How we changed from savers to spender (Yahoo! article)

Insightful article from Yahoo! http://biz.yahoo.com/brn/060518/17503.html 

Get my TD Ameritrade brokerage account going…

When I opened my TD Ameritrade account last week, I deposited $2010. I wanted to get the 15 free trades and also cushion myself with $10 for any unexpected fees. Not much of a cushion, but I did it "just in case…"

So I bought stocks with my balance. I spent nearly all of it less $5. I purchased two retail stocks and two Internet service stocks. Well, now that the day is over, I'm under. I lost $9. 

=(

Other than that, my Roth IRA is up. I feel really good about this because I have contributed $4500 and have a balance of $4700. Not bad for a few months…

I'm thinking of signing up for the $25 bonus HSBC billpay service. Maybe in a week when I have more cash flow…I still owe rent!!! Oi!!!

One of my stocks went up 42% today.

I bought the stock for my Roth IRA acct in March, and it's up 50% since then.

I didn't make too much since it's a penny stock, but the performance has been way beyond my expectations.

I also opened a TD Ameritrade brokerage account today. I deposited $2010 so that I could get 15 free bonus trades.

So far, so good.

Everything's up.

In the past two days, my Roth IRA has gone up about 2%. Yay!

My teeny brokerage acct is up, too. I made a faulty decision in puchasing some Ashworth stock. It's been going down and more down since I got it. My other stocks are getting even and one stock has gone up a lot. Yay!

My current net worth is about 18,500. Yay!

Investments

I fully funded my Roth IRA for 2005 contribution when I bought the alternative energy/materials stock. It's been going up and down, but still steadily growing. Yay.

My sharebuilder ETF is going down.

But, I have a few other things that I'd like to buy to bring it back up. Not ETFs because they're out of my budget, but some affordable consumer retail stock.

I have to say that I regret not purchasing Kookmin Bank's stock. Each day it rises about 1.50-2 points a share. It's now at 80 something. And, Focus Media Holdings which has grown from 35 to 52 over the past three months. Oi…

Market order.

I just bought 100 shares of an alternative energy/materials stock @ $0.77/share.

This is just an experiment~

Fidelity Freedom 2040 up.

My Fidelity Freedom 2040 fund has gone up $50 in the past three market days.

I have this month to make rock the full contribution of my Roth IRA. I still have a lot of expenses this month and next…but, I think I can do it as long as a crisis doesn’t come up. I’ll probably buy something other than the Fidelity fund to balance out my portfolio.

I purchased the Fidelity Freedom 2040.

I finally go the chance to take some time off of work and speak w/ a Fidelity rep about their funds. I took my entire balance (only $2500) and got the Fidelity Freedom Fund for my retirement schedule.

I like the idea of “auto-pilot” or “automatic.”

Though I can learn and have more control over my retirement portfolio if I picked and chose my own investments, I just don’t have time! I have more important things to do in life. Like…develop my career.

I decided that I need a lot of things on auto-pilot. For the next few years, I’ll be working hard to set this up so that when time comes, I can work on other things and not freak out about finances.

Auto-pilot & double duty things include the following:

• Retirement plan – Fidelity Freedom 2040 re-shuffles itself every few years.
• Savings/CD interest – to have about $100-200 from interest a month.
• Investment portfolio – same as above.
• All immediate family lives w/in 5-7 miles of me or vice versa
  • If this happens, mom and I can spend more productive time together going to the gym, taking walks, shopping, having dinner.
• Keep tutoring photoshop & try to find more freelance work
• I can get extra income regularly if I keep doing this and developing relationships. This will help me out a lot when I’m pregnant or child-rearing and am unable to handle a full-time office job.
• Set up more rewards based cards & use them like HHonors, Blue, Upromise.
• Meet friends in groups & express an interest for more work – could possibly lead to more opportunities.
• Have a small online business that can take care of itself.

Set an appt with CPA.

I just set an appointment with my brother’s CPA for next week.

You ask, “Why are you doing this?”

Because…

• I was working project-to-project before my full-time job started in October
• I don’t want to pay a lot of taxes
• He’s affordable–only $200, and my brother’s been going to this guy for five years now
• He’s close to work

My Fidelity Roth IRA funds went through.

Now, what do I do? I am so confused… Should I just purchase the auto-pilot Freedom funds? This is all so confusing…

And, something cool…

I got some freelance work on the side! Ahh yea~! I’ll be tutoring this guy some Photoshop basics. And, he said that he might have some design work for me in the future.

This will help a lot in meeting my savings goal for this year!

A good way of visualizing your taxes.

Sitting pretty financially posted a little bit about taxes. See tax not only as a percentage taken out your income. Visualize it: for most, it’s about 3-4 months income out of the year. So, for a year’s worth of work, I/you receive only 8-9 months salary. Kinda makes you think more about your spending habits and being serious about your finances.As mentioned on an earlier post, I think I will open a Roth IRA with Fidelity since I have no retirement account and have already saved 3 months of emergency funds. I’ve also been playing with the idea of CD laddering through GMAC. That bank’s interest rates look hot.