Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Net Worth Tracker - January 2015

This is something that I have been wanting to do for some time now. I have always had an idea and even an obsession with my finances but since putting Project DebtStomp into effect on the first of the year, I have already seen a turn around in my general moral. As of right now, I don't have an excel spreadsheet to show numbers on numbers - I know, I know. Shame on me. But this addition will be coming soon. So until then, here is the break down for January 2015:

ASSETS

  • Checking: $00.00
  • Savings: $25.00
  • IRA: $500.26
  • 401k: $38.40
  • Digit: $00.00
  • WSC: $15.38
  • WF Rewards: $28.34
  • Challange Savings:  $19.93 (Total)
  • Virtual Change: $16.22
  • Budget Savings: $00.00
  • Physical Change: (below)
  • Dollars: $1.00
  • Coins: $2.71
  • Nissan Sentra (kbb): $10,167.00
TOTAL ASSETS: $10,794.31

Sneaky Ways to Snatch my Savings

I am all about finding sneaky ways to hide my money from myself. Not only do I utilize Mint.com and PersonalCapitol.com apps on my devices but I have also found some nest ways to stash my cash.

PayPal
I love this so much just for the fact that it's out of sight, out of mind. I deposit $25 into it from each paycheck and never have to worry about it. Also, when I get into a bind, I have to think long and hard if I actually want to withdraw anything from it because it takes 3-5 days to actually have the funds deposited into my account.

Digit
This is alway a cool little gadget that helps you save. It tracks your spending habits and upcoming bills. After some thorough calculations, it decides how much to take out. Plus they cover any overdraft fees (caused by Digit) because they are so confident in their system. Plus, the people that run it are some of the coolest and nicest guys around. You can also withdraw whenever you want with no fees. If you want to try it our yourself, click Here

Walmart Savings Catcher
This thing is awesome. There is no guarantee that you are going to save anything, but if you do, it feels so good! I have just been letting mine accumulate and will withdraw it at the end of the year. There is several payment methods to choose from as well.  You don't have to get your cash back on a gift card if you don't want.

Wells Fargo Rewards
This is from my credit card and one of the main reason why I keep it. It only kicks back 1% of your purchases, but that adds up. Normally, whenever you rack up $25 they would deposit it into whatever account you chose. I had this turned off and I am just letting it accumulate through out the year. I am going to take the cash and convert it into forgiven currency for my next trip.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

What's going on with my accounts?

I am notorious for wanting to have dozens of bank accounts for dozens of things. In my spring cleaning effort this year, I did away with at least four different accounts and honestly, I feel a whole lot better because of it. So here is a break down of what I have going on right now. 

Checking
I finally have just one checking account. No more funny business here. Other than the mandatory 10 debit purchases I have to make a month to keep the thing free. I only use this for bills. I have been leaving an extra $25 from every paycheck in here in hopes of watching it accumulate over the years. 

Savings
I don’t do nearly as much contributing to this account as I should. But as soon as I accomplish some goals from DebtStomp, I am hoping to start contributing at least $100 from each paycheck here. But for now, all that’s in it is the money I have deposited for gift cards that I have “bought” from myself. 

Challenge Savings
I have to watch this guy constantly. Any left over change from debit purchases gets deposited in here (which is a beautiful system, might I add). I collect my loose change and dollar bills throughout the month and roll them to deposit at the end of the month. A break down of this will be on my networth tracker. I also deposit the extra margin from my bills into here as well.
Example:
Budget for Car Loan: $300
Actual Car Loan: $298.49
That extra $1.51 is then put into this account. Monthly this gives me an extra $18.12. Not bad! 

IRA
I didn’t have much guidance when I set this one up. So I haven’t been contributing like I should. I am hoping to get it over that $2000 mark by next year and convert it into a Roth IRA. Ultimately the goal is to max it out yearly. 

Company Matched 401k
As of right now I am contributing the 5% that my company requires for them to match it but from he looks of it, they won’t actually be contributing anything until I hit my 1,000 hours of full time status. I have thought about it a lot and I have not really missing that %5 so I am just going to let it do it’s thing. Then come August, I should be seeing some company contributions. 


Now that’s not that bad! I’m actually impressed with how simple and effective this system is. Very much pleased with the outcome thus far this year.

Goals - Project DebtStomp 2015

Having goals is super important when it comes to tracking finances. If you don’t know what you are looking for, then why are you looking? 

So, for Project DebtStomp 2015, these are my immediate goals: 

1. Pay off personal loan by June.
This is a debt total of $3,437.52 that accrued from a family friend paying part of my way to England/Scotland this past summer. I have already chunked away a couple of hundred off of this total. The new actual total is $2,901.07 

2. Pay off credit card by May. 
This should be one of the easiest things to pay off. It’s my smallest debt and even between two cards my debt doesn’t surpass $2,000. I pushed it a little with my “go-to” credit card this month, I had been making decent enough payments that my bank decided to up my limit. So, instead of the original $700, I had $1,200 to work with. These will be getting paid off with tax returns!
Wells Fargo Credit: $906.07
Target Credit Card: $561.38 

3. Pay my car loan down to $10,000 by December.
This one is going to be tricky. As of right now, the total loan balance is at $14,992.51. According to my calculations, in order to effectively achieve this goal by the deadline, I will have to throw an extra $283.20 per month starting in March. This means roughly $141.60 per paycheck seeing as I get paid bi-monthly now. I am also planning to cushion this with the money that I should be getting from my settlement check due to the car accident (not my fault) that I was in last November. But I have no way of even guesstimating how much that will be or when I will get it. 

4. Pay off 1/4 of my student loan by December.
This is probably my most unattainable goal seeing as I don’t have it set to flow into motion until June and I only gave myself six months to pay off 1/4 of my $8,399.45 student loan which I was foolish with and one of my loans has been accruing interest heavily for the past year. Silly mistake that I won’t be making again, that is for sure! The total amount for this goal is $2099.86 to be paid off in no less than six month which averages out to about $349.98 a month! Yikes! 

I always have several savings goals that I am trying to accomplish as well. The first six months of 2015, I’m not going to be seeing a lot of progress in these departments, but as my debts get smaller and ultimately dissipate entirely, I am hoping to see a huge turn around as I begin to manage my money properly.
These goals consist of: 

1. Max out my IRA by February 2016
I gave myself until February of next year for this goal, just for the sheer fact that I have already filed my taxes this year and unfortunately haven’t added any funds to this since last year. 

2. Put any extra money I get into my Savings.
This mean cash, checks or gift cards that I get for any miscellaneous holiday from my family. My family likes to give me gift cards the most so that I am forced to buy myself things that I normally wouldn’t and don’t spend the cash on bills. How thoughtful. So, I developed a system to force myself to save that money. I can’t use a gift card until I have “bought” from myself. For example, say I received a $100 gift card for Christmas to Target. I will not go to Target and use the gift card until I have deposited the exact amount of the total worth of he gift card into my savings account. I save money AND don’t actually have to pay for the things I need. Double win! 

3. Keep up with my Challenge Savings.
I have also enlisted myself in a Challenge of sorts. Inspired by a post by J. Money from budgetsaresexy.com (my most favorite finance nerd blog), I have set up an account (savings, duh!) and this is where I deposit any extra change that is left over from debit purchases, loose physical change (and $1 bills) that is saved, counted, rolled and then deposited at the end of the month and any left over margin from my bill budgets. 


4. Contribute 5% of my paycheck into my 401k.
This is probably the easiest savings technique to keep up with. I literally don’t have to do anything. I never see it leave and I don’t miss it once it’s gone. Conveniently, my company uses Wells Fargo for our 401k’s so there is no swapping between different banks to check in. It’s all right one the app. 


Sunday, February 15, 2015

Why a finance blog?


I am a 23-year-old college student who has an obsession with personal finance. Taking a nod from some of my favorite finance blogs, I decided to start my own. This is for myself. To keep track of my finances and my networth. I honestly believe that if half of the young adults of my generation had the interest and fascination, even, with their finances, then I wouldn’t be asked daily how to manage money.

I’m not perfect. In fact, my networth is in the hefty negative. I made choices that weren’t financially sound but this is my journey towards that positive networth and even that sweet millionaire status that we all dream of. 

It’s all about control and responsibility. That is why I thought that writing it all down and posting it on here would be a good idea. This is me taking responsibility of my money.

I am always interested in input (of the positive kind) and would appreciate the feedback. So, if you find yourself wandering the lonely halls of debt and financial instability and need a hand or someone to bounce ideas off of, you might find solace here.