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Year-End Personal Balance Sheet, December 2011

This article was written by Flexo in Monthly Update. 17 comments.

I’ve spent the last decade of my life focused on my finances. I started because I had no money and a job that was taking more from me than it was providing in income. I knew I had to make some changes if I wanted to build any kind of future for myself. Soon into this journey, I founded this website, where I’ve written about my own financial situation and tracked my balances on a monthly basis.

Over the years, my financial situation has improved. Rather than focusing on and tracking every cent as I was doing in 2003, a necessary step to train myself to save money and value everything I was earning, I now am significantly more relaxed. I still track my bank account balances. Eventually, I stopped tracking every cent I spent with cash. Cash spending became such a small percentage of each month’s income that it became unnecessary for me to enter every receipt (or every remembered transaction for those where no receipt was provided) into Quicken. I have been using credit cards for most expenses. (I was using credit cards to take advantage of rewards, which I didn’t start doing until I was out of debt, spending less than I was earning, and making conscious spending decisions.) The credit cards helped me carefully track my expenses.

My ability to improve my financial condition has been partly due to my public tracking. When my numbers are published online, I have to admit to my mistakes and accept criticism from readers when it’s due. Knowing that I will be reporting the details of my bank accounts helps me to continue making good decisions with my money.

At the end of the year, I take the chance to look at my life from a broader perspective. I now have ten years of history in my Quicken file. I’ll be thirty-six years old in a couple of months, so my finances have been a focus for almost all of my adult life. And for those of you, readers, who know me only through this site, only as “Flexo” or Luke Landes, you may think that an obsession with personal finance rules my life. The good news is that this isn’t true; outside of Consumerism Commentary, when I see my friends and family, personal finance is not usually a topic of discussion.

With ten years of history in Quicken, I can easily see my own financial progress over time. At the end of 2001, the world was still shaking from terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., and my life was uncertain. With no money, no job, no girlfriend, and no place to live, I knew I needed to make changes in my life. That’s what I did.

Continue reading to see the numbers. Read the full article →

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Personal Balance Sheet, October 2011 ($373,552, +9.2%)

This article was written by Flexo in Monthly Update. 15 comments.

I’ve been tracking my net worth and keeping my finances updated in personal finance management software since July 2003. I’ve done this mainly for myself. Posting my finances online helps make the numbers real. I use these monthly reports to hold myself accountable. If I write publicly about spending more in a budget category than I should, I have no one to blame myself if, at the end of the following month, I still have the same problem. I would have to face the judgment of readers who see my lack of progress. By keeping my finances public, I try to hold my money-related decisions to a high standard.

Over the past eight and a half years, this technique has helped me gain financial independence, combined with a thriving business. But this will be the final month I share my balances with this much detail. I’m moving into the next phase of my financial journey, and this requires taking back some of my willingness to bare all for an audience. I will still share quite a bit, more than most readers would expect, but the familiar balance sheet will be replaced with a different accountability measure.

Another reason to move away from posting a monthly balance sheet for accountability is the fact that the swings from month to month have more to do with stock market performance than day-to-day money management decisions. When I had very little money invested and my expenses were close to my income, every decision I made could have a strong effect on my finances. That is not the case today. Just like my need for tracking every cent has been relinquished as my budget began to allow more freedom, my daily spending has a smaller effect than decisions pertaining to the larger picture, like my investment portfolio allocation and diversification. I’ll be writing more about my investment choices in the future.

In October, my investments recovered. This contributed to an increase in my net worth. Continue reading to see the numbers.

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Personal Balance Sheet, September 2011 ($342,242, -7.1%)

This article was written by Flexo in Monthly Update. 17 comments.

Each month, I publish a financial report to help me track the progress along my path to gain financial independence. This is a long-standing tradition at Consumerism Commentary, with relatively significant updates going all the way back to July 2003. I have made some changes over the years in how these numbers, including the net worth bottom line, are calculated. Recently, I decided to take all of my business-related accounts out of the report, resulting in my purely personal net worth.

Even before making the change, the reports didn’t reflect my total net worth, which would include things like my business as an asset and my estimated tax bill as a liability. Rather than try to create values for these items, particularly the business, I decided it would be just as helpful, or even more helpful, to exclude all business accounts. As a result, there is more fluctuation from month to month because I have not consistently moved cash from business accounts to personal accounts as if I had a paycheck. This is one thing I plan to improve next year through paying myself a consistent salary.

This past weekend, I attended the Financial Blogger Conference in Chicago to meet many of the people I’ve been talking to and emailing for years. It was a great opportunity to share ideas about an industry that has grown from zero in 2003 to a community of thousands of blogs today. I attended many of the conference sessions, including two discussions about writing, one with J.D. Roth from Get Rich Slowly and one with Donna Freedman from MSN and Surviving and Thriving. J.D. and Donna also won several Plutus Awards at the conference.

I must have met over a hundred people this weekend, so I can’t mention everyone. The event was one of the most professional conferences I’ve attended, with a large amount of quality content and friendly people.

Also notable, this weekend was my first experience using accrued miles in Continental’s OnePass frequent flyer program. I traded in miles for an upgrade from coach class to first class for the flight out to Chicago as well as the flight back to New York. Continental does a good job of spoiling first class travelers, and I’ll likely address this in a future article.

Continue reading to see the numbers as of the end of September 2011.

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Honda Recalls One Million Cars

This article was written by Flexo in Consumer. 5 comments.

As an owner of a Honda Civic, I was concerned with the car maker’s latest round of recalls. My 2004 Honda Civic manual transmission LX sedan was not affected by the recall, but it wasn’t too long ago that both Honda and Toyota were issuing recalls. At the time, I reacted by buying shares in Toyota, thinking I could take advantage of a good company’s bad news. The investment saw some upside for a short period of time, but since I didn’t sell, it’s back to where it started.

The Toyota recalls were so hyped by the media, I thought it was a great opportunity. The recent Honda recalls seem to be attracting less attention, but even if they were, I don’t think I’d jump in with an investment in Honda. Here’s the information on the latest Honda recall:

930,000 Fits and CR-Vs will be recalled for a potential problem with the power window switch.
26,000 CR-Zs will be recalled due to the possibility of the car rolling backwards when the transmission is not engaged in reverse.

Honda CR-V For the most part, recalls involve nothing more than taking a car into the dealership for a quick repair. Lives are rarely on the line.

For me, since I am not affected by the recall, I have bigger concerns; it seems the latest edition of my mainstay for the last decade, the Honda Civic, was panned by Consumer Reports. A friend of mine who has been a loyal Ford owner for the last decade has expressed his pleasure in the news and perhaps vindication. My current car and my previous car, a 1997 Honda Civic LX, ran beautifully as long they have been in my hands. I only replaced the older car after I received it back after lending it to a relative for a year while I was not driving and there was an unidentifiable problem. The 2004 recently passed 140,000 miles and should last many more.

When the car finally reaches the point where the cost to maintain its operation is higher than the remnant value of the car, I’ll need to look at my options. If the recent crop of Honda Civic editions is not reliable and recommended, I’ll look for a change. By the time I buy a new car, a sedan might not be at the top of my list, anyway, depending on my needs and perhaps desires. I may ot be looking for a Civic or an comparable sedan.

Here’s Honda’s statement about the recalls:

Honda will voluntarily recall 80,111 CR-V vehicles from the 2006 model year in the U.S. to replace the power window master switch. The design of the power window master switch can allow residue from interior cleaners to accumulate, which can, over time with switch use, cause the electrical contacts to degrade and may lead to a fire in the switch. No injuries or deaths have been reported related to this condition.

Additionally, Honda will voluntarily recall 5,626 CR-Z vehicles from the 2011 model year in the U.S. that are equipped with manual transmissions to update the software that controls the hybrid electric motor. In the affected vehicles… it is possible for the electric motor to rotate in the direction opposite to that selected by the transmission. If this occurs and the driver has not engaged the brakes, the vehicle may slowly roll in an unexpected direction…

Which automobile maker delivers the highest-quality vehicles today?

Photo: labnol
Honda

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Personal Balance Sheet, August 2011 ($368,817, -2.6%)

by Flexo

Almost every month since July 2003, I’ve been reporting my month-end financial reports on Consumerism Commentary. This reporting started as a way to hold myself accountable as I attempted to improve my finances through earning more and spending thoughtfully while saving and investing for my future. Somewhere along the way, the website became not only ... Continue reading this article…

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Why I Still Drive My Old Honda Civic

by Flexo

After noticing, month after month, that I include the value of my 2004 Honda Civic in my monthly net worth updates, a reader wrote in to Consumerism Commentary to ask why I haven’t given into my desires and purchased something newer or more exciting. I’ve had a bit of a storied past with cars, but ... Continue reading this article…

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Ignoring Bills Won’t Make Them Disappear

by Flexo

This is one of my biggest financial mistakes. My failure to learn some basic skills and my willful ignorance of the trouble I was in cost me thousands of dollars and major inconveniences. When I was younger, I didn’t have that much of a positive track record with cars. In high school after receiving my ... Continue reading this article…

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Personal Balance Sheet, July 2011 ($380,209, +0.2%)

by Flexo

Before getting into my monthly financial reports, I wanted to take a moment to mention that The Second Annual Plutus Awards are now underway. The purpose of the Plutus Awards is to bring more public attention to personal finance blogs. While the community of blogs and their authors help move the industry forward by commenting ... Continue reading this article…

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