Category: Mr. PTM

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Mr. PTM Net Worth

Mr. PTM’s July 2016 Net Worth

So first, to address the sad elephant in the room:

The blog has been pretty silent lately and it’s not like our track record was that great to begin with, but ya’ know, life happens and stuff gets pushed to the side.

But I’m back!

I was recently gushing (yes, gushing) to a friend about my high-yield emergency fund strategy (post upcoming) and he said I should write a blog. Ah, that was nice to hear and honestly, I find myself wanting to write more lately. I know almost no one reads this and I’m ok with that – this is a creative outlet. If this blog serves as nothing more than something to have a few laughs over as Ms. PTM and I remember this time in our lives, that’s fine!

But let’s get on with it

July was a wild month that included such highlights as: spending time with Ms. PTM’s family for the 4th, starting the Whole30 diet (deserving of its own post), and selling my car! But first, let’s share some numbers.

NetWorth_20160801

Cash – $19,813

First, a little real talk. This is artificially inflated. I did something most financially responsible people would balk at – I used a convenience check from Chase to borrow $13k. Why? Well, you’ll have to read my follow up post to find out. Also important to note here is that this reflects a change in strategy for both Ms. PTM and I: a shift from throw-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink at debt payoff to squirrel-away-every-free-penny to savings. In short, we’re trying to build our emergency funds. More to come on the what, why, and how.

Also one of my accounts doesn’t show up in Mint (I can’t blame them, the bank’s online banking website is terrible, like 1990s GeoCities terrible), so I’m not including about another $3k here.

Credit Cards – $19,373

This is the other side of the inflated cash coin, but also includes about $1,900 of Ms. PTM’s work travel expenses and almost $3k that I paid towards my student loans in order to hit a $400 signup bonus (thanks, Wells Fargo!).

Loans – $99,319

Finally under $100k!!! I hit this milestone in June and it still makes me happy to no longer have six figure student loan debt. Obviously the real dollar difference is small, but it feels like such a symbolic victory.

Investments – $116,695

Brexit. Oil. US election. I have no idea what’s going on here, but it doesn’t matter. I’m in it for the long-term and still on track to max out my 401k, IRA, and HSA for the year, so high fives all around.

Property – $0

Property $0? Yup, I sold my car for $2,200 and it felt great, although I was overwhelmed with feelings of nostalgia as I watched the new owner drive away. BUT, instead of a depreciating asset, I know have a compound-interest-earning-engine-of-growth. (See what I did there with the car metaphor? 😉 )

Net Worth – $17,816

After 5 years, I went net worth positive as of my March 15th paycheck this year and market-willing, it’s going to stay that way.

Pennsatucky - Praise The Market

 

Well that’s it for me. How was your July? Any new milestones, financial or otherwise?

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Mr. PTM

August 2015 Expenses (Mr. PTM)

Happy September! Here in Denver, fall hasn’t poked its head out yet, but fret not, winter is coming.

In fact, we expect this winter to be a doozy due to the El Nino weather phenomenon. Of course, terrible weather makes for low Lyft-supply, so there should be some good arbitrage opportunities for Lyft drivers who aren’t afraid of a little snow, i.e. me. 🙂

So let’s get to it; my first monthly expense breakdown!

I used to Mint to categorize the data, then exported it as a CSV file to Excel, so that I could create a chart with data labels. Mint’s charts are much more lovely, but there’s no option to add data labels. Bummer.

Spending Breakdown August

Student Loan – $872.90, 29%: Usually my largest monthly expense, this is my standard monthly payment to DR Bank. In a future post, I’ll share how I refinanced my student loans from 6.8% to 2.78%.

Home – $588.56, 20%: This includes $500 for “rent” (paid to Ms. PTM) and some various Home Depot buys to get our refurbished grill up and running again.

Food and Dining – $502.76, 17%: Sadly, this is much too high in my opinion. Ms. PTM and I had several weekend adventures last month, which resulted in more dining out than usual. We’ll again have some out-of-town adventures this month, but I’ll work to be more conscious on how we can only eat out when it’s really going to bring us pleasure.

Bills and Utilities – $444.67, 15%: Also higher than usual due to a $260 f@$& up where I washed Ms. PTM’s iPhone 6 with the laundry (if you knew me personally, you would know I never make this kind of mistake, which makes it doubly frustrating and embarrassing). Fortunately, she was kind enough to endure the flip-phone life while we had T-Mobile mail us a replacement. At least I didn’t end up having to pay full retail for the replacement.

Auto & Transport – $257.98, 8%: Gas, gas, and gas. This is both from a couple of intra-state trips this month (woot! Gunnison and Crested Butte) and from Lyft driving.

Travel – $214.04, 7%: Full-day kayak adventuring during our upcoming trip to the Seattle-Anacortes area for a friend’s wedding next week. I’ll cover this while Ms. PTM will cover part of our lodging.

Personal Care – $21.15, 0.7%: Dry cleaning, a bimonthly expense, which it turns out is surprisingly cheaper for men than women. I brought in 5 shirts and 2 slacks for ~$21, while Ms. PTM’s 4 dresses cost her ~$54. Seriously.

Fees & Charges – $17.71, 0.59%: My employer’s 401(k) custodian, Fidelity, charges a $12.50 quarterly fee for access to a full brokerage account for retirement funds, which was the only way for me to access Fidelity’s biotech fund (FBIOX) and Vanguard’s Real Estate ETF (VNQ). The rest of this was from ATM fees that will be refunded by USAA sometime this month.

Shopping – $0.99, ~0%: I offered to replacement Ms. PTM’s mother’s iPhone 6 cracked LCD. I purchased the replacement part on eBay for $68.99 and funded $68 of it with an eBay gift card using my 6%-cash-back-at-grocery-stores AmEx Blue Cash Preferred (I’ll share more about this easy, cash saving strategy in a future post). Of course, she’ll reimburse me for all costs and it never hurts to earn a little goodwill from your future MIL.

 

Ok, so that’s August, totaling in at $3,004.26, which keep in mind is only my expenses (*groan*). Lots of room to cut down for the next month if we can keep travel-related indulgences to a minimum (or maybe value-maximum…that sounds better). Just for grins, I’ll leave you with a chart of my month-to-month spending since the beginning of the year to put this into perspective. I’ve had a couple of pricey months here, so the rest of the year will be focused on getting as close as I can back to that June 2015 number (seriously, ~$750?!).

Spending by Month

 

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Mr. PTM Net Worth

Mr. PTM’s July 2015 Net Worth – Let’s Do This!

Ugh, finally!

We bought the domain and set up hosting with Dreamhost and love them (more to come in a future post!), set up Zoho as our email host (sure, let’s review that too), and picked our WordPress theme (it seems clean enough, content focused, and works well on mobile too) – so now to get on with what we came here to do and put out some content for you all! To start us off, let me share my first net worth update!

Net Worth End of July

Whoa – maybe not what you were expecting to see. Or maybe it was. Regardless, a negative net worth is not the most exciting thing in the world and I’m working tirelessly to get it positive.

NetWorthOverTime

Suffice to say, I’ve made some good progress (almost $25k increase in 6 months), but more on that later. For now, let’s break down my accounts (thanks to Mint):

Cash:

USAA – my primary bank since I was a tot. Fantastic customer service. I keep multiple checking and a savings account here.

HSA (company-sponsored through BCBS’ BenefitWallet) – I keep $3k in here for medical emergencies and anything beyond is auto-transferred to an investment account (these things are a triple-threat in the tax avoidance world).

Mango Money Checking and Savings Accounts – almost $2k, but I’m growing to $5k as to be my Emergency Savings (it doesn’t get much better than 6% APR and FDIC-insured – more to come here too).

Chase – basic checking account set up to take advantage of a recent $300 offer (free money!) and should also help me pay down an outstanding balance on a certain Chase Freedom card as mentioned below.

Credit Cards:

More than half of this is due to to a convenience check I wrote to myself earlier this year (as part of a sweet balance transfer offer with 0% APR for 14 months and a 2% fee) in order to partially front-load my IRA and cover a cash-flow issue). Unfortunately, this has taken me longer to pay than I would have liked, but I’m working on it and it will die. 🙂

The rest of the balance is split amongst the following cards that I pay in full every month (believe it or not – I actually have more cards than this, but these are the only ones I use regularly or semi-regularly… more to come on this in future posts):

  1. Amex Blue Cash Preferred
  2. Barclaycard Rewards
  3. Barclaycard Upromise
  4. Chase Sapphire Preferred
  5. Chase Freedom
  6. Citi ThankYou Preferred

Loans:

Student Loans from grad school held by Darien Rowayton Bank. Although consolidating and refinancing these 8+ loans from The Iron Bank Nelnet to a single loan at a much lower rate from DR Bank was a life-saver, this loan is the bane of my existence and my primary impediment to freedom.

Investments:

InvestmentPortfolio

Fidelity – holds my workplace 401k accounts (traditional and Roth), which includes a brokerage account for ETF purchases.

Vanguard – the golden child of the personal finance world, they hold both my Traditional and Roth IRA accounts, plus my after-tax accounts I set up long before I knew how to shield my investments properly.

BenefitWallet HSA Investment Account – currently makes up a very small part of my portfolio.

Property:

My good ol’ 1999 Subaru Impreza Outback Sport that I affectionately call Babu is a champ. According to Mint vis-a-vis Kelly Blue Book, she’s valued at $2,185, but I’m not sure that’s what I could get for her.


Feast your eyes on this Japanese supercar! (cowboy and horse not included)

Alright – that’s all I can muster for now. If you’re still reading – thank you! I hope to deliver some better posts that help you on your personal finance journey (you know, pay it forward as they say).

Mr. PTM