Due to the move and limited available funds while I try to find a new job, I’ve been unable to fund my Prosper account as much as I’d like. However, I was pleased to look at it the other day and find that my account value is over $44 more than what I’ve deposited. I had been sneaking in $100 here and there and have over $1,100 in there at this point.

Right now I’m in kind of in limbo. I don’t have gainful employment yet and we are staying in a hotel until my fiance and I can figure out where we want to live. We think we might have come across a place, but we have to have our credit approved and the landlord has to choose to rent to us. In the meantime, we are unable to cook for ourselves causing us to eat out every night. It’s not only expensive, but we are gaining weight as well – ouch.

It’s been over a month since I’ve started putting 75% of my earning in my 401K in an attempt to max it out before I switch jobs and have to wait for 401(k) enrollment. It’s been tough to scale back on the spending and I’m nearing the point where I may have to dip into my “emergency fund.” It’s not the best emergency when you have to pay about 5% interest on it (after deducting my taxes) but I think it’s worth that to get a) the forced savings and b) the tax deferred growth. As I’ve said in the past, pay yourself first. If it’s in my 401(k) it’s locked away in a place that I can’t get to it and I’ve effectively paid myself.

One of the things that has be bugging me lately is that I haven’t been able to add any money to my Prosper account. It seems like a waste that I’m making 20+% on a sum as low as $1,000. If I could get just $10,000 in there, it would go a fair ways toward paying my Roth IRA each year. If I could manage $100K it could get to be a good supplemental source of income. I’ve thought about playing a Prosper arbitrage game with that emergency fund. That is too much risk for me or is it?

I’m completely addicted to lending money on Prosper.com. I’m at the point where I have to transfer $100 every 10 days to get my fix in of searching for a great borrower where I can get a great rate. In the past six weeks I’ve transferred about $600. I have transferred $900 overall and it’s translated to over $15 in interest. Because I’ve been adding money over time, I can’t calculate how much that really is, but the site’s tools tell me that I’m making nearly 20% in interest. Sometimes I have to stop and realize that this investment, like many others, isn’t without risk.

I’m trying to think of it as the $900 I have invested may come very close to paying my Vonage bill over the next year. In truth, I’ll probably need to have $1200 or more in there, but to eliminate one bill – well, I’m starting to have real somewhat predictable cashflow.

I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, being a lender, but when a borrower was late, I panicked a bit. If 1/10th of my loans don’t come through, I’m going to have a problem.

Happily the payment came through after being more than 15 days late, something that I didn’t expect. Thus far I have over $800 in active and pending loans earning over 19% with a real rate of return (after the assumed risk) of around 16%.

Well, I guess I learned the first thing in my attempt to be a loan shark. If everyone was always paid back 100% of the time, I suppose everyone would do it. I haven’t lost my money yet, but one of my loans is 15 days late. I’ve heard that if they don’t make the first payment, there’s a good chance that it’s fraud. I’ll keep you updated on this, but it looks like I may have to fight for it.