Archive for July, 2005
Monday, July 18th, 2005
It seems like every tenth house we see in our neighborhood is going up for sale these days, with the “Sale Pending” sign up within a week afterwards. But in reading this month’s issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, I read an opinion that closely reflects my own future predictions (not that I’m Miss Cleo or anything). Economist Mark Zandi describes a scenario that mortgage rates will rise by 1 to 1.5 points of the next year, and that home prices will flatten but not fall. However, due to the large amount of interest-only and adjustable-rate mortgages out there, and “…in 2006 and early 2007, we’ll be in the middle of a massive loan adjustment.” Thus, there will be a high number of foreclosures and delinquencies, with bargains to be found.
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Posted in Real Estate | 4 Comments »
Sunday, July 17th, 2005
As I mentioned in my latest Net Worth update, my savings and free money borrowed at 0% interest are earning 3.75% APY now, thanks to a recent uptick in the Presidential Bank Premier Savings Account (mentioned previously). In addition, the money in my checking account there (Presidential Bank Checking Review) is now earning 3.5% APY. This is good news for people like me who are saving up for a downpayment in the future and not trying to get a low low mortgage rate right now. At 3.75%, my current cash holdings of $58,000 would earn $2,175 a year. Not bad, hopefully inflation will stay at bay as well.
Posted in Banking | 7 Comments »
Saturday, July 16th, 2005
Ok, so we’ve been carefully tracking and categorizing our spending transactions in Microsoft Money 2005 for the last 3 months, and I’ve collated the information into this chart:
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Posted in Budgeting | 1 Comment »
Saturday, July 16th, 2005
I’m not doing the buy vs. rent analysis because my wife and I simply aren’t going to buy a house and try to sell it again in two years. We already know the analysis mainly hinges on expected real estate appreciation, and we ain’t psychic, so we are just going to take what comes for now. No word on if we have to move yet.
Posted in Real Estate | 2 Comments »
Thursday, July 14th, 2005
Ok, a day late per my weekly to-do list, not too bad. Now, I know there are a billion eBay
tips out there, but here are the ones I always tell my friends when they ask me about eBay. (In a previous life, I was a eBay Powerseller.)
1) Don’t dawdle. Just list it. - The most common mistake I see people make is put off listing their items for sale, whether locally or on eBay. I’m guilty of this myself. Unless you are listing antiques, your stuff is losing value by the second, especially electronics like laptops and other gadgetry. I’m selling an old laptop this week that I haven’t used in over a year, and it’s probably lost over $300+ in value already. Set yourself a deadline, and just list it, even if you don’t get the perfect listing time, description, or picture.
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Posted in eBay | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, July 13th, 2005
The more I gather the things I want to sell on eBay, the more things pop up. I made this list to help me brainstorm items, and have been adding to it continuously. I’d be open to more! =)
Old Clothes, Handbags, Shoes
VHS Tapes, DVDs
Music CDs, Tapes
Electronics including cameras, printers, printer ink cartridges, cell phones, laptops, disk drives, zip disks, cables, (I’ve got a ton of these)
Antiques? (I’ve got none of these)
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Posted in eBay | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, July 12th, 2005
I’m still in the midst of listing everything I need to sell on eBay… man it’s a lot of stuff I’ve been hoarding. I’ve decided to share my eBay selling template - it’s nothing spectacular, just something I whipped up in Microsoft Excel to help organize and automate selling a large number of items. Hopefully others can find it useful. You can download it here - MyMoneyBlog_EbayTemplate.xls. Here’s a screenshot (click to enlarge) and some instructions:
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Posted in eBay | 13 Comments »
Monday, July 11th, 2005
I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about credit cards and all, but in doing my due diligence for my Discover 0% For Life credit card offer, I learned something new to look out for - two-cycle billing. (Coincidentally, I wake up to the a comment mentioning it). I guess I never heard of this becuase I never carry a balance that isn’t at 0% APR. Also, most credit card companies don’t use it. Two biggies that do are BankOne (now Chase) and Discover. What is two-cycle billing?
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Posted in Credit Cards | 3 Comments »
Saturday, July 9th, 2005
I just got this in my ING Direct BrightSpots monthly e-mail newsletter:
“Sprint is offering a 16% discount on select PCS Services to all ING DIRECT Customers. Go to ingdirect.com/sprint to learn more. And if you’re already a Sprint customer, just dial #ING on your Sprint phone to reach a helpful ING DIRECT Associate from the hours of 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. We’re happy to work with Sprint and to offer you one more way to help you Save Your Money?.”
Nice! My brother uses Sprint PCS, I gotta send this to him. For example, if you pay $40 per month now, it’ll just be $33.60! That’ll save you $6.40 a month, or $76.80 a year. Wow, it pays to read those newsletters sometimes!
If you don’t have an ING Direct account, see this previous post for more information. You can also get $25 for signing up.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 9 Comments »
Saturday, July 9th, 2005
Ok, now that I am unemployed, to help me focus here are the money-related things I want to do this week, with due dates.
Tomorrow - Post Monthly Financial Status
Monday - List everything I need to put on eBay to sell
Tuesday - Post my eBay tips, do eBay research
Wednesday - Do a quick rent vs. buy home analysis for market area
Thursday - Collect spending data from last 3 months in MS Money
Friday - Analyze data to help refine monthly budget
Saturday - Take pictures of items, make descriptions, list items
Posted in General | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 7th, 2005
I’ve been putting off reading Automatic Millionaire by David Bach, mainly because I wouldn’t have gotten it unless it was free since it struck me as a pretty simplified investment book. I wasn’t wrong. It’s pretty fluffy. That isn’t to say it’s not right for anyone, I just don’t think I was the target audience.
The basic premise is as I predicted: Pay yourself first (say, 10%), automatically. Do this via automatic payroll deductions for 401ks, IRAs, or regular taxable savings account, before you even get your paycheck. The idea is that you won’t be able to spend what you don’t get, and it’s too much trouble (or you’re too lazy) to write a check or make a transfer every month to a savings account. Okay. Fine. This is probably true for many people. So how is this book 200+ pages long?
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Posted in Book Reviews | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, July 6th, 2005
So apparently it wasn’t a false alarm, the appraisal our landlord got was to help them sell the place. But “maybe not until next summer”… uh-huh… Remodellers and real estate brokers coming by this week…
Should we try to make an offer? With only one income? Or move again? My head hurts.
Posted in Real Estate | 9 Comments »
Saturday, July 2nd, 2005
Hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend - my sister came into town to visit, and usually this is a time when spending increases - eating out, visiting touristy spots, buying souvenirs, etc. But instead, we bought our first little grill and are eating outside all weekend! The grill set us back about $25, but we’d spend that much even on a single fast food meal for us. We’ve got cedar plank griled salmon, beer-marinated brats, and steaks wrapped with bacon on the menu, all at prices much less than any comparable restaurant. And to be patriotic, it’s Bud Light all the way. Careful with those fireworks!
Posted in Frugal Living | 4 Comments »
Friday, July 1st, 2005
Sorry for the lack of updates, I’m behind on e-mails, internet reading, and deleting all this darn trackback spam. It’s like when you put in your two weeks notice, they want to cram as much work in as possible in that time, finishing up current projects, passing off other projects to others, training other workers to do those projects, and so on. Don’t worry, I’ve got lots of ideas floating around in my head about things to do with my money, to save money, to make more money, etc.
Anyways, I just wanted to document this goal: I’ve been using Money 2005 to track our spending for the last few months, so I need to mine that data and do a budget analysis of what we spend vs. what we will soon be making on one income, and see how the outlook is.
Posted in Goals | No Comments »
