The Amateur Financier

I have some big news.  I am engaged to my sweet, wonderful girlfriend Sondra.  I bought her an adorable engagement ring, which she helped me to pick out.  It was fairly inexpensive, as engagements rings go (none of that ‘three months’ salary’ stuff for us), but she seems to love it.

It’s going to be a fairly long engagement; her grandmother is paying for her education, but only so long as she doesn’t get married before she graduates.  Since she has three more semesters of school to go, this means the earliest that we can get married without incurring a large amount of debt to finish her schooling is to wait until 2011.  Plus, the time we take before we tie the knot can be used to build up a house down payment or create an emergency fund.  (To say nothing of giving me time to find a job…)

I am very happy about these events, if a little nervous about my future.  But, I have faith that everything will work out for the best in the end.  Now, to review my financial state, with all this personal business out of the way.

A pretty messy week for my finances, with my credit card bills coming due, my Sharebuilder investments activating, and my unemployment check arriving.  Still, my net worth is steadily increasing, which is always a good sign.

If you’ve been reading The Amateur Financier for a while now, you’re probably aware that I use Sharebuilder to purchase my non-retirement investments.  Overall, I’m satisfied with the service I receive and the investment costs that I incur, but I can’t help but wonder if I should be investing via mutual funds instead.

My main worry is that, since I am paying $12 a month for Sharebuilder’s Automatic Investment plan, for a total of $144 each year, that I’m losing out the investment potential of that money.  It’s not a huge amount, but if I invest that amount each year over the next thirty-five years, I’ll have an extra $25,000 for my retirement, which is not a piddling amount.  If I stuck with index funds from Vanguard, as I do for my retirement funds, I’d be able to save that money and invest it instead.

Of course, there were reasons I invested via Sharebuilder in the first place.  The initial investment amounts were much lower than buying new mutual funds from Vanguard (which has a minimum requirement of $3000 for most of its index funds).  By buying ETFs, I was able to invest and build my portfolio with much lower initial investment, buy a larger variety of funds than I would be able to get via mutual funds with my present assets and I’m currently benefitting as the economy is starting to pick up again.

I’m still thinking of what to do, whether I should stop investing via Sharebuilder and put that money toward saving up for index mutual funds, or if I should just keep investing with Sharebuilder.  I’ve already been charged for the automatic investments this month, so I’m going to use them (this Tuesday, in fact), but after that… well, I’m still thinking.  If you have any thoughts, I’d appreciate hearing any opinions on ETFs vs. index funds.

With that off my chest, let’s look at how my accounts did this week:

I rolled over the bank CD I had in a Roth IRA into my Vanguard Roth, into the Total Foreign Market fund, and I removed the bank CD from my asset page.  That’s why my Total Savings amount dropped, even though all my (listed) accounts either stayed the same or increased.  Other than that, not too much excitement; my net worth is a little higher than I was expecting, but I have a few bills to pay this week, so we’ll see how long that lasts.  As they say, easy come, easy go.

“Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don’t want to be a richer man”

Actually, unlike David Bowie, I WOULD like to be a richer man.  Also unlike Bowie, I can’t issue ‘Bowie Bonds‘ in order to raise money.  Instead, I’m trying to monetize my blog more effectively.  I’ve actually approached Mrs. Micah through her BlogCrafted site in order to make a number of changes to my blog.  Some will be cosmetic (like putting up a new theme) and some will be more functional (changing how I go about monetizing my blog, so I can start to make more of a profit from my efforts).  The end result will be a more interesting, more useful, and more profitable Amateur Financier.

The big change over is currently scheduled for Sunday, so watch this space for a new look and feel to my blog.  Onward now to my financial report:

As you can see, I’ve also switched up how I’m doing my weekly update posts.  Rather than type out my finances each week, this way I can put the new numbers in a spreadsheet, and have all the calculations I want to run done for me.  Spreadsheets are always fun.

There’s not much change this week; I added my more money to my savings and my investments went up, for an overall increase in my net worth.  Given the current financial environment, I didn’t get much of a boost from interest payments on my savings,but with any luck, that will change soon.  I’m happy with the progress I’m making.

I’m feeling rather manly.  As I write this, I’ve just completed constructing a salad table for my girlfriend and her mother.  My girlfriend got the idea from Martha Stewart, and I, um, ‘volunteered’ to help her out.

A salad table, for those who don’t know, is a wooden frame (similar to a table) with compartments lined with mesh underneath.  The mesh keeps the soil in the compartments from falling out, while allowing water to pass through.  This makes it ideal for growing plants, particularly vegetables, in situations where you don’t have much access to soil.

If you do build a salad table, I suggest you stick with the directions as given, and use screws.  I built my table using nails, and it seems somewhat unsteady.  It’s still stable enough to use, but screws would make it more secure.

Even with that caveat, I do feel proud of my accomplishment.  It’s nice to able to make something with my own hands, and to have that item be put to good use.  I’m especially glad, as I had never heard of a salad table before, so it’s been a learning experience all around.

Onto my finances:

Offline Savings

PNC (Checking Account) $ 100  -$1229
Susquehanna (CD) $ 2542 +$0

Online Savings

ING Direct (Checking) $ 55 +$0
ING Direct (Savings) $ 1118 -$220
ING Direct (Orange CD) $ 1016 +$0
HSBC Direct (Savings) $ 23 +$0
Smarty Pig (Savings) $ 1398 +$450

Total Savings $ 6252 -$1900

Investments

Vanguard (Roth IRA) $ 6935 +$281
- Small Cap Index (NAESX) $ 3470 +$144
- High Dividend Yield (VHDYX) $ 2917 +$121
- Foreign Total Market (VGTSX) $ 547 +$15

Share builder (ETFs) $ 2948 +$177
- Total US Market (TMW) $ 960 +$55
- Extended Market (VXF) $ 811 +$55
- Total Foreign (VEU) $ 575 +$25
- Small Cap Value (VBR) $ 277 +$21
- Emerging Markets (VWO) $ 324 +$20

Other Investments

Lending Club $47 +$47
Vanguard (Money Market) $ 901 +$0

Total Investments $ 10831 +$1406

Total Assets $ 17,083 -$494

Debts

MasterCard (JCPenney) ($ 28 ) +$0
American Express ($ 813) +$161

Student Loans ($ 11,882) -$8

Total Debts ($ 12,723) -$169

Net Worth $ 4360 -$663

I shifted the organization of my investments and savings around.  I’ve also added the funds I’ve had in Lending Club to my investment list.  This arrangement more accurately reflects how I actually view my accounts, and should help me to monitor things more readily.  There’ll be more changes next month, as I’m closing out my two CDs and reinvesting the money.