Yearly Archives: 2009

My Mortgage Countdown #3, Year End Financial Crunch

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It already feels like I’ve crossed the debt-free threshold!

Mortgage Countdown #3

December is always tight for us!  Especially this year since we took our first trip to Disney.  It also gets tight because I claim zero exemptions (I know this is a bad idea).

Once my house is paid off, I’m going to change my exemptions to 2.  That will even increase my cash flow even more during 2010.  I’m still mulling around ideas about what to do with that extra income.  I got a few more months though.  I’m hoping the ideas just start jump out at me, and soon!

Last month I blogged about Mortgage Milestones, and this technique served me well (my wife wasn’t so crazy about my idea of paying the house off early) since it softened my wife’s concerns…

The amount that I now owe is down to $3,755!

It’s funny, I had planned on making a $5,000 payment early in my payment schedule (in my spreadsheet), so I would have had my balance paid off by now.  But, I decided not to take the chance when the economy started to tailspin into the recession.

Now that I almost have that extra expense gone, I have all these great ideas for funds that keep popping in my head.  Unfortunately, there are too many and now I feel like I’m behind the eightball again.

My next post about this, “Mortgage Countdown #2” will have some real ideas for what to do with the extra money I’ll be saving!

 

Creating My Kid’s Christmas Money Fund

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Old Wallet

Old Wallet

This year, I paid for my kid’s christmas money (I give them each $100), out of my pocket. Zapped, right out of my old wallet.  Next year, I’m going to start a “ Kid’s Christmas Money Fund”!

So what is a Kid’s Christmas Money Fund?

The fund will be money I put into a 4 to 6% dividend yielding stock that is relativly low risk (I hope).  Maybe an energy stock (or energy transfer stock) or something that has a similar risk level (maybe McDonalds?).

My goal is for the fund to pay out $100 to each kid until there are 16, then I’ll double the amount to $200.

So how am I going to start out this fund?

Starting in January, I’m going to seed the fund with $1,000 from savings.  Then each month, I’ll start to save $200.  Every time my saved amount equals $1000, I’ll buy more shares of stock.  So my total deposits  per year will end up being $2,400. 

Once the kids are in college, perhaps I’ll give some of the extra money from the fund to them for spending.  The Green bar below in the chart represents when I’ll start giving the dividend to them.  So each would get half of $687 (around $340 piece).  I’m not 100% sure if this is what I want now or not.  I’m experimenting with ideas still.

 

The Kid’s Christmas Money Fund

Additional Scheduled Accumulated Interest Dividend
Year Money Deposits/Yr Amount Rate Yield
2010 0 1000 1000 0.04 $40
2011 0 2400 $3,440.00 0.04 $138
2012 0 2400 $5,977.60 0.04 $239
2013 0 2400 $8,616.70 0.04 $345
2014 0 2400 $11,361.37 0.04 $454
2015 0 2400 $14,215.83 0.04 $569
2016 0 2400 $17,184.46 0.04 $687
2017 0 2400 $19,584.46 0.04 $783
2018 0 2400 $21,984.46 0.04 $879
2019 0 2400 $24,384.46 0.04 $975
2020 0 2400 $26,784.46 0.04 $1,071
2021 0 2400 $29,184.46 0.04 $1,167
2022 0 2400 $31,584.46 0.04 $1,263
2023 0 2400 $33,984.46 0.04 $1,359
2024 0 2400 $36,384.46 0.04 $1,455
2025 0 2400 $38,784.46 0.04 $1,551

It’s a little fund, but a fairly easily obtainable.

I wonder if it’s worth the trouble…

Christmas Ebay Auction Mistakes

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My mother bought my son that hot, new “Mind Flex” game by Mattel (I have to admit, I want to try it out too).  But, my son already wrote a letter to Santa asking him for one.  I’m sure Santa will fulfilled that request.  After all, he is Santa…  😉

Since I’ve dabbed with ebay in the past, and I know that the game currently sell for a small markup (it’s sold out in the stores), I told her I would buy it from her and try to sell it on ebay.  I bought it from her for $75 dollars, and I put together a quick on-the-fly auction for it on ebay.  Now some of the units were selling for $149 + shipping and handling.  So I thought it should at least sell for $135.  Unfortunately, my auction only went to $117.50…  I was surprised that it sold for so little, I really expected more.  And I was really disappointed after I subtracted the cost of the ebay, paypal and other miscellaneous  fees.  My profit on the auction was only $26 dollars.  Hardly worth the 2 hours I put in posting the auction, packaging it, and driving it to be shipped…

So what did I do wrong?

  • My first big mistake was that I didn’t spell the name like it was on the package!  I listed the package as MindFlex, but on the package it’s “Mind Flex“.  WOW, talk about a rookie mistake!  I should have known better!  Ironically a lot of other people spelled it the same way I did.  Still I cut down my audience by at least 50%.
  • My second mistake was that I posted the auction late on a Sunday night (well at least after 8:00pm)…  This isn’t the optimal time to list an auction one ebay, especially at that hour.  This cut down the audience too, although the customer loss wasn’t near as damaging as my “first big mistake“
  • My last mistake was because I posted the auction to quickly.  I set a fixed shipping and handling cost that I thought would cover any shipping cost in the United States.  Unfortunately, Hawaii is also part of the United States (insert long, drawn-out scream here)…

What I want to communicate with this post is to take your time with ebay and other transactions that involves money.

Do It Yourself (DIY) To Save Money

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When I was in school, I remember a particular teacher that taught that it’s better to great at one job, than to be mediocre at many jobs.  I humble disagreed.

I think it’s better to know how to do as much as possible!  Some of the things that we pay professionals, is quite entertaining.

I just want to say that it really pays to be able to do things yourself.  Anymore, labor costs are the biggest expense of fixing things.

List of some of the things I’ve fixed myself are:

  • Rotated my tires
  • Fixed my electrical garage door rail (just needed oiled really), It was getting stuck.
  • Changed car brakes in both our cars
  • Fixed countless toys
  • Washing Machine (twice)
  • Laundry Dryer
  • Lawn Mower (multiple times)
  • Shower head
  • Alarm radio
  • VCR (a long time ago)
  • Cassette Player (4 years ago)

Being able to fix things myself has helped me with my saving goals.  Now, I almost always try to figure out how to fix my things first, before calling in the professionals.

Do you have a list of DIY things you’d done?