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Invest

Since I began this journey, I made a commitment to myself to continue to check in and work on improving my knowledge and application of financial matters. Boy is it exhausting!

Today I finally squeezed in finishing some of my legal documents – I now have a Living Will, a Power of Attorney for Medical stuff, a Will, and a Memorial Planner Information. I still need to spend a little more time on the concept of Estate planning, but I’m not in a huge rush yet as I don’t have that amazing of an estate.

So, let me take a moment to celebrate, YIPPEE!

Okay, I still have to get them all notarized and filed away safely. Sigh, another financial TO-DO.

Next Up on my Financial To-Do List This Month:

  1. Look into refinancing my home. I just took it off the market as it is not selling. I have an inquiry into my mortgage provider to see if its possible to refinance after you take your home off the market or if they have some type of waiting period. Rates are certainly low, so I do hope I can. Seeing as I have had a major career shift, and the value of my home has probably gone down significantly since my last mortgage, it should be interesting to see if its a real financial possibility for me to re-fi. Crossing my fingers.
  2. Convert my Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA at Vanguard. I’m willing to pay tax consequences this  year if it means that I get to move my Traditional IRA Funds (that were previously my 401k when I was a corporate gal) to a Roth IRA.
  3. Set up a Roth IRA at Lending Club. I’m going to roll at least part of my Vanguard money to Lending Club. My experiment with Lending Club panned out to be an awesome choice that I can really support. I am excited to find an investment opportunity that doesn’t make me want to cry and pull my hair out unlike my experiences with Fidelity and Vanguard.
  4. Get life insurance. I can’t believe I still haven’t gotten around to this. Need to get it done – I’m going to opt for the $500K policy I think. But I do need to do more research into this area.
  5. Snore. Okay. I find this stuff painfully boring and awful. Thank you to this website for reminding me to stay on track with it. It’ll be worth it one day right??!!

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My Best Investment So Far: Lending Club

July 1, 2010

With the volatility of the stock market, I have been interested in other investment opportunities. They can be hard to find. So far, I am very pleased with the peer to peer lending model offered at Lending Club. I can honestly say that its simple to set up and use, and is providing me an [...]

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2 Months Later – A Look at Non-Corporate Life

May 11, 2010

About 2 months have gone by since I left the corporate grind. Amazing. Time has flown by. So far, so good. My fears proved to be wrong, and I am surpassing my expectations for generating business. I have some really supportive clients and new referrals and have started a part time gig as well for [...]

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How to Rollover a Complicated 401K

April 14, 2010

I have 2 types of accounts in my 401k from my previous employer – a tranditional 401k and a Roth 401K. After doing some research and weighing my options, I have decided to roll over my 401k into Vanguard due to the lower fees and a variety of investment choices. I still do not feel educated enough to trust my 401k funds to a fully self-managed account with individual stocks and bonds, so the fund option is still appealing to me at this stage in life. Hopefully, one day I will have the time and knowledge to invest more specifically and strategically. For now, I plan to put some research into the funds, diversify wisely and monitor my investments.

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How to Choose? Pay Off Debt, Save, Invest or Build a Business

February 23, 2010

In my pursuit towards financial freedom, I have been able to narrow down my goals and realize key elements that I want to focus on for my career and life style.

I have now managed to categorize and budget my expenses, long term and short term savings accounts, and I have begun to understand tax rules and how they affect investment accounts and options.

Nonetheless, I still find it difficult to determine the order and priority to assign to saving, paying off debts, investing, and business start ups.

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Are Commodities The Right Investment Choice?

January 9, 2010

I have been researching and reading and researching some more on the commodity market and I have no idea what to do. I admit that I am a novice at investing. However I do not deny that it will be an essential component in my journey to financial freedom. My experience investing consists of this: I got burned in 2000 when I invested in a four star mutual fund, thought that I didn’t need to watch it, then it tanked with the rest of the stock market. Beyond that, I tried day trading a few individual stocks and felt like I was uneducated and gambling rather than making sound investment choices. My main problem is, right now I just don’t know exactly where to begin on my limited funds. I have read contradictory things, and still have a lot of financial lingo to learn.

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Tips for Sticking to a Budget

December 4, 2009

Especially with the holidays approaching, its a struggle to stay within your budget. I’ve been more actively monitoring my budget and income/expenses for over a while now. I’m proud to say we did decrease our spending significantly in November. We also shifted some spending to more quality things such as education and investments.sti

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Review of SmartyPig Online Savings Account and Budget Tracker

November 22, 2009

Launched in the US in March of 2008, SmartyPig is a very unique tool that combines budgeting for savings tools with online interest-bearing savings accounts. Not only can you start saving, but you can also open up your savings accounts on social tools such as Facebook and others for your family and friends to contribute to as well as watch what percentage you are towards your goal. It is a partnership with DataVision, Inc. and West Bank in Iowa and the founders are Mike Ferrari and Jon Gaskell.

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