Progress is Important

Despite how tumultuous the year has been, I feel confident that I am still heading in the right direction. I've managed to pay for my schooling with cash and still come out positive month after month.

I've dedicated myself to paying down debt, contributing 10% to my 401k and small amounts to a Roth IRA. I am impressed with how quickly I've been able to accumulate not only cash reserves, but also retirement. I've only been saving towards retirement since April of 2008 and have close to $9,000. Using one of my favorite personal finance tools, NetworthIQ, lets take a look at my balance sheet over the last 6 months:

As you can see, in total I've managed to put away $6,816 and reduced my debt by $774. At the moment, my debt only includes three credit cards with balances and two personal loans.

Now that I've secured a more stable position at a higher salary I no longer feel the need to focus on my cash reserves. My plan is to increase my debt-snowball to eliminate all of my 'unnecessary' debt. Many of my credit cards have very high interest rates, which have often detered me from using them at all. By paying off all of my debts I am hoping that I can return to building my cash reserves so that I can one day purchase a home.

How do your assets, liabilities and networth look? Do you know?

Or on $61k

I realize that giving up on my blogging for well over three weeks is probably not very good for maintaining the attention of anyone who has come to visit here on a semi-regular basis. I've obviously needed to be able to sort out some things.

I transitioned into my new position as of October 19th, although, the salary would not adjust to $45,000 until November 2nd. The week prior to the transition I was contacted by a rather large corporation who had an opening with them, however, they had already brought two different candidates into the final phases of the interview and decision making process. They wanted another option for comparison. With that I considered this only an interview exercise for a position I really, really wanted.

To my excitement and after more than nine hours of interviews with about seven different people over two days I was extended an offer for the position at $61,000. Not only is this a salary increase but it is also a move back into a Non-Exempt position which means I am eligible for overtime, which they’ve assured me is a guarantee.

I’ve already told the new company that I can’t possibly decline the offer. Not only will it keep me in a more comfortable financial position but it will also be a step in the right direction for my career. Unlike the new position I am in now, they are able to guarantee that the position will grow based on my previous experience, not to mention the company is very stable with a lot of tricks up its sleeves for 2009.

I will be able to return to contributing 10% of my salary to a 401k plan, accumulate money within my personal savings on a monthly basis and continue to attend school. It is a win-win situation for me that just happened to come at the right time. Not so right for the new company.

I hope that with these most recent events, I will be able to return to contributing to my blog in regular intervals.

September Was Okay

I am generally surprised when I review my networth on NetWorthIQ. At times I feel like the expenses increase around me and unexpected events occur. The reality is that most of the times things are not going so bad.

I really enjoy the exercise of itemizing my balances via Mint and populating that information into NetWorthIQ. This month was particularly better than I had expected due in large part to some better than anticipated returns (and then some declines, especially this week.. yikes) in my 401k plan.

My student loans from 2002 are almost gone. It has not been a terrible amount of money to part with on a monthly basis, but I think there will be a feeling of accomplishment once I've finally done it.

September was better than 'okay' it was pretty good.

Or on $45k..

Yesterday I found out that my position is going to be eliminated as of October 30th. I am not entirely shocked by this. I was expecting it in April, May, June, July.. Well, you get the picture. I am fortunate that it took this long. I will be participating in my 2nd reduction in force on Thursday. The 2nd of my career. The 2nd of 2009.

My supervisors were kind enough to reach out to the head of human resources with one of our sister companies to see if there might be an alternative opportunity for me, and there is. They actually had to get approval for more money to make it more appealing for me, capping it off at $45,000 per year.

I am going to take it. I know that this may be a terrible move for me in the long run career wise, but financially it is the best thing to do. I will keep all the same benefits and retain my tenure. More than I can say for the unfortunate folks this week who are losing their jobs without any options.

I'll have to cut my 401k contributions in half ensuring that I at least contribute enough for the match. Reduce the amount of money that goes towards savings considerably as well as cut extra payments to my credit cards.

The alternative: Receive unemployment and pay my rent from my emergency fund. Wish me luck.

Employer Sponsored PTO = 401(k) Savings

This evening I happened across an interesting article on CNN.com about Obama's push for more personal savings among American's.  He speaks about retirement plan auto enrollment as well as issuing your tax refund as a savings bond. Interesting.

What caught my eye, however, was the idea of being able to turn your unused Paid Time Off into 401(k) contributions.  As someone who saves rather than splurges on vacations and long weekends, I would find this very advantageous to have as an option.

Employers, don't be too concerned, if you currently run a 'use it or lose it' type program, you will not be required to allow employees to convert their unused PTO into 401(k) contributions.