Stealth Wealth Are you under the radar?

I was negative $1,355.28 for January. It looks pretty bad and it is bad, but not as bad as it looks. I paid almost $2,500 toward one of my credit cards when my 0% expired, which I was expecting. I also paid close to $400 toward my medical bills. This makes 2 straight months of running with a negative net income. In February I should be running back in the positive with my tax refund coming.  I did buy a $600 camera, but in my opinion that is an investment.

Net worth decreased by 1.58% for the month.  In February my ESPP payment purchased about $3,000 worth of shares.  $1,000 of that was a match from the company, so my net worth will go up by at least $1k.

Starting in February I’ll be back on track with my finances.  My goal is to transfer $500 to savings each month.

2008 Goals
-Continue to contribute 6% of my income to my 401k

-Get my Emergency Fund to $3k

-Save $4K for engagement ring

-Stretch Goal: Start a dividend portfolio with at least $3k

-Pay $100 per month on Sallie Mae Student Loan

-increase EPS to $1.00

-Reach a book value per share to -$1.00 by year end

-Reach and maintain a profit margin of 50% (if a merger occurs this will not be possible, but there is a merger in the works :D)

-Increase Revenue to $22k for ‘08 (This is a rough estimation.  I’m not sure how much the pay for the new position will be.)

This past year was my first year working a full-time job. It’s exciting to have my first full year of highlights, which will serve as a benchmark for 2008 numbers.

I have a goal of having a profit margin of 50% or better, but I do not see that being achieved until the 2nd quarter of ‘08. Due to paying off my auto loan, another consumer loan, and medical bills the profit margin for ‘07 ended up being 38.55%

I had $18,835.79 in revenues for the year, which I think is decent considering I started in a position that is pretty much the very bottom in the company.

Qtrly earnings growth is up almost 20% because I charged most of my day to day expenses to my credit card, which cut expenses.

December was the first month of 2007 where we had a negative net income for a month. Net income for the quarter was still able to grow by over $400 compared to Q3 because of the credit card payments being so low for the quarter.

Total income was down due to a realized loss. Excluding the realized loss there was pretty decent growth for the quarter. Expenses grew as I continued to receive medical bills and pay them off. I will have medical bills completely paid off in January or February. Credit card payments are way down for the quarter, but I will pay my credit card off in January, so this will sky rocket and look bad, but it won’t be as bad as it looks.

Net worth increased by 0.75% for the month which is awful. Starting in January I’ll go back to paying a little more on my student loans.  I expect assets to grow pretty good during January since I’ll be getting a 50% match on my ESPP, which equates to $1k.

Monday I sold all of my holdings in my portfolio.  Monday was the last day to sell shares for the 2007 tax year.  I took around a $800 realized loss from the sale.  For the year my realized losses are around $300 with gains earlier this year.

I have 3 reasons for selling.

1. I didn’t see the companies I had holdings in picking up until at earliest the last half of 2008.
2. It was better to sell Monday because my losses would offset my gains.  I wouldn’t owe any taxes for my capital gains since I didn’t have any.  If I had waited to sell in 2008 I don’t think shares would have gone up so there wouldn’t have been anymore money from the sale.  On top of waiting and selling in ‘08 I would have had to pay about $175 in capital gains taxes for ‘07 capital gains.
3. I decided that I need more cash for an Emergency fund, which is the whole reason for even selling the shares at all.

Since selling on Monday, shares of Coldwater Creek have fallen almost 14% and shares of the company I work for fell about 5%.  Those are loses I don’t have to worry about making up.  Next time I start investing I’m going to make sure I have a good emergency fund built up and then I’m going to make sure that I invest in dividend stocks with money that I will not need in the near future.

I’ll be posting my financial statements up on Sunday evening or Monday night.

Today I was told that I received the new position that I had applied and interviewed for a few weeks ago.  I will start the position in mid January, but will not actually be receiving the pay for the position.  I will still be paid as a teller and will be reviewed to see at what point I fit in within the pay grade scale a few months later.  I’m thinking the pay grade is between $24K and $36K.

This will be a great chance to learn the loan side and gain knowledge required to move into a loan officer position in the future.  We’ll see how my pay effects my bottom line probably in March, but until then there will not be too much change.

I will be driving 200 miles less to work each week, which will be good on the cost of traveling.  I travel 40 miles a day, but I will only be traveling about 1 miles once I start the new job.

Also I was told that as a teller I have received a raise of about $500 which equals about 10 bucks a week.  Thats enough to pay my cell phone bill

This weekend I’ll finish my goals for 2008. I need to buckle down and start saving more money. Next year will be exciting I believe.

Today I called Capital One because they wanted to talk with me about my card and making some changes to get me to use it more. I quit using it back in October because I got a Chase Freedom for the rewards, but kept my Capital One open. Through the conversation I have changed my card to a rewards card with a minimum pay out of $0.01 which is cool. The rep. also offered me a rate increase from $1k to $2k, which is cool with me.

Before we finished I asked him if I could get 6 months interest free. He was hesitant and told me that he could give me either a rate increase or 6 months interest free. I decided to go with the 6 months interest free because I’m looking to buy a Canon Rebel xti, which is about $500-$700. I’m planning to go ahead and get the camera and just put it on the credit card and pay it off over a 6 month period.

If I had $3,000 right now to spend freely and didn’t need the money in the near future I would start my dividend portfolio made up of the following companies.

I have a couple conservative companies, but the rest are somewhat higher yield and a little more risky. Do you think I’m too greedy?

All have been paying dividends for at least 10 years except Vanguard Value ETF (VTV) and Advantage Energy Income Fund (AAV). That makes me more confident that they will continue to do so. I would have about 10% in each company to make it evenly distributed and have the dividends reinvested. The dividends would even out to about $22 per a month during the first year which doesn’t sound like a lot, but I would hope to add to the pot every year if not month.

I chose to use $3k because that is what I’m getting from my tax refund and my bonus at work added together. I hope that if I get this promotion I’m working on I will be able to afford to start this portfolio in March.

What does your ideal portfolio contain?

I got an e-mail yesterday telling me congratulations that I am 1 of 2 people getting a second interview for a position in the company.  This position will be as an assistant to the loan officers in the branch.  I think I have a pretty decent shot at getting the job, but I’ve felt like that before when I was job hunting and didn’t get it.  At least I know I have a 50% chance of getting it.

The pay range is from the mid 20’s to mid 30’s, but I would probably start at the bottom because of my lack of experience.  The bonus would be bigger though and this position would be a great step toward being a loan officer.  I’m kind of interested in commercial lending, but I’m not sure right now.

I just checked out Sharebuilder’s new website. They have changed the colors to match ING’s now. I think it looks pretty good. They say nothing about my account will change and login is the same also.

One of my favorite things I noticed when I first saw the site is that real-time trades are just $9.95 now. That’s not free like Zecco is offering, but its a step towards it. It doesn’t matter what pricing plan you are on EVERONE pays $9.95 per real-time trade. Pricing plan only seems to affect your automatic investments along with gaining a few helpful tools with bigger plans.

They still offer the promotion where you get 5 free auto investments if you refer someone as of now.

I’m excited to see what ING comes out with to streamline sharebuilder and ING’s banking. I’m really interested in the Electric Orange checking and will be definitely checking into it sometime next year.

Click the thumbnail for a screen shot of the remodeled site.