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HomePersonal SituationEvan By Numbers May 2010

Evan By Numbers May 2010

One of the main reasons that I started this blog was to hold myself accountable, since I truly believe that Accountability Leads to Success when dealing with personal finance and me.. it is even in my FIRST post from August 2008 it is right there in the first sentence of published work on this blog!

I updated my financial stats often when I was working off my credit card debt, but I slacked off once that was finished. So if I believe accountability is necessary, why don’t I have my numbers out there for everyone? I have no real excuse so here we go!

Before I get into giving out the numbers, I don’t plan on putting everything out there, and the reason is pretty simple.  I am pretty sure that I will slip up and this site will eventually become known to my friends and family, and I am just way too private when it comes to money issues for everything to be out there.

So what do I want to share? Those topics which I have covered on my blog already.

My Debt Items

In addition to my house I have a few other debt items. I don’t highlight the house, because it is secondary right now as compared to following debts:

  • I just finished refinancing my auto loan. While I lowered my rate, from 8.9% down to 5.5%, my balance actually increased because of pay off dates, checks set and some additional insurance povided by the bank (to cover shortfall if the car is totalled – this actually reduced my interest rate by .25% so I did the math and went with it.  Currently, I owe $11,800 (+1% from March Numbers).
  • One Law School Loan at $57,467.97 at 4.5% (-1% from March Numbers).
  • Another Law School Loan at $7,240.49 at 5% (-1.04% frm March Numbers).

My Multiple Income Streams and Qualified Investments

My Prosper Account

I have previously provided really detailed information about my Prosper.com Account a few months ago. Since is just an update I’ll give the hard facts:

  • 30 Active Notes worth $698.96 (up 2 Notes 28 and up 1.1%)
  • $15.63 in Cash (will be reinvested when I hit $25)
  • $72.59 in Gain (at least according to Prosper) up .96% Since March Numbers
  • 4 Charge offs, 1 Late, 10 Paid in Full (March – 3 Charge offs, 1 Late and 8 paid in Full)
  • Average Yield at acquisition 11.10% (March was 11.30% – trying to get safer)

I will continue to reinvest the payments and put $25/month into the account. This leads to about 1.5 loans per month.

My Perpetual Income Machine

I researched dividend paying stocks to create an eventual perpetual income machine. The account is tiny, and will just be a slow growth sort of thing until my cash reserves are where I want them, I am talking about $100 or so a month – so really slow – up to $300 as of this writing

  1. SDY SPDR S&P DIVIDEND ETF
  2. LLY LILLY(ELI) & CO
  3. CB CHUBB CORP
  4. SWK STANLEY WORKS THE
  5. CTL CENTURYTEL INC

They are all basially split evenly (ranging from 19 to 21% of the total portfolio).  After all my research I really liked those 4 stocks and I figured why not pick up the ETF this way I have some exposure to everything else.

My 401(k)

It may be time to look into re-allocating my 401(k) but, it is up 4.77% in gains from the March Date.  I will continue to allow that to grow with bi-monthly contributions from myself and generous employer.

My Cash Account

I am not comfortable providing my cash account details, but lets say I am at about 35% of what I’d like in a liquid account. So as I make inroads on this as the months pass by I will use the % of my end number. So Right now I am at

  • 35% of my Future Goal of Liquid Dollars (+3% from March Numbers) 

Am I missing anything that you would want to know? Do you care when Bloggers put everything out there?

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12 COMMENTS

  1. Hey Evan, I like the accountability factor myself. I think it’s a good idea for you to do it and I do it on the tracking and posting of income and expenses side of things. The only reason for that is that I am moving towards semi-retirement and know that I need to keep my expenses lower than they have been in the past.
    I don’t have any debt and don’t do the net worth tracking that others do for accountability, if only because I don’t have most of my net worth in my stock account, it’s in pensions where I don’t have the data readily available when I post everything else monthly. And the amounts don’t really matter anyway because of the type of pension.
    Have you thought of tracking and just posting your expenses (not income if that makes you uncomfortable)?

  2. Good progress mate. And that 5.5% car loan rate ain’t bad!

    I don’t feel comfortable revealing the worth of any of my assets either frankly. I think it’s cuz I don’t want my parents to know 🙂

    Do you think my readers would want to know? I donno.

    • Your readers, at least this reader, would love to know. Who doesn’t get into financial voureyism?

      You have to keep those pesky parents at bay, next thing you know they’ll be hitting you up for a loan LOL.

      You did have the financial freedom graph up, but you recently took that down?

  3. Indeed. I lost it all after betting on black. Just kidding.

    I don’t think first people would believe my figures. Second, I get an acountability rush just looking at them in a spreadsheet to do better.

    Don’t think I’ll ever reveal. But, you can deduce perhaps a reason why I’m against an increase in the marginal tax bracket to 39.6% from 35%!

    • I think it is similar to how people learn (visiual vs auditory vs physical), but I need external accountability.

  4. Good stuff Evan! Love the perpetual income machine. I (hopefully) have one of my own, holding Canadian dividend-paying stocks. Ever consider buying JNJ or MCD for your portfolio?

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