The Financial Ladder

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3

Old School Ways To Save Money...
2011-11-14 23:55:00
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; fo...
More About: Credit Repair , Money , Save Money , School , Old School

How to Decrease Your Cell Phone Bill
2011-10-13 23:45:00
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; fo...
More About: Phone , Cell Phone , Cell , Bills

Reading Bills All the Way Through, Even if They Look Right
2011-10-08 01:59:00
72 1024x768 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-fa...
More About: Reading , Bills

Whoa, It's still here!
2011-03-16 15:04:00
I thought this blog was gone. I've been trying to access it for the past couple of weeks, but it stated that the blog was deleted. But to my pleasant surprise, it's still here. Update to come soon!

March Net Worth...
2010-03-17 17:34:00
It's about that time of the month to break out the aspirin and calculator, and crunch the numbers. I was actually quite satisfied with the first net worth calculator in about two years. I thought it would've been worse. In the past two years, we bought a house, had about two children, and put a lot of money into the house. But it seems the value of the house is really helping out. You can see a detailed view by clicking on the picture on the left. Liquid Assests: We could improve on savings verses spending on unnecessary items, but it feels good to be a little safe and spend a little more. But overall we've done a decent job of preserving our emergency fund cash supply. Unfortunately our cash is only earning under 2%. I've been very lazy with the finances in the past couple of years. I think I could've done a better job with that money. Retirement: I have a 401K that I contribute 6% of my before tax salary. Unfortunately, my company is going through hard times and isn't ma...
More About: Net worth , Worth , March

Big Layoffs...
2010-03-13 19:46:00
Good thing I wasn't at work on Friday. Our company dropped the axe yesterday. 175 people in the I.T. department alone. Many people who I knew and worked with lost their job and were laid off. Some people that have been with the company for over 40 years. It looks like they went after the people with the higher range salaries. Time to update the resume and make sure I have an escape plan myself. What to do when you're laid off? Here are"30+ websites to visit when you're laid off."

What? You want to save me money?
2010-03-12 01:46:00
About two years ago when we moved into our new home, we signed up for cable TV, cable internet and voice over IP. The cable co. was offering all 3 services for $99 per month for a year, which is a pretty decent deal. I was able to squeeze one more year out of them by trying to cancel my voice over IP service. We don't really use our land line phone since we already have two cell phones that we use and pay for. I recently canceled the VOIP, and was now paying regular price for all of the services which comes to about $130 per month. I was pretty bummed. That's an extra $360 per year. Until one day, well several days actually of getting calls from a strange phone number. I actually picked up one day and found it was cable company offering the 3 package deal again for $99 per month. I took the deal, but they'll have to come back out to the house to check on the set up, which is free. That made my week...
More About: Money , Deal , Save , Cable

Wow, that long?!
2010-03-11 01:22:00
It's really been over 4 years since I started this blog?! I suppose it doesn't really mean much since I only updated it on a regular basis for a little over a year and a half after it was started. But, we're still making and spending money, so I guess we still have much to write about. My wife and I are still with the same companies in the same positions. We still live in our house we recently purchased in mid 2008. The big addition to our family occurred 4 months ago today, with the arrival of our daughter. It seems we've become a typical middle class American family. A marriage, house, two children and a dog. Oh, and a picket fence in the backyard. My wife has been on maternity and family leave for the past 4.5 months, so we haven't been saving any money. In fact, we're losing ground on the savings front. We've built up a good amount of credit card debt in the past year, but that includes a new furnace and central air unit. I've been doing our taxes for past 2 year...
More About: Taxes , Long

I'm still alive...
2009-11-14 03:07:00
And had another addition to the family. More to come soon...
More About: Update

Be afraid, be very afraid...
2009-05-15 01:00:00
I'm looking for the courage to calculate and post my net worth. Overall it seems only my retirement funds have been hit the hardest. Savings and home value seem relatively strong. We'll see...

November Net Worth...
2008-11-02 14:05:00
It's been quite a while since I've compiled and posted our net worth. You can view the details by clicking on the picture on the left. Cash savings has gone way down due to the new home down payment and upgrades done to the house. We were lucky enough to get a 10k check as a gift from the wife's relative. That helped cushion the blow. Naturally the market is way down, as well as the retirement funds. Our house was professionally appraised at 96k more than we paid for it. And according to Zillow, it's worth much more than that. So based on that, I'm keeping the appraisal value. The cars I'm keeping till' the end of the year, until I re-appraise them using the current bluebook value guide. Overall our debt has gone down. A car loan will go away in a couple of months. That will save us about 265 bucks a month, and a little over 3k a year. Overall, thanks to a home that has over 20% equity, and more valuable than paid for, it's a good net worth. Climbing the financial ladder s...
More About: Net worth , Worth , November

Long time, no see...
2008-10-29 15:25:00
Looks like it's been about 6 months since I've updated my blog. Long time, no see. A lot has happened in that span of time. Like I mentioned in my last post, we were trying to sell our condo and buy a house. Everything went better than planned for the most part. We started the process of buying a home before putting our condo on the market. Then we put our condo on the market, and got a bid within the first week. The process of selling the condo was smooth, but buying the house wasn't. We bought a fixer upper in a nice area of our county. The schools are top notch, but so are the taxes :-( It's a small ranch which was appraised for $96,000 more than we paid for it. That was a nice surprise. After sinking about 40k, the place looks much better. It was for things like anew roof, new siding, windows, hardwood floors, driveway, patio deck, and other various building materials. We were lucky enough to have handy relatives on the wife's side of the family. Much money was saved with...
More About: Time , Update

Another year, another raise...
2008-04-30 18:03:00
It's that time of year again. I recently received my good performance review, and an average raise, 3.0%. That's the same as last year. But I've found that last years inflation rate was 2.85%, so I suppose I'm a bit ahead of the game. Though with the value of the dollar plunging, I'm not sure how that affects our finances of today compared to last year. We're in the process of buying a house and trying to sell our condo, so the timing is pretty decent. We'll be carrying both mortgages, so everylittle bit helps...
More About: Economy , Year

April Net Worth Report...
2008-04-04 22:27:00
It's been awhile since I've posted, so here goes. It's about that time of the month again to compile our net worth, Yaaaay, whoo hoo! You can view a detailed report of our net worth by clicking on the pic on your left. It seems our net worth has increased by almost 20k since our last post in October of 07'. That's approximately a 3k per month advancement, not bad. We're still saving for a house, so our cash accounts are still large and growing. We're in the process of searching for a home now though. Uh, let's see. We moved my wife's 401k account at her old job into a traditional IRA. We got bit for that one, she was fully vested, so they took back the company match, lost a little over 2k. My company retirement plan was closed and that money was put into my 401k. That's going to be a lot better since the retirement plan was a basic savings account, it'll do much better where it is now. I'm keeping the house, car, and personal property assessments the same ...
More About: April , Report , Net worth , Worth

International Blog Cup!
2007-10-14 15:04:00
Looks like someone decided to create a contest for the worlds best blogs @ the "International Blog Cup." It looks like a public voting system that starts with 32 blogs that have been nominated for the competition. It goes through 5 rounds of voting to find the best international blog. You can see a visual of it on the left, click pic. Many of the blogs I'm not very familiar with. But maybe some of them are your favorites. Some blogs I know in the running... boing boing, problogger, life hacker, perezhilton, seth godin, and the consumerist. The voting is down to the quarterfinals with 8 blogs. Voting for this stage will be open from 10/10 to 10/15. Go vote!

An International Look At Weekly Food Expenses...
2007-10-14 13:59:00
I'm sure most of you out there are familiar with how much your friends and family spend per week on food. But have you ever been curious what someone from another country spends? I came across an interesting post that highlights a book called "Hungry Planet - What the world eats." It's written by Peter Menzel, and it shows what families from around the world buy, and how much they spend per week on food. It ranges from a family in Germany that spends an unbelievable $500 per week, to a Sudanese refugee family spending only $1.23! The post has everything set up pretty well with pictures of the family, and what they've bought. It's worth a look...
More About: International , Food , Weekly , Expenses

A Day Late, And $39 Dollars Short!
2007-10-06 22:42:00
One day late with last months credit card payment and they charge me $39.00! Plus a $10 finance charge to boot. $49 is too costly a mistake for being a day late when I've been a long standing customer. A quick phone call and I was able to get the late fee waived, but not the finance charge. Oh well, I guess that's the price to pay for convenience, easier budgeting and various rewards...
More About: Credit Cards , Dollars , Late , Short , Doll

October Net Worth...
2007-10-03 00:50:00
My, my, how time does fly! It's been almost 2 months since my last post! I'm going to try to at least keep our net worth posts consistent. I can't believe I missed a month. One missed net worth calculation missed in the past 1.5 years, not bad I guess. With our son being 5 1/2 months old now, it's been kind of busy around here. Plus we've been doing a little updating to our condo to help the resale value. Doing a little painting here, replacing a vanity mirror there, we hope to put it on the market sometime in the near future. With my wife back to work part time, we've been doing surprisingly well the past couple of months. We've made a 6.57% ( $10,835.43 ) increase since our last net worth which was early August. That comes to a new net worth of $175,636.87. I think it could be due to the record amount of overtime I've been putting in this year. Though I'm not sure how much longer it will last, things have been getting a bit rocky at my wife's job since their busi...
More About: Net worth , Worth , October , Wort

We've Been The Victims Of Credit Card Fraud!
2007-08-14 16:53:00
Son of a B#$@^!!! I didn't think it could happen to us. All the nice little safety precautions we take to protect our credit cards and credit account information. Several nights ago we received an automated message from my wife's bank that there has been some unusual activity on her account. We logged online to find that someone had made a $3,000 transaction several states away, earlier on in the day! They also TRIED to use the card again for another $600 transaction, but the alert had already been made, so the credit company wanted the merchant to call in that purchase for identification. We were stunned, nervous, and pissed! Luckily everything was handled quickly and smoothly. We took care of the matter online and on the phone. That money was credited back onto our account, and closed immediately. We then issued a fraud alert to all three credit bureaus over the phone. We don't really understand how it could've happened. My wife's card wasn't stolen, we haven't been o...
More About: Credit Card Fraud , Card , Credit , Fraud , Credit Card

August Net Worth...
2007-08-06 00:31:00
I'm baaaaaaack. Covered in baby spit up, and diaper ointment, I'm finally sitting down at the computer to run the numbers on our latest and greatest net worth as of August 3rd. The month turned out WAY better than I thought. Our net worth increased 3.09% or $4,941.59, for a grand total of $164,801.44. You can view the entire balance sheet for the year by clicking on the pic to the left. I'm acting surprised because the wife was out for about 3 weeks on disability due to surgery, and going back to work 4 days a week as opposed to 5 because of the birth of our new son. I think working some overtime, being a little more frugal, and selling some ad space helped out for the month of July. Let's perform a brief review of the balance sheet. With our cash savings slowly increasing to a decent amount, we've recently been house browsing online. Not very happy with a lot of houses and prices we've been seeing, we've decided to wait a bit longer before we get serious at house hunting. ...
More About: Net worth , Worth , Wort

July Net Worth Snapshot...
2007-07-03 00:17:00
Looks like it was another rough month. Our net worth increased 1.96% for a dollar total of $3,070.19. My wife was feeling upset that she had to go back to work after maternity leave after about 6.5 weeks. A about a week and a half after she returned, she got a gallbladder attack so bad that she had to have it surgically removed! That meant she would be out of work for another 3 weeks. Well, she said she wanted to spend another few weeks with the baby, now she is! But that also means more disability pay which is something like 60% of the past 15 months salary. We did pretty well saving and banking a nice amount of cash for our saving account. That's thanks to some nice overtime and some more ad space sold. Nothing more to report than that. Retirement accounts creeping up, while our debts are inching down. You can see a more detailed view of last months progress by clicking the pic on the left. Climbing the ladder slowly, but surely...
More About: Net worth , Worth , July , Wort

June Net Worth Snapshot...
2007-06-02 01:29:00
Today's net worth snapshot falls on our new son's 6 week birthday. Six weeks later also means that my wife will be going back to work next week! But a month and a bunch of poopy diapers later, we finally seem to be getting back on track this month with our net worth increasing 2.87%, for a dollar total of $4,374.81. Two big differences between this month over last month was that we finally started to receive disability checks for my wife's maternity leave, and there were no big credit card purchases. Seems the stock market helped the retirement accounts a bit and the loans are being paid down slowly but surely. We'd like to save as much as possible because we'd like to purchase a house within the next several months to a year. With my wife going back to work part time until September, it should be slow going the next several months. Oh, and the breast feeding wasn't working out too well for us, so that was stopped about 3.5 weeks ago. We'll have to shell out extra money...
More About: June , Net worth , Worth , Wort

Advertising Cold Call...
2007-05-19 03:44:00
Last month I mentioned that online advertising spending is supposed to grow to an estimated $19.2 billion dollars this year. The financial services sector in particular will increase by about one third to about $2.4 billion. Since last year I've been experiencing some of this growth by way of google adsense, adbrite, paid text links and posts. But for the past several months during my daily roams around the pf blogosphere, I would see other sites with a lot more paid text links than my site probably would ever have. I also noticed how eager certain marketing companies are in paying for a text link on a personal finance blog, even my little ol' blog. I looked into text link advertising networks like linkworth and text link ads. But I figured I'd have to split the profits with them, and I wouldn't wind up with much. Perhaps I could make my own deals and make 100% profit? So I set out on a bold and shameless journey to solicit from some of the companies that were advertising ...
More About: Advertising , Cold , Sing , Call , Advert

Time For A Raise!
2007-05-10 22:21:00
Yep, it's about that time of the year. Unfortunately it's nothing special, another 3.0% raise this year. Seems as though I'm with in average range for this year. They expected raises to be from 3 to 4 percent last year. I've also found that it's slightly under last years average inflation rate of 3.24%. For some reason I'm not complaining as much this year, I feel more content...
More About: Economy , Time

May Net Worth Snapshot...
2007-05-03 18:49:00
Whew, what a month it's been! With the preparation and arrival of our new son, comes a multitude of challenges. From emotional to physical, from financial to intellectual, it's going to be interesting for the rest of our lives. Well, as to be expected, last month was a bit difficult financially. Our net worth has minutely increased by 0.19% for a dollar total of $294.00. (Click balance sheet on left for more details) The disability money we were expecting to help out while my wife was on maternity leave never showed! The first check was 2 weeks late. Now we find that we have to fax in a letter explaining the situation so they can stop payment on the check if it's out there, and put a trace on it. After that process, they'll mail us another check which should take another 2-4 weeks! Our 2nd check was mailed out yesterday, so we're hoping that one shows up on time. Due to less savings and paying taxes last month, there was a slight decrease in our cash funds. Our retirement fu...
More About: Net worth , Snaps , Worth , Wort

Newest Addition To The Financial Ladder...
2007-04-22 15:19:00
I'm proud to announce that we have a new addition to the financial ladder. Our new bouncing baby boy started climbing with us on April 20th, 2007 @ 5:09 pm. Mommy and baby are both doing well and are in good health. The first financial related question he makes me ask is, what does a natural birth and a 3 day stay at a hospital cost nowa days? That's not a subject I normally think about when discussing new babies with family or friends. Is there anyone out there willing to share what it cost them to give birth in a hospital, and what the actual cost was? Hopefully both of my wife's insurance companies will soften the hit a bit...
More About: Financial , West , Finan , Fina

Child-Care Woes and an Imminent Birth...
2007-04-12 15:41:00
I mentioned in a previous post that while my wife and I are at work, my wife's aunt will be watching our child. After further discussion with my wife, I found out that nothing in life is free! Turns out We'll be paying our aunt to watch him. So for approximately 6 hours a day, and about 4 days a week we'll be shelling out $30 a day for child-care. That comes to about $5,800 a year including vacations. I came to the conclusion that it's only fair, she'll have her two grandchildren to watch as well our newborn. Plus, she'll be spending time, food and energy while she's not 100% healthy. A little research also shows me that daycare center child-care is much more expensive, so we have a good deal. Speaking of baby, the wife visited the doctor the other day. Turns out if he's not born by next Thursday, they'll induce her that night! So we're possibly looking at an April 20th birth. I'll be taking off of work for about 2 1/2 weeks to help/bond with the baby. Now that a "c...
More About: Care , Birth , Mine , Child

Bigger Online Advertising Budgets = More Money For PF Bloggers?
2007-04-05 19:59:00
Seeking Alpha reports online advertising spending is expected to be approximately $19.2 billion dollars in 2007. An online market researcher named "eMarketer" expects the financial services sector to increase it's online advertising spending by over 33% to $2.4 billion this year alone, and $3.52 billion by the year 2010. It's now one of the biggest online advertisers online. Could this mean more money for the personal finance, investing and real estate bloggers out there? We do offer a large audience of the type of clientele they're looking for. They are willing to pay big money to the larger personal finance sites out there like yahoo finance, cnn money, aol's market watch, and msn. CNN Money ?s display ad rates are $92 - $143 per thousand impressions (cpm)! We may not get as much of the pie as the big shots out there, but it's there for the taking, and I'm a bit hungry..
More About: Blogger , Advertising , Online Advertising , Blog

I Have a Bigger Salary Than The Co-Founders Of Google...
2007-04-04 14:07:00
For the third year in a row the CEO and co-founders of google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin received a salary of $1. Interesting, and here I am thinking that I'm underpaid. Their main compensation comes from returns on their ownership of google. As major shareholders, their personal wealth is tied directly to the stock price appreciation and performance. Shares of google stock closed Tuesday at $472.60 each. Guess this helps out in between the pay checks...
More About: Google , Founder , Sala , Have , Salary

Taxes, Insurance, a Baby, Oh My!
2007-04-03 22:08:00
Taxes are finally finished and on their way first class. It was an interesting year with us having to actually PAY this year instead of receiving a refund. I adjusted my W-4 earlier on in the year to keep more, and pay less taxes through out the year. Though I may need to do some more fine tuning on it since we'll be shelling out about $1,600 for the year of 2006. It should be interesting next year with our little tax deduction on the way ;-) Which brings to the heart attack the other day when my wife called me on April fools day to tell me she had the baby! Of course she really didn't, but It was the best scare I had in a while. In reality, she's now dilated 2 centimeters. Could be any day or week now. Oh, and I can't forget insurance on top of the taxes this month. I'm looking at having to pay out several hundred dollars for auto and home insurance this month. Whoa is me...(Que the violins)
More About: Baby , Taxes , Insurance , Tax