Leakage

Leakage sounds kind of gross, right? It is an annoying concept. Phone companies use it to describe calls that are routed through their networks that they don't end up charging customers for. Kind of like falling through the cracks. I started to realize that I've found some of those charges in my financial life. I'm now in the process of trying to fix them. Examples:

Old tickets -- I have a bus ticket from October that I never used. I have to try to get it as a credit. This is either $50 or $100.
401K fees -- Thanks to Mint.com, I've realized how much my old plan provider is charging me. I'm in the process of rolling it over to my existing IRA.
$ in FSA -- I think the deadline is about up on this. It's only $13, but still. It's my money!
Library fines -- Luckily I don't let these get too high, but I still end up paying some (less than $5 usually)
Health care -- I've made some mistakes here. First, I've been paying more than I need to for my scripts by not using mail order. Sent in the form for my one drug, so that should change soon.
Also, I bought my contacts through my doctor, who does not accept my discount plan. Finally, when I got said contacts, I ruined two pairs by leaving them sitting for weeks (they were all folded up and I couldn't undo them without tearing them).
Financial fees -- This category is pretty low, but I recently paid $10 because my National Grid bill did not get paid last month because in the process of closing my Chase account for charging me fees, the bill slipped through the cracks.
$ in non-interest bearing accounts -- Right now, I've got a lot of this. I'm in the process of trying to re-evaluate my asset allocation and make new investments, to ensure that my money is working for me.

When I add all of these up, I bet they come to a few hundred dollars. Oy vey. I'm happy to have identified them and have started fixing at least some of them.

Kicking it 1990s Style

So if a thief walked into my apartment looking to score some sweet electronics, I think they would be highly disappointed. First, they would be daunted by the massive CRT television sitting on my little wooden stand. Who still has those and how could I possibly get that down 4 flights of stairs, the thief might ask, reflecting on how s/he probably has a better TV at home. Sure, I have a laptop. It's actually an expensive one. I didn't know any better and asked my IT guy when I left my job to freelance/go to grad school what kind I should get. So I've got an IBM T60 that costs $1K. Pretty sure it's the most expensive thing in my apartment. But, it's old, as far as computers go. I bought it in 2006. It runs Microsoft Office 2003. Probably Windows 2003 too, I'm not even sure. The only other electronics are an iPod nano, which I carry with me, so my robber wouldn't be able to access it. My mom got me a nice Bose docking station several years ago, to I have that. I also have a small digital camera that was not very expensive.

Overall, the items that I just named I purchased over a 5 year period and cost a total of about $1500 (the TV was free, as was the Bose sounddock).

This year I am thinking about buying some new gadgets -- currently vacillating between an iPad and a Kindle. I really want an eReader of some type, but then I see how expensive the ebooks are and I lose my enthusiasm. I'm a pretty avid library user, so this would add a new budget line item. Right now I pretty rarely buy books.

I also think about ditching the old CRT for a flat screen, mostly so I could cut the cord on cable and just get HDMI cables to watch shows online on my TV. I'd probably subscribe to Hulu Plus and maybe buy a Roku box. I am tempted, but also kind of waiting for the technology to catch up. Also, something about the experience of putting on the TV and just kind of watching whatever I find is attractive to me.

Whatever I do buy, the prices for TVs and eReaders have come down a lot since they were first introduced, so I'm glad that I've waited.

What I Am Grateful For

I started reading a new book which could loosely be categorized in the personal finance genre. It is called Peace and Plenty by Sarah Ban Breathnach. I got it because it sounded like a fascinating money story -- she made and lost a fortune. But there's a lot of self-help type advice in it that I thought was cheesy at first, but now I think I find kind of valuable. One concept she talks about is gratitude, and making a list of things that you are grateful for in terms of money. So I thought about it and this is what I came up with:

1. I am grateful I do not own a house -- I never have to worry about some big housing related emergency expense that will cost me thousands of dollars in one go, or about my property taxes going up, or whether the homeless shelter they are opening in my neighborhood is going to bring down the value of my property, or feel like I am trapped and can't move for a dream job, or any other reason, or freak out that I sunk my life savings into an asset that has lost more than 1/2 of it's value.
2. I am grateful that I have low expenses -- I have kept my expenses low which gives me a lot of flexibility. If I want to blow some money on clothes or makeup, etc. each month, I can. I never feel deprived, because I can always treat myself without having to sacrifice savings.
3. I am grateful that I can afford good medical care -- I go to a homeopath/therapist. She is really helping me grow as a person. She is expensive. $200 an hour and I go once a week. Insurance covers part of this, but I spent almost 2K last year on her. But I can afford to. Also, if something horrible happens to me, I have long-term disability insurance so that should give me some financial resources.
4. I am grateful that I can afford to travel. I keep praying that the value of the dollar holds up so I can continue to travel internationally. I have seen how challenging it can be for people of developing countries to travel outside their country, even if they are middle or upper middle class, just because of the currency.
5. I am grateful that I had a good example of how to save. My grandmother is a saver, probably more on the stingy side actually, and my mom is a saver. It's like a religion. I was born into it and never questioned it. I'm happy that's my DNA and not to overspend.

I am grateful that I have a lot to be grateful for!

Where to Invest?

I think this question is on a lot of people's minds. It is definitely on mine. Between my bonus and then a CD that comes due in March, I have to find a place to park a decent amount of money. I am not sure where to put it. I don't want to earn minimal returns that most of the no-risk places like CDs are throwing off right now, but at the same time I don't think I want to dump the money into the market. Stocks are so volatile right now, and I keep hearing that interest rates are going to rise and bond prices go down.

One "alternative" investment that I have begun is Lending Club. So far only a few thousand dollars, but I like what I've seen. The one thing I don't like is that the terms are so long. I think like 3-5 years. Would probably be better for a 401K investment.

The other thing that I've really been meaning to do is diversify by currency. I've checked out Everbank products, but they seem kind of risky.

This will be an ongoing question I try to answer over the next few months.

2010 Spending Analysis

I'm home sick all weekend with a cold, so it's a perfect time to play around with numbers to fend off boredom. Yesterday I sliced & diced my gross income last year to see where it went. It's roughly what I've always thought it is: 1/3 to taxes, 1/3 to savings and 1/3 to spending. This made me feel happy because I live on such a small part of my salary, that if i ever have to get a lower paying job, I can still survive. I could easily cut my spending probably almost in half too, just by moving in with a roommate. Anyway, I made this nice little pie graph to visually represent where all my money went last year:

Portfolio Analyzer Fidelity Full View

I finally found a good tool to analyze all of my holdings across different accounts. And it was totally automatic, which was nice. It's the Fidelity Full View tool. It added my investment accounts automatically and now I can see my holdings across all accounts. I was surprised, I have less than 50% American stocks. When I add one other investment account, it will be even less, because those are LatAm bonds & stocks. I just read an article in Fortune saying that most people probably need even more foreign stocks than they have, so I guess this is okay. I'm just not feeling very bullish about the US market, even though I have nothing to complain about with the market's performance this year!

Good Fortune

I don't have much to report, except that as the year comes to a close, I am grateful for the good fortune I've had this year. I almost hate to even write about it, because I don't want to jinx myself. I do have to take a moment to say I think I will be very excited to do my networth update Jan 1. At the same time, I watched A Christmas Carol last night, as I did last year as well. And while having savings is important, it is a good reminder to live too.