Recent Money-Saving Acts

- Frustrated with my printer, I almost dumped it. A bit of tinkering and a phone call later, I solved the issue of the printer telling me it had a paper jam, when it clearly didn't. $400 saved (I have an awesome Brother MFC).

- Returned portable A/C to Home Depot. It flat-out didn't work 50% of the time. $520 back.

- I'm in the act of switching online brokers from TD Ameritrade to thinkorswim.com. This saves me $10 per round-trip transaction. I know what most of you are thinking-- despite me shouting for proper asset allocation from my pulpit, I'm a hypocrite for day-trading. And so I am-- but I'm only using a very limited amount of funds to do so.

- I didn't intend this to turn out the way I'm about to describe it, but my buddy invited me to stay over for a night in Vegas with his brother + his gf. I benefited from having one of the best views of the Strip-- across from my buddy's room was the full, complete view of the Bellagio facade and the water show. No little corner of the next hotel over cutting off, say, the leftmost part of the show or anything. An unblocked view of it all-- and of the Eiffel Tower replica, even. Dazzling! And he refused to accept any money from me to cover my share of the stay. I was fighting him as he tried to cover for my Bellagio buffet dinner the night I arrived, but I lost that fight. I sat in the window just staring out at the fountain like a cat would do for hours.

- I'm whittling down my closet even more, of trendy clothes. Less space = less clothes to dryclean, wash and dry, and to worry about in general. I'm going standard-issue and boring with clothes.

- I go out nowadays in bigger groups, more authentic entrees vs overpriced, chi-chi designer "where's-the-beef?!" trendiness. Weekend entertainment now consists of insanely low house games w/ $5 buy-ins, cooking together, hanging out, attending local community concerts, contributing to local community efforts, and just overall, good company, good fun. One weekend it'll be tennis all day followed by movie night at friend's, next will be dinner followed by a group broomball event, next will be a night of Bomber-man.

What amazes me is the quality of the company: an aspiring school-board politician having been a successful entrepreneur in his young life, a couple of nationwide commercial real-estate developers, Ivy League architects, lawyers, a shopper-turned-wholesale enterpreneur, even more Ph.D's, and then there's me, a lowly IT dude. I'm sure they bring home big bacon. And yet-- everyone's just so damn humble, modest, and easy to befriend. I mean, here we are, having a good time just hanging out, having a few brewski's, and playing Nintendo Wii.

All these elements promote a very easy and automatic way to save lots of money, despite having to pay rent in LA and a car note. Most importantly, these elements do help foster a generally increased sense of well-being and memorable good times-- without having to break the wallet too badly.

Car and Cash-Flow Update

I jumped the gun, thinking I'd be able to get rid of the Subaru very soon, and move forward with purchasing a less costly vehicle. However, the buyers-to-be spooked, and I'm left with very little cash right now after I fully paid the car off to have the title handy to make for an easy sale.

Good thing my financier is flexible enough to "re-finance" the car again, giving me the same terms, same interest rate, same balance. Hopefully this is completed by week-end so that I can use my cash for something that I want to write about soon.

I recently applied for an unsecured loan from Prosper.com to temporarily ease my own personal cash crunch (that coincided with this summer's global credit crunch) from paying off the car in full, and my own 5-digit loan to my brother to buy down the rates of his revolving accounts. The way Prosper.com operates today facilitates the borrowing of money; it's quite easy. Lending, however, can be as perplexing as creating models to forecasting real estate cycles. The process of loaning people money is mechanically simple enough. Calculating risks and identifying hedging strategies is the pain.

Anyhow, the reception from lenders for my "loan application" was overwhelming. I suppose my now sky-high credit score, low running expense balance, and very low DTI ratio fueled the clamor from lenders.

What'll exacerbate my Prosper.com lenders is the fact that, once my old auto financier comes online with my old car loan, I'll drop Prosper.com like it's totally faux pas. I'm sure I was the Holy Grail of a borrower to my Prosper.com lenders, but oh well.

Once I have my auto loan, I'll have nearly $25K on-hand-- that I already have plans for. Come back soon, and see what I have planned for it! I think many of you will be shocked.

Retiree Portfolio Update

As of today, the total NAV for the Retiree Portfolio has exceeded the 10% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) that was my goal for this year. I nearly can't contain the excitement over reaching this goal early. Come to think of it, this was achieved despite the following:

- Not all of the Retiree's assets were fully allocated to their targets. 8% of total assets are still parked in our temporary "holding" fund, Wellington, which has returned 9.27% YTD-- not shabby at all for a lil' 60/40 well-blended, almost-no-cost fund. 21% of the portfolio sits in very un-sexy, low-class money market funds.

- By the same token, the above funds were to be used to fill out the remaining portions of the ideal asset allocation mix. I'd accomplish this by completing the Int'l funds allocation. Unfortunately, Int'l has climbed since I last checked in and decided to buy in next time a day crash happens. No crash has happened since this point in time, while Asia and Europe have both been zooming upwards.

- Almost 2% of the gain to 10% CAGR came in the form of a decent-sized chunk of corporate dividends.

- Bond funds have *really* kicked into high gear these past couple of months, while equities have tempered a bit.

Obviously, there's another quarter left before all this is over, and a good portion of these gains could vanish from a freak October market crash, or something equally bad. It remains to be seen by year-end what the final CAGR is. I'm surprised, if anything, because I firmly believed it would be a very challenging and difficult goal to reach.