This isn't a story about controling your spending (I feel I already do that), but instead I was like most of the masses and didn't really keep that close track of how each asset I had was doing.
This past week I have been setting up online connections to each of my assets and trying to put together an overall worksheet with my net worth. (As an aside, I did have this already set up for my retirement funds and mortgage payments, everything else was tracked based on monthly statements.) Its amazing how some sites are so easy to work with, and others were made by some tech geek without a clue - BTW I am a tech geek, but with a clue!
Anyway, ignoring my home, car, and physical furnishings, my net worth looks to be over $111K at the end of March. Based on my memory (my official spreadsheet is encrypted on my computer at work), I started the year at about $101K, so thats a $10K increase for 3 months. Of that about $3,000 was due to investments in my retirement acct. Still, not bad.
Other news & notes:
I opened my fourth DRIP this past week. I got the opening statement for my Heinz account. It was only the minimum you could start with, but I wanted to get a foot in the door. With it, my total DRIPs come up to almost $8,000.After reading online about investing, and so many philosophies about it, I went today and bout my first investing book. It is Rule #1 by Phil Town. I make no claims about how good it is, but everything I read about it came across as a practical book for investors. Perhaps after reading it I can give my opinion of it.I am still touchy-feely when it comes to paying bills, but I am trying to learn. This week I set up my second bill (natural gas) to be paid online, saving me postage if nothing else. Today I got my water bill and noticed there is no way to pay online 
. Oh well, perhaps someday.And perhaps my biggest accomplishment, I got a co-worker to start putting money into his reitrement fund at work. He kept saying he couldn't afford it, but after seeing me these past few months tracking my funds, he finally admitted this was something he needed to do. Now he wasn't being that dumb about this, our employer doesn't match the 457 savings plan investments, instead it puts in a large amount into a pension plan instead. I can view this amount added by the employer at work, and so far they have put in at about a 6% rate. This rate changes every year based on actuarial calculations. I heard it is going to change to about 9%. In any case I have 2.5 years to go before I am vested into the plan.
Taking control of my finances
April 2nd, 2006 at 01:23 am
April 2nd, 2006 at 03:01 am 1143946909
https://www.yodlee.com/newarch/index.do
April 2nd, 2006 at 07:58 pm 1144007924
September 2nd, 2006 at 01:14 am 1157159672
September 2nd, 2006 at 02:20 am 1157163639