06/01
2012

May 2012 Net Worth – So close

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This month’s net worth may look grim, but in reality it is a shining beacon of hope.

What?  Back sliding?!

I know it seems that way but this is life with delayed billing.  My company is due to reimburse me for about $5000 of expenses and that doesn’t even include my compensation fees.  However, that check is not coming in until NEXT WEEK!  So we’ll just have to live with this negative net worth until next month, which I will be watching CLOSELY.  The goal was June 2012 and it looks like I am juuuuuust going to make it but it’s going to be close.

Technical Difficulties

Somehow, about 5 days ago, Mint told me my networth was -$12,000!  I was like wha- WHAT?!  For some reason it had duplicated two student loans, adding over $6,000 of debt to my account.  It’s a pretty easy fix in Mint, just contact customer service to remove the duplicates and then set them to Hide so they don’t show up in your calculations until the fix is done.  It just gave me a little fright as I was scanning through transactions wondering where that extra six grand went!  I was pretty sure it was a glitch but there’s always that little voice in your head that’s like, “Maaayybe it is real and I am not gonna make my goal and that would make me a sad sad puppy.”  But thank goodness that was not the case.

Asset Drop

My Cash Savings went way down but I think that’s mostly due to waiting for reimbursements and pay checks (plus a little over spending which we’ll see in the budget).  Real Estate went down too, surprise surprise.  The AC went out at the Rainbow House with a condenser leak and cost $700 to fix it.  $700!  Although I am still losing money every month on my real estate, I still only pay on average $380/mo on rent and I get houses, so yay.  Plus, all 8 rooms are FINALLY rented out again, so next month should look better.  Roth IRA drop is no surprise as it is summer and that historically always happens.  I did sell a lot of my stocks, but some of them I wanted to keep as an experiment.  We’ll see what happens!

Budgeting

This was a bad month for budgeting.  I went over $459!  All that now has to go into savings of course per my rule.  But let’s see what I went over on.

Went to a lot of movies this last month.  Avengers came out!!  Saw it twice!!  If you haven’t seen it, go!  It’s awesome.  Digressing, I spent $70 out of my $30 I have budgeted for movies.  Gotta cut back in June.
Eating.  Food is always a big problem for me.  I travel and eat out a lot and thusly go over my allotted budget most months for this.  But this month, I really outdid myself.  I spent $814 on Food and Dining when I was supposed to only spend $480.  Most of that was out at restaurants of course with groceries being the second offender.  While I went out on a lot of dates this month and I wanna blame it on that, you can hardly say that cost me over $300!  On the positive, I actually went UNDER BUDGET on Fast Food!  Yay healthy!
I spent $43 on Gifts instead of $25 but that’ll pay me back in Karma right?
I spent $95 over budget on Health and Fitness.  I registered for the Tough Mudder this coming fall which costs $135, but will be totally worth it!
And lastly, I went over on shopping by $62, mostly on travel books oddly enough.

All in all, it was a month ill-preparing me for June’s victory, but I believe a victory it shall still be!  Stay tuned!

03/05
2012

Bad Fifi, Bad!

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It seems I’ve been doing quite the poor job of sticking to my budget the past few months. I set my mint budget to rollover each month so I figured I’d eventually wash out a month of shopping with another month of saving. But that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening.  I just keep spending!  Over the past few months, I’m now over budget more than $1200!

While I like to keep a hefty safety net of cash in my bank account, I can’t go on like this and still grow my net worth.  So what to do about it?

Budgeting Woes

The reason my budget doesn’t bounce back is
1.) I do have my budget very conservative to encourage me to spend less.
2.) I see that huge deficit of hundreds of dollars and think, “I’m never gonna be able to get all that back!”  I get discouraged and give up.

So here are my solutions:
1.) Stopped the budgets from rolling over so I don’t get discouraged.  Plus I’ll be able to see exactly which categories give me problems each month.
2.) Instead of changing my budget to be more liberal, I’ve decided to punish myself in a fiscally responsible way.

From now on, each month, whatever total amount I go over budget, that much in cash is being split between my savings accounts.  This means I have an incentive to spend less because I wanna keep that money in my pocket, but if when I do go over, that money will still be with me in my savings.  It’s like playing blackjack at the casino.  Once I’ve doubled my money, I put that money in my pocket, so that all I can do is lose my earnings.  That way, I never leave the table in the hole.

06/01
2011

May Expenses

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The month of May improved my financial outlook greatly.  My Net Worth is on the rise, I netted $8,781 in income this month, and I’ve started 3 additional savings accounts.  However, this rise in Net can be misleading.  A few things happened this month that are anomalies.  I got over $5,00 in refunds from my escrow accounts.  I also added my car as an asset in my net worth and added the loan amount that goes with it.  That added about $9,000 to my net worth.

As a whole, I spent $15,034 last month.  Wow, I know.  Now let’s take out Real Estate and Work expenses.  That brings the total down to $2,674!  Holy bejeebas!  That’s great!

Here’s the pie chart for May:

dyerware.com

Food and Dining

Looks like my biggest expense is on food by far (other than student loans which I have no control over).  Let’s adjust that based on how much I worked and was given a stipend on.  I get $40 per work day for food and $20 per travel day.  I always try to only spend $20 per day to compensate for the pay cut we got last year.  The total reimbursed comes to $580, which means I personally only spent $57 on food.  That’s damn good!  Let’s do some additional comparison to previous months.

March April May
Restaurants $180 $213 $290
Fast Food $102 $72 $108
Groceries $60 $81 $123
Alcohol & Bars $55 $38 $35
Healthy Food $48 $21 $61
Coffee Shops $11 $28 $7
Total $456 $453 $637

Overall, I spent more on food this month, especially fast food.  I had a pretty awful schedule some weeks and there was no other food.  Food is always something I can cut down on.

How much did I save?

Since I worked 13 days this last month, I made gross $4,940 give or take.  Let’s take 29% out of that which is what my research into my paychecks shows me is taken out on avg.  And we’re left with $3,507.  Spending only $2674, and I’ve got $833 left over.  This is great because I’ve set up auto drafts into my 3 different savings accounts of $200 each, leaving a cushion of $233!  Yay, we’re into upward mobility.

Come to think of it $233 would more than cover the boat club membership… no No!  Can’t think like that.  Keep on saving, people!  Don’t be tempted by thinking you have “extra” money to spend.  Put that money to good use in a savings account.  I’m just thankful I’m able to save 15% of my net paycheck.  I want to work my way up to 30%!

The Real Numbers

Let’s see if the estimated value of how much I made aligns with the estimations above.  Removing all reimbursements, my total paychecks in May amounted to $7,099.  This means two things:

  1. It balances out the low paychecks I had in April and averages around $4,000 which is what is expected.
  2. My Net Worth will go down next month when I get paid less.  Oh well, I’ll bask in the light at the end of the tunnel while i can still see it.

Real Estate Break Down

So that’s all personal expenses.  My work expenses cancel themselves out, so let’s check out Real Estate and see how things are going there.  Made a lot in income this month because of the tax refunds, so let’s take those out and just include rent income only.  That totals $3,063 this month.  In expenses, we did relatively well, a total $2,044, however the payments were offset again on one of the mortgages, so we should include an additional $1340, which brings us to $3384. It seems Time Warner has raised its rates by $10/mo this year.  That’s $120/year.  I’ve disemboweled tele-marketers for less!  I’ll have to shop around a bit and see if I can get something lower.

In total, that’s a loss of $321 this month, which I can chalk up to cheap rent.  However, remember that $233 cushion?  Well now that’s an $88 loss.  So $600 in savings is still the max I can put to it right now.

Conclusion

Getting better and better at these breakdowns!  I now know where money is going and its getting easier to put information together.  This post only took me an hour and a half, instead of the usual eternity!

I expect my Net Worth to drop next month, but hopefully it will still be higher than last month’s.

Just keep saving, keep moving forward and don’t back track!   Really glad I didn’t go to Vegas for my birthday.  :)

05/19
2011

Making Goals v Systemic Savings

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Goals are very helpful in saving money because they give you something to work towards.  You have a set deadline and how much money you need by that deadline.  One simple calculation and you know exactly how much money you need to save every month to meet that goal.  For instance, I travel out of the country every year for usually a month to go backpacking.  Last year, money was getting tight, but I really wanted to go abroad in January.  My travel budget is always $1000/wk.  This includes airfare, lodging, food, activities, everything.  This budget makes sure I stay and travel cheap but still gives me plenty of spending money to, let’s say, go climb a mountain or bungee jump into a canyon, etc.  I was planning a 4 week trip, so I had to save up $4000!  But how to do this?

Mint.com was incredibly helpful.  I need to get them to pay me for as much as I talk about them.  They have a feature on there that will help you set a goal.  You assign an account to be the savings account for that goal, in this case it was my Chase Savings account, you tell them how much you need and by when.  From there, they’ll tell you how much you need to save every month AND they’ll help you budget out your spending every month to meet that goal!  It was incredibly helpful!  So helpful that it deserved repeating.  :)   I was able to save enough and go on my trip.

So that’s goal oriented saving, yay!  Its great for short term or slightly longer saving plans.  However, what happened to me when I got back?  Well, sure I’d saved a bunch of money, but now that money was all gone, having spent it on the trip.  (actually, I ended up spending $115 over budget, oops!)  That’s the problem with Goal Oriented Saving, just like the acronym, once you’ve saved it, it GOS.  Therefore, you always need a more systemic savings plan in place to work for you even when you’re not paying attention to it.  A Systemic Savings Plan, or SSP, hmmm that acronym does nothing for me except make me spit, can be many things.  One way is auto draft savings.

Auto Draft. This is money that is auto drafted from your checking account into your savings accounts automatically every month.  You can read more about the different kinds of savings accounts you should have here. This is a great way to do it because not only does it save FOR you, but you know exactly how much money is going into savings every month.  You can also adjust this amount based on your income.  You should try to save 15%-30% of your income.

Keep the Change. Another way is by using a credit or debit card which automatically throws the extra change you would get on a purchase into savings.  This is a good place to start if you really have no way of saving 15% of your paycheck.  However, don’t be fooled into thinking you’re saving bundles of cash.  Change does add up, but never by as much as your economically fantasizing mind wants to think.  Consider that huge jar of change you have in your kitchen or bedroom.  It is packed full of change, but how much is it really?  Ten dollars?  Twenty?  Like I said, a good place to start, but don’t depend on it.

Budget for Success. No Savings plan is complete without a budget.  This means you’re going to have to cut some things out.  Keep track of how much you’re spending AND how much you SHOULD be spending.  Find out where you can make cuts, and get that money flowing into savings instead.  You can check out some of my monthly budgets, but for your sake, I hope it’s not nearly as complex.  To be quite honest, I’m just getting around to really making a solid effort on budgeting so I’ll be covering it in much more detail in later posts.

Get a Financial Planner. This is where I’m at right now.  I am still learning everything I can and passing it on to you, but there is only so much time in the day.  I need someone to make my money work for me even when I can’t be paying attention to it.  I need someone who understands long term goals and systemic savings, so that I can prosper without worrying.  It’s the job of Financial Planners to do just that.  Now be careful who you hire to do this for you.  Don’t go hiring the first person you interview.  Yes, it’s an interview the first time you meet a FP.  You’re interviewing them for the job of managing your money.  Many FPs are more like stock brokers.  They will invest your money in the market, typically on stocks they will get a commission for.  You don’t want this.  It’s useful, but you want to be sure that they’re looking after YOUR interests first, not their own.  Be sure you get someone who understands the big picture.  Discuss with them where you want to be, when you want to retire, if you want to be rich or just comfortable, everything you want in your financial life.  It’s their job to look at the big picture and understand how you need to move forward to succeed.  More on this in future posts.

In conclusion, goals are great and help you to save to achieve a personal goal, but in order to achieve a financial goal, always have a budget in place and savings which happens FOR you.

05/05
2011

April Expenses

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Okay, I have a little better handle on how things are going now this month.  I’ve broken down the expenses in a way that’s easier to understand.  I tagged all of my work expenses as reimbursable in mint.com and split my paychecks into income and reimbursement, hiding all reimbursements and reimbursables.  Now I see only what I’m spending.  Here’s how the pie chart looks for the month of April.

dyerware.com

The total monthly expenses for April are $9,705.  If I adjust this chart to reflect what my typical monthly payments will be moving forward, I get this:

dyerware.com

The total monthly expenses for this chart are $5,949.

Why such a big difference?  In April, there were a few bills that were paid twice.  For instance, paid on the 1st and the 30th instead of the 1st of the next month.  There was also the huge $2,500 settlement deposit for the law suit that had to be paid in April.  I removed that from my typical monthly payments, then added the $500/month that I will owe for the next 10 months.  I also bit the bullet and canceled the boat club membership which will save me $215/mo.  The table below shows the break down in more detail.

Category Spending Adjustment
Home $4,086.63
($1,340.87) paid twice
Business Services $2,535.23
($2,500.00) deposit for settlement
$500 monthly settlement payment
Education $960.27
Bills & Utilities $702.50
Food & Dining $456.12
Auto & Transport $371.62
($158.61) paid twice
Entertainment $276.25
($215.42) canceled boat club
Other $125.27
$118.66
$32.74
$21.99
$18.00
Total $5,990.38

So we’re still spending about $5,950/month.  I finally have all rooms filled in the houses (woot!)  so I’m only losing about $500/mo on them which I can write off as rent I pay.  If I remove those costs, I get a number around $2,800/mo which unfortunately feels normal.  Which means there’s not a whole lot of room for improvement.  So where’s all my money going?

Food and Dining – I spent $456 last month on food.  Seems like a lot, but my company reimburses $20/day on food.  I worked 12 days in April, so they paid $240, leaving $216 that I spent on other days.  If I average that out over the rest of the days in the month, i spend about $12/day or $84/wk on food including groceries and eating out.  I’m actually doing pretty well in this category considering the avg person in my city spends about $34/day on food.

March April
Restaurants $180 $213
Fast Food $102 $72
Groceries $60 $81
Alcohol & Bars $55 $38
Healthy Food $48 $21
Coffee Shops $11 $28
Total $456 $453

In fact, even though I spent more on groceries and restaurants this month, I actually spent about the same overall.  So I think I’ve cut down as much as I can on eating costs.

How much do I make?

I work on average, 10 days/month.  I know it doesn’t sound like a lot, but you try traveling constantly every week and you’ll want a week at home too!  Besides, the goal is not to get MORE money, it’s to SAVE more money.  I make about $380 per diem, so ten days would be $3,800.  It used to be $4000, but because of the recession, we got a pay cut.

This is not good, I’m only making $3,800/mo and spending $2,800!  We know from looking at my paycheck that about 37.5% of my gross is gone through taxes, dental, and medical, leaving only $2,375 left!  So I’m going in the hole $425 every month.  How did this happen?!  I used to be sitting pretty, up on my high horse, taking trips, buying shit and not caring.  Now my monthly cashflow is in the red?

Let’s check out the actual income for April.

Category Income
Tax Refund $7,342
Rental Income $3,480.53
Paycheck $1,782.30
Interest Income $0.07
Total $12,604.90

Now, obviously this is a little skewed because I got my tax refund: a nice whopping check, all of which is going towards the stupid law suit.  I WISH I made $12,000/mo!  In actuality, I make about $5,262.90 a month.  Now remember, the Real Estate pretty much cancels out due to all the costs, and my actual paycheck this last month only brought in $1,782.30!  That’s awful!  I also need to find a higher interest yielding savings account.

According to Mint and including everything, I made a profit last month of only $1039.  That’s INCLUDING the $7000 tax refund!  Yikes!

Conclusion

I am not doing well AT ALL.  I need to seek help from a Financial Planner.  I don’t know how I got in this place, but I definitely need help getting out! :(

04/27
2011

Monthly Spending Report

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Creating this post was very depressing.  I spend SOOOO much money each month, it is not even funny anymore.  Between the mortgages, the student loans, other activities, not to mention all my work expenses, it really adds up.  I use mint.com to keep it all sort of straight, but work makes it kind of difficult.  You’ll notice the huge Travel section of the graph below.

dyerware.com

That huge Travel category is all for work.  I get reimbursed for that so let’s take it out of the pie.  Here’s the same data just with the Travel section removed.

dyerware.com
Category Spending
Total $11,971.02
Travel $5,088.18
Home $3,009.44
Bills & Utilities $1,210.03
Education $930.32
Food & Dining $459.19
Auto & Transport $384.21
Entertainment $294.29
Business Services $266.88
Other $152.05
Shopping $87.21
Health & Fitness $54.00
Personal Care $29.95
Gifts & Donations $5.26

Yes, that’s right almost $12,000 a month!  Even if I remove the $5000 from work, it’s still $6,882.91!  I need to trim this down in a major way.  Let’s break these numbers down

Home – not a lot I can do here.  It’s made up of necessary mortgage payments, house repairs and maintenance.  You can see a further break down of mortgage and escrow accounts here. I’m looking into cheaper home insurance.

Bills and Utilities – $1,210.03 seems like a lot for utilities doesn’t it?  Let’s delve deeper.
-$291 on Mobile phone, this is because two months went on one month: 194.92 and 96.99.  Granted 194 is way too much for a cell phone and I need to reduce that, so that’s going on the todo list.
-$910.63 for home utilities (water, elec, trash).  This is once again two months in one for two houses.  Rainbow: 242.20, 242.20  Muffin: 233.98, 192.25.  So let’s half that amount and adjust it to $455.

Education – Unfortunately, this is straight up student loans, all $930.32 of it.  Does anyone know if Obama is relieving me of that??

Food and Dining – this is kind of interesting, here’s the break down:

Restaurants $180.15
Fast Food $102.45
Groceries $60.23
Alcohol & Bars $55.75
Healthy Food $48.76
Coffee Shops $11.85

As you can see, I eat out a lot, more fast food then I’d like to admit.  In total, I eat out $399 each month.  I wish I could say I can knock that down, but with as much as I travel, i really can’t.

Auto – $384.21

Gas & Fuel $215.60
Auto Payment $158.61
Parking $10.00

That’s a lot of gas.  A good chunk of it is from work, driving rental cars.  I’ve tagged in mint which ones are reimbursable and which ones aren’t but unfortunately, it’s not as easy as I would like to show it in a table.

Entertainment – $294.29

Boat $215.42
Entertainment (Other) $45.00
Movies & DVDs $19.81
Amusement $14.06

Most of this is spent on the Boat club.  Yes, I’m a part of a boat club, I like wakeboarding, but it looks like that might have to go.  I’ll see if I can get out of the contract.

Business Services – these are costs of copies or faxes or other like services which I’ve needed for personal business or my day job.  It’s either reimbursable or a tax write off so I won’t worry too much about it.

Shopping – books, sporting goods, electronics.  Not gonna worry too much about this small chunk either.

Other – What the heck is other?  That’s uncategorized things, let’s see what it brings up

3/29/2011 a bar 50.97
3/29/2011 a bar 14.25
3/28/2011 OUTTAKES NORTH 9.41
3/20/2011 Ck CK5191OAKLAND 10079499 5.57
3/11/2011 Ck CK5191OAKLAND 10079499 19.85

Looks like two of those charges were for a bar, so I’ll just re-categorize them.  The others, I’m not sure where they’re from.  I have no idea what Outtakes North is and I’ve actually been getting a few charges on CK… over the past few months, I should call the bank and figure this out.  See, this is why I have to do this.

Conclusion

I obviously spend way too much money every month.  I need to cut it down significantly.  I can take $600 off right now by removing the double utilities and canceling the boat club (hopefully).  That’s still over $6000/mo for one person.  Oh, the mistakes of the past.  Redemption, come to me quickly.  I’ll keep you posted.