Green Panda Treehouse

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Photo Credit: ivanx

Half the year has past I feel like I want to stray off my financial course. Being semi-responsible for a ‘long’ time is making want to take the money I sock away and just spend it. Has anybody else felt this way?

Let me first review my goals for this year:

• Income: The goal is $70,000 for the year as a family.
• Spending: I’m going to continue cutting back on eating out to twice a week, including weekends.
• Investing: I’ll continue to contribute 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 toward paying down the car loan.
• Debt: I would like to pay off my car loan by August 31, 2008.

Here’s how I’m doing:

• Income: Next week is my 90 day review, so I’m nervous and excited to see how that is coming along.
• Spending: We went on a long weekend to New York City and while I did over by a small amount, the monthly spending was in line. I need to really focus on not eating out. I find cheap eats, but the food is not healthy.
• Investing: I’m still investing in my Roth IRA. With the market the way it is now, I see the balance dipping on some funds, but not all. I’m trying not to give up on making my monthly contributions.
• Saving: It’s coming along and every week, the joint savings is growing little by little. My emergency fund is doing alright, but I may have to push back the goal date of September.
• Debt: I’m going to have to pay both a car payment and a student loan payment. I’m going to push hard on putting money on the car by snowflaking. Good news: the balance of the loan is now $2,300.

How is everyone else doing with their 2008 goals?

Photo Credit: Zzzack

We’re doing alright preparing for this move. I’m dead tired, but once this is done, I’ll be able to rest easy. Something that I’m keeping in the back of mind for now is the plan for our retirement funds. We both have 401(k)s with our employers. My 401(k) is considerably less than my husband; one reason being I just got qualified this year.  There are basically three options for us (and everyone else in this situation).

• 1. Roll it over to your new job’s 401(k) or to your IRA. This isn’t a hard process, but it takes some time to fill out the paperwork. Since I already have an IRA it’ll be less paperwork than my husband if he decides to go this route.
• 2. Keep it at its current spot. I can’t do this as I don’t have enough vested to have my employer keep it in there. My husband has to decide if he wants to do this option. If he’s happy with the service and selection that he has, this is fine.
• 3. Spend it. (DO NOT DO THIS!!!!!) You’ll be taxed for early withdrawal and you’re undo the work you’ve put towards retirement. If you spend your retirement money, it will also effect your income when you d your taxes.

We haven’t made a decision on this and we haven’t even discussed it since we’re more concerned with more immediate needs like making arrangements for the moving truck and turning on utilities.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to relax on Monday.

Photo Credit: David Dennis

I’m excited! My one year anniversary was a bit more than month ago, so I can enroll in my company’s 401(k) program. I’ve been bugging Human Resources to try and get my benefits. I wasn’t pushing for the health insurance since my husband’s plan is cheaper and has better coverage.

When we did our taxes, we were advised to contribute more to retirement. I currently have an IRA and my husband has a 401(k) with his company.

I’ve been bugging Human Resources to try and get my benefits. I wasn’t pushing for the health insurance since my husband’s plan is cheaper and has better coverage.

I’m currently signed up to contribute 5% of my income which is the maximum that the company matches. I want to get as much free money as possible. I’m not allocating a higher percentage yet because I need whatever money I can save going towards paying down the car loan. Once the car loan has been pay then my retirement contributions will increase.

I want to continue on my retirement contributions. They not much in amount but I’m trying to maximize on the power of compound interest (Thanks Ramit!)

There some choices for allocation, but less than what expected from a company this size.

I’ve currently divided it with an aggressive target fund, an index fund of the S&P 500, and an index fund of ‘stable and established’ international companies. Surprisingly those were the only two index funds I saw.  I went with the aggressive target fund because the expense fees were low and it fit my goal of aggressive growth. The other options didn’t appeal to me as many of them had high expense fees and they were did worse on the 5 year average then index funds.

I made sure that I got no load funds. I’m already on a budget, no need to give my money away. How do I know this? Researching on line gave me this information:

It’s a commission that has no real benefit for you. The Fool.com observed:

….that there is no real difference historically between the performance of load funds and no-load funds in terms of year-to-year performance. In fact, according to the latest survey by the mutual fund data analyzer Morningstar, even excluding the drag on returns if the load were included in the calculation, no-load funds actually have a superior record to load funds over the last 3-year and 5-year periods.

This fact is also confirmed on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s site!

One thing that bothered me was the customer service. The representative was nice and friendly, but did not recommend the best fund for me. She had me birth date and other my account in front of her. Here’s the gist of what happened:

Me: “I’d like to get a target fund for my age.”

CSR: “Ok, ma’am (wow, I’m a ma’am now  J  ), *talking to self* 26…ok we have a target fund for 2020. Would that be fine?”

Me: “*pause* …excuse me did you say 2020?”

CSR: “Yes. Would you like to enroll in it?”

Me:: “No, I’m looking for something more distant and aggressive. I’m 26.”

CSR: “*pause* We have a 2030 and a 2040.”

Me: “I’ll sign up with the 2040 if that’s your most aggressive.”

CSR: “Yes. It is.”

So she was originally thinking of giving a 26 year old a retirement fund set to expire in 12 years. Well, it’s Friday, so maybe she started the weekend early. I know I would if I could. After I got my account set up I went online and tweaked everything in my account.

How is the 401(k) at your jobs? Do they give you options or is it limited? When did you qualify to enroll in it? When did you actually enroll?