Super Toppy

This is a Test

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 00:03:00 +0000

Testing my mobile blog app to see if it works.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Quicken 2007 and Snow Leopard

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 02:03:00 +0000

I’ve been dying lately without having access to MS Money. Microsoft has conceded the personal finance software market to Intuit and decided to stop supporting MS Money. I was pretty heart broken since MS Money helped me turn my finances around. I went down to Office Max yesterday and finally bought a copy of Quicken 2007 for the iMac. Intuit is releasing Quicken 2010 for Mac in February but I couldn’t wait. I haven’t been feeling so hot without knowing my bottom line for the last few weeks. I tried to use the old checkbook register but I still like to see forecasts and play with the charts and graphs. I’m still getting used to my gigantic California mortgage and use the forecasts as a crutch to see what the consequences of my spending are. I know you can do this in Excel or Numbers but I didn’t want to spend the hours to get a temporary system up and running.

Like our printer, it looks like Quicken 2007 doesn’t work out of the box with Snow Leopard. It wasn’t immediately obvious either since everything installed correctly. I was getting frustrated when I couldn’t get a single one of my accounts to load. I would follow the recommended instructions and let Quicken try and set them up over the web and would constantly get an OL-249 error. I thought I was doing everything right too and was about to start calling Chase, ING, and Charles Schwab for the, “key” it kept asking for.

I searched a few Apple forums, did some Googling and it looks like I’m not the only one perturbed by the incompatibility with Snow Leopard. I felt like I threw $70.00 out the window and was getting really mad. I was about to go 0 for 2 on the new iMac!! First the printer was incompatible, now my personal finance software doesn’t work. So much for, “it just works”. After scrounging around on Intuit’s Quicken page, I found two patches: R2 and R3. They fix the OL-249 error. I downloaded them both, installed them and now I can now incorporate most of my accounts into Quicken. At first glance it seems as if MS Money supports/supported more financial institutions then Quicken does. I don’t see Banana Republic, GE Money Bank, or my 401k provider in the list. I guess I have to play with it some more. For those of you looking for the Snow Leopard patches for Quicken 2007 for Mac, go here:

http://quicken.intuit.com/support/articles/using-quicken/patches-and-updates/4366.html

These aren’t easy to find on Intuit’s page either. Let me know if this works for you since it did for me. What I’m really not liking about the iMac is that I have to research the software I want to buy before I buy it to make sure it’s compatible with Snow Leopard. Just because the box says, “compatible with OS v10.3.9 or later” doesn’t necessarily mean 10.6.2.

Painting the Baby Room

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 01:02:00 +0000

It’s the first of January and Tommaso’s due date is right around the corner. It’s about time that I finished prepping his room. I spent the last few days trying to seal the doorway between his room and ours. The previous owner of our house tried to close off a doorway that connected our room to what we’re going to use for Tommaso’s room. They finished sealing the wall in our bedroom but didn’t finish the other side. They left it as a giant hole with exposed plaster board which looked ugly. They didn’t really use that room for anything other than storage for junk so I guess they didn’t really care about how it looked.

My friend Will helped a lot with the trowel work and sheetrock compound to fill in most of the hole. My dad then did a second coat a few days later. I’m not exactly handy, so I tried to get help from anyone who knows more than I do, which is just about everyone. My job though, is to finish it up and paint. After some trial and error I figured out how to use some of the left over sheetrock compound, spackling compound, and a putty knife to get it smooth. My walls are plaster and lathe, so it took a little experimenting to get everything to blend in right. It actually looks pretty good. It looks a lot better than the job the painters did we hired a few month ago. Their patch didn’t hold and I had to tear it all down and start over. It wasn’t a total loss though. Their other patches held and the primer they shot on the walls really cleaned up the room.

At least one thing I’ve learned from this, is that I’m never going to use painter’s tape again to cut-in on our walls. The walls in my house aren’t exactly smooth or straight, (plaster and lathe) so it’s hard to get clean lines. The lines from the painter’s tape in our living room are horrendous. I’ve found I have a pretty steady left and right hand and can get a nice clean line using a 2” angle brush. It’s actually faster too since I don’t have to move around the room two additional times to put the tape up and tear it down.

The first coat of paint is almost done. I need to finish the last wall and to do that I need to move everything over to the other side of the room. The room is pretty small so I can’t just put everything in the middle of the room and I don’t want to put everything in the kitchen again. The crib and dresser are also too heavy to move far by myself. We were getting tired of living out of boxes so we unpacked all the baby stuff even though his room isn’t done. I should be done with the first coat tomorrow morning and at least half way through the second tomorrow. My mom may come to visit on Sunday and help finish decorating if she doesn’t go to Lake Tahoe with my dad. My sister raided the local Pottery Barn Kids and bought all the Peter Rabbit stuff she could find. It was a very nice present.

It’s almost done and it should look good when I’m finished.

Canon MX860 Wireless Setup and Snow Leopard

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 23:40:00 +0000

So the wife and I broke down and bought an iMac and a new printer for Christmas. We decided that it would be our present to ourselves, which worked out nicely since we’ve both been lusting for one ever since we saw them at Best Buy. Out of the box my first impressions were pretty good. It’s sleek, compact, and has a killer screen. The wireless keyboard and mouse are super slick. My only nit with the keyboard is that it doesn’t have a ten key. My wife lives and dies by the ten key so I may have to change that out. I saw Apple sells one but it doesn’t appear to be wireless. I guess another nit would be that I can’t find the IBM version of the “delete” key. The Apple keyboard has a key called “delete” but works like the IBM “backspace”. There’s probably a way to erase the next character using the Apple keyboard, but I just don’t know it.

The iMac takes up significantly less space than the Dell and it frees us from Windows Vista. We bought the middle grade version since Best Buy ran out of the entry level iMacs. Our computer desk and office are pretty small so the larger 27” screen would have been too big.

For the printer, we bought a Canon MX860 and its setup has been a nightmare. We bought the Canon MX860 since it had was a scanner, printer, had a fax capability, and was wireless. I can’t remember the last time I needed a fax but I do know when I needed it, I really needed it. We are also trying to keep a clean office for once so the idea was to put the printer somewhere that was out of the way. I figured with Apple advertising that, “everything just works” it would be pretty simple. Just plug it in and go. Well... not really.

Our iMac was shipped with OS X 10.6.2. I didn’t know this, but that means “Snow Leopard”. It sounds cool at least. The background picture is cute and Snow Leopard sounds less menacing than Tiger or Panther. For Canon though, Snow Leopard meant not compatible with 10.6.2, at least out of the box... sort of. The drivers that come with Snow Leopard support USB capability, but not wireless. Since the entire point of buying the Canon was to use wireless, this ticked me off. After some fiddling around, reading lots of help message boards, and re-reading the manual a few times it is now working. For those of you in the same boat I was in, here is what I did:

1. Put the CD Canon gives you away. It’s worthless.

2. Go to Canon’s website and find the page associated with the PIXMA MX860.

3. Go to “Drivers and Downloads”.

4. Select the right OS, “OS X” and scroll down to “Software”. Skip the “Drivers” section altogether. I played in this section for a while and didn’t get anywhere. Your mileage may vary since I don’t know what I’m doing.

5. Download and install all the English applications approved for 10.6. I downloaded Easy-Photo-Print EX, MP Navigator EX, Canon PIXMA Wireless Setup Assistant, Solutions Menu, and IJ Network Tool. The Wireless Assistant doesn’t do much other than show you what your settings are which you should probably know since you’re trying to setup your printer on your network.

6. Some of the applications may ask you to restart the computer. I said ok and everything worked.

7. After you install the IJ Network Tool you’ll be asked to input your network settings. Follow the instructions and select your network. If you really don’t know what your setup is, run the Wireless Assistant. It will tell you.

8. Once you complete the, “is-the-printer-too-far-away” step and you add the printer to your network and your printer list, WAIT for the second Canon MX860 to show up in your printer list. It takes a few seconds. I screwed this up a couple times. I didn’t wait for the second printer to show up and was only set up to print via USB. This was confusing since I did the wireless setup several times. Everything was talking, the printer was nice and close, but I couldn’t print. The only reason I caught this was because my wife was talking to me the last time and when I turned to look, there was a second printer with an associated MAC address. Aha!

9. Print a test page using the wireless. Put the printer where you want it to live and print another test page.

This may have been the round about way to do this, but it worked for me. Let me know if this works for you! Good luck.

Addicted to Crack

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 05:38:00 +0000

I recently joined the 21st century and bought a BlackBerry. It’s the new BlackBerry Storm too. My old phone finally died after a few years of solid abuse. I ended up buying the Storm at Best Buy on the release date since the local Verizon store was sold out. I’d like to thank Gordon in the Mountain View/Palo Alto area for not getting to Best Buy in time. I bought yours. In all honesty, I wanted an iPhone but I can’t stand AT&T. I’ve also been a Verizon customer since GTE Mobile. After playing with it for a few weeks here are some of my thoughts.

The accelerometer tends to get stuck and fails to recognize whether the phone is in the vertical or horizontal orientation. This makes answering the phone very difficult. To answer the phone you have to select the “answer” button that appears on the screen while it’s ringing. I kept losing calls waiting for the phone to recognize its orientation so I could press the button. Research in Motion released a patch last week which fortunately fixed the accelerometer issue. The phone is usable now. I was pretty disappointed for a while.

VZ Navigator is way cool. I don’t know how I survived before without it. I was on travel last week to King’s Bay, Georgia and used it for directions to and from the hotel. The phone was able to find a steak house and a Starbucks within a few miles of the hotel. I had never been to the area before so the GPS capability was very helpful. I also used it again to find a friend’s house in Fremont.

E-mail and web are working just fine. I have access to my non-work e-mail and the web browser actually looks like a web browser. I dig the keypad for typing. The full QWERTY keyboard works nicely. I’d never used a BlackBerry before so I can’t compare it to the button style devices but I can definately say I like it better than the iPhone. I’m always missing buttons on an iPhone. I’m told with practice I’d get used to it. I didn't need practice with the Storm. I was typing quickly on day one.

I haven’t really played with the camera so I can’t comment on it. iTunes is synched using the BlackBerry Digital Synch tool and I was able to copy a DVD onto the phone which looks great. Fortunately the phone uses standard phone jacks so I don’t have to use the weird ones my Krazer used. All in all I like the phone and can definitely see why they call it a crack berry. It was $199.99 with a two year contract. My contract had been up for a while and I just renewed it. I have no idea what my monthly bill will be since I was signing up with everything. I’ll find out in a few weeks.

Christmas Cheer?

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 04:37:00 +0000

Good grief it’s Christmas already. We don’t even have a tree yet. I don’t know about any of you out there but I’ve been having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. Work is killing me and we’re not even allowed to take the holiday break this year due to schedule constraints. I hope this isn’t what we have to look forward to in the years to come. I miss Christmas the way it was when I was a kid. Maybe our newest addition will help out with that. He should be here around August next year and ready for his first Christmas. We may even be in our first house.

As far as Christmas shopping, we have done 0 shopping so far. Since I’ve been on this financial kick, I’m not too thrilled about spending a bunch of money on gifts to feed retailers. Online shopping isn’t fun either since the instant gratification factor is removed. The economy sucks and I’m turning into scrooge. I hate it.

Fatherhood Here I Come!

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 04:22:00 +0000

Holy cow I’m going to be a father! The wife just took a pregnancy test, a few actually, and confirmed that we are pregnant. The next step we think is to go to the doctor and confirm the pregnancy then schedule a real appointment for an ultrasound and other prenatal activities. We haven’t told our friends and family yet; we were going to tell them at Christmas using some form of gag gift. There were a bunch of ideas posted the web which looked like fun. Since no one reads this blog anyways we figured it would be safe to post on the web.

We have a lot of decisions to make in the next few months. The plan was originally to buy a house in the area and continue on as a dual-income-no-kids family. With this change, we’re entertaining the possibility of the wife quitting her teaching job when the baby is born and moving to another state. I make enough in my current job that with a transfer she could easily be a housewife if we lived somewhere else. She doesn’t have tenure with her current school and we’re afraid that she may not get asked back for tenure since the due date is right around the start of the next school year. She’s in the first year of a two year probationary period. The last thing we want is to have a large Silicon Valley mortgage, a newborn, and one income. It may actually be beneficial to rent a house when our apartment lease is up. Rents have come down a lot in the area and we could easily handle terminating a lease if push came to shove; can’t say the same about a mortgage. It’s all a little surreal right now. Articles on the web say it won’t sink in until the second or third month.

Our emergency cash reserve isn’t quite full and we’re just starting to approximate how much a child actually costs. Wow, are they expensive. After some basic number crunching it looks like we could have six months worth of expenses covered by the time the child is born and a little extra padding to account for any unpaid maternity leave. I’m going to check with HR to see if I qualify for paternity leave so I can help out. Stay tuned for updates for those of you read my blog!

Toyota Wins NASCAR Standings by Default?

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:11:00 +0000

I’m not a big NASCAR fan. I think it’s boring actually. With General Motors and Ford struggling and possibly going under, it looks like Toyota should do pretty well in next year’s manufacturer standings. America’s newest favorite sport; brought to you by Japan. Go figure.

Let GM Fail

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 23:09:00 +0000

I never thought I would ever be in agreement with the Senate Republican minority on a General Motors (GM) bailout. GM has for decades been building cars that American’s do not want. While gas and oil prices have consistently risen year after year, GM has always remained top heavy in SUVs and pick up trucks with sub par gas mileage. It feels as if there was a conspiracy between the American automotive industry and big oil to help ensure America remained dependent on foreign oil. GM could have led the world into a new era with the EV1 a decade ago. Yet here we are again, with the similar problem: how to keep the automotive worker employed. Keeping the EV1 alive and ushering in an era of petroleum free vehicles would have supposedly decimated the automotive repair industry by eliminating manufactures and retailers that provide parts and services for internal combustion engines. Rather than destroy its bread and butter industry, GM removed all but a few cars from the roads and continued down its failure proven road of gas hungry muscle cars and trucks. It is infuriating that GM has the gall to ask the American tax payer to foot the bill so it can continue to proceed misguided. I do not believe they are viable. I do not believe loaning money to Chrysler in 1980 was a success either. They too are right back where they were almost 30 years ago as will GM be right back where it is now. America has always been a nation that has adapted and risen to the challenges presented. This is a capitalist/Darwinian society. GM should be allowed to fail so the company can be reborn under another name with new management. Like GM will have to adapt and change course, the Detroit area worker will probably have to learn a new trick or two to pay the bills.

The Race is Over - The Media Declares Winner

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 05:57:00 +0000

Pundits once again show America that they really have no idea what they’re doing. I was floored when John Zogby admitted on The Daily Show the sample size they use for their presidential poll is around 900 people. How can a “random” sample of 900 people in New Hampshire be representative of the American public? New Hampshire provides 4 electoral votes! They’re barely a blip on the radar; up there with Hawaii. Woo Hoo!!! What if pundits weighed the polling results? For example, if a poll is taken across various states, weigh the results by how much they really affect the outcome of the presidency. New York results count more than Nevada results. Sorry, they really do. Who cares what New Hampshire thinks!! This race is far from over. Take the crown away from Obama, he hasn’t won the Democratic ballot yet; neither has Hillary for that matter. Republicans need to get on the same page and figure out if they’re for the religious right or against it pretty soon. Huckabee goes from winning Iowa to third in New Hampshire? Maybe the Colbert bump will help out again soon. Should be fun.

Cheap Wine and Relax!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 05:39:00 +0000

Ahhh… cheap wine. Today was one of those days. Ten hours at work; foot to the floor all day trying to get it done for the man. Rather than settle in with a beer, my girlfriend scored a bottle of Fish Eye Cabernet Sauvignon. We like to pretend we’re living it up every now and then. You would be surprised how decent a bottle of wine with a screw top costing fewer than six bucks can taste. My dad is a wine junkie and will spend whatever it costs to enjoy a nice bottle. Although, a bottle of two-buck-chuck would have sufficed since it was that kind of day, I really enjoyed Fish Eye. It wasn’t harsh like you’d expect an inexpensive wine to be and tasted like a Cab should. I think it is fun enjoying inexpensive wines. It really beats being disappointed with a pricier bottle, and even if you’re disappointed you’re only out six bucks. Next time you find yourself at the grocery store and you’re thinking of wine, there’s nothing to be ashamed of going for a bottle under ten bucks. Even a $200.00 bottle can turn with a bad cork. Pick a label that catches your eye and drink what you like with whatever you’re eating. I recommend starting a wine journal to document what you like and what you don’t like. With so many labels out there they’re easy to forget.

Free Money

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 06:32:00 +0000

Credit card companies love it when you carry balances. They love it so much they want to help you spend money!! For the longest time I carried a serious balance close to 90% of my available credit. Over the past few months, I’ve been able to pay it down significantly and have brought my utilization ratio down to 15%. Capital One likes to send me reminders that I have available credit to use. Every month I get a set of checks already written out to me in the amount of 80% of my available credit. They claim it’s so I can spend money the way I want to. Free money!!! Thanks Capital One. If you get these, please don’t use them. Send them straight to the shredder. It can be tempting, but being responsible with credit feels a lot better than running up a balance to buy a new set of golf clubs. Believe me; I’ve thought about it. I really would like a new set of clubs since my last ones mysteriously disappeared…

On a side note, I don’t know about anyone else, but those checks give me the creeps. They’re already written out and have a little too much information on them. With a little social engineering, a dumpster diver could do some serious damage. I toss these into the shredder immediately.

AT&T is the Devil

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 05:56:00 +0000

How on Earth can long distance providers still be in business? With wireless prices dropping and providers offering unlimited calls to anywhere in the United States, there is a strong argument for dropping the land line. I have a land line with AT&T providing both DSL and the AT&T All Distance Online Select package. When we subscribed, it seemed reasonable at around $60.00 for phone and Internet. A Comcast bundle wasn’t looking any cheaper after the introductory period. With additional surcharges and taxes, the AT&T bill is around $74.00 every month. There are over $14.00 is taxes and additional charges! My favorite charge is the Universal Service Fee.

Federal Universal Service Fee
The Universal Service Fund (USF) promotes and assures the availability of universal service at rates that are just, reasonable and affordable, and to provide for reasonably comparable service and rates between rural and urban areas. Telecommunications providers are allowed by law to surcharge their customers to recover the USF charges they pay. This charge is not a tax.

Just to be sure I understand it; they charge me more so they can change others less. Good plan. I’m looking into Verizon phone plans; maybe change TV/Internet bundles with another provider, or possibly dropping long distance. I’m not too thrilled with Comcast prices and I really don’t want a dish. I had used a wireless phone as my only phone for years and it worked out just fine. I wonder if I live close enough to Google for free Internet.

2007 401(k) Results

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 21:49:00 +0000

2007 is finally finished. I took a look at how my 401(k) did for the year and decided to post my holdings and gains/losses. It wasn’t a bad year considering I didn’t have any idea what I was doing. I started reading The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham and realized I was lucky to finish where I did.

Summary:
Opening Value:
Employee Contributions:
Employer Contributions:
Investment Gains/Losses:
Reinvested Dividends:

Closing Value on 12/31/07:
Investment Performance:

$18,886.54
$6,308.88
$3,154.44
$1,991.51
$118.33

$30,459.70
8.99%

Holdings:
Vanguard Windsor (VWNEX):
American Century Growth (TWGIX):
Russell 3000 Index (IWV*):
MSCI EAFE Index (EFA*):
ESOP Fund:

$4,527.15
$6,277.09
$7,195.88
$6,807.30
$5,652.28

*Posted ticker symbols are representative of funds intent.

Right off the bat, there are problems. Almost 19% of my holdings are with my company’s common stock fund. This does not provide any protection against fluctuations for Wall Street's valuation of my work place. It can be considered wise to, “invest in what you know”, but not to this extent. It’s dangerous and I was lucky that our company’s stock had been rising steadily for over a year. Also, since I’ve been reading Graham, I noticed I do not have any holdings in bonds. Based roughly on what I’ve read, an investor should carry no less than 25% of their total holdings in bonds (government or corporate depending on your tax situation). This can be adjusted based on one's level of effort in research and not risk. Graham tosses out the (110 – age) or (100 – age) formula for bond holdings since it is dependant on an individual's financial needs. I also have a large percentage of foreign stocks and small cap industries and not enough in dividend providing stocks.

I’m still learning and have realized I’m going to make mistakes. I’ve also learned to not try and, “beat the market”. If I finish at around 8.99% every year, I’ve done pretty well. I’m still taking a look at where I want to go with 2008. Right now, I know I’m going to decrease my company stock holdings to less than 10% and include a bond fund to take up at least 25% of my holdings. I still don’t know what to do with the other funds. Part of me wants to open a “self managed account” and ditch the funds I have. I’m not exactly fond of them. Another part wants to go directly into Graham type common stocks and another part of me wants to pick a boring index fund and go on auto-pilot. We’ll see what happens.

Engagement Rings – 2 Months Salary?

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:06:00 +0000

Where did this rule come from? It had to have been from the diamond industry or women. According to so and so, most American’s don’t have an emergency reserve deep enough to sustain more than two months expenses. Assuming your monthly expenses are less than your monthly income, it seems safe to say that if you have a two month emergency reserve you're close too or have the two month minimum to purchase your prospective wife’s engagement ring. It seems that America is able to scrimp and save for matters of the heart but not matters of the home. I was recently at a Tiffany’s looking at engagement rings and found several lovely rings. One ring reflected two months gross salary, another ring reflected two months salary after income tax but not after-tax withholdings, and the last ring represented two months net pay. I couldn’t help but think about the opportunity costs of buying the two month gross pay ring. That kind of money is a down payment on a house or investment property in most parts of the country or can help contribute to a nice nest egg in our out years. Although the sales woman at Tiffany’s mentioned my girlfriend would look at the ring not less than 1,000,000 times in her married life (odd statistic), I think the 1 ½ month net pay ring will have to suffice for now. After this post though, I wonder what the answer will be after my girlfriend discovers I was examining opportunity costs when buying her engagement ring. She can blame socketsite.com. They're very good at examining opportunity costs.

You’re Worth Less Than Nothing!

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 00:53:00 +0000

How important is your net worth? Technically, a person’s net worth is the difference between assets and liabilities, or the value of things a person owns minus their debts. Taking a quick look at my net worth I have around $30,000 in my 401(k), $4,000.00 in savings, $2,000 in a brokerage account, and around $1,000 is physical assets (furniture, television, toys, etc.). Looking at my liabilities I owe $30,000 in student loans and have a $22,000 car loan. This gives a ballpark net worth of:

$30,000 + $4,000 + $2,000 + $1,000 - $30,000 - $22,000 = -$15,000

According to this little formula, I’m worth less than nothing. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel though. I cannot imagine what someone’s net worth looks like if they bought a home in Silicon Valley within the last few years. The median single family home price in Santa Clara County for November 2007 was published at $858,000 according to Real Estate Reports. Say a very prime borrower came along and purchased a home at the median price with a down payment of 30% or $257,000. That person would still be in the red for $601,000. Looking at an amortization schedule from Mortgage Professor, it would take around 16 years at 6.5% to build enough equity in the home that the value of the asset minus the loan amount is zero. That seems like quite a bit of time and involves a huge down payment. This also doesn’t account for appreciation. The world is free to double check my math. So, back to my original question, does net worth really mean anything since a lot of home owners will have negative net worth for a very long time? Also, what about recent home buyers whose homes are now worth less than they paid and have no equity?

Maximum 401(k) Contributions

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 19:45:00 +0000

Everyone seems to agree that having 401(k) is a good idea. Analysts also claim that for best results you should max out your yearly contributions. Since I’ve been on this financial kick, I’ve been swallowing just about everything I read. I took a look at my current 401(k) contributions to see where I am at compared to the maximum and if I could increase my withholdings to get to the maximum. The yearly maximum contribution for 2007 is $15,500.00. I don’t know about you guys and gals, but that’s a lot of pre-tax money to me.

At the moment I’m contributing 8% of my gross pay to my company’s 401(k) plan. The company will match 50% of the first 8% I contribute. Right now, my total contributions including employer contributions are around $180.00 a week. Over the next 52 weeks, assuming my pay rate stays the same, I will contribute around $9,500.00. I need to find another $6,000.00 a year of pre-tax dollars. Assuming I only wanted to continue contributing 8% to take advantage of the matching company contributions, I would need to make about $130,000.00 a year. $130,000.00 a year generates around $200.00 a week at 8%, which after I include the 50% contribution puts me around yearly maximum. I either need a new job or go begging for a few promotions. I am a little fish in a big pond.

What if I wanted to increase my withholdings to get up to the max? I would need to increase withholdings around $120.00 a week. Ouch. Right now, if I skimmed another $120.00 a week, I’d be bouncing checks from here to other side of the globe. I’d need to cut back on something. Right now, I’m saving $250.00 a week and putting it into an ING savings account. I have been good for a few months and saved $6,000.00. I skimmed $2,000.00 from it to fund the Schwab account. I could reduce my contributions to ING and max out my 401(k). I’m not too big on this since I’m still about $3,000.00 short on my emergency reserve target. You may notice that even with an additional $3000.00, my reserve is pretty thin. It should last about 3 months. I can take a look at my spending over the next few months using my MS Money reports to see where I’m overspending. I think once I have my credit card debt down and my emergency reserve funded, I can consider raising my 401(k)contributions. I am not ready yet. This is frustrating. I feel like my paychecks are just disappearing. At least if there were a Porsche or Ferrari in the carport, I’d know where it’s all going!!

MS Money - My Review

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 06:15:00 +0000

As a Christmas present, my girlfriend’s mom gave me a copy of MS Money. My family knows that I’ve turned over a new leaf and am now trying to be fiscally responsible, which implies that I understand where my money is going. Microsoft advertises Money as personal finance program to track your spending, create budgets, manage your brokerage account, etc. Installing Money was fairly straight forward. Insert the CD and off it goes. After that, things got a little complicated as I’ve never used Quicken, Money, or any other personal finance program.

The package MS Money came in did not come with a user’s manual. Microsoft does supply a manual on-line which I used at first, but wasn’t too very helpful. I went down to Borders and bought a copy of Microsoft Money for Dummies. It took a few tries, but I was able to setup my checking and savings accounts. Washington Mutual works with MS Money to update the check register and mark which transactions have been cleared. To update my ING accounts I have to log them into the register manually or log into ING and pull an MS Money file for each account. ING claims this is for security reasons. At the moment I’m using the MS Money account register just like I would normally use the paper one in my check book. I input the day’s transactions like I normally do. Everything seems to be balanced.

Money allows you to categorize your withdrawals and deposits. This allows the tool to automatically generate reports to show you how you are spending money. It took me a few tries but I got everything categorized and was able to make a nice pie chart for my December expenses.

Before anyone attacks, the entire “Entertainment” category is not me. I am reimbursed for most of it. This chart just shows expenses. “Hobbies/Leisure” got me good this month. I ride a bicycle (road bike type) and had to replace my drive train due to a couple years of neglect. The “Savings” category will eventually disappear. Funds I set aside for my savings account are technically transfers and not expenses. For December, they are categorized as expenses since I couldn’t get Money to work with my old ING transfers. Now that I have tracking information, I can look at the data over the next few months to see where I can cut back. My monthly income vs. expenses report looked ok but not great. I’m hoping I can use the tool to help find inefficiencies.

MS Money also allows you to schedule all of your recurring bills on the days you normally pay them out. Usually I’m scribbling my cash flow on a napkin every week to see where I’ll be at after the week's bills have settled. If you use MS Money’s “Bills” feature, you can project your future cash flow and have it illustrated in a bar graph. Below is my January forecast.

I scribbled my own forecast for January on some scrap printer paper and compared it to what MS Money output. The two are fairly consistent. This will be very helpful for me so I can better plan when to pay my bills. My paper/pencil version of January didn't account for timing my bill payments. I was scheduled to overdraw in the second week. If you’re curious about the drop to about $50.00 dollars next week, I didn’t plan December very well and overpaid my Capital One Visa. For some reason I thought I was better off than I really was. I can still make rent. I’ll just be short until I get paid next Friday. Most of my bills are due around the 14th of the month which explains the other large drop.

There is a learning curve to use MS Money. The tool is not super intuitive which required me to buy a book. Setting up my credit cards and transfers to and from my checking account to my ING accounts was also tricky. The category names for transferring money seem a little misleading. I think the names are changeable though. I’m not setting up my 401(k) or Schwab accounts in MS Money yet. I made a half hearted attempt to pull my 401(k) information and gave up when it got complicated. I have my pre-tax contributions showing up in a dummy account for now until I setup MS Money for my 401(k). Transfers to Schwab are also shown in a dummy account to prevent those funds from disappearing from my net worth calculation. I'm going to setup accounts for my car and student loans eventually. I've been little hesitant to do this since I know it will show my net worth being negative. Overall I’m pretty excited about my new toy. I think this will definitely help me get my arms around my spending so I can squeeze every penny I have.

I’m With Chuck

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 06:12:00 +0000

So I figured I break the rules a little and start my brokerage account now rather than later. Technically this could be considered premature since I’m still paying down high interest credit card debt. It should be paid down by mid January so I think it should be ok. I also don’t have a complete six month emergency reserve yet. I took $2000.00 from my “reserve fund” and have it sitting in cash in a Charles Schwab One brokerage account. I keep reading everywhere about the magic of compound interest and that, “you have to start early”, or “you can’t start early enough”, so I just went and did it.

There a multitude of discount brokers out there, so someone may be asking why I went with Schwab and not Zecco, Fidelity, ShareBuilder, or E-Trade etc. I went primarily on word of mouth; their fees, minimum deposits, and references looked good too. My best friend had a brokerage account with Schwab and always had positive things to say. Whenever he got into trouble, he could always call and talk to a human being. He closed the account a few years ago to use the funds to make a major purchase. If you don’t open a checking account with Schwab, the minimum deposit to open a One account is $1000.00. Trade fees are $12.95 for the first 1000 shares and drop to $9.95 if you hold a huge balance or make more than 120 trades a year. I don’t plan on day trading so $12.95 a pop seems reasonable. I’m considering closing my Washington Mutual checking account and going all Schwab. Their checking account offers all the bells and whistles of standard big bank checking accounts plus reimbursements for other bank’s ATM fees and 4% interest on balances. No minimums. Not bad. The downside is you have to mail deposits in or have them transferred from another checking account. They don’t have ATM machines on every corner like BofA or Wamu.

There were some pains in opening the account on-line. Something went wrong and I didn’t correctly create a login ID. I called up the customer service department, was on hold for less than a minute, and a human being walked me through the account setup process. I then botched up the MoneyLink setup which links my Schwab account to my ING checking account. I happened to be near a Schwab branch, called them up, made an appointment for 30 minutes later, walked in and they explained what the problem was. I setup MoneyLink then called customer service to verify my ING account really was mine, then transferred my money. It took a day and a half to transfer the funds from ING to Schwab. Schwab has a three day hold on money transferred to them through MoneyLink. I’m used to these types of holds since ING has a similar two day hold.

I’m happy so far since I’ve been in trouble twice already and there has been a person to talk too and hold my hand. The 800 number customer service and the branch representatives were very nice and helpful. I got my welcome packet in the mail yesterday and got a call from a new accounts representative to answer any more questions I have on getting started. I have a pretty good idea of where I’m going to make my first investment allocations. I’ll make the trade January 1, 2008 and post my holdings. I still have to setup recurring deposits. I’m diverting some money I was using to build my emergency reserve to fund the brokerage account. I’ll try it for a few months and reevaluate to see if I’m spreading myself too thin.

I originally wanted to go with ShareBuilder since ING just acquired them. I thought it might be nice to use the products of the bank I’m already with. For some reason ShareBuilder didn’t rub me the right way. I liked their concept and still do, but the idea of trading only on a specific day for their advertised rate seemed odd. If you’re dollar cost averaging it should not matter though. Also, if you’re not careful with ShareBuilder their fees could wind up being a significant portion of your investment. There are ways to mitigate this. Zecco scares me since I haven’t read a positive review yet and some of the other brokers had higher minimums or more expensive trade fees.

The Check Register

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 01:35:00 +0000

Before a person or family can get into the practice of saving money, they need to determine how much they really can save practically. I’m still in the process of determining this without depriving myself of all fun. For a long time I believed I was close to being paycheck to paycheck. It turns out I’m wasn’t. I make plenty of money for a “single” person my age. I just had/have terrible spending habits. In August 2007 I went to my check register to see what my spending habits were like and noticed the last entry was February 2006. Not good. Sadly, I’m not alone. It turns out millions of people out there don’t balance their checkbooks.

This check register is a useful little tool provided to you by your bank usually when you receive your checks in the mail. I recommend that at least once a week, you go through all your receipts and log them into your check register and balance it. It would really be best if entries were made during your purchases. I don’t usually carry my check book with me (doesn’t fit in my pockets) so I now collect any receipts from the day and log them into the register every night. I’ve become a little obsessed in that I check my bank account on-line every morning to see what has been debited and what hasn’t. I was also amazed to see how many things were being automatically debited from my account that I had forgotten about. It seems I’ve been paying Tivo twice a month. I have one Tivo. Here is a neat article from someone other than me on why you should balance your checkbook.

I’ve been good in keeping track of my purchases and deposits for a few months now. I have a good idea on how much I spend on groceries, eating out, bills, etc. I can almost make semi-informed decisions on where I can cut back and how much I really have left to save. For example, I was spending about $200.00 a month on eating out. For groceries, I would shop at Safeway, never use a list, shop after work, and not use a club card. We’ve cut back eating out a lot. We now go out maybe once a week and eat in a lot. Cooking really is cheaper than eating out, at least for us it is. I got a club card and started saving on groceries. We also always use a list and never go shopping hungry. On our last trip to the grocery store, we saved $34.00 by only buying items that were on the list and “on sale.” I also noticed that while not shopping hungry we have a lot less odd things in the refrigerator and cupboards. Our next step is to plan meals for the week in advance and shop for that. There are personal finance tools available to help track your spending. I know of Quicken and Money. I own neither but have dropped hints to certain people that MS Money would be a nice Christmas gift. We’re still working on refining and documenting our spending, but I believe we’re on the right track.

Credit Card Usage

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 18:13:00 +0000

Credit cards seem to be necessities to survive in today’s world. You can’t get a car loan or mortgage without a credit history and you can’t really get a credit history without a credit card. You could use your student loan or car loan as a history of credit, but if your student loan is like mine, you wish it would just go away.

I currently have one credit card. I have a Capital One Visa Platinum card which I have had for a few years. I opened this card a few months after my Citibank Visa was charged off and was given a nice limit of $1000.00. Apparently I didn’t learn the first time. Within the first week I charged the maximum on the card out and paid the second month’s bill late. There went my 0% introductory offer. I was the proud owner of a 19.99% APR albatross. I continued to make the minimum payments for a year praying the balance would go down. It didn’t. Since I was such a good customer by paying loads in finance charges, after one year, Capital One raised my limit to $3000.00. I went out again and charged the maximum. For about a year, I carried about $2700.00 balance paying the bill roughly on time +/- 1 week.

By the way, if you didn’t know, creditors look at the ratio of how much credit you have to how much you’re using. For example, if you have a $1000.00 limit and you’re carrying a $500 balance, you’re using 50%. There is a magic range that creditors like to see when you’re applying for certain loans; 90% is not very desirable. I’ve heard it’s less than 10%. Also if you didn’t know, it seems that creditors like to talk to one another. It seems that while I was in collections for defaulting on my student loan, Capital One didn’t trust me anymore and raised my APR to 27.75%. I started paying attention to my finances around August of 2007 and just about had a heart attack when I saw my Capital One bill. And you though 19.99% was bad. This is one very small step away from loan sharking. I continued to look at the credit card statement and noticed the minimum credit card payment was less than my finance changes. I was never going to get out of debt.

Step 2: Pay Down High Interest Debt and Lower Credit Card Interest Rates

Since September, I’ve been paying about $500.00 a month to pay the bill down. My finance charges were absolutely ridiculous and I’m an idiot for not catching this sooner. I finally have my balance down to $686.00. There were some recent expenses I had to pay using the credit card and I hadn’t used my credit card in over a year. I figured some usage is better than no usage. I am working to pay it down to $0.00. My plan is to be at $0.00 balance by mid January. I then plan to use the card for only up to 10% of the limit and carry a very small balance.

I have had “on time” payments (not reportable to credit agencies) for over one year and I am no longer in default on my student loan. I finished rehabilitation in September of 2007. Most of the negative reporting has already been removed. I’m still working with TransUnion to finalize the removal of any negative statements. EdFund is cooperating. I think it’s TransUnion in that they seem to status every few months. Since my credit card APR was so high and I am going to carry a balance for a few more months, I wondered if there was anything that could be done. I read somewhere on the Internet that you can call and actually ask to have your APR lowered. I figured why not. The worst they can say is, “no.” I called Capital One and they noticed I’d been good for a year and lowered my APR to 14.9%. Now I just have to continue making on time payments forever. Hey, when you’re in my boat, 14.9% is better than 27%.

The Internet posts are true. You can call your creditors and ask to lower your APR. You just need to be a relatively good customer and have a legitimate reason to lower the APR. Since Equifax and Experian don’t show collections anymore from my student loan, I look like a normal customer with an exorbitant APR. Still, it never hurts to ask. Try it and see. Also, if you’ve had damaging remarks made to your credit you may want to have your Free Credit Report provided to you so you know what is in there. I never used to care and now wish I did. I have some remarks that will be there until 2012. I will be 35 and paying for mistakes I made in my late twenties.

Call Collections

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 17:19:00 +0000

Truthfully, I’m not really starting at square one. It’s more like square two or 1 1/2, if there is such a thing. I started working for my company in February 2004 and started contributing to the 401(k) plan November that year. I would have started contributing to it on day 1, but I was trying to adjust to having to live on my own wages. I was a student for many years living on Government loans and working random jobs for a local bike shop. When I got into trouble, there was always the Bank of Mom and Dad.

Part of the reason I say I’m at square one is that I did severe damage to my credit three years ago and even before while I was in school. I had my student Visa credit card charged off in 2004 and I defaulted on my student loan in 2005. I have a very good idea why my brain was in a jar for two years but that’s not really the point of this post. The point is, I royally screwed up and needed to fix it ASAP.

Step 1: Get Out of Collections

For those of you who have ever had to endure the pain or are beginning to go through the pain of loan rehabilitation, realize that you are still lucky. EdFund allows you to go through a “loan rehabilitation” program. For 9 months you will allow EdFund to make on-time payments by withdrawing directly from your checking account. After 9 months, they graciously remove the collections remarks from your credit report and you qualify for more federal aid. If anyone reading this is in default on their student loan, call EdFund now and get started fixing it. It’s a painful and pride swallowing experience but you have to do it. The last thing you want is to have paycheck withholdings or have the IRS withhold your tax refunds. Imagine how fun the conversation would be with your company’s payroll department explaining that one. Moral of the story is to pay your bills on time. I learned the hard way. Kiplinger has a good article to read for those of you in similar positions.

As of today, I’ve completed rehabilitation and am with a real lender trying to consolidate the loans. The loan period is over 10 years at 7.22% variable. If I can consolidate, I can lump the loans together at a fixed interest rate. Part of my punishment is the interest rate I have to pay. The interest rate on the loan I screwed up on was at 5%. My girlfriend graduated around the same time I did and pays 3.5%. She’s fiscally responsible by the way. Payments are setup to withdraw directly from my checking account. The lender notified me that on a certain day every month the minimum payment amount will be pulled. I account for the debit in my check register. I use one now since I actually care about my finances.

Hello World

noreply@blogger.com (Toppy) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 02:32:00 +0000

First of all, this is a test to see if this really works. As you can see, I've just started my first web log and hope to add to it as time goes on. I just turned 30 and work in Silicon Valley for a tech company doing non-techy stuff. I graduated from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo a few years ago and went straight to work. I live in the lower peninsula in an apartment with my girlfriend and day dream of owning a house someday.

Eventually I'd like this blog to function in similar fashion with what is going on in My Money Blog. Go check out that blog if you haven't already. My Money Blog is a very informative blog which discusses a real person's financial goals and the steps being taken to reach them. I'm not even close to where he's at yet, since I've just started saving. In a few days I'll post some numbers for the world to shoot at. I am not a financial planner and do not pretend to be one. Any advice you receive here is from my own personal experience. Please don't blame me if your 401(k) has been destroyed. If you're following along with what I'm doing, then mine was destroyed also.

I'll be tweaking the first few posts for a little while until I get up and running smoothly. Thanks for the read. Questions and comments are always welcome!