3rd Quarter Financial Update

I fell off the blogging wagon about six months ago while I was in the middle of preparing for my wedding back in April, finishing up a real estate class I took through the local university, and getting hammered by work. Here’s a third quarter update on my progress towards achieving my financial goals for…

Lessons Learned

I won’t go into a description of my challenges, other than to say that the first few months of my marriage were tough, not from the wife, but the job. You can read more about it here. I’m writing to point out a few lessons learned from my predicament. What good is going through tough…

Welcome Back to the Real World

I had just gotten married, but instead of walking six inches above the ground, I’m clawing tooth and nail just to get a glimpse of the daylight. Just as the stock market has booms and busts, life too has ups and downs, yings and yangs, and ebbs and flows. Life seems to be going better…

April 2014 Debt Update

Big news this month on two fronts. I got married and finished paying off my student loans. The wedding went better than I could have ever asked. She said, “I do” and now we are living happily ever after. A big part of that living happily ever after means that we are now living without…

March 2014 Debt Update

Another month has passed, and another student loan has bitten the dust. I now have two $200 per month payments that I’m never paying again, allowing me an extra $400 per month to throw the remainder at my student loans. And the debt snowball continues to roll on. At this point, I’ve started paying more…

February 2014 Debt Update

This was a benchmark month for me. I paid off more debt this past month than any other thus far. It was all made possible via a larger than expected tax refund I received. When it comes to filing my taxes I’m always johnny on the spot. I have a mental list of the documents…

2014 Financial Goals

It’s weird to think that this is a first for me. I’m a very goal oriented person, but this is the first time that I have written out a list of financial goals to hit in the coming year. I’ve said plenty of things in my head to myself over the years and mostly stuck…

Books Read in 2013

The beginning of 2013 had a slow start to my reading pursuits. I committed myself to studying for the Professional Engineering exam starting January 1st, which then encompassed the majority of my non working time. To give myself a bit of a break while studying I started off my reading a relaxing and interesting book…

January 2013 Debt Update

I wanted to start off 2014 with a bang, and so with some of the leftovers from December, my Christmas bonus, and everything else I had to spare I dropped a bomb on my student loans. In one fell swoop I paid off over 10% of what I had left. Wow that felt good. So…

2013 In Review

Whew… What a year it has been. I’ll list a few of the highlights later. While it has been fun, it has also been tough. I’ve had a lot of balls in the air at once and some how managed to keep most of them afloat. 2013 started with four months straight of studying and…