Pragmatic Finance

I’ve waited until my credit card payments cleared to post my montly net worth so it wouldn’t throw the numbers off. I also updated it on NetworthIQ.

Overall I am pretty happy with an almost 25% increase this month. I am getting closer to my goal of reaching 9k net worth by October.

As far as changes go…I paid off a little of my credit card debt from the 0% interest balance transfer game so thats why the savings decreased. I also got my first payment from my MBNA 529 card, a nice deposit for $99.72. Getting cashback is fun

Luckily the stock market stopped melting down like it did at the end of May/early June so that increased a little. My brokerage accounts were helped by a $500 bonus from Ameritrade and a little uptick in a few stocks.

Other than that, nothing too exciting. I am using Kelly’s Blue Book value on a trade in for the estimate of my car’s worth. I have debated whether to use that value or the much higher private property one. I imagine one day when I do sell it that I will sell it to a family member or friend if any are interested or use it in a trade in. Either way the trade in value probably fits better. Part of me wants to remove it as I will only sell it to buy another one but I’ll leave it for the time being.

I finally got my latest net worth calculations together. I haven’t been able to post much lately because of a combination of being very busy and not having the internet hooked up at where I’m staying. I’ve got a connection now so I should be back to posting more often.

If you look at last month’s net worth you will notice it doesn’t match up with what I’m reporting here. I realized that I forgot to include an account in yodlee when I set it up last month. I thought about just ignoring that but it contained about $2500 so this would have thrown off the calculations significantly. The information in this update should be accurate for this month and last. I also updated my NetworthIQ account to reflect the mistake.

As mentioned before, all credit card debt is either at 0% interest or in the cases that its not it will be paid off before its due so no interest is charged.

There was a significant decrease in savings as I decided to fully fund my IRA contribution for 2006. I also opened up a TD Ameritrade account. However, almost all of the money invested here is in short term bond funds which are fairly safe. Sadly, with the way the stock market has been lately, its been one of the few stocks that I have bought that has actually made me money.

I am a little disappointed in the gain, I had expected more. This is mainly due to my IRA losing alot of value. In fact, I believe I have lost about four to five hundred dollars there since my last update. Ouch. I also had some one time expenses that I had to pay for due to my internship. I expect to gain significantly more next month.

In a couple of days I will be begin my first internship. I guess it could be more appropriately described as being part of a summer research program, but it serves the same function. I am pretty exciting as this will be my first professional job other than a teacher’s assistant position, which I’m not sure even counts. This gives me a perfect opportunity to discuss some of the benefits of having an internship while your in college. After thinking about it, I’d have to say that they fall into two categories: gaining personal knowledge and abilities and making yourself more marketable for jobs after college.

It seems that one of the biggest benefits of an internship is that you get some hands on real experience that you can’t obtain by reading books or taking notes. You can learn new skills and abilities and develop the ones you already have. Probably most important of all, as you get this experience you can see if you would really like working in that industry. I am finding more and more people who end up majoring in one subject and end up working in another. They may have enjoyed the subject but they really didn’t like the type of work that went with it.

The other major advantage is enhancing your ability to find a quality job that you will enjoy after college. I would say its fairly obvious that an employer, all else being equal, would take someone with experience over someone without any. The person that had the internship would need less training and the employer could be more confident that the person was committed to that field and had good abilities. Its safe to assume that its rare for someone who is the opposite to get a good internship without some connections. The position will also afford you the opportunity to make important contacts in your field. This can be great when trying to network for a job or needing someone to vouch or possibly write a letter of recommendation for you.

And besides, it will look much better that you participated in one than if you worked at the supermarket or as a pizza driver. There is also the possibility that it could lead directly to a full time job. If the company is impressed they might offer you a position once you are finished with school.

I guess there are some negatives too. One of the most important is the opportunity cost. Some people may have a business that is starting to become successful or some other opportunity that they might not want to neglect. And the issue of pay is also a concern. Some positions may not pay much or any at all which would cause you to take out even more student loans to deal with it.

I guess I am lucky in that my position will be paid well. I believe I would have taken it even if it wasn’t. I have changed my major once and contemplated changes many, many other times. Although I enjoy the subject area, I am not 100% sure that I would want to pursue a career in that area. And besides, I need a few more things to put on my otherwise fairly sparse resume. That should about sum up my ramblings. I think it will be interesting to look back at this article in a year or three and see if I still have the same opinions about the benefits.

I have not only been trying to improve my finances, but also lose weight and get into better shape. I have had success in the finance area but not as much with the latter two. I have gotten into a good habit lately of working out several times a week. One of the most important aspects, in my opinion, is to get into a rythm of doing an activity as we tend to be creatures of habit. So hopefully I can keep this part up and not slack off. The other important thing is to improve my diet. I tend to eat alot of junk food when we have it around the house but I don’t really crave it when its not here.

I think I have a pretty good solution. I have decided to save money and weight by eliminating the purchase of junk food and soda. My belief about these situations is the best way, at least for me, is to go cold turkey. I have already purchased a water pitcher with a filter when I was at the drugstore. Now the difficult part I think will be to avoid buying junk food and soda from the grocery store. When I go there I almost always seem to get things I didn’t intend, even when I bring a list. If I can avoid buying that stuff while I’m there then I think I can do this. I almost completely gave up fast food near the beginning of this year. I didn’t think about it as a New Year’s resolution but I guess it kinda was in retrospect. I got cravings at the beginning and gave in a few times but now I rarely have them. That has not only saved me money but I think made my diet much more healthier.

I spent the last weekend enjoying some time with my family. It felt pretty good to get away from worrying about finances, work, or school for several days. Sometimes we get so caught up in the details of our lives that we forget whats most important. I amazingly avoided using the internet for two days! I also decided to try out my new digital camera. Here’s a picture I took of the beach.

I guess its time to the first recording of my net worth. I’m pretty sure I don’t have any payments or money floating so it should be pretty accurate.

Well, at least its not negative Before you become alarmed at the credit card debt note that it falls into two categories: current charges which will be paid back by the due date and 0% interest balance transfers. I shouldn’t pay any interest on them. I decided to exclude miscellaneous assets as most of what I own I would only sell to replace it, for example a laptop.

I am a little suprised by how much cash I had, even if it is borrowed. After I take advantage of a few more deals I hope to max out this years Roth IRA contribution.

I guess this is where I give my introduction while playing some cleverly crafted theme music as I make my grand entrance. Well, you will just have to imagine the latter part.

I have been wanting to make this blog for a long time now but never got around to it. The creation of mblogs was a perfect excuse..err I mean opportunity to finally start it. I am a 24 year old college student with about a year left to graduate. I am not majoring in finance but it has really become my hobby over the last year. I absolutely love micromanaging my finances and signing up for promotions, even when the time cost doesn’t make it worth it. It all started about a year ago when I had gotten to the point where I had to take out a cash advance to pay my bills. So I, unknowingly at the time, decided to overcompensate. Yadda yadda yadda here I am. Hopefully this blog will talk about personal finance, money, investing, the economy, and anything else that I can find a way to remotely connect to those subjects.