Sunday, September 25, 2016

Savings Account Interest

I think it was about 1 year ago that I opened my current online savings account.  At the time the interest rate was 1.25%.  Recently it has dropped to 0.85%.  It's killing me! 

Prior to opening the current online savings account- I had one with capital one that paid only 0.75%.  These low interest rates are insane.  The interest rate at the brick and mortar banks, as you know, is even worse at 0.01%. 

For several years now it has been reported that the economy is improving.  I don't know anything about economics, but I can state with certainty that it's not improving for savers.  I have a friend that is in his 60s and is now spending down his retirement savings.  He reported that initially anything he took out was easily replaced by the next year, now the growth is falling short. 

Any ideas on how to make your meager savings grow in a bad economy?

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Retirement Savings

Life has been ridiculously crazy.  I cannot even begin to describe the madness that has been going on the last few months and at this point, I won't even try. But, I will talk with you about my retirement savings so far this year!

 My goal is to put $9,000 a year away for retirement savings.  That is approximately 15% of my take home pay.  (We do not have any type of retirement vehicle at work).  Before April 15 of this year, I put $5,500 into my Roth Ira for my 2015 contribution.

Finally in August I was able to start putting money into my Roth for 2016.  In August I contributed $550 and in September I contributed $1,281. That means that I only have to put $1,669 into my Roth before the end of the year to make my $9,000 goal!

Looking forward to next year, before April 15, 2017 I will finish off the remainder of my contributions for 2016 ($2,000).  Then I will put $5,500 into my Roth Ira for 2017.  For the remaining $1,500 of my $9,000 goal, I will put that into a taxable investment.  This is all assuming that there are no changes to my employment or pay for 2017.

I owe lots more updates and I will get to them as I can.  Hope everyone has a great week!

Thursday, September 8, 2016

I need more time!!

I have been so ridiculously busy lately that I have not had time to do anything! Work has been crazy hectic and so has my personal life.  My mother has been ill and i have been working out for at least 60 minutes, 5 days a week.  I'm so tired by 9:30 at night that I can barely keep my eyes open.  There is simply not enough time in the day to do everything that I have to do. 

 I will be working this weekend, again, and I am not looking forward to it. Sigh.  Whine. Anyways, I am sorry for neglecting the blog.  I just have not had a spare moment.  I need to do a net worth update, probably not good, and several other financial updates.  I also have a ton of financial planning to do, for the next several months (more on that later).  Hope everything is well in the blogosphere!