Stealth Wealth Are you under the radar?

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.