Stealth Wealth Are you under the radar?

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.

Today I wrote my biggest check I’ve ever written out of my account. I wrote a $2,000 check to my employer to pay for my 2008 ESPP contributions. I know I looked at that check more than 20 times before I put it in the envelope before I mailed it off. Even after putting it in the envelope I pulled out a couple more times to double check (25 times check) to make sure that I had written it out correctly along with the correct address. I’m paranoid on things like that for some reason.

Now I’ll have a little over $75 extra every paycheck. The company pays a little over 4% dividend so I’ll be making about the same as it sitting in my money market account. When economy straightens up and the banking industry gets settled from the sub prime mess I expect the stock will climb back up to where it was a year ago, which is about a 50% climb. My employer isn’t directly hurting from sub prime lending, but indirectly it is being hit as is most every company right now.

I found this article interesting because it says that Americans are more conscious about their spending during Christmas and many plan to use cash for their purchases. Also 73% of people surveyed plans to have their Christmas debt paid off within 3 months. Well we know people plan a lot of things, they don’t always follow through (ie: paying off debt).

Over the weekend when surfing a few blogs I saw another survey that showed the U.S. consumers not as financially aware as this survey. I don’t know the exact numbers I saw but the second survey I saw showed about 1 in every 5 shoppers about the ages 18-26 (give or take a few years) thought money was no object when it comes to Christmas shopping. That stat is pretty alarming!

After reading both surveys I am leaning more to believing this second one more because to me it’s hard to believe that people are actually all of a sudden financially responsible. Maybe people can prove me wrong hopefully.

What do you think?  Are shoppers actually more financially responsible this Christmas?

Here is a link to the article of the first survey I read that states shoppers are more responsible.  I’m sorry I don’t have a link the the second survey I read which was the most believable to me.

The following are financial highlights for the trailing twelve months (ttm).

Profit margin is at 45.18%, which is pretty good, but I would like to reach 50%. To achieve this I’ll need to work on some cost cutting measures for next year.

I’m going to keep up with ROA, but I’m not using the correct formula which is Net Income divided by Assets. When I use the correct formula I come up with over 100% because my Net income is almost the same as my assets and I don’t see that as a clear reading on how my $8k in assets perform. I’m using Net Income from investments divided by Assets to get the 5.66% you see below. This will probably decrease in the future because I will continue to put into my 401k, which is included in the assets, but I won’t have any income from my 401k. The only way to receive net income on investments is to sell stock and receive a realized gain or receiving dividends.

In quarterly earnings growth I compared Q2 to Q3 (2 previous quarters). It is such a high percentage because I paid my jeep off in Q2 and left me with low net income compared to Q3.

I readjusted the P/E ratio to 20 because of the growth I plan to have in ‘08. Market cap of Stealth Wealth Inc. is $173,138.20 with a share price of $17.31

Key notes

1. Issued 10,000 all to myself.
2. A P/E ratio of 20 is constant forever to calculate share price.
3. Share price was calculated by the following calculation: 20x$.87 = $17.31; P/E=20 and EPS=$.87
4. The total market cap. for Stealth Wealth Inc. is $173,138.20 (10,000 shares multiplied by $17.31 share price.
5. Book Value per share is Asset-Liabilities divided by 10,000 shares ($-2.10)

I got some big help this month from my Christmas bonus :D  Also I got an extra $227 in realized gains from the sale of my holdings in Middlby.  Next month I’m looking to have over $10 in dividends from my money market fund.

My net worth for the month went up 6.30% thanks to the 2 reasons mentioned in the first sentence of this post.  I was able to sock away over $2,100 into my savings this month, which makes me feel better about my emergency fund.  I don’t have a set limit yet for what I want my EF to be, but I will set that $ amount sometime this month when I’m setting 2008 goals.  Liabilities increased because I have not been paying anything on my credit card, but it will be paid off in January with money from my EF.  It feels good to see the growth but I know that this isn’t going to happen every month.