Pragmatic Finance

Luckily I did not have any unexpected expenses this last month and was able to meet my goal of a 9k networth!  I was helped out with financial aid coming in too.  Now I get to watch as my 30% monthly gains turn into negative monthly gains due to tuition, rent, etc.

The biggest change was paying off most of my 0% balance transfer offers that were ending this month.  But don’t worry, I will be back to borrow five digit sums of money from credit card companies in another month.

I had been contemplating what to do with the money that I had in my TD Ameritrade account after receiving the $500 bonus. I decided to put 5k into cd’s and leave the rest to either invest in a mutual fund or purchase some stocks or etfs.

The goal for next month is to add 20k in balance transfer money once my new balances are updated on my accounts.  Hopefully Chase, Discover, etc will cooperate in giving me the approvals and lines to make this happen.

Another nice month of change. It looks like I am on my way to reaching my goal of 9k net worth although it could easily be derailed by unforeseen expenses. I believe I will have one more really good month or so before school starts back. After that I will probably start seeing much more red instead of green numbers.

Most of the changes came from paying off monthly credit card bills. I added the 1k cd from the netbank promotion. I actually started the deal including the cd in late April but I forgot to add it. So if you look back to the previous updates you will understand where I messed up. I had been including it as regular savings.

I went ahead and took out the bonds category. Although I would like to try out some treasury bonds and bills in the future I don’t think I will in the next few months. I’ll add it when and if I do.

One more change, I added a column for the money in my wallet. I try to keep a little as possible in there but I didn’t want it to throw off my calculations.

The next two months should be interesting with significant changes. I will have to check the dates but I think much of my 0% balance transfer money is due so the credit card debt will greatly decrease.

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.

After much thinking I’ve decided to make a financial goal for the summer. I already fully funded my Roth IRA for the year, which was one of my earlier goals. Because of playing the 0% balance transfer game I figure that trying to increase my savings wouldn’t be that logical. So I needed to look at another way to quantify how I was doing at managing my money.

I’ve decided to try to increase my net worth from ~4k in June to 9k some time in September. During this school year my net worth will probably decrease so I decided this would be a good goal to achieve by the time arrive back home from my internship. I know about how much I will be paid this summer and what other income I should receive. So in reality, achieving this goal is really about minimizing expenses. Of course, any unforseen expenses or income received could throw off my calculations. Looking over the numbers it looks like it will be pretty tough for me to reach this goal. I wanted it to be fairly difficult, however, so that I will have to try hard to accomplish it. If nothing else, it will provide a rationalization I can use when I am considering making a purchase I don’t need.

I also decided to also post it at the No Credit Needed Network. This is a nice little site where members post their goals and NCN makes a nice little pie chart and listing to tell all the details. If you have a financial goal you should join up too. Some people have even posted some non-finance related goals, such as losing weight. I am thinking of making a listing for that myself. My goal of growing my networth is now posted so you can keep track of it there too. All in all I think having this out in the open will at least make me more accountable to following through with it.