Showing posts with label debt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label debt. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Net worth update: April 30, 2008

Savings / Checking : $ 68,000     Last Month : $ 78,000
Illiquid assets : $ 0 Last Month : $ 0
Taxable Investments: $252,000 Last Month : $226,000
Retirement Accounts: $219,000 Last Month : $218,000
Credit card debts : $ -5,000 Last Month : $-11,000
Combined Net Worth : $534,000 Last Month : $511,000

Well it was a pretty good month. That big jump in our taxable investments was me adding another $10,000 in funds into Zecco combined with some great comebacks on a few of our stocks, and my wife's scheduled ESPP purchase. That ESPP money is basically in limbo until the purchase occurs. I suppose that could be listed in Illiquid assets, but I'm not going to check her paystub right? Hmmm... You can track my stock purchases on two portfolio sites I use: Cake Financial and Icarra.

Our rent is increasing by 8%. Our apartment in San Francisco is not eligible for rent control since it was built after 1979. That means a little less savings each month, but I think I can get around that by contributing to pre-tax 401k rather than after-tax Roth(k). I'll have to think about that. I'm currently contributing 10% to pre-tax, and 5% after-tax. By going to a full 15% pre-tax, I think I could regain the rent increase. Still, more to calculate.

The housing market is still looking pretty poor. Patrick.net is pretty much all doom and gloom. There's a web site trying to petition against the housing bailout at AngryRenter.com. It will be interesting to see whether that's successful or not.

Monday, March 31, 2008

I'm going to try Prosper.com

While I wait for $1000 to transfer into my Prosper account, I started looking at what types of borrowers I would consider. Prosper's new Porfolio feature seems pretty nice -- a packaged up ball of debt that I can purchase. Sounds familiar? It should. That's exactly what got us into this Subprime mess in the first place. So I'm going to be very conservative with this for the time being.

Here are my lending rules:
AA or A credit
Less than 30% DTI (debt to income ratio)
Less than $10000 loan request
Exclude automatic funding
0 Now Delinquent
0 Delinquencies last 7 years
0 Public Records last 10 years
0 Public Records last 12 months
0 - 4 Credit Inquiries last 6 months

This search netted me 36 listings at 10:15am. A few are set to expire today, so I won't be able to bid on them. I'm going try playing with the Portfolio method. What I'm hoping is that once my funds clear, I can contribute 4% equally across 25 listings. It'll probably earn very little since I'm not touching any risky credit borrowers, but I'm hoping that it earns more than a 3-year CD.