The Amateur Financier

Well, well, well, look at that.  You look away for what seems like only a minute, and when you look back, a whole new year has come around.  It’s practically some sort of conspiracy, designed to age us all before our time!

Or maybe it’s just the natural flow of time, and my increased busy-ness, combined with the natural perspective on time that comes as I age, just makes it seem like time is going steadily faster every year I am alive.  Nah, it’s a grand cosmic conspiracy, I tells ya!

Well, regardless of how the universe is plotting against me, I still need to try my best to be diligent and productive in my life, as well as earn some more cash to support myself.  Let’s see how well I did with that this past December:

In a word, ouch.  In more than one word, my investments didn’t do too shabby (there’s been a decline in my foreign holdings, but my domestic ones aren’t doing half bad), but my savings took a bit of a hit, and I added on much more debt than I had planned getting ready for (and celebrating) the Christmas season.  It’s going to take sot to recover from all that, I’m afraid.  On the plus side, after a few months of rising, I got an early Christmas present in the form of some improving Alexa scores.  On that note, let’s see how my goals for 2011 went in the final month:

Not too shabby.   My alternate income finally surpassed $1000 per month, a personal goal (and resolution) of mine for the year, although keeping it that high in 2012 is going to be tricky.   I fell a little bit short of my charitable giving goals for the year, but still managed to do pretty well in that respect, as well.  It’ll take some effort, but I’ll have to try even harder in the coming year to make myself a better, richer person.

Hard to believe it, but it’s already the end of 2011.  I know I’ve said this several times already, but it’s amazing how quickly this year has been going by.  It seems that almost every time I turn around, another month has gone by.  This might be a sign that I’m getting older; it’s probably not a good thing that I feel so much like an old man when I’m not even 30 yet…

But, my feelings aren’t the subject of this blog entry; instead, it is the time of the month when I take a (closer) look at my financial situation and see where I stand .  With the year approaching its end and the holiday season upon us, it’s more important than ever in the year to have an idea of where my finances stand.  Let’s see just where that is:

A pretty mixed month, overall.  With everything that’s been going on in the world, particularly in Europe, it’s pretty understandable that my investments aren’t as healthy as I would have hoped.  Still, as I write this, there’s some good news coming from the international markets, so perhaps that will change in the near future.

The news on my debts and savings is a bit more complicated; thanks in no small part to (belated) gifts for my birthday (and more than a little financial help from my family), my savings are as healthy as they’ve been in a while.  My credit card debts are also about as high as they’ve been in a while, though, which is definitely less good; a major portion of that is from prepaying my health insurance for the next year.

So, a busy month in my finances, it seems.  (Also pretty busy, although not in a way I would like, there’s my Alexa score, not heading in the direction I would hope.)  Now, let’s see how I’ve done with my side income and donation goals:

Not too shabby with my alternate income (although still pretty far below my goal of $1000 per month), and December should be even better, as I’ve got more than a few advertising agreements that are up for renewal; here’s hoping I can clear $1000 (or more).  My charitable donations kind of fell by the wayside this month, and I’ll have to improve how much I donate in the coming month, which should be pretty easy, as the holiday season is upon us.  Speaking of which, have a happy holiday season!

Merry All Saints’ Day, Everyone!  Admittedly, it tends not to get the same sort of attention as All Hallows’ Eve, aka Halloween, but you try to compete with a holiday that involves costumes, candy, and other sorts of fun times.  It’s not an easy task.

Of course, All Saint’s Day also marks the start of the month of November, and that means that as with the start of all new months, around here that means it’s time to double check on where my net worth stands.  October was, I will not lie, a pretty rough one, as classes ramp up, research expectations increase, and the semester gets trickier in general.  Now, there were some high points, such as my birthday, but it’s been a pretty rough month.  On that happy note, let’s see where my finances stand:

All in all, not too bad; my investments are doing quite well, which is always a good thing.  My bank accounts are a bit lower than I would like, due in part to paying down some credit card debt, which unfortunately seems to always creep back up (the fact that everything from gasoline to my charitable giving winds up on my credit cards is not helping, of course, but that is life, I suppose).  My net worth is up on virtue of my rising investments, which is nice to see.  The only real bad news is the significantly fallen Alexa ranking; falling back under 200,000 in particular is a bit sad, as I had hoped to stay up there upon getting into the Yakezie.  All the more reason to work extra hard in November to get things back up there.  On the subject of blogging and goals, let’s see where I stand on my goals for the year:

I’m not doing half bad so far; the alternate income is down this month, that much is true, but I already have a few options lined up for November, so I’m not worried.  My charitable donations are right on track (although, I’m likely to look more into giving to charity without giving money in the future, at least until I’ve shored up my own financial state a bit more), so that’s a plus.

All in all, October’s been pretty good to me.  Hopefully I can keep this up, and end the year on a high (net worth) note.  Here’s hoping everyone had a good October, and has a happy November, as well!

Wow, September has been a crazy, crazy, crazy month.  There’s been new classes, new labs (I’m starting to realize that perhaps I have overstretched myself, at least if I was hoping to do some of this ‘sleeping’ I hear so much about), and new marriages.  Not mine, at least not yet (June 12th of next year, in case you were wondering), but two of my many, many cousins got married this past month.  I did my best to attend, traveling for hours to get to each event (including one in Boston that required over ten hours of driving each way; the next time I have to go to Boston, I will DEFINITELY take a plane).

With all of this happening in my ‘real’ life, my online presence has dwindled more than a little bit.  As you’ve likely noticed, my blog hasn’t been updating as much in the past few weeks, and I’ve also been falling behind on keeping up with the blogs that I follow.  Luckily, a new month means a new opportunity for me to get caught up; I’m determined that when the time comes to next catch up on my resolutions, I’ll have much better news to report.  Of course, while we’re talking about reporting on my progress, it’s as good a time as any to share my financial standing as of the start of this month:

Well, the investment picture isn’t too pretty, although this is par for the course lately, it seems.  Definitely a lot more red ink there than I would like to see.  The picture for my available funds is a bit better; the bank balances dropped pretty far, but most of that went to paying down credit card debt (always a good goal to have), so I consider it pretty close to a wash.  It’ll take some effort to get the accounts back up and running, but not too shabby, particularly with the expenses noted earlier.  While we’re looking at my financial situation, let’s take a look at where I stand on meeting my resolutions:

So, overall, pretty good.  A slight boost in my alternate income, pretty steady progress in my charitable donations, and generally a nice picture to paint.  October should be a good month (it has my birthday in it, so how could it be bad), as I have a few pending arrangements that should lead to a pretty healthy alternate income.  All in all, I’m pretty happy about where things stand.