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Archive for January, 2008

Update on our EF saving

January 30th, 2008 at 05:45 am

Well, the good news is that we were able to follow thru our budget for this entire month without major sacrifices. I agreed to bring my own coffee and lunches to work, which help me save more. Of course our biggest worry was not able to stick to our budget. But we did itSmile. Our goal original is to save an extra $1000.00 a month toward EF (split between me and wife). We did better than we thought, our combined saved a total $1009. YippieSmile So this money is going straight to our EF. 1 month down 11 months to go.

In the next several months, lots of of bills will start to pop up; car maintenance, birthday parties, including my son's 4th birthday party (planned) in March. How can I forget our Property tax due ($1600) in March. We're gonna have to apply the brakes harder to stay within our budget. The good news is that DW received an extra $600 a month net pay increase which help us for planned expenses. Wish us good luckSmile

By the way, I appreciate the encouragement and feedbacks from many of you here like scfr, baselle, Ima Saver, Koppur, and DisneySteve. I took many of your advice to heart. So we're just going to plug away until we achieved our goal. ThanksSmile

Bump Raise!

January 15th, 2008 at 05:19 am

Great news! My wife just got an 11% raise for this year, which was a real surprised. Not that I'm complaining Smile

We were both betting that it might only be 3% being the market was so bad. I loss the bet. Hard work does pay offSmile So we're going to celebrate it with a nice family dinner to Cheese Factory this Friday Smile And Yes, I'm happy to be paying. Smile





The Market Sucks today!

January 12th, 2008 at 02:53 am

Let me tell you the background first before anyone replies: I have some play money that I trade online from time to time aside from our emergency fund or retirement accounts. I strictly use this account for the purpose of taking profits to purchase gifts or do whatever. I'd had this account even before I got married so I'd had it for years.

Anyway, I've been following this one stock for about a year, which by the way I'd made some money just before x-mas. So I'm very familiar with this stock. So the same stock took a tumble down 37% post xmas holiday. No reason why the stock is down, excellent fundamentals, and earnings outlook. But lately, traders took profits which pulled the stock price really low.

So this week the stock was downgraded for the year down from its high $112 in early December to $71 Tuesday, where it became so attractive and everyone including grandma was scooping some shares. So i thought, why not...so i bought some 30 shares at $72 Tuesday. So for the next two days all market traders started buying up the stocks because of its discount price, pumping it up so high it reached $79.00 a share at one point and the volume high @ $20 Million trades, unusual for this stock since it only average about $4 million volume a day.

So by noon yesterday I was deciding whether to take the profits about $210.00 @ 79.00 a share. So here's what I'm thinking at this point. Should I sell now or later. I also knew this stock will go up again $100 at some point, especially when the earnings comes out in several weeks. It should provide a nice rally. I also hate paying commission. But I also knew this stock will pull back for profit taking late Thursday and early Friday and I could be the last man standing. So come Friday, I expected to be down but not much. So after all that, I stayed bullish and didn't sell.

So I woke up this morning and got to work. Check my account, the stock was already down $4.00. So I was like ok, not a problem. Then I watch it for the rest of the day which continued to go down until the market closed @ $71.40. So i just gave up and didn't do anything. On paper I lose $210.00 so what's the point of selling. I just let it ride. So at the end of the week I'm down $30.00 instead of up $210.00 for a nice weekend getaway with my kids. My wife is working all weekend. Instead we'll be at home watching football.

But what's tick me off, I knew I could have sold it yesterday and take a nice profits but didn't. I listened to my own logic instead of my trading instinct which would have done the opposite: bought back the same stock today at a lower price $71.40 while taking profits.

I'm glad I took this out of my chest. I actually feel better (deep breathing and release....ha) Smile

Just another day in the office.

I need your help

January 7th, 2008 at 05:22 am

Here's our debt we pay a month. We pay a little bit more toward each loan except my parent's loan.

Loan 1. $15K remaining balance (2nd owned property) @ 5.39% = $200 A month
Loan 2. $21K Car payment @ 5.59% = $700.00
Loan 3. $12,573.00 remaining balance (owed my parents Down Payment towards our current home @ zero rate) = $213.00 a month.
A total $1,113.00 monthly payment.

My wife and I save an extra $1000 a month towards our emergency fund goal of $12K this year. In addition, I also saved an extra $210.00 a month towards my own personal savings account (earning less than 2% ).

My dilemma: Should I use this extra money towards paying off the car faster, which we pay the higher interest rate, or should I just continue to saving it?

In defense of saving the money, I use this savings as my day trading account online. On the other hand, 2007 has not been a good year, but not the worst either. I just broke even. So it really hasn't appreciated that much except what I put in.