Archives for December 2004

Monthly Goal due 12/31: Asset Allocation

December 17, 2004 By Jonathan Ping Leave a Comment
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Whew, I am glad this week is over. And I just lost my whole entry just now, so here goes retyping it: As in work, it’s good to have a target to work towards. First, I will assign myself short-term monthly goals, due at the end of each month. Since my initial goal this month was to start this blog (done already on 12/6), my new goal will be to decide on an asset allocation strategy for my non-retirement and retirement dough. Here is my current asset allocation for my 401k:

That is, the breakdown between different asset-types is 40% Large-Cap stocks, 20% Mid-Cap stocks, 20% International Stocks, and 20% Bonds. This breakdown was based loosely on a bunch of different websites such as MSN MoneyCentral, CNN Money, and SmartMoney, but I think I can do more research and get a more solid answer.

Filed Under: Goals
Last updated: August 4, 2006
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

E-Trade lost a customer today…

December 15, 2004 By Jonathan Ping 5 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Me. I bought some Enron stock a bit after the crash, thinking it might go up again in the future (wrong.), but now it seems to be completely cancelled, as it is no longer even listed in the pink sheets. However, according to an article I found, it may simply be converted to some other type of equity share. I am curious about this because if indeed it is worthless, I can use it as a short-term loss to offset some short-term gains I have accrued this year. So I tried to ask E-Trade.

1st call: Estimated wait time according to the bot: Infinity. They told me to call back later and hung up on me!
2nd call: Est. wait time: 10 minutes. I waited for 20 and gave up.
3rd call. Est. wait time: 30 minutes. %^#$%^#$(&!!!

I finally tried e-mailing them. A week has passed and… nothing. Not even a “I dunno” or other canned response. If any stock-savvy people out there can help me out that would be great. Either way, I’m transferring my old IRAs to Vanguard to join my 2004/2005 contributions. See ya E-Trade.

Filed Under: Investing
Last updated: August 9, 2018
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Book Review: A Random Walk Down Wall Street

December 14, 2004 By Jonathan Ping 15 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

randomwalk2018I just finished up A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel. This book became famous in 1973 for suggesting that a bunch of monkeys throwing darts at the Wall Street Journal could beat out most professional managers. And that theme, supported by a lot of statistics spit out by a lot of grad students, endures today. As the Amazon editorial review puts it succintly:

Malkiel advises investors to “buy and hold” a diversified portfolio heavy on index funds that passively mirror the market, which usually out-perform actively managed funds.

It also contains history about the stock market, and a straightforward discussion of common terms like “P/E” and “Beta” and “EMA”. Overall, I found the book very enjoyable and an easy read, and I can see how transaction costs in actively managed funds eat into the final return. Low expenses are key. The final part is what “diversified” means, as in asset allocation. The book does give the following suggestion for people in their mid-20s:

65% Stocks / 20% Bonds / 10% Real Estate / 5% Cash

This book is a great primer on investing overall and also gives some useful pointers on bulding your own portfolio.

Filed Under: Book Reviews
Last updated: April 2, 2018
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Which Broker for my Roth IRA?

December 13, 2004 By Jonathan Ping 23 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

I have decided upon Vanguard for my Roth IRA Brokerage. My decision was based upon the following:
1) I want to invest solely in mutual funds, specifically index mutual funds.
2) I want a large selection of no-transaction fee, no-load mutual funds with very low expense ratios.
3) I want minimal fees, especially tricky or hidden ones, from the brokerage.
4) I want it online, with a good web interface.

These points narrowed it down to:
a) Fidelity, a mutual fund behemoth which has a nice selection of in-house funds with expense ratios as low as 0.10%. However, the minimums for those funds are $10,000 each. It also has a great web interface, as I use it for my 401k account.
b) Vanguard, which was a leader in the index fund movement and has an enormous selction, with very low expense ratios. I have no idea what the web interface is like, however.
c) Scottrade, a smaller company which currently has no transaction fees for ANY of it’s mutual funds. However, I have heard through the grapevine that it may start charging soon, as they are currently losing money on each transaction doing this. (Update: They now charge for no-load mutual fund transactions)
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Retirement
Last updated: April 1, 2015
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Where to park my money for the next couple of years…

December 12, 2004 By Jonathan Ping Leave a Comment
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

As you may have noticed, my portfolio is defintely cash-heavy. There are two mains reasons for this:
1) I am currently renting and am saving up for a downpayment for a house in the next 2-3 years, and would like to keep the money somewhat liquid.
2) I don’t know that to do with it. I don’t want to be investing in the current trendy idea, and have it bomb right before I find the perfect house. Still…

…earning 2% interest is not going to help my downpayment money grow. I heard you can withdraw money from a Roth IRA to pay for your first home, but after doing some research, I found out that you must wait five years first. I’d like to think I’d be owning my own house by then… However, putting money into a Roth isn’t a bad idea anyways. So, I have decided to fund a Roth IRA. I can put in $3,000 for 2004 and $4,000 for 2005 for both my wife and myself each, as we satisfy the income restrictions this year and the next. Either it stays in there as a great retirement vehicle, or I can pull it out to pay for a house.

Next step: Which brokerage firm to use, and where to allocate my assets – stocks/bonds/REITs/pork futures?

Filed Under: Retirement
Last updated: May 30, 2020
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Site tinkering, courtesy of Elise

December 9, 2004 By Jonathan Ping Leave a Comment
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Just a quick shout out to the Learning Movable Type Blog, which is just awesome. It’s a simple, well-organized, guide to messing with Movable Type a snippet at a time. I’ve changed various link placements and the background and font colors to something a bit more unique than the program defaults. LMT is nice for someone who wants to learn MT ten minutes at a time…

Filed Under: General
Last updated: August 12, 2020
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

December 2004 Financial Status

December 9, 2004 By Jonathan Ping 5 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Ok, my planned “grand opening” for this site is January 1, 2005, since 1/1/05 looked like a nice number, and I just don’t have time to make things nice-lookin’ right now.

But I did want to make a quick snapshot of my current status for historical purposes:

Assets: *= pre-tax
———–
Cash Savings: $54,983
Brokerage (non-retirement) $ 7,808
Roth IRA: $ 2,001
Traditional IRA*: $ 5,383
401k*: $11,000
529: $ 1,097
———————————————
Total: $82,272

Liabilities
————–
Credit Cards: $26,522

Net Worth: $55,750

Don’t worry, most of my credit card debt is in 0% APR accounts, or I pay off the balance every month. More on that later…

Filed Under: Goals
Last updated: August 23, 2006
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Yodlee – Keeping track your net worth (and passwords)

December 8, 2004 By Jonathan Ping 23 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Now that I have a rough goal to achieve of $1,500,000, I need a way to chart my progress. My favorite tool for this is Yodlee OnCenter. It is a site that aggregates all of your logins and passwords for different accounts, such as bank accounts, brokerage, 401ks, loans, and credit cards. It even keeps up with all your frequent flyer miles and various other points. It can tally up all your assets, subtract all your liablities, and show you your net worth on a daily basis. Try it out, it’s well organized, free, and I use it every day!
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Tools & Calculators
Last updated: September 28, 2011
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

What is financial freedom?

December 7, 2004 By Jonathan Ping 2 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Ok, so my plan for this blog is to keep track of my steps towards financial freedom. I am still working on what constitutes “financial freedom”. Right now I’m looking at a sum of money, such that I can live off of the earnings without touching the principal. One of the inspirations for this site, PFBlog.com, has chosen a goal of $1,000,000 by age 40. After reading an article at MSN Money, getting a solid number sounds complicated.

Still, let’s try some super-simplified calculations. Let say you want $60,000 a year after retirement, ignoring what you get from Social Security and pensions (a term that will probably go with the dinosaurs). A fair rate for return is 4%, with fixed income-type securities. So that leaves you with needing $1,500,000. Sounds like a crapload of money, huh? Well, hopefully not, but that’s another entry.

Filed Under: General
Last updated: October 7, 2012
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Hello World!

December 6, 2004 By Jonathan Ping 3 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Whew! I finally installed Movable Type. Now to get some sleep…

(My first post! December 6th, 2004.)

Filed Under: General
Last updated: August 23, 2006
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

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