July 2016 transfers to my Rewire ($55), G2H ($55) and 2nd Home ($210) accounts.

I have also placed a couple ETF and mutual fund purchase requests through Vanguard.  Those should hopefully close tomorrow.

My mortgage payment should clear on Monday as the check was sent last week.

All pages are updated as of today (links below).  Next weekend I will post about what I bought at Vanguard and final balances for July 2016.

Ultimate Goals

Brokerage Account Portfolio

Actual Investments & Savings

Have a good week!
Pru

Long overdue (housekeeping)

Finally...all Pages and balances on the site have been updated!  I opted to transfer the May and June amounts for the Rewire and G2H-FU savings accounts at the same time.  One less thing for me to think about this month.

I am definitely trying to get a head start on this month's financial activities.  I have been spending a couple of hours working on my budget and figuring out money spent and money to be spent.  It is so easy to get side tracked with day-to-day life but keeping an eye on the financial side is extremely important.  It is also super slow as my balances creep up due primarily to my deposits as opposed to outside forces.  (But at least the direction is up.)

I am off to set up a transfer to Vanguard so that this month's money will be put to good use sooner rather than later :-)

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Pru

Updates, Some changes, And new pages

Well the mortgage got paid (and overpaid!) this week.  But I still have some transfers left to do.  Those will be done next week to allow enough time to clear the bank accounts.

All of the Pages have been updated to reflect balances as of yesterday.  Sadly, all the investments have been taking a bit of a battering lately.  Think long-term Pru!

I have also added 2 new Pages:  Dividends & Capital Gains and Actual Savings & Investments.

I'd like to focus a bit on getting dividends - more for the idea of what they could represent in the future - actual income to pay my expenses.  (I don't want to get too crazy because as I've been reading in the paper, in bad times dividends get cut or eliminated.)  I have a money market settlement fund (need this for a brokerage account), and the cash in there generally is used up quickly by stock purchases.  While I do not expect to earn much on this account, I'm still counting it!  I earned $0.05 (5 whole cents!) in January.

Yesterday I also received $4 from Starbucks (I have 20 shares).  Honestly I didn't realize they paid in February.  (Most of the dividends received are in the calendar quarters so next month there will be lots of activity.)  I have all the stock/ETF/mutual fund dividends set to reinvest automatically since I don't need the income now.  But tracking it is fun (and important).  

That $4.05 would definitely buy me a large cup of plain coffee or tea.  Not a fancy cup of coffee but possibly a small cappuccino.  Or it would get me a bag of rice that would last for easily 10-15 meals.

What would it buy you?

Now a bit about my investing strategy.  Since on a monthly basis I'm investing small sums (well compared to some folks), I want to make sure that I feel somewhat "accomplished" with this investing.  And I want to be smart about the $7 fee I'm charged each time I make a stock trade.  

Decision has been made to buy in larger chunks to build up my current portfolio of stocks.  In 2016, I'd like to focus on building up my shares of Intel (INTC), Unilever (UL) and my dividend ETF (VYM).  Goal is to have 100 shares of INTC, 75 shares of UL and 50 shares of VYM by the end of the year.

This of course means that my portfolio will be heavily weighted towards those three but I'm OK with that since it should be a short-term issue.  In 2017, I'll build up the other stocks and that will help with the diversification.

Also, I am planning on making a speculative trade within the next month (probably).  I saw something that was trading very low ($3-5/share range).  I expect that it will remain low for some time because it's energy focused but it could significantly increase over the next 5-10 years.  I'd like to buy 100 shares for fun.  Yup fun - I know this money could be lost.  Stay tuned...

Pru

Housekeeping: Can you comment on this blog?

Someone noted to me that they were unable to comment on my blog.  I have another blog that is private and I've noticed that most of the comments I've gotten are from those who have access to that blog.  Hmmm...a bit of a conundrum since I didn't specify those individuals...  

I've played around with the comment settings and I'm hoping this issue is now fixed.

If one or two individuals who tried to comment before and couldn't, would attempt to leave a comment on this post, I'd be very grateful :-)

Thank you!
Pru