I recently received an email from one of my readers (Doug) and I thought I would share it with you as it really hit home with me and I think it might with many of my readers. Doug was kind enough to give me a few compliments, which made my day, but in the end it was I who really learned something. It’s a little long, but please read it in it’s entirety as it is probably one of the best pieces of writing you will see on this site.
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March was another good month for My Financial Journey. Here are some of my favorite posts from the previous month.
March 5 – How to go about frugal landscaping – Part II
March 9 – I just don’t get it – what is the big deal about gas prices?
March 13 – Million Dollar Kids – Give me a break
March 17 – Frugal cure for a sore throat (92 comments and 4800+ diggs)
March 21 – What not to do with your tax return
March 23 – When lightening strikes
March 29 – My Financial Journey’s pimp ride version 2
I recently sold my original pimp ride so I figured it would be good to break down the costs of the vehicle.
Purchased
1990 Ford Escort
Purchase Date: 10/2004
Mileage: 90,000
Cost $1000
Sales Tax $50
Repairs: $463 (tie-rods, timing belt)
Maintenance (oil-changes) – $100 (5)
Insurance Costs: $575 ($115 every 6 months)
Total Expenses= $2288
Sold
Sold: 04/2007
Mileage 129,000
Money Received – ($125)
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Well another positive month. A good chunk of the gain was due to deposits again, but all of my accounts except my Roth IRA had positive investment gains also. One thing to note is that I missed for the first time in my life my planned deposit to my Roth IRA account. I really got it in me for whatever reason to pay off my HELOC entirely and put a good $5000+ of my resources in the last month to paying off my HELOC entirely. This drained my cash reserves quite a bit so I did not feel safe making my monthly Roth IRA deposit because it might get my checking account too low and I get really nervous if it ever dips below $3,000. I also have a 0% credit card that I have been carrying a balance on that comes due in July and has about $5500 on it (primarily due to me putting all cash towards HELOC, paid over $10,000 in HELOC within the last year). Note- I have never left a balance on a non 0% credit card and never will. I don’t see the extra $5,500 being a challenge to pay off before July, but I may forgo another Roth IRA deposit this month just to be sure. Anyway here are the numbers.
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A couple months ago I talked about my pimp ride. Well I’m sure some people might call me a hypocrite, but I actually went ahead and replaced that car last weekend. Now before you go ahead and start saying “I told you so” you can’t buy crappy cars like that and expect them to be a reliable vehicle that you need to drive every day, I’ve got a couple things to point out.
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This post was written by Matthew Paulson from Getting Green. If you enjoy this post, consider reading some of his other articles.
I’m a rather young individual, and the lowest price that I can remember for stamps is 29 cents. In just over a decade, the price of stamps has increased nearly 25%. The price of postage appears to be ready for its next increase. In February, the Independent Postal Regulatory Commission recommended that the price of stamps increase to 41 cents. Last week the post office governing board agreed with the IPRC’s recommendation and starting in May, the price of stamps will be increasing once again.
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Just wanted to give you a heads up as to why I didn’t post the last two mornings. This has been a pretty exciting week for me and I’ve probably beaten the odds on a couple of things. First my article on How to cure a sore throat almost instantly was picked up by Digg and Reddit early this week and ended up as the #1 story on both sites for a good day or so on Monday and Tuesday. Then on Wednesday my house got struck by lightening, which in turn fried our television, my wireless router, and all the internal phone lines, which means I don’t have access to internet at home which makes it tough to blog.
Edit: 3/26/2007 – still no internet at home – will play electrician tonight and have something for tomorrow on my thoughts on helping our kids out on their college education.
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