September 2006 - Posts

Revised my 2045 retirement goals
The other day, I sat down and was doing some calculations as far as realistic retirement goals. As a part of that, I was using JLP 's retirement savings calculator . Using the calculator, I figure I am about 40 years away from retirement, and planning Read More...
Posted 30 September 06 10:53 by spender | 9 Comments   
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Paid off my first card!
Ohh yeah! This morning, submitted my payment for my Chevron Gas Card and paid it in full. Talk about a good feeling! Even though I only had about $620 remaining on it, since I consistently use it, it ended up being one of the ones I end up just slowly Read More...
Posted 29 September 06 01:49 by spender | 1 Comments   
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PLUS vs FICO: What a difference!
I've been using Experian's CreditExpert service since January, as Money 2006 came with a free year of service. CreditExpert is just a simple credit monitoring service, it is pretty decent, though kind of barebones. But it is free, so I don't Read More...
Posted 27 September 06 09:14 by spender | 1 Comments   
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Might be the best time to buy a house
The other day, I'd seen a post by JLP about the estimated tax brackets for 2007 was released and this got me doing a little bit of checking. I keep a running estimate of our taxes in Microsoft Money and we've been sitting in the 15%, but with Read More...
Posted 22 September 06 09:49 by spender | 1 Comments   
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Charting my progress
Put together some graphs that I will be using to chart my progress on my way to my debt and savings goals. I always like seeing charts on other people's blogs, and in general, I like math, data tracking, etc. So I've added a couple of images to Read More...
Posted 19 September 06 08:17 by spender | 241 Comments   
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Discrepancy between different mortgage calculators?
Of course when someone first starts thinking about buying a house, the first thing they ask is "how much can I afford?" Very reasonable question. Good thing to know before you go out shopping. The problem is that different banks/lenders calculate Read More...
Posted 19 September 06 12:34 by spender | (Comments Off)   
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To buy or not to buy
So here is my latest dilemma. As I had mentioned in the past , my wife and I have really been wanting to buy a house. We've been leaning on the side of caution and keep putting it off (though not necessarily without reason). Though recently I've Read More...
Posted 17 September 06 06:17 by spender | 2 Comments   
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Example of a need for emergency funds
Came across something the other day that is an example of why someone needs an emergency fund, and also something that just seems inherently wrong. A friend of my wife just recently found out that she has Stage 4 Hodgkin's Disease (basically, the worse Read More...
Posted 10 September 06 11:19 by spender | (Comments Off)   
Broker suggestions for IRAs?
Anybody have any recommendations for a good brokerage firm for a Roth IRA? I signed up with Firstrade , since they looked good on paper: no minimum deposit, no inactivity fees, no fees trading mutual funds. But tonight I've been browsing their site to Read More...
Posted 08 September 06 11:16 by spender | (Comments Off)   
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Why blog anonymously?
I've been thinking lately about whether I should blog anonymously. I've read a number of other personal finance blogs by people who post actual debt and networth numbers, so why be so wary of using my name? After milling over for it a while, I Read More...
Posted 01 September 06 11:33 by spender | 1 Comments   
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