About me

2007 Year End Review (I): Financial Moves

Posted by Sun on December 31, 2007 (5) Comment

As we are approaching the finial day of 2007, I feel it’s time to look back and examine what we have done in the last year that could affect us financially, both in the short- and long-term, as I did at the end of 2006. Since we didn’t make any official goals [...]

Categories : About me, Review Tags:

November 2007 Score Card — Part I: Net Worth

Posted by Sun on December 3, 2007 (3) Comment

It’s that time again and what I am looking at is not pretty, as expected.
November turned out to be a very tough month for investors as both the S&P and the Dow had the biggest monthly decline in five years. Despite the second rate cut by the Fed in as many months, concerns over subprime [...]

Categories : About me, Net worth Tags:

October 2007 Score Card — Part I: Net Worth

Posted by Sun on November 1, 2007 (2) Comment

The Federal Reserve gave investors a Halloween treat yesterday by cutting the key lending rate a quarter-percentage point. The second rate cut in two months gave the stock markets a boost, pushing major indices up more than 1% Wednesday to finish the month on a strong note. For the month, the Dow gained 0.3% to [...]

Categories : About me, Net worth Tags:

September 2007 Score Card — Part I: Net Worth

Posted by Sun on October 1, 2007 (10) Comment

When the stock markets had the best September in 34 years, it’s hard not to make money, big money and that was indeed what happened to us last month. In fact, we saw so far the biggest jump in our net worth since I started the tracking in August 2006. For the month, the Dow [...]

Categories : About me, Net worth Tags:

August 2007 Score Card — Part I: Net Worth

Posted by Sun on September 4, 2007 Comments Off

I just realized that I have been tracking the growth of our net worth for more than a year already. One year ago today, we had a total of $369,550 without including house and car related items. Here’s a picture of our net worth at the end of August 2006.

How are we doing one year [...]

Categories : About me, Net worth Tags:

Market Downturn Taking a Toll on Our 401(k)s

Posted by Sun on August 20, 2007 (2) Comment

I don’t check my 401(k) as often as I check my stock investments because, whether it’s up or down, I won’t do any on it until the rebalancing time which usually occurs at the end of the year. I have a very simply portfolio in my 401(k) plan with Fidelity. Currently my holdings include

Fidelity Freedom [...]

Categories : About me, Portfolio Tags:

July 2007 Score Card — Part I: Net Worth

Posted by Sun on August 1, 2007 (11) Comment

I am glad a tough month finally came to a close. Actually, July started quite nice, with the Dow hitting record high of 14,000 and S&P 500 crossing 1,550 for the first time. The first half of the month was very promising. Then things started to turn from bad to worse as credit worries weighed [...]

Categories : About me, Net worth Tags:

Roth 401(k)

Posted by Sun on July 25, 2007 (9) Comment

My wife’s employer started to offer Roth 401(k) plan through Fidelity this year. While it’s good to know that there’s a new saving vehicle available, we decided not to participate after examining the pros and cons of the plan at that time. The main reason was that it doesn’t offer more benefits than the traditional [...]

Categories : 401(k), About me, Personal finance Tags:

Pay Ourselves First: The Way We Save and Invest

Posted by Sun on July 17, 2007 (8) Comment

After I posted our latest score card update last week, MoneyNing asked me if I can share how we accumulated our net worth and the source of the growth, whether it’s from our salaries or investments.
Actually, I have touched this topic quite often in the past (for example, when we reached the half-million mark). For [...]

Categories : About me, Review Tags:

8 Random Things about Me

Posted by Sun on July 11, 2007 (5) Comment

I was tagged by Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge last week to list 8 random things about myself. Actually, both Jeremy at Generation X Finance and Super Saver at My Wealth Builder a couple months ago for five obsessions, but I didn’t reply last time as I thought I already have the 5 things you may not [...]

Categories : About me, General Tags:
invisible tracker