Tag Archives: financial thoughts

Financial Madness And My Financial Thoughts

by

This year is crazy, but crazy good not crazy bad, with way to may financial thoughts over-flooding my brain.

Financial Madness:

I admit, I’ve been caught up in the incredible stock market rally… until lately.  While I was beating the market earlier, I’ve bought some more risky stocks lately that have taken my return down quite a bit.  Oh, I’m still up for the year so far, but I hit my highs a month or so ago.

Okay, that’s the stock market, on real estate front, I’m still looking for my first investment property, but with a catch!  I want to buy a property that cost as much as a mid-level luxury car.  Perhaps something like a high-end Lexus, but definitely no where close to the cost of a Ferrari…  So ideally, I would like to find a duplex or high that requires a little bit of work, but cost less thank 100k.  At this point in my life, I would like to just get a taste of what it’s like to be a landlord, then decide from there.

Primary Residence Thoughts:

I would also like to buy a bigger house.  Not that I need one, it’s just seems like a good investment while rates are relatively low.  But even this is maddening!  I want to buy a house that provides benefit from a taxes perspective, and one that I believe will rise in value more quickly than my current house has.  We were luck in that fact that our house value didn’t really drop during the “Great Recession”, but while this in and of itself was a blessing, it also means that any bigger house that I buy in the city also hasn’t declined in price.  So for me, I get now benefit from lower house prices.

Why do I want to say in my city? I don’t, but since my kids are in school and have established a place in the system, I won’t uproot them and move to a different city.  Financially maddening, but my kids come first… even when it hurts.

Speaking of kids, in the neighborhoods that I’m looking at, we are doing research to see how live in those areas so that I can ensure that there are kids that my kids can play with.  Perhaps I’m spoiling my kids?

My Personal Financial Thoughts:

I’m starting to realize that I’ve been too conservative with managing money, and while being in such a state is better than being in deep debt, it’s still not an optimal solution.  At one time in the past, I believed that financial asset class diversification was only for the millionaire and up crowd, but lately I’ve changed my mind.  I now believe that those options should be explored as part of any financial plan.  So gold (precious metals), currencies and other investment avenues is something that I’m considering, but not acting on currently.

Even thought I’m considering all financial avenues, I’m focusing primarily on stocks and real estate opportunities.  In a future post, I’ll share more of my financial thoughts and why I’m seriously thinking of buying a new house, rental property, and investing more in the stock market all at the same time.

Bests,

Don

 

Financial Thoughts Spinning in my Head

by

Today, I thought I’d break out of my normal style of writing and openly think out loud the current set of financial thoughts that are spinning and bouncing around in my head.   All too often, we read a direct organized list of things to consider and while this will be similar, it will also me my thoughts as it directly pertains to me.

tornado

Taxes For Next Year

Okay, just sold a stock for an almost $4,000 capital gain (doh).  While this might seem like a positive (and it is really), it’s also a problem because I now owe 1k in taxes on the third day of the year, grrrr.

This in combination of the fact that my wife doesn’t withhold 25% of her earnings, and that I plan on making money this year from side income means I’ll have to take this into consideration from a Tax perspective.  Now I could save and file estimated tax payments 4 times a year, and this wouldn’t really be an issue, I’d rather not.  So to keep my lazy ways, I’ve decided to increase my withholds by $200 a paycheck from my primary employer.  This should cover the increased taxes that I need to save, and still give me some money leftover next year when I file my taxes.  Yeah, I know it’s stupid, but in this particular case, lazy trumps stupid.

Decreased Cash Flow Considerations

Well, I’m officially at the phase in my financial life where wealth accumulation is very important to me, and so in response, I’m channeling as much money from my earnings as I can into investments.  This will be a year-long battle, much like it was last year for me.  By taking $200 out of my paycheck per week, I may have to live a little more frugally this year than I did last year.

Kids 529 Thoughts

Time to increase my automated contribution amount for my kids 529 plans by another $20 per month this year.  $20 a month doesn’t hurt too badly, so this shouldn’t be noticeable (I hope).

I also need to make 1 direct contribution to a new mutual fund option in the 529 plan so that I can split the automated monthly contributions between the current “age based” option and the new “indexed something or other” option.

Investments

This year my mind is in a tug-a-war between dividend and growth stocks.  The ideal stock would be a solid growth company with an ever-increasing dividend.  I have a lot of things bouncing around in my head on this one.  I also need to invest 10k in a car debt experiment (more coming on that in future articles).

Controlling Consumption Spending

Life is short, too short to be too conservative with money.  So this is where the mission impossible theme song starts playing in my head, since I want to also spend more this year on fun stuff.  This might be possible if I actively seek out the best deals on things and/or increase my income by about half.  I guess, this is my stretch goal.

Making Money

I would very much like to increase my “employed” and “side” incomes by about 50% each.  To be honest, if I were to just increase one of them two distinct steams by 50%, I’d be pretty happy.

That said, I might also look for a new job.  I haven’t done a job search in years, but this feels like the year for me to put out the feelers to see what there is out there in the hard, cold, world (lol).  If I do get a new job, a lot of financial reworking will need to be done and a lot of the above thoughts go right out of the window.  But if I can find a job that fits me better and still pays a reasonable amount, I’m jumping!

Well, there you have my thoughts.  If you’d like to share some of your financial thoughts, please feel free to comment!

Here’s to the new year!

Don