New 2 The Rat Race

January goal MISSED

2009-01-30T09:01:00.000-08:00

End of January total: $28,908

I was short on the end January goal ($29,106) by $198.

Last 2 weeks of saving didn't do me justice because I exceeded the mid January goal by $118.

That means I went over budget the last 2 weeks by over $300. This makes sense because I went to Reno for a bachelor party and Ski/Snowboarded for 2 days AND I also bought a new prime lens for my Nikon d40x.

New goals for February:

2009 MID February goal: $29,708
2009 END February goal: $30,508

Mid January Goal REACHED

2009-01-16T11:29:00.000-08:00

2009 MID January goal: $28,306

GOAL met with $28,424

2008 Q4 Financial Update

2009-01-05T08:43:00.000-08:00

Assets	Value	Vs. Last Quarter	Change
Cash Savings	$27,506	$21,000	$6,506
Brokerage	$5,672	$3,000	$2,672
401k (Prev Company)	$1,198	$1,417	($219)
401k (Current Company)	$5,776	$5,552	$224
Car (KBB Trade-in)	$18,075	$20,350	($2,275)
Total Assets	$58,227	$51,319	$6,908
Liabilities
Credit Card	$0
Total Liabilities	$0
Net Worth	$58,227	$51,319	$6,908

Without car value:

Net Worth

$40,152

$30,969

$9,183

for KBB value, I do trade-in and "Good" condition, even tho the car is in excellent.
I want to start keeping track of Net Worth without the car value to evaluate my budget more efficiently, since I have no control of the depreciation of my car.

my previous post stated my goal of, "I should try to start saving $1600 a month (assuming theres only 2 paychecks and not 3). My new realistic goal is $800 per paycheck, which should be very possible. I need to stop spending money on golf! So bottom line: SAVE $4800 PER QUARTER."

This is still my goal. I am going to try to keep track biweekly to micromanage it a little more efficiently. I will be saving $800 every 2 weeks as mentioned before.

ESPP earned me $6100, so excluding that, I saved ~$3100. $1700 short of what I had wanted. I have been buying multiple flights to see my gf in Norcal. Applied for business school and paid a $500 on ASU W.P. Carey School of Business. $250 on the GMATs. $350+ on Application fees and transcripts. Christmas presents...etc etc. This quarter was costy.

2009 Q1 CASH GOAL: $27,506 + $4800 = $32,306

Goal by July 1st 2009

2008-12-08T10:29:00.000-08:00

+18k

50k

2008 Q3 Financial Update

2008-10-02T14:40:00.000-07:00

Assets	Value	Vs. Last Quarter	Change
Cash Savings	$21,000	$20,353	$647
Brokerage	$3,000	$4,433	($1,433)
401k (Prev Company)	$1,417	$1,560	($143)
401k (Current Company)	$5,552	$5,174	$378
Car (KBB Trade-in)	$20,350	$20,600	($250)
Total Assets	$51,319	$52,120	($801)
Liabilities
Credit Card	$0
Total Liabilities	$0
Net Worth	$51,319	$52,120	($801)

Well I was short on the Q3 Goal of
Cash Savings $25,153

by $4,153

$2000 extra went to the asia trip and about $1700 for auto insurance (its still high from the Jeep incident) and $300 for DMV fees.

I still need to save $4800 PER QUARTER.

NEW Q4 Cash Savings Goal: $25,800 (stretch for $26,000)

this goal excludes ESPP gains.

Don't be this guy

2008-08-14T11:22:00.000-07:00

10 Most Popular Computer Science Degree Jobs

2008-08-13T14:36:00.001-07:00

Popular Computer Science Degree Jobs

Methodology
Jobs ranked by popularity among graduates. Annual pay for Bachelors graduates without higher degrees from all colleges. See full methodology for more.

2008 Q2 Financial Update

2008-07-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

Assets	Value	Vs. Last Quarter	Change
Cash Savings	$20,353	$17,700	$2,653
Brokerage	$4,433	$4,054	$379
401k (Prev Company)	$1,560	$1,595.12	($35.12)
401k (Current Company)	$5,174	$4,457.42	$716.58
Car (KBB Trade-in)	$20,600	$22,400	($1,800)
Total Assets	$52,120	$50,206.54	$1,913.46
Liabilities
Credit Card	$0	$6,000 (Car debt)	($6,000)
Total Liabilities	$0	$6,000 (Car debt)	($6,000)
Net Worth	$52,120	$44,206.54	$7,913.46

I got $5,774.80 from ESPP in April and finished paying off the $6,000 car debt to be debt free. Just spent $2,211.20 last month for a vacation in Asia during the end of August. I have earned about $2600 in net cash in the past 3 months. Including the money for Asia, it would have been about $4800. Trying to save around $1800 a month for 3 months would have been $5400. So I was off by $600. I think realistically, I should try to start saving $1600 a month (assuming theres only 2 paychecks and not 3). My new realistic goal is $800 per paycheck, which should be very possible. I need to stop spending money on golf! So bottom line: SAVE $4800 PER QUARTER.

Stretch for $5000 per quarter!

Q3 Goal:
Cash Savings: $25,153
Q4 Goal:
Cash Savings: $29,953

2008 Q1 Financial Update

2008-04-09T19:38:00.001-07:00

paid taxes
US:$1,196.00
State:$241.00

Total: $1437

bought plane ticket to vegas for around $80
bought roundtrip flight to Davis for engineering graduation for $140

2007 Q4 Financial Update

2008-01-31T20:25:00.001-08:00

ESPP shares came in this quarter. Purchased 281 shares of company stock at $18.40. Actual amount paid was 85% of $18.40, which is $15.64. This is the main reason net worth shot up so high.

Retirement Age VS. Life Expectancy

2007-10-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

This is a very interesting chart on the age at which you retire versus your life expectancy after retirement. The trend generally is showing that the earlier you retire, the longer your life expectancy is. I guess my ultimate goal would be an early retirement, but who's isn't? Retiring at 66 and dying at 67 seems very sad at the fact that you've worked your entire life...only to retire and enjoy yourself for 1 year until your time is up.

Age at Retirement	Average Age At Death
49.9	86
51.2	85.3
52.5	84.6
53.8	83.9
55.1	83.2
56.4	82.5
57.2	81.4
58.3	80
59.2	78.5
60.1	76.8
61	74.5
62.1	71.8
63.1	69.3
64.1	67.9
65.2	66.8

*source from Dr. Ephrem (Siao Chung) Cheng

Did you know? [Mind-numbing VIDEO]

2007-10-18T15:39:00.000-07:00

Eye opening...

Q3 Financial Update

2007-10-17T20:01:00.000-07:00

Got a 4.5% raise this year. Spent $2k on car insurance during this quarter. Bought about $3k worth of AAPL shares and $2k worth of EMC shares.

First $1 Million is Toughest

2007-08-29T16:27:00.000-07:00

Interesting charts from here.

To go from $0 to $1 million:

Monthly Contribution	8% Return	9% Return	10% Return	11% Return
$100	52.9 years	48.3 years	44.5 years	41.4 years
$250	41.6	38.3	35.5	33.1
$500	33.4	30.9	28.8	27.0
$1,000	25.5	23.9	22.4	21.2
$1,291.66	22.8	21.4	20.2	19.1

To go from $1 million to $2 million:

Monthly Contribution	8% Return	9% Return	10% Return	11% Return
$100	8.6 years	7.7 years	6.9 years	6.3 years
$250	8.5	7.5	6.8	6.2
$500	8.2	7.4	6.7	6.1
$1,000	7.8	7.1	6.4	5.9
$1,291.66	7.6	6.9	6.3	5.7

To go from $2 million to $3 million:

Monthly Contribution	8% Return	9% Return	10% Return	11% Return
$100	5.1 years	4.5 years	4.1 years	3.7 years
$250	5.0	4.5	4.0	3.7
$500	4.9	4.4	4.0	3.6
$1,000	4.8	4.3	3.9	3.5
$1,291.66	4.7	4.2	3.8	3.5

Q2 Financial Update

2007-07-03T11:28:00.000-07:00

This quarter I was behind on my goal for cash savings. I'm a little disappointed in that aspect, but I also did have a lot of unexpected expenses. In the past 3 months, I got a speeding ticket, bought plane tickets to Hawaii, and purchased a new Core 2 Duo computer from Dell. My old computer stopped working, so I had to purchase a new computer. After seeing a deal on FatWallet, I bought it for $389 from Dell (no monitor). The computer also came with a 10/100 Ethernet card instead of the 10/100/1000, so Dell refunded me a little over $20. I sold my old computer parts that were salvageable for about $120, so my computer expenses were $249. I've also been getting less money because of the ESPP (employee stock purchase plan), but I will see it all back plus a little more every 6 months when the stocks are purchased at a discount. The stock market has been doing very well in the past couple months. I am thinking of investing another $2000 into stocks, since my savings has enough for emergency purposes (growing at 5%APY). I've been paying off my car consistently every month and hope to have it completely payed off by the middle of next year. The car is a depreciating asset and like all depreciating assets, it has lost over $4000 in value over the past 3 months.

My goals for next quarter will be more reasonable and I hope to meet them.

Bank of (Insert Your Name Here)

2007-06-05T09:42:00.000-07:00

Imagine being able to have your own bank per se. Lending money out to others at an interest rate based on their credit. Being able to see everyones credit score and having them bid on being able to borrow your money. The person willing to pay the highest interest and at least a sub-par credit score winning the bid to borrow your money. Well it can happen and its been implemented at http://www.Prosper.com

Here is the FAQ.

The most important question to this probably is:

Are lenders' deposits insured?

According to Prosper.com,

"Prosper is not directly insured by the FDIC, but lenders' deposits are covered up to $100,000 by FDIC pass-through insurance provided by our banking partner, Wells Fargo Bank."

Well check it out. I thought it was a cool new concept.

My Rank Based On Age and Income

2007-05-02T09:29:00.000-07:00

I filled this out to see how I compare to others at my age or with my income from CNNMoney.

http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/networth_ageincome/index.html

For age, I fall into the < 25 bracket.

For income, I fall into the $50k-$75k bracket.

I guess according to my age, I'm doing pretty well. However, according to my income, I'm really far behind. Wow...such a huge difference between the results from Age vs. the results from Income.

The 8-Hour Workday Divided Up

2007-04-09T12:59:00.000-07:00

I thought it was interesting that in the 8 hours that we work in one day...more of it goes to taxes than anything else.

The following was taken directly from CNNMoney:

The Tax Foundation also compares the time Americans work to pay taxes with the time we work to pay for life's other expenses.

Based on an 8-hour workday, the research group estimates that Americans as a whole work:

1 hour 43 minutes to pay all federal taxes (income, sales, etc.)
1 hour 22 minutes to pay for housing and household operations
1 hour 8 minutes to pay for health and medical care
52 minutes to pay all state and local taxes (income, sales, etc.)
51 minutes to pay "other" taxes
40 minutes to pay for food
39 minutes to pay for transportation
28 minutes to pay for recreation
17 minutes to pay for clothing

K.I.S.S.

2007-03-31T12:40:00.000-07:00

When it comes it comes to most things...especially finance, I like to follow the saying:

Keep It Simple, Stupid (aka Keep It Sweet and Simple).

With banking, that is why I chose Wamu over other online savings accounts that have higher APYs. I simply don't want to have multiple savings accounts linked together. One account with a good APY is sufficient for my needs. For my company 401k, I have maxed out the free money that the company matches and have it all going towards a target date retirement fund. This allows me to not have to worry about adjusting my portfolio as I get older. It sets most of my money going towards stocks right now and gradually adjusts it for me. It doesn't get any simpler than that. I don't like to complicate things. I've noticed a lot of money maestros like to take advantage of the 0% APR balance transfers from their credit cards to make money off interest. If you have more time to do that and are good at managing more bills, then more power to you.

When it comes to money, you don't have to be a financial guru to be smart. Investing can be simple and the earlier you start, the bigger difference it can make. Use compound interest towards your advantage!

Here is a good example that was from CNNMoney (link to article):

"To put the power of compounding on your side, you have to start early. Suppose there are two siblings who both invest in Individual Retirement Accounts earning 8 percent a year.

The sister starts at age 20, and for the next 10 years she stuffs $3,000 a year into her IRA. At age 30, though, she stops and never adds another penny.

Her brother waits until age 30 to get started, but then dutifully salts away $3,000 a year for the rest of his life. Which sibling do you think will be better off?

In this case, the early bird will always be ahead. The sister reaches age 65 with over $642,000, while her brother will have a little under $518,000 - about 20 percent less."

Switching Banks

2007-03-30T18:12:00.000-07:00

I just took advantage of the 5.00% APY savings account and free checking deal from Washington Mutual. I've had Wells Fargo ever since I was a kid and now that I'm working, I've decided to stash my cash/emergency fund in a savings with higher interest.

The main thing I like about Wamu is that I can just go to my local branch if need be. HSBC has a great deal going on too, but I haven't seen any branches where I live. Linking your current savings to an online savings could work too, but again, I like the convenience of seeing a teller.

About Me

2007-03-29T22:59:00.000-07:00

This website is just another financial blog started by someone new to the rat race with a different purpose. However, like most, I am still in the midst of figuring out my end goal. I'm fresh out of college with a little over 1 year of experience as a software engineer. I enjoy reading other financial blogs and keeping up with the latest and greatest, but I am definitely no financial guru. Websites like www.woot.com and money.cnn.com are just a couple examples of sites I have to check on a daily basis. I am money conscious, but I am not as frugal as most of these other financial bloggers. I love to save money, but I'm not afraid to spend it either. I love to snowboard, ski, golf, surf, play computer games(i'm a nerd), and spend time with my lovely girlfriend. This blog was mainly created for myself to keep track of my goals and to learn from others. Hopefully it will help you too and maybe you'll find something thats useful.

Q1 Financial Update

2007-03-20T20:38:00.000-07:00

This is my first chart showing my net assets. I am fortunate enough to not have any college loans and to have an interest free loan on my car (parent's help).