Year: 2015

Goals Update March 2015

Budget Guy Budgeting, Goals

Update for March 2015:

Brokerage Investment Goal:

  • March Investments contributions were $1,075.20
  • YTD Investments contributions are at $3,037.97
  • Outlook: Green – everything’s on track.

Roth IRA Investments Goal:

  • March Investments were $500
  • YTD Investments total $1,300
  • Outlook: Green – everything’s on track.

Cash Flow Goal:

  • March was cash flow positive, with $5,809.63 being added to the bank accounts
  • YTD is at a positive $7,576.83 net cash flow
  • Outlook: Green – due to awesome bonus and base pay increases that exceeded my original estimate.

Additional Mortgage Principal Stretch Goal:

  • March was $0
  • YTD is $0
  • Outlook: Green.  I anticipate making my first principal-only payment of the year of $1,700 in April.  Sometime later in the year will add another $1,500 to bring the total estimated to $3,200.

GoalsMar2015

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

Net Worth April 2015

Budget Guy Net Worth

Wow was March a great month, financially speaking!  As of March 31, 2015, my net worth went up by $10,998.21, to a total of $149,479.59.  I saw increases in every category, most notably cash (up $6,200) and retirement (up $2,609) because March is when I received my company bonus and state tax refund.  Note that 6% of my bonus money is contributed to 401(k) automatically, post-tax.  Under liabilities, every category decreased with the exception of property tax liability, which is roughly 2 months of liability because I forgot to add it in February’s calculation.

NetWorthMar2015

Foreshadowing April, I expect a decrease in cash by about $2500.  I am planning a trip to Vegas which will cost me a few grand, which will be partially offset by my federal tax refund.  We’ll see how it plays out, anything can happen.

See the Net Worth Tracker page.

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.