How do you think you are doing?

[greedy4chips]

Re: How do you think you are doing?

We are doing fine. What is a CD? Also does opening all those credit cards affect your credit rating in a negative way?

CDs are Certificate of Deposits. They are purchased at banks, credit unions, online financial institutions, etc. You agree to purchase them at a minimum amount say $500 for a certain period of time from 3 months to 5 years, times may vary but are usually 3, 6, or 9 months and longer ones of 1, 2, 3, 4 , or 5 years. They offer a fixed rate of return and the longer the CD period the bigger the interest rate is typically.

If you cash out before they mature you will be hit with some sort of penalty, usually 3 months of interest but terms do vary.

Interest can be added to the CD or sent to you monthly.

Usually they will renew your CD when it matures for the same term length automatically. You have the option of cashing yours in though at maturity.

Maturity, simply means your holding period is done.

Very safe! FDIC insured at most issuers. No broker fees.

Hope that helps.

[greedy4chips]

Re: How do you think you are doing?

Also does opening all those credit cards affect your credit rating in a negative way?

Yes it does, but not to the point that I don't receive cc apps anymore. In fact many days I receive 8-10, ave 30 per week.

I maintain great records and try to never miss a payment.

For me it is simply a business and worth the effort. About $200 per month.

I started smaller and it just snowballed into this size and plan.

[tgavin71]

Re: How do you think you are doing?

Thanks Greedy. Your plan does look good on paper. As far as I know we don't have 0% credit cards in australia. Will have to have look. In Australia CDs are called Term Deposits. The more money and the longer your money is deposited the higher the interest rate. There are penalities if you take the money out early.

[Ima saver]

Re: How do you think you are doing?

It would be nice if we knew where everyone lived, country wise.

[LuxLiving]

Re: How do you think you are doing?

Good GOOD - could be better.

Emergency Fund fully funded - 1 year = to salary before taxes

CD's to cover 2 future car replacements

No car payments - two relatively new vehicles. One has full warranty, other doesn't.

Lots of little savings accounts for the 'surprise' factors in our budget - those icky things like car tag renewals, roof replacement fund, timeshare taxes, etc, that jump up unexpectedly and bite you on the bum. They are not all fully funded yet BUT we do have cash in the e.fund if needed. This will be fully operational this time next year as I'm hitting this hard. Working diligently to keep all expenses WITHIN OUR MEANS!

Living one month behind income - August money put back to pay Sept bills

Bills always paid on time.

500.00 Cushion in checking.

1000.00 cash in petty cash kitty.

No credit card debt. No HELOC. No second mortgages. No loans of any kind. Just one mortgage - balance of 24,000. Am hammering it with all I can scrape together.

401-K at 9% going to 10% January 07. Some matching.

Rollover Traditional IRA rocking along fine - mostly index funds & a bond fund. Rather largish chunk of change here. Large to me. Fidelity would tell you otherwise. Size is relative!!

Roth IRAs started and growing - one thing we will be working on with tax advisor is how much of Rollover Traditional IRA we can move to Roth IRA each year w/o increasing our tax burden.

Cemetery plots paid for long ago.

Accounts Receivable:

Truck loan to son - he still owes about 1300.00- no interest.
Car loan to brother-i-law- he owes 2900.00+interest. We will get this out of his portion at final administration of f-i-l's estate.

NEED to get wills updated, and life insurance increased

Plans to get either an Annuity or start a Family Foundation to create an income stream that will help w/the costs of late date life insurance purchase.
Expensive!!! The Hubster smokes. YIKES!! We are expecting a small inheritance from fil estate when his house sells. This will be about 6-8 thousand maybe. Other siblings get a share. Plus we will be getting back about 12,000 we have laid out as The Hubster has been the administrator of the estate and not one (boo hiss) of the other siblings have even asked if we needed help to keep the expenses paid up nor to help w/the funeral expenses. I lean toward doing a foundation - you can set one up now for about 10,000, take a small salary for administering it, plus direct where you want grants to go each year. I'd like to do this and have our tithes be cycled thru here plus the income would help offset the life insurance premiums. There would be some tax advantages as well. Two or three birds w/one stone. Right now all we have is a 10,000 life policy at husbands work that will likely cease to exist when he retires.

Then comes some form of health insurance that we pay for on our own as we are thinking that possibly we may not be in as good of health when retirement rolls around. Perhaps it'd be better to buy our own policy than the one that is paid for thru work. We pay for it but they get group discount - so we'd have a trade off. More premiums now, but possibly better coverage later! I'm Native American and can get healthcare thru the tribe if I have to. Am healthy as a horse!

In this same vein, fil had some 'piece of the rock' stock. None of the other siblings are interested in owning their shares - they want cash today. Husband and I are planning to buy them off of each one. This throws off a nice little dividend check each month! Plus gets good capital gains each year as well.

Next would be to get LTC insurance. Also expensive. Shop early folks we most likely'll need it!! ...and it gets higher in costs as you age.

Want to get headstone bought and set.

Considering retirement age options now.

There is more than enough in a Money Market account to pay off mortgage today which I may do at anytime if they get pi**y w/me like they've been doing lately. 7 years into a 15 year mortgage w/never a late payment so they got NO reason to be rude EVER! Do you hear me Countrywide? BE POLITE to the nice customers they pay your salaries!! {tiny Rant!

Money for this year and next years timeshare fees/taxes are in CDs.

This years house taxes are already in a CD. Would like to get these up to where each year's CD throws off enough interest to pay the next years taxes! Wouldn't that be spiffy??

I've belonged to an investment club since 98 - relatively small dollars in there but loads of educational benefits.

Have a few municipal DRIPS - mostly energy & water. We all use them! Others are Pepsi & AFLAC & Deere. I wish I could find a PT job w/Deere - they are supposedly one of the best employers in US.

This month I paid a years worth of house and car insurance -- foiled them, they won't get the extra fee they charged for our quarterly payments. This was 6.00 a pop 4 times a year on both policies. So that saved us $48 to be put to better use.

For the past year I have been taking my grocery budget and cutting it in half and putting that back in I-bonds [this was while it was up over 6%]. This is my 'keep me from being a bag lady eating cat food' money! It's future groceries!! This has stopped going to I-bonds. Have to rethink where to put it. I liked the I-bonds at that good rate. I like their liquidity. Anytime you NEED something in the future you can cash them in smaller amounts w/o liquidating a bigger amount and having to try to find someplace to invest it!

Son who just turned 20 this month has made his first room & board payment. $200 month. Most of this will be going to Mom & Pop's retirement! Better he should help us now and have a cheap place to live than us to be knocking on his door later trying to move in! This is the son who works two jobs and has a disability. He MAY never be able to live on his own. Part of my stringent planning is so that we can live well enough to take care of him as well in our retirement years if we need to - this means we have to have at least a 2 bedroom when on our own we could do one. He helps lots around the house so it's a mutual back-scratching thing we are doing. Want to be able at 'estate planning' mode to leave him in a position to always have someplace/someone to live with if needed. This is a dream - I don't know if I can do it w/o some serious windfalls!

So looks good on paper but I want to maximize our income to the very best I can. Rinse, wring those pennies and repeat! I want to be in a position to never have to work 8-5 again if I can at all keep from it!

We are not young'folk, so we have built up over the years and God has been very good to us. We have made our share of financial mistakes over the years but not too many. We have good assets, good credit, but monthly cash is tight. I walk around w/a dollar or two in my wallet most days. Hubster gets $20 wk allowance - 4cigs & incidentials. Our gasoline we put on the debit card. He packs a lunch. Never EVER want to debt again. Right now I get great pleasure in reading our Fidelity Full View report each morning and checking the growth of our Net Worth. And seeing it as a privilege to make it my business to maximize our blessings!! Also enjoy T.H.'s pleasure at my success in getting our finances turned around in a few years time. He's been very supportive of most of my ideas.

Thanks for listening. It helps me to write it all down!! Feel somewhat better - but pushed against making all the right moves in the short time frame before retirement. Ya'll make these kinda plans as early as you can. Time crunching is no fun I tell ya!!

[Ima saver]

Re: How do you think you are doing?

Wow, Lux, I am really impressed, you have done all the right things!! (Now if you could just get dh to stop smoking!! I finally kicked the habit 16 years ago and got the dh to do it about 9 months later. For a while I put our cigarette savings away in mutual funds)

[LuxLiving]

Re: How do you think you are doing?

Wish I could get him to stop!! Ain't gonna happen at this late date I fear. Even watching his Dad die of lung cancer on a ventilator didn't slow him down!! If that didn't do it there is likely nothing I could say that would! But, yeah, it'd be great for him healthwise and us as a team moneywise!

All the right things? I'm pedaling as fast as I can! Boy what I wouldn't give for the wasted years when I was doing it wrong! I nagged for years for him to save but he wouldn't do it. I should have insisted!! He kept thinking his promised pension of 85% of final salary woud be there. I kept asking but what if it isn't?? Well, his company went bankrupt and all the empty promises are worthless! So, about 2 years ago I convinced him to let me take over the bill paying. We have come a very long way in a very short time but there is much still to be done! Note: He did fine - our bills have always been paid on time and we've never gone hungry. But working FT w/lots of overtime there wasn't any time for him to do any planning. He also doesn't read much - I'm the reader and like you I've always wanted lots of money so have always read the finace articles, books, etc. Having time to think about this stuff is crucial - if you are always working it's hard to have time to think ahead.

I am so thankful that I ran into this website. I know I will learn tons here and it sure is helpful to be able to toss out questions/theories/ideas and get ya'lls feedback.

I'm impressed with your accomplishments as well. Wish I had enough dineros to be kicking back the kinda interest ya'll are earning. I don't think many folks realize just how many dollars you have to have to earn that kind of interest.

-LuxLivingFrugalis

P.S. I love Georgia Ima!! I feel so At Home when I'm there. My ancestors are from that part of the woods. I don't know any kin there but I get an overwhelming sense of coming home when I'm there! Yeah, I know that's woo-woo new agey talk, but tis true nonetheless!

[Ima saver]

Re: How do you think you are doing?

I am like you, I like to read and especially all the financial things. I didn't start early enough either cause I knew nothing about investing. I heard of mutual funds, but did not know how to get started. Our library is so little, it had no books on investing. I finally learned thru the Money magazine.
We have no computer smarts either, never used one in my life! We just try and put away at least 10% of all we earn and save in other ways.
Have you tried saving thru mutual funds?

[LuxLiving]

Re: How do you think you are doing?

Saving thru mutual funds?

Nope not yet other than those inside my Roth IRA - however if I ever get to the point where I'm able to max it out consistently then I will most likely do mutual funds on my own. I really don't like the gov telling me when I can spend my $!

[Ima saver]

Re: How do you think you are doing?

That is how I started with my real savings, thru mutual funds. You use to be able to open them with $1 at American Century. Now most require a minimum of $2500 and up.

[PrincessPerky]

Re: How do you think you are doing?

Lux on smoking, have you tried telling him how his habit effects your health? or how hard it will be when he dies first (and way to early)? I didn't quit for me, I quit so that I wouldn't harm my family, and so I would be here for them..

If I had no family, I would still smoke..guaranteed..

[nanamom]

Re: How do you think you are doing?

I wish we were doing as well as some of you seem to be. My husband keeps apoligizing for the hole we were in when we got married. i'm just glad to have a positive net worth right now. At the end of the year we will be down to only one car payment (can't wait) and haven't gotton a mortgage yet so we will be able to save more towards our EF. You have inspired me to write our goals down on paper which will help.

[LuxLiving]

Re: How do you think you are doing?

Remember nanamom, some of us may be way older than you! Concentrated effort and you'll get there. Isn't it lovely to see the light at the end of the car payment tunnel???? I'm tickled for you!!

Yes, writing down the goals and ticking them off - very fruitful.

[LuxLiving]

Re: How do you think you are doing?

Lux on smoking, have you tried telling him how his habit effects your health? or how hard it will be when he dies first (and way to early)? I didn't quit for me, I quit so that I wouldn't harm my family, and so I would be here for them..

If I had no family, I would still smoke..guaranteed..

He doesn't smoke in the cars or house anymore - not after my Mom reamed him good over it when I had strep throat and bronchial pneum back to back and ending up moving home w/her for 3 weeks. I wished I was dead I felt so bad. I can still remember her screaming at him..."You only want smokes for pleasure, she NEEDS oxygen to live! - Her need trumps your want Bucko!"



Uh, needless to say, my Mom doesn't smoke! But really she was mad at him leaving me to go off to work for about the fourth week in a row w/me on the couch coughing my lungs up without getting me to a doctor.

Once he picked himself up from the tongue lashing he has since gone outside with it. THANKS MOM!!!

Other than that one time they get along great! Twas years ago, but I'm pretty sure he's never forgotten it.

[Ima saver]

Re: How do you think you are doing?

Yes, I find writing down your financial goals to be very helpful. I do that once a year, sor t of like a new years resolutions. I get them sitting around and when I reach a goal, I write down the date. Now, I try and make them realistic, not like I want to save a million this year when we only make $50,000. But things like max out roth, save $5000 in mutual funds, etc.