Category: Life's Expenses

Just as I did last year with my 2009 goals post I’m setting my investing goals for 2010.  At the end of 2009 my account balance was $85,007.52 and I sent a $16,000 deposit in that will be credited this week.  So I’m going to include this deposit for my goal setting purposes and say I’m starting 2010 with $101,007.52 in my account.  When setting goals for this account I like to weigh in a three factors – current balance, growth expectations and additional funding plans.

Over …

This week MyTradersJournal.com has the honor of hosting the Carnival of Financial Planning, The Best Personal Financial Planning and Personal Investment Articles this Week from Personal Finance Blogs.

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Welcome to the November 13, 2009 Edition #115 of the Carnival of Financial Planning.

The Carnival of Financial Planning takes a long-term view of personal financial planning for individuals and families. We focus on efficient and sustainable personal financial planning practices that can lead to lifetime financial security. 

This edition is arranged by …

Ever since mortgage rates started falling I’ve been waiting for the best time to refinance our home mortgage.  A few months ago I received a promotional letter from the same mortgage broker I’ve used for our past two mortgage loan closings – one mortgage refinance and one original mortgage loan.  I’ve referred him to 8-10 friends and they’ve all used him so we have a good relationship now and always get good interest rates and low closing costs from him (He knows I still …

I haven’t written a formal review of Quicken yet, but have used Intuit’s money management software since 1997.  I’ve had some issues with stock and option downloads using Quicken in the past, but either they fixed the bug or I figured out what I was doing wrong and don’t have issues with it any more.  If anyone thinks a step by step guide on how to download stocks and options is worthwhile just let me know and I’ll add it …

The past couple of years have been expensive for my family when we look at the cost of poor health.  A lot of it is obvious in missed wages and doctor/hospital fees, but sometimes it’s the intangible costs that can be more important.  The emotional costs and missed opportunities can’t be overlooked when discussing true costs.

20 months ago I had surgery on my neck to remove a couple of bad discs.  I was an hourly contractor …

Here’s an interesting article on CNN.com’s site that I almost had for MyTradersJournal.com.  It’s written by a friend of the family who works at CNN, Paul Varian.  He sent me his story via email and said that he was sending it to the AC/360 team also in case they were interested.  He gave me permission to post his story if CNN wasn’t interested.  They were and posted it, so I’m just linking to it instead …

I’m not charting/posting an index today.  I spent my time away from my family doing taxes.  I used the Turbo Tax, like I’ve done for years.  I had to upgrade to Quicken 2008 to get everything to transfer and allow me to continue downloads after April from my credit cards and brokerages. 

I’ll give a review of Quicken 2008 Premier after I’ve had a little more time to play with it.  First impression is good though.  A problem I’ve seen with …

I have to wonder sometimes if I’m addicted to money.  I think about it all the time, I constantly strive for more and never seem to have enough.  I used to nag a friend in college to stop smoking and one day he replied, “why would I stop, I like it too much.”  I guess that’s why I let me addiction to money run free.  I like it too much.  I’m not sure how much is too much though.  I still keep …

Since my wife starts her new job within two weeks we are both trying to get all the little things done in our lives that take away from the focus and attention she’ll have to devote to that for a while.  I’m following suit in the hopes that I’ll have a new job soon too.  The verbal offer I got still hasn’t materialized into a written offer so I’m back on the job hunt in the meantime. 

We both took our …