Not much to report

Not the most exciting title for an update, but it's the truth! I could have sworn though that I posted in August. Anyway, the market is on fire, which is good and bad. I have a bunch of cash that I want to invest, but I don't want to invest now, for fear I will be investing at the high. I know October is usually a not very promising month for the market, so I'll be on the watch for any downturn, no matter how slight, to invest. I saw my Learnvest adviser (or talked to her) recently and we mostly talked about a strategy for investing the cash.  We'll see.  Overall, I"m about 40% in cash, which would be fine if I were 80, but since I am not, I need to put my money to work so it will grow.

The real estate market in my hood is also on fire. There's a place similar to mine on the market for $150K more than I bought mine for a little more than a year ago. So in theory if I could sell my place for that amount, I'd have to bring about 100K less to the closing to give to the bank to pay off the mortgage. Which is nice, but irrelevant because I have no plans to sell.

I've been pretty good on my expenses lately. I haven't bought a stitch of clothing, any electronics, any furnishings or any sporting goods this month, and there's only 10 days left. Would kind of like to keep it that way. My food budget is somewhat under control. Took lunch all but one day this week.

Yawn, sorry for the boring update! But I guess slow and steady wins the race.

Financial Advisor

I am finally checking off a big to do on my financial housekeeping list: I hired a financial planner. I am actually working with LearnVest, which seems like a great value and I love that it's aimed at women.  I am speaking to my adviser for the first time tomorrow and can't wait to get started! I really want help trying to figure out if I should tackle the mortgage or invest, although my mom helpfully pointed out that I can do both at the same time. Again, everything in moderation. It's a hard lesson to learn, as I find I want to do something whole hog or not at all.

First Visit With a Financial Planner

Last month I took advantage of the library's free session with a financial planner. It was valuable, but did not go exactly as I had planned. I had prepared (of course) in advance an overview of my investments. I thought it was very organized. I arranged all my investments by category (small cap, large cap, etc.) and calculated the % of my portfolio in each. Well when the adviser saw my spreadsheet, his eyes glazed over and he told me it was too hard to understand. He thought I had too many accounts and too many investments. So we spent the whole time talking about how I could consolidate accounts. To me this seems like just an organizational thing, not really something that's going to affect my return. I had hoped we could talk about asset allocation. But we never really got around to that.

I have followed his advice and consolidated some accounts. I combined an old SEP IRA into a rollover IRA. I also rolled over my old 401K into my existing Rollover IRA prior to the meeting. Finally, I moved a small taxable account from one brokerage into the larger taxable account at my other brokerage. I closed a savings account too. As a result, I have 4 fewer accounts than before.

I am contemplating whether I want to pay for some time with this or another adviser.

The one piece of advice that he did give me was that he thought there would be some volatility soon, so I don't feel guilty about having a large cash position. I'll probably invest it on the next dip.

My Obsession

Last time I wrote, I had lined up an appointment with a financial adviser to help me sort out an asset allocation for my portfolio -- the taxable and tax-deferred accounts.

Well, the purpose of the taxable account has always been in theory to use as a downpayment for an apartment. However, I've been looking for said apartment since 2003. I flip flop all the time about what I think I want. I've looked at co-ops in Queens for $255,000 and more recently 1 bedrooms in Brooklyn for $540,000 and 2 families for $800,000. And in between pondered buying a place in the country (having looked in the Catskills once and online constantly).

So, combined with my belief that there are no fundamentals underlying this recent market rally, I've started to feel like maybe I should just cash out the taxable account and keep it in cash. Someday hopefully within the next year I might actually decide on buying a place and might need that $ to supplement my cash savings. So I'm starting to think going to see the financial adviser might be pointless since a good chunk of my portfolio could be converted into cash.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has problems pulling the trigger on the real estate gun. My hemming and hawing has actually served me well. I missed the whole crazy bubble.

For now I have to decide if I have the courage of my convictions and can actually liquidate my whole taxable account.

Spending & Planning

I just returned from my international vacation. I'm in the process of piecing together the damage. Not too bad, but of course the Euro/dollar exchange rate makes a simple lunch $30. But considering I spent money on almost nothing excepting dining out, it was a relatively inexpensive South of France vacation.

When I returned, I finally outreached to an independent financial adviser. I think it would be great to have professional help in the strategy/planning/asset allocation phase. I think this advice is tax-deductible as well, which is great. I'm going to do a pre-interview on Tuesday with the woman so she can learn more about me and I can find out her rates. I know the standard protocol is supposed to be interviewing several different experts, but I don't know if I'll actually do that if this woman sounds like someone I can trust. Any help is better than the zero advice I'm getting from my ex-boyfriend who is in theory managing my portfolio for me.