Plans for 2005

There's a section in the Charles Givens book More Wealth Without Risk that talks about how to invest your money. Givens talks about some nigh-unbelievable returns that he and others have generated on their investments, and it seems almost too good to be true. I intend to investigate the Money Movement Strategy, as he calls it, and get the skinny on how these returns can supposedly be achieved. If it's a viable investment strategy, I'll use it myself.My net worth at this point in time is -$9,622.62, including the following assets:

• Toyota Corolla worth about $6,310 as of this writing
• Liquid assets (checking, savings, and money market) totaling $2,219.60

and including the following liabilities:

• The balance due on my extended-payment-plan insurance premiums (more on this later) of $279.93
• Loan on the Toyota Corolla, for which the payoff amount is currently $3,065.18
• Student loans totaling $5,250.00
• My wife's trust-fund loan for around $8,000
• My wife's fabulous trip to Thailand before we got married, financed by her parents to the tune of $2,500

My current financial tools are severely limited. For those of you who aren't married, you have no idea how different it is, financially speaking, from being single. When I make changes in accounting procedures, I have to make sure that they are gradual enough and simple enough to not boggle my non-accountant wife's brain. And, I'm no longer the grand dictator of how my finances are run; it's currently finance by committee. Ah, the married life!

Anyway, my current financial tools include:

• A simple income statement spreadsheet, updated to include each new purchase as we make it. This simply lists all sources of income at the top, as they are received, and all expenses and expenditures at the bottom, as they are spent, and somewhat categorized.
• Simple balance sheet, a template obtained free from my compatriot Michael at It's Your Money in his "Excel Templates" section. Go there for a great selection of highly useful spreadsheet templates.
• Online banking, which I use primarily to track spending, look at account balances, and transfer money. It's an invaluable tool for managing money as painlessly as possible.
• Microsoft Money, sort of. Remember how I said I'm not the grand dictator anymore? Well, my wife dislikes MS Money with a passion, so it's hard to maintain as much enthusiasm about it. The reason she dislikes it? Well, I kinda went mad with power when I got my hands on MS Money 2004, and went nuts when pennies couldn't be accounted for during checkbook balancing. I'm a bit more on an even keel about stuff like that, so she's more willing to accommodate me, but she still doesn't like MS Money.
• Automatic withdrawals for Roth IRA investing - they take the "I forgot" out of making an investing plan work. Now, I've just got to get the IRAs fine-tuned. I jumped into the Roth IRAs without doing a lot of research, so I'm currently buying fee-laden mutual funds. Bad idea, trusting your investing plan to a commissioned financial planner, but I'll work on that. One thing at a time.

My financial plan for 2005? In no particular order, the things I want to accomplish are:

• Pay off the car loan - my wife bought this car used at Roseville Toyota and had lousy credit, so it's currently a 14% loan! When I first hear that, my eyes bugged out. We just made a huge payment on the car, so we're actually paying more on principal than interest each month, but it's still money that could be used better elsewhere.
• Save enough money for one final, care-free vacation before we start having children. That should cost between $2,000 and $3,000. Current options include a cruise, a trip to Hawaii, and a trip to the East Coast to visit my wife's sister and brother-in-law.
• Continue to contribute to and max-out my and my wife's Roth IRAs. I need to educate myself more about retirement account options, because I believe I'm paying too much in fees for the mutual funds available through this IRA (with American Funds).
• Contribute $334 monthly to a money market account for use as a down payment when it's time to buy a house.
• Implement MS Money in a way that keeps track our finances, while remaining acceptable to and usable by my wife.

That's it for now. More later, as I think of it.