Realistic Rate of Return – Part II

Realistic Rate of Return – Part II

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As I mentioned in Part I in the comments, I am invested 100% in stocks. My rational for this, which could be flawed, is that stocks have historically without a question been the best long term investment vehicle for your money. Yes there area a lot of up and downs, but over periods of 10-20 years this volitility is less of an issue, so in my mind the risk is mitigated. Like I said I’m young and don’t know everything, but until someone proves me wrong this is the strategy I’m sticking with. In my mind I would be throwing money away by investing in bonds, real estate, gold, etc.

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Realistic Rate of Return – Part 1

Realistic Rate of Return – Part 1

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In producing the many excel spreadsheets that I have that tell me how much I need to save to in order to get x dollars x years down the road, I’m always kind of curious as to what I should put in there for my compound annual return rate. Certainly having a realistic and accurate return rate is vital to any kind of financial planning exercise. Especially seeing as how most of my calculations span 30 or more years of investment performance the return rate can drastically change the final numbers. If I were to set my expected return rate too high I would drastically over inflate my numbers and be poorly disappointed with my actual results.

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Will my frugality send my kid to the hospital?

Will my frugality send my kid to the hospital?

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Today I had the pleasure of dealing with the door to door salesman for ChemLawn. After analyzing my yard he came up with a list of things that needed immediate attention. There was gaping hole next to the driveway where I drive my car over the corner of the lawn every day after pulling up to get my mail before heading into the garage, a couple of bare spots, gopher holes, and (gasp)…..weeds. After telling me that he could fix all of these problems for me throughout the summer by stopping by every 3 weeks and spraying chemicals all over my lawn for the low price of $65 a time he wanted to know when he could set up an appointment.

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March 2006 – Retirement Nest Egg Report

March 2006 – Retirement Nest Egg Report

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This month was actually another pretty good month for me. Individually I made up a ton of ground on my wife in my Roth IRA account. Before last month she was nearly $600 a head of me in her Roth IRA account, but after strong showing by SHFL and HWAY last month I’m now within $100 of her. Also realized a made a mistake on my Traditional 401k account balance last month as my 401k provider lumps the two together and I forgot to subtract out my Roth 401k to get my Traditional 401k, so I overstated that value $606.23 last month….oops. Anyway here are my monthly totals, it’s great to see that number growing and growing each and every month. Just 3 months ago I was only at $24k!
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Our HELOC

Our HELOC

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I know I don’t include my debt when it comes to figuring out my net worth, and I think my reasons for that are still valid. However by not tracking it on my blog, it is not on the forefront of my mind every day and well I don’t get to hear people’s opinions on my entire financial picture. Anyway part of the reason for not including my Mortgage/HELOC was because they were “cheap” debt that I did not need to worry about and that the focus of this blog was getting me to retirement and I did not see my mortgage debt or student loans getting in my way. They would just slowly get paid off over the next 30 years so when it came to retirement they would no longer exist.

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Money Blog Network Forums

Money Blog Network Forums

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The Money Blog Network recently opened up a forum at http://forums.moneyblognetwork.com/ If you are a personal finance blogger check it out, the forums just started but there is already tons of great information out there. In fact after reading a post today, I’m already starting to rethink my philosphy from this post I made yesterday about what to write on my blog – I guess it really is not that important to be completely unique with every post because not everyone out there reads 100 pf blogs a day like I do and what may redundant information to me may not be for readers who only read a few blogs a day.

Anyway check out the forums they really are great, and well now I can add daily trips to the forums in addition to all the blogs I keep track of. Thanks I think 😉

Writing content for a Personal Finance Blog

Writing content for a Personal Finance Blog

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I’ve only been blogging for about 3 months now, so I’m still trying to find the best method to go about maintaining this site. One of the issues I struggle with is what to post and how often to post. While I know its important to post regularly to keep people interested in your blog, I also think that you can go over board with lots and lots of trivial posts. I know I have removed some blogs from my RSS feed just because they post too darn much and I’d never have the time to read every single post.

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