April Spending

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  • May 11, 2009

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April Spending

Josh has come up with the honest truth about budgeting:” little purchases add up quick” … print it in B I G letters, frame it and hang it on your wall and you won’t go too far wrong …

What can you add?

________________________

So the month of April is over and I spent a lot of money. April is an unusual month for me because it’s the month my birthday lands on, so there was a bit of going out and living it up.  I expect May to be equally lean, mainly because I’m spending all extra time studying, I’m not obligated to go out for my birthday again until next April, and the maintenance for my car is up to date. During May, all the MIT’s have been instructed to use the 10-10-10 and 10-1-1-1-1 pricipal for all our purchases. I anticpate a reflection of this exercise in my May spending.

Through this past months exercise, I’ve learned little purchases add up quick and it may be worth it for me to only use one credit card and use it only for emergencies.  I manage money on a “buy it as needed” basis, using mainly the credit cards which provide the most cash back (I’ve probably earned over $100 this year from my Discover Card) The problem is, the Discover bill comes in and it’s more then I planned, and now there’s none left to save.

I’m thinking it may be worth surrendering the regular use of credit in order to better track my available cash. This will increase the pain felt when spending that I need to experience in order to pass up those small unnecessary purchase a.k.a going out to lunch.

April
12.75 Baskin Robins
4.65 Quiznos, lunch
124 car insurance
63 cell phone
36.2 gasoline fill up, shell premium @ 2.35 dollars/gallon
200 tihe
15.5 dry cleaning
4.29 lunch
2.5 lunch
33 party
160 party
33.32 groceries
300 church offering
20 cleaning
46.36 tools
13.27 lunch
75.68 alignment
7.84 lunch
200 tithe
299 kaplan question bank
23.6 ac recharge
27.4 kinkos
50 tax fee
20 cleaning
3.76 groceries

total  =  1776.12

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May 11th, 2009
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Comment Number:
1
Written by:
lee
Posted on:
May 11, 2009 at 8:30 am

Yo Josh
You got it all wrong… It’s “YOUR” birthday that means others are supposed to do the spending.

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Scott
Posted on:
May 11, 2009 at 12:29 pm

LoL,I think Lee is right!

Great job keeping track of everything Josh. Doing this so early in your life is going to make you so accountable for your money and take you big places financially. It will be a pleasure watching you achieve your goals as money gets attracted into your life from different sources because you have had good accountability and money management.

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Josh
Posted on:
May 11, 2009 at 1:15 pm

Lee – your right, I got swindled.

Scott, thanks. I’m learning so much from you and Ryan especially.

This month of May has been kind of difficult to keep the expenses down, had to do some celebrating (no, I just have one birthday). My net worth increased over 1200% on May 7. Check out my networth profile I updated recently.
https://www.networthiq.com/people/jaushwa

I give all glory and praise to Jesus, my Lord and Savior. And I can’t wait to tithe on it.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
Ryan
Posted on:
May 11, 2009 at 3:24 pm

That’s an incredible jump Josh, Congratulations!! The really good news is that if you can just do that again you’ll be a stone’s throw away from your number!

Now I give up, how’d you do it???

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Bluefoot
Posted on:
May 11, 2009 at 4:06 pm

Congrats on the incredible jump in net worth! Do you mind sharing with us how that happened? I am learning from this great experiment and don’t want to miss out on anything. Thanks for sharing your journey with us! I am new to this idea of learning how to make money work for you. Unfortunately, my parents didn’t raise me with this kind of insight, so I am learning on the fly. Getting ready to buy my first rental property soon. Good luck!

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
Josh
Posted on:
May 11, 2009 at 4:15 pm

Put the whole 401(k) and personal brokerage account into a penny pharmaceutical stock,(avg price was around 4.75 cents.) Today it closed at .82 cents. The stock is TTNP, Titan Pharmaceuticals.

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
Lee
Posted on:
May 11, 2009 at 4:17 pm

Josh I just checked out your NetWorth IQ.
Congrats!

Comment Number:
8
Written by:
Bluefoot
Posted on:
May 11, 2009 at 5:56 pm

Wow, amazing! Is this real? I am sure you got quite a rush from that. I made 9k from a $600 in one day off options a few years back! I thought I had hit the jack pot! Well I guess my real question is what kind of investment software do you use and where are you getting your advice. Email me if you don’t want to share on the board! paideiabballcamp@gmail.com

Comment Number:
9
Written by:
Adrian
Posted on:
May 11, 2009 at 6:51 pm

@ Ryan – If you think we’re going to let Josh put his “whole 401(k) and personal brokerage account into a penny pharmaceutical stock” again, you’ve got rocks in your head 😛

@ Josh – Congratulations! I think you need to thank Someone but don’t be so sure He will favor you so directly again; I presume that your trading system will include some sort of way of protecting capital in case the CEO of your favored stock gets hit by a bus on his way to the big announcement meeting that SHOULD have pushed the stock WAY up 😉

Lesson here for all folks: do NOT try and repeat The Big Success … make smaller bets (%-wise) the larger your portfolio gets.

Comment Number:
10
Written by:
Josh
Posted on:
May 11, 2009 at 8:00 pm

lol,…. kids, don’t try this at home.

Adrian, when are we starting MM-201, I’m jumping out of my skin here?

Comment Number:
11
Written by:
Debbie
Posted on:
May 11, 2009 at 8:00 pm

@josh first – Happy Birthday. second – WOW… !!

Comment Number:
12
Written by:
Adrian
Posted on:
May 11, 2009 at 9:59 pm

@ Josh – If you MM201’ed any harder, you’d burst 😛

Seriously, MM101’s the most important skill that you need to learn so that you have a base to work from and a fall-back:

1. I would encourage you to grab the book about Jesse Livermore – The World’s Greatest Trader. I want you to see that he became rich and broke FOUR separate times (then, blew his own head off) … I don’t want this to happen to you. Once you really FEEL this, move to 2. – otherwise wait … nothing produces discipline better than the inevitable major loss 🙂

2. Once you are TRULY ‘on board’, I want you to break your ‘windfall’ into three easy (well, equal) pieces:

– Trading Account: do more of what you just did, and hope to repeat (just remember NOT to put all of your position into one investment … ONLY invest into one ‘event’ what you would be happy to lose 100% of without suffering unduly)

– Passive Investment Account: Buy a rental; or buy/hold ‘boring stocks’ that you would be happy to own forever … fight the urge to trade even these stocks.

– Savings Account: Keep this in a separate part of your 401k or in cash – better yet, buy your own condo (rent it out also, until you are ready to move in).

Always remember this ‘3 easy pieces’ approach to windfalls and you won’t ever go broke …

Rich 1; Broke 0; Head [Intact] – not a bad scoreline 😉

Comment Number:
13
Written by:
Mark
Posted on:
May 11, 2009 at 10:26 pm

Congratulations Josh! This is great news and great testimony. This must be a great month. Happy belated birthday!

Comment Number:
14
Written by:
Josh
Posted on:
May 12, 2009 at 7:13 am

@ Mark, Thanks man, it truly is a great testimony.

@ Adrian, wise words from a wise man.
any advice on how to miniize taxes?

Comment Number:
15
Written by:
Ryan
Posted on:
May 12, 2009 at 10:54 am

@ AJC – While you could be right about rocks in my head, I should probably start using a different font for sarcasm! I didn’t even know what our resident dare devil had done with his entire life savings!
@ Josh – I’m REALLY glad it worked out for you Josh, but I agree with the others, as I’m sure you do too, Don’t press your luck or you will likely be on the other end of your admirable tithes.

Comment Number:
16
Written by:
Scott
Posted on:
May 12, 2009 at 1:16 pm

Awesome work on the windfall Josh! That’s exactly what i’m talking about. Keep focusing on managing your money like a champ and watch it work its way to you! 🙂

Comment Number:
17
Written by:
Ryan
Posted on:
May 12, 2009 at 4:12 pm

I need to start using a new font for sarcasm. ;))

Comment Number:
18
Written by:
Adrian
Posted on:
May 12, 2009 at 6:22 pm

@ Josh – yeah, see a good tax accountant 🙂

Comment Number:
19
Written by:
Making Money 201? «
Posted on:
May 22, 2009 at 2:02 am

[…] Josh has made a huge financial windfall; but, it comes with a warning (read the comments on his post) … even so, he represents the desires of pretty much anybody who wants to get ahead of the […]