Quick hits on my financial week:
- I finally invested my 2006 Roth IRA. I decided that I would go with a foreign markets ETF (ticker symbol EFA). While I was in the account, I realized that I had some old holdings like Palm, Checkpoint software, and AMD. I had them long enough and the growth that I had expected was built into stock. I sold those holdings and bought Vanguard’s Healthcare shares (symbol VHT). Now I’m 30% invested in VB (small cap) and VTI (total market) each. I have 20% in EFA (international), XLK (technology), and VHT (healthcare). Update: So the match doesn’t seem to add up there. The final three that I said were 20% were probably closer to 13%. That’s what I get for estimating from a chart.
- I have 5 Prosper loans pending approval. A couple of people who were late on payments caught up. One person even paid off the entire loan.
- With Energi Gal away on business this week, I took advantage of my work’s free lunch and dinner. Obviously, I would prefer her to be around, but there is at least a minor financial silver lining as our meals get paid for during trips.
Im also looking into to EFA, seems to be a good ETF
Thanks, I stole the idea from Ben Stein. I wish I could still win his money. That was a great show.
Great minds think alike. I’ve got VTI & EFA in my Roth as well. It’s not clear from your post what the actual allocation is though. It seems to suggest 30%VB, 30%VTI, 20ïA, 20%XLK, 20%VHT — which works out to an impossible 120%. What gives?
The 120% is actually the secret to my success :-).
I was looking at the pie chart on my Ameritrade account and tried to make a rough judgement There are two equal big pieces worth around 60% and the other three make up the remaining 40%.
So it looks like those last three might be closer to 13.3% each.
Busy week for a lazy man…
Yes, I strive to do much, much less. I like to stare with an occasional blink.
Hey Lazyman, I don’t see the blogads ad any more. :)
Look at the section under “Financial Web.” There’s an “advertise here.” I suggest you try it out :-).
If you could teach the 120% method as a lecture series (or late night television infomercial) you would be widely rich and even more lazy.
how will your goal change when you get married? are you including your future wife’s income and investments into your plan? Or is this strictly your money? if your wife is deployed don’t forget SDP and maxing $45k in TSP.
This is currently just my money and goals. We have to have the talk about “the merger” and creating a unified plan. When we get married, I will probably take both view of both my finances, her finances, and the combined finances. The Alternative Income and Net Worth that you see in the top left column will probably have to be moved to it’s own page as it gets more complex.
I’m probably a bit naive to think this, but I don’t see my future wife getting deployed like most people think. She’s currently more of a researcher and surveyor right now, training for management level position. Typically if there is a deployment, it’s for hurricane relief, but even though she’s volunteered a couple of times for it, they’ve denied her requests all but one time. And that time, things were mostly in order by the time they got her there.