Green Panda Treehouse

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Photo Credit:   It’sGreg

Can you believe it’s almost the end of January? Well, I made some financial goals for this year and it’s a good time to see how I’m doing.

• Income: I would like to earn $37,000 for the year.
  • I’m working on some projects, including adding some ads on the site. Human Resources and I are working on the switch from the intern position. Hopefully this will be resolved by the end of this week.
• Spending: I’m going to continue cutting back on eating out to twice a week, including weekends.
  • I’ve definitely improved on this, but not quite down to this average. I forget my lunch in the morning sometimes. I’m determined to prepare it the night before.
• Investing: I’m going to enroll in my company’s 401(k) and meet the employer match. I’ll also continue to contribute to my Roth IRA.
  • I’ve contacted HR and they are going to send the paperwork. If I don’t get anything by Wednesday. I’ll talk to my supervisor. I am contributing monthly to my Roth IRA.
• Saving: I will have $2,000 in my emergency fund by September 1, 2008. I would also like to put our income tax return into our house fund.
  • I’ve been making regular weekly deposits into my emergency fund and should beat the deadline. My husband and I are changing our plans on the income tax return plan.
• Debt: I would like to pay off my car loan by July 31, 2008. I would like to have my car loan out before I have to start paying student loans.
  • With the lower savings rate, the income tax return will go towards paying down my car loan. After it is paid off, the monthly payments will be redirected to the joint savings.

It’s good to review periodically your goals. As you can see some change and others need a reminder to work on them harder. How are your financial goals for 2008?

If you liked this post, please subscribe to my site!

Ryan is a guest author from Millionaire Money Habits, a personal finance site that discusses building wealth by developing the habits of self-made millionaires. I thought it was interesting how Ryan incorporated news into personal finace skills. Let me know what you think.

By now you it would be virtually impossible to not have heard of Dave Kori, the 17-year-old high-school student who called a Virginia school administrator, Dean Tistadt, at home. He left a message asking why a snow day had not been declared after a three-inch snowfall. The student apparently intended to speak to the Fairfax County chief operator, as he left his name and return phone number. If his goal was to get a return call, he certainly succeeded. Dean’s wife called back, leaving an angry message for the high-school student, which Dave posted online for the world to hear.

While there may be some privacy issues and potential school code violations, the actions Dave Kori took were arguably commendable. In fact, what he did exudes characteristics that I believe will make him very successful in life. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do, and I’m sure there was a better way to handle the situation, but to get what you want, you have to break the rules now and again. He believed strongly about something, and he went straight to the source to have his questions answered.

Photo Credit: Lida Rose

There are many Dave Kori’s in the world, and the one’s I know personally have translated those tenacious characteristics into wealth. Let’s examine:

• Gumption: Becoming wealthy requires the ability to take and handle risk, and at times requires a bit of an attitude. What Dave did was bold. He didn’t just complain to his friends that he had to go to school, he took the steps necessary to either get an answer or to make the school administrator reconsider his decision the next time there is a snowfall.
• Successful Strategy: Self-made millionaires do not become wealthy without implementing a well thought-out strategy. In this case, Dave wanted his thoughts to be heard, wanted an explanation from Dean, or just wanted a call back. Either way, he pretty much got what he was looking for. His message was clear and compelling enough to actually get the administrator’s wife to call back.
• Went to the Source: When wealthy people have questions, they don’t try to figure it out on their own. That would cost them too much time, and time is money. They go right to the most knowledgeable person they can find for answers. The high-school student had questions that were apparently left unanswered, so he went to the only person who could give him an explanation. He went directly to the decision maker.
• Resourceful: What appears as good luck to others, is actually just millionaires being resourceful. They have the ability to uncover rocks in order to find new investment opportunities and get connected with the right people. Dave had the brains to figure out who was in charge of this decision, and then took the time to find a way to track him down.
• Curious: The rich want to understand how things are done and decisions are made. Maybe Dave was genuinely curious, and wanted to know why the decision was made to keep the school open, or maybe he wanted to know how that decision was made.
• Dignity: Wealthy people have a lot of self-respect, and don’t allow others to mistreat them. Dave stood up for what he believed was right, and wanted answers. Any risk or fear in calling the chief operator at home was overshadowed by his strong desire to be vocal with his beliefs. Then when the administrator’s wife left a message, he did not allow her to disrespect him. As a result, he publicly allowed the public to decide if the return call response was just.

While the public’s opinion on how the high-school student handled the situation is either criticized or hailed, I find his actions to be redeeming qualities that exemplify a highly successful person. Identify your objective, focus on the strategy to reach that objective and take no prisoners in reaching that objective.

Photo Credit:  massdistraction

Recently I wrote about our rough draft plans for our tax refund. I got some nice feedback and some interesting thoughts on it. The post also sparked another conversation between my husband and me. I decided to share some information about how our accounts are set up and the idea behind our budgeting.

Curious to see what’s under our hood? Here are the accounts by ownership:

Ours:

• ING Checking: This is the account where we pay our ‘joint’ bills like rent, groceries, light, internet, etc. We prefer this account as it has no minimum balances, no fees, and it earns interest. This has deposits from both of us. I deposit on a weekly basis and my husband deposits bi-weekly. It goes with our paycheck schedule and it works well. We have a buffer built in just in case something crazy comes up.
• ING Savings: This is our emergency fund/sinking fund/housing fund account.  We like to keep the money together in the bank and then we ‘separate’ it on a spreadsheet. I like to see a larger number, as it gives me motivation to make it grow. The interest rate is more than 10x higher than out previous Bank of America savings account. As of today, though, it is now 3.65%. (*sighs I loved my 4.1%) Any leftovers we have from the checking are sent here. Our tax refund was going to go in here, but my husband is persuading me to use it to severely pay down my car loan. If we do that, then after it’s paid off, I’ll redirect the money to the savings account as payment. With the Fed expected to cut down the interest rate within a month, paying debt seems to be the financially smart choice. This is by far my favorite account and we’re strict about the one way traffic: money only comes into it.

Mine:

• Local Credit Union Checking: (It’s so local, that if I mentioned it, you’d know where I live and I’m not cool with that.) I have my job direct deposit come into this account and then I transfer everything out from here. I’ve had good customer service from them in the past and a branch is only 5 minutes away from our apartment.
• Local Credit Union Savings: It’s slightly higher than average, but not by much. This is just a buffer if something is need for checking like extra gas money. This is the least active of my bank accounts.
• ING Savings: I have my emergency fund over at ING Direct to have it grow faster than it would in my credit union account.

His

• Wachovia Checking: It’s where he pays his bills like eating out, computer upgrades, gasoline, etc. I open the mail, so I have an idea of the balance and what not, but I kind of ignore this account. It’s his personal account, so what he does with it is fine by me for the most part. If he buys a flat panel TV from this account great, if it came from the joint, then I’d be concerned.
• Wachovia Savings: Same as above. I have a general idea of what he has, but I don’t stress over it. He’s an adult and he’s financially responsible.

How We Budget:

I think the key for us is keeping it easy to use and easy to change. We use a Google Spreadsheet for our joint budgeting. It lists our deposits and expenses for the month. We also add a buffer in case we go over. Using Google for our spreadsheet is great as we share the spreadsheet and it notifies the other of changes. We review this on an as needed basis, if someone gets a raise or works more hours, etc. To determine how much each deposits, we go by monthly income and come up with a percentage and then use that to calculate deposits. Here’s an example:

• Person 1: $5000/month
• Person 2: $3000month
• Total Income:  $8000
• Bills: $6000/month

• Person 1 brings in 62.5% of the income. That’s 5000/8000.
• Person 2 brings in 37.5% of the income. That’s 3000/8000.

So here are the deposits:

• Person 1 deposits $3,750. That’s just multiplying the bills by 62.5%
• Person 2 deposits $2250. “”

It is a system that is a bit more fair then just splitting it 50/50. People do it differently. This is what works for us,so we’ll continue with it for now. Any other ways of managing deposits that you found work?

As for my personal accounts, I use spreadsheets mainly and I’m trying out Wesabe’s community feature and using Mint to keep track of my eating out spending (I’m trying to be more efficient in this area).

My husband has spreadsheets and GnuCash. He likes it (I thinkJ, I’m not a mind reader, I just see him using it). I find if you do what works for you, then it actually sticks. I don’t like to use GnuCash, but I’m addicted to spreadsheets.

Our bills are automated with the exception of the cell phone bill, which will change next month. When a bill is off, like when our power bill was higher than normal, I just log in and change the amount. It takes less than 5 minutes. We like our little system and it’s working for us. It’s by now means perfect, but perfection is the enemy of good. It’s better to do something and then improve it bit by bit. How do you set up your account? Any tips, suggestions, thoughts?

If you like this post, please subscribe to my site!