Archive for September, 2008

At the beginning of the year I had set 5 financial goals for 2008. Well now that we are 3/4 of the way through the year I wanted to take some time to reflect on this goals and see what progress has been made on them. As with life some priorities have changed and some goals are not as important now as they were.

The first goal was already recapped once this year. Today I’ll start with that one which was:

1.) Better Merge Our Finances
Since getting married last year, my wife and I still haven’t fully merged our finances. Part laziness, complexity and fear has kept us from doing so. I have been working so far this year on fixing this but it is still not done yet. It probably will take a few more months to get everything fully integrated.

Checking Account

This part of the goal I consider completely accomplished. We have completely switched all our checking to our joint Charles Schwab Investor Checking account. All paychecks are being deposited here, and all bills are being paid out of here. Checklist for this is as follows:

• Pay all utility and house related bills from checking account.
• Stop using our individual checking accounts and just use our joint one.
• Convert all credit cards to new checking account
• Get both us more involved with expenses out of this account so we do not overdraft.

Credit Cards

This part of the goal we have not made much progress on. We both still have individual credit cards we are using instead of joint ones. The only advantage to individual ones is it has been easier at the end of the month to see who has spent what. In reality this is a goal that should be easily accomplished if we devote some time to it.

• Phase out my wifes American Express and merge her account into mine (since I have had mine longer and we both have the same card). This will be our primary credit card.
• Stop using our other individual credit cards and settle on some joint ones.

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Taxable Accounts:

$638.10 – Liquid Savings – 3.50% APY HSBC Savings Account
$15,601.36 – Savings – 3.50% APY Countrywide Savings Account
$7,077.08 – Checking – 2.2% APY Schwabb Investor Checking Account
$15,641.73 – Stocks – Misc. Direct Investments
$4,629.16 – Stocks – Ameritrade Izone
$3,132.02 – Stocks – Zecco
$2,716.50 – Bonds – TreasuryDirect

$49,435.95 TOTAL

Retirement Savings:

$16,588.12 – ROTH IRA – Vanguard
$994.11 – ROTH IRA – Scottrade
$58,234.36 – 401K – T. Rowe Price

$75,816.59 TOTAL

Debts

$2,719.74 – Student Loan – AES (3.625%)
$3,642.76 – Credit Card BT – Chase (0%)
$16,387.28 – Credit Card BT – BOA NEA (0%)
$6,800.61 – Credit Card BT – Juniper (0%)
$4,499.12 – Credit Card BT – Bank Atlantic (0%)
$17,994.00 – Credit Card BT – Upromise (0%)

$52,043.51 TOTAL

Housing / Automobiles

$261,659.00 – Mortgage – Countrywide
$339,500.00 – Approximate Home Value
$8,515.00 – Approximate Car Value – Edmunds.com

$86,356.00 – TOTAL (Approximate Equity)

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