Being Disciplined

We decided that once we paid off the loan from our parents, we would build our emergency fund upto $20,000. We changed this slightly to pay an extra amount towards our mortgage and build the emergency fund. Looking at the state of affairs right now, we feel that this is a good time to start investing in the stock market. But there is a small sense of discipline in me that is stopping me from doing it. At the rate we are saving right now, we would completely fund our emergency account by end of December. Though there is an itch to go and buy company stocks right now, I think we will wait until December. Something tells me things are not going to turn around completely before December.

Hello after a long time!!

Hey everybody,

It’s been long. Before I start anything I need to thank Joe for keeping me away from buying anything Gold. Though I am around 10% down on FFNOX, I feel much safer at that place rather than a place I would have been if I had bought the precious metals fund.

I took the new job and it’s been awesome. Commute is long but it’s okay since I take the train. Spent a fair share of money on vacation plans for Thanksgiving weekend. Got a stupid citation and have to pay about $400 for that. So things on the financial side are going at pretty much the same level. I am hoping that next year would be better than this. I am still hoping to put away about $20,000 in our savings account by end of this year. I am about 60% there. Still a long way to go. It’s not going to be easy.

My CFA preparations are going nowhere since I started the new job. I am hoping that everything that things would settle down by end of this year and the new year would be much more organized. I have to revisit my 2008 goals to see where I stand. I am pretty sure I will not be reaching my financial goals by end of this year. But I am pretty happy about the start I had this year. Last year, I did not even know what I wanted to do. This year has given me a lot of knowledge and ground work to make the coming years better.

I haven’t regained my data files and I haven’t found the time yet to put together my networth data. So I’ll have to wait a little bit more before I post my networth updates. Hope you guys are hanging on in these tough times.

Bye for now…..

Lost All My Data

Last friday, I lost all the data I had about our networth. The excel sheets that I used to track our progress is gone. I tried to use free data recovery software to recover the data. But with no luck. I need to sit down someday and put together all the information. I should also figure out a better way to backup the data that I store on external media.

New Job Edition

Yeah…I found a new job. And it’s great.

It’s panic time for my manager at my current company. They have been running around to get me a counter offer. It’s about time I got something better.

It was one of my goals to get a new job this year. I was expecting this to happen much earlier in the year. But it’s better late than never. To top it all, it’s in an industry that I want to work in. I can see my opportunities growing with moving to this new position. The only negative I have with this new found job is that they don’t have matching 401k contributions. But hey…right now I don’t have any benefits since I work as a contractor.

There are a few things that I learnt during these couple of days.

1) All along, people have been telling me that I should expect a lesser salary if I am employed as a full-time employee compared to being a contractor. The difference in pay attributed to the benefits that come with a full-time offer. I now know that it is just nonsense. This new offer got me a 33% raise with benefits compared to the existing contracting position. They have also offered me equity in the company. How about that for dessert?

2) I think one of the main reasons women get paid less is because they are too ashamed of making a counter offer. When I first got the initial offer, I was pretty excited and I just wanted to take it. Thankfully, BB was there to stop me and indeed write an email for me making a counter offer. And it didn’t even take 5 mins to get a reply accepting the counter offer. It all seemed too easy. A raise of about 10% for just asking.

3) Your managers are not here to take care of you. What I mean is they are not here to make sure you get what you deserve. It is up to the individual to market him/her self to obtain what is due. Until I told my current employer that I am leaving, I was pushed around everytime I asked for a full-time position. I was also not offered any raise when my contract was renewed. Once they knew I was leaving, they seem like they would do anything to keep me here. Well, I need to hold on before I make any judgements. Lets see what they will offer before I jump to any conclusions.

If things don’t change too much, I will be joining the new job in 2 weeks time. The best thing that I learnt out of this is that, now I know I am worth much more than what I get paid right now.

Another Goal Accomplished?

I’m getting there. I can’t wait. Will update you once I clear out a few more things.

Networth Update - August

Debt paid off since 01 Nov 2007            : 33,276.76
Increase in assets since 01 Nov 2007     : 21,531.74
Change in networth since 01 Nov 2007  : 54,808.50 ( +8.73% since last networth post )

The car payment has been deducted from my checking account, but it has not been applied yet to the loan account. If the payment isn’t applied by tomorrow, I need to call my lender to check the status. That would be another -400 to the debt paid off.

We are currently concentrating on increasing our emergency fund. Also we have come up with a weekly allowance that each of us would take for our lunch and other individual expenses. This is the first week we are following this. This is a drastic reduction in our monthly miscellaneous spending amount. Let’s see how this goes.

Update on Ebay Transaction

The seller emailed back saying that he will not be refunding the extra shipping cost. He also mentioned that if I were to resend the package to him, he will repay me the cost + est ship - actual ship. Interesting!! I would have still bought these books if they were listed for $100 + shipping costs.

I don’t know if this is ethical or not, but I sure know that I let my hands get dirty without knowing this ahead of time. I am contemplating if I should report this behaviour to ebay or leave a feedback with this information about the seller. Mabbe I was the only one to not have known this before hand.

What is blogshares.com??

When I logged into my account today, I saw this link was referring to this blog. I don’t know ”ibebruce” who added my blog to this website. Do any of you have any experience with this website or such?

Making Pizza at home

Last weekend was a major cooking event at our home. We made Naan (Indian Bread) and Malai Kofta curry (Veg balls in a creamy tomato sauce) on saturday. We also made buttermilk bread and pizza on Sunday. We had no plans to make pizza. I had made bread dough for 2 loafs of bread. And after baking one loaf, I was getting worried that we wouldn’t be needing 2 loafs over a week’s time. So we decided to use the dough for one loaf to make pizza. Though we were little skeptical about the usage of different dough for pizza base, we still went with it. We did not have cheese at home. So we made a no cheese pizza with a lot of veggie toppings. The result was spectacular. We loved the pizza and we had leftovers too.
Next time I bake bread, I’m going to intentionally make enough dough for 2 loafs and use one for pizza!!

My experience with Ebay so far…

I bought some books through ebay 10 days back. I paid $50 for the books plus $51 for shipping. I knew it was too much to pay $51 for shipping. But at that point the total of $101 for those books sounded less expensive compared to other similar offers available. Also this seller, having a yale.edu email id, made me think this person would be legitimate and that I would be reimbursed the shipping cost if it were less. I also checked the person’s name at yale website to make sure this was a legitimate person. Today I collected the parcel at my post office and found that shipping had cost around $10. I have written an email to the seller asking if he would refund the extra shipping cost. Let’s see how it goes.