Big TV Buyer's Remorse

(This is not my TV)

Just because I write about personal finance does make me immune to making stupid decisions.
Last month, after my girlfriend and I had ironed out how we were going to handle our finances I started to really want a plasma TV. Not huge - 42 inches. I had a 27 inch that I have been carting around since college which had some display issues in the 4 corners.

The thing that most of my readers don't know about me, but I am sure my friends have noticed is that when I get something in my head that I want to do, I will become fixated on it. I will talk about it, research it, bounce ideas off people, research it some more, and eventually execute the idea.

Well I had been thinking about getting a TV for about three weeks. I had the buy in from the girlfriend and I had found a really good deal for a 42 inch plasma for $750. March Madness was starting and I was dying to watch my number 12 Wildcats tear it up on the court. The weekend before the tourney we bought the TV. Unfortunately what I didn't take into consideration was the fact that our speaker system would not work with the new TV. We had to buy a new home theatre system and DVD player ($200).

All said and done we spent just shy of $900. This money will be coming out of our joint accounts. In hindsight I think we should have waited to save the money instead of putting it on our AMEX regardless of the fact that it was 0% on purchases for 6 months. It is nice having a new, bright TV but the "new", "wow" factor has worn off and we are now looking at the bill on the statement! That money could have gone to paying off some joint debts we have, but instead they went to a big ole' TV.

The way I look it is that it could have been alot worse...I could be one of those people that got into a house that they couldn't afford!

Cheers,
TMac

[Photo Credit]

My Move to the Big Apple in a New York Minute!

Professionally Speaking...

It was a long time coming.

I had been unhappy in DC and at my company for a while. I started looking for an apartment and job in NY right after the Thanksgiving holiday. I just wasn't happy with all the BS that I had to put up with in the old job. I was stressed out with the crappy assignments I was put on. I was on my out of the consulting world.
In January, I interviewed with one of the largest financial services firms on Wall Street. I received a very good offer ($19K more than I was making in DC) and I accepted for a mid February start date.

All said and done I am happy that I made the move (sans the moving expenses). I like the people I now work with and the pace isn't breakneck like at the previous job. Normally I am in the office by 8:15 and out by 4:50pm. The one thing I am having a hard time getting used to is waking up early in the morning. Normally I wake up between 5:00 and 5:30am to be at work by 8:30. I am beginning to notice that most people in NY have very long commutes - normally 1.5 - 2 hours. I am usually pretty wiped out at the end of the day (sometimes I have a hard time staying up to watch LOST!).

Financially Speaking...

On the financial front I am in a good situation in living with my girlfriend. We live in a basement apartment outside the city. We got a 3 bedroom apartment with all utilities included for $1100. Not bad considering I was in Virginia paying $1065/month PLUS utilities. I will outline our saving and spending arrangement in a later post.

Luckily I got a large pay increase when I moved to the new position. I was being paid $56,500 in DC. If I were making an equivalent in the NY Metro I would be at $62,000. However the offer came in at $75,000. That means that I garnered a $13,000 pay increase by switching jobs. Not bad for a few stressful months!

It is amazing to look back and compare my earnings level to where I was after graduating from college ($32,000) to where I am now ($75,000).

Cheers,
TMac

[Photo Credit]

Evaluating the 2007 Goals

Well with one month left in the year I think I can say with utter certainty that I will reach none of my financial goals that I set out to achieve in March. As of right now I am 43% of the way towards my goal of paying down $5,000 in credit card debt; I am 20% of the way to saving a $2,000 emergency fund; and I am still 100% of the way from saving $3,000 towards my 401K.

Why will I not even reach one of my goals? Well, simply put....$hit happens!

1. When I drafted those goals last March most of my circumstances were different. I had a roommate that I was splitting rent and utilities with. At the time the plan was to live together with him, ma boo, and his wife in a larger yet more cost effective apartment. I am currently footing the bill for an apartment on my own as well as all utilities. Things change.
   
2. They were aggressive stretch goals to begin with. These goals would have required me to really hone in on my spending and trim alot of unnecessary spending.
3. The annual raise wasn't as high as I was expecting. I was expecting 10% and got only 8.5%. While only amounting to couple thousand dollars, this still helps!
4. I failed to regularly review my progress towards the yearly goals. Also once the underlying assumptions changed, I failed to update my assumptions and expectations.
   

Am I disappointed about not hitting my goals? Hell yeah I am. Am I going to throw in the towel because I failed to reach them? Hell No!

I have a few goals in store for next year that are even more aggressive than those I had for 2007. Will I hit them? Who knows but I promise I will learn alot in the meantime.

Tune in next time - same time, same station!

Cheers,
TMac

[Photo Credit]


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The Numbers Are In....

At least the high level ones...

Over the past couple months I have been playing around with MS Money as vehicle to track my spending. I was hoping for it to provide some visibility into the problem areas of my finances and the areas of greatest opportunity for imporvement. After the initial "beta" run during Q4 of 2006, I am running live in FY07 and can't wait for some of the powerful trending and reporting metrics to start showing me some meaningful data once I get more raw data into the system (I'm a dork like that)! So without further adieu..

As of 2/18/2007
Account	Total
Assets
Bank and Cash Accounts	$ 2,144
Value of Vehicle	$ 18,550
Investment Accounts	$ 2,842
Total Assets	$ 23,535
Liabilities
Credit Cards	$ 17,904
Other Liabilities	$ 54,857
Total Liabilities	$ 72,761
Net Worth	$(49,226)

Man! That's a pretty large negative red number! Ok, now for a bit of qualification of those numbers. The credit card debit is way too high, I know this. However, I lost my job around this time last year when I was living in Philadelphia and that is the accumulation of that debt. The Other Liabilities line item is also quite high. That line item consists of two categories - students loans and car loan. About 62% of that debt is made up of my student loans; the remainder is just my car loan. My cash accounts are a series of several different ING accounts that I have which allocate money from each paycheck to pay off a specific fixed payment. The numbers in that account flucuate alot.

That is it for now, I will delve deeper into the situations behind those numbers in the coming weeks.