Month: March 2015

Market Volatility and What I’m Doing About It

Budget Guy Investing

mar8featured

On Friday, March 6 the market took a dive, and every one of my stocks and mutual funds decreased in value. While I watch how the market does on a daily basis, I try not to let my emotions take hold and make drastic changes.  But it reminds me about focusing on diversification across my investments.

Investment Plan Changes

When I started 2015, I had a goal to invest an average of $1,000 per month into my brokerage account, max out my Roth IRA, and continue my standard 6% base pay contributions to my 401(k). This will equate to a total of about $23,000 this year, before the company match in 401(k). There’s always going to be some volatility in the market, and I’m well aware that it’s impossible to time the market.  This is just a reminder to myself that I should be focused not on when to invest, but what to invest in.

Asset Mix Changes

I have an aggressive allocation investment strategy.  For evaluating my investment allocations, I use PersonalCapital.com.

Here’s how the brokerage account is looking:

brokerage_target_alloc

Looks like I’m well diversified and pretty close to target allocation.  My next $1000 will likely go to US stocks.

Here’s Roth IRA:

Roth_target_alloc

Not good.  I’ve got some work to do in a number of areas.  My next $500 contribution will likely go to International stocks and US bonds.

And finally, 401(k):

401k_target_alloc

Yes, this is the worst of them all.  Since I don’t have any investments in International stocks, I expect to start contributing 100% of future investments towards them until things become more balanced.  Right now, basically everything’s in US stocks.

Goals And Budget Update Feb 2015

Budget Guy Budgeting, Goals

Update for Feb 2015:

Brokerage Investment Goal:

  • Feb Investments contributions were $1102.92
  • YTD Investments contributions are at $1962.77
  • Outlook: Green – everything’s on track.

Roth IRA Investments Goal:

  • Feb Investments were $400
  • YTD Investments total $800
  • Outlook: Green – everything’s on track.

Cash Flow Goal:

  • Feb was cash flow positive, with $839.67 $839.57* being added to the bank accounts
  • YTD is at a positive $13.77 $13.67 net cash flow
  • Outlook: Yellow at this time since planned spending has me slightly below target.  Though it’s very early in the year and since I am very conservative in my estimates I anticipate some expenses being less than planned, which will move this green.

Additional Mortgage Principal Stretch Goal:

  • Feb was $0
  • YTD is $0
  • Outlook: Green.  I anticipate making my first principal-only payment of $1,500 in March when I get my bonus.  Making this payment relies on some assumptions I’ve made when it comes to my bonus at work.  I am estimating around $8,000 (pre-tax) for my bonus, but won’t know for sure if I’m right until mid-March. If I over-estimated, I’ll have some work to do to refactor the budget for the year.

Feb2015GoalsUpdated

*Updated 3/3/2015: It appears I entered the wrong number for one of my gas purchases, resulting in a $0.10 difference.  Oh the joys of manual entry! Screenshot updated.

Keep track of the progress over at the 2015 goals page.

Net Worth Feb 2015

Budget Guy Net Worth

As of February 28, 2015, my net worth went up by $7,058.30 $7,058.20*, to a total of $139,586.22 $139,586.12*.  This went up primary due to increases in retirement, cash, brokerage accounts, and escrow.  This was partially offset by an increase in property tax liabilities, and a decrease in pre-paid expenses.

Retirement and brokerage were the ones that shined this month.  I contributed a total of $615 to 401(k), including my employer’s match.  Another $400 went to Roth IRA, and another $1,102 went to brokerage.  The rest of the increase was due to market appreciation.

Feb2015NetWorth

*Updated 3/3/2015: Due to a typo when I entered one of my gas receipts, I actually have $0.10 less of net worth than originally posted.  Screenshot updated to reflect numbers as of end of Feb.

See the Net Worth Tracker page.