June 24, 2007

Investing Plan - Update


We have made good progress with our Investing Plan, and have tweaked it a bit along the way.

401(k)
Our 401(k) is currently at $13,184.13. We have increase our contribution from 2% to 3%, effective July 4. To better diversify our 401(k), we have reduced the percentage allocation of each mutual fund, and added a couple of additional funds. Our current holdings are:

16% - JH Lifestyle Aggressive (1.47% expense ratio)
16% - Pacific Rim Fund (1.46% expense ratio)
16% - Real Est. Securities Fund (1.19% expense ratio)
20% - Natural Resources Fund (1.49% expense ratio)
16% - International Small Cap Fund (1.55% expense ratio)
16% - Small Cap Index Fund (0.95% expense ratio)

I really dislike the high expense ratios of my 401(k) choices, and I was surprised to find they increased on some of the funds since my last post, and went down on others.

My wife is eligible to enroll in her company's 401(k) plan in October. She will get a 100% match on the first 3% and a 50% match for the next 2%. Needless to say, we plan to invest 5% of her paycheck to get the company match (free money).

Roth IRA's
My wife and I have opened Roth IRA's thru Vanguard.

For my wife, we invested $3,000 in Vanguard 500 Index Fund Investor Shares (VFINX) (0.18% expense ratio).

And for me, we invested $3,000 in Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Investor Shares (VTSMX) (0.19% expense ratio).

We hope to have both Roths fully funded by the end of the year.

Taxable Accounts (Brokerage, Prosper, etc.)
Our 300 shares of ADVENTRX Pharmaceuticals (ANX) are now worth $798.00. My parents gave me this stock, and have a large amount of money invested in this stock. Since they first bought in, the stock has almost doubled. They expect it will go to $10/share. That would be sweet.

My wife and I invested $100 in two Proper loans. Both loans are current and our average interest rate is 12.23%, which is great, but for a variety of reasons, I'm glad we didn't invest more money.

Savings Accounts
With just a $1,286.79 balance, we haven't made as much progress on our saving as we would like. Most of our spare money has gone to funding our Roth IRA's. We should be able to build this up the 2nd half of the year. Our goal is to eventually have a $10,000 emergency fund.

We feel that things are clicking along nicely. We're working towards our goals, while not having to overly sacrifice. God willing, this success will continue.

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