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About Me:

Patrick

Single male in Ohio born in 1963. I'm "the toyguy" because I work in the toy dept. of a large retail store.

2011 Goals:

- Pay myself back into my savings account the money that I used to pay off my mortgage.
- Put $3000 into a Traditional IRA again.
- Put $1000 into a Roth IRA.
- Add at least $2000 to my Antarctica fund.
- Add $400 to Emergency Fund (At end of 2010 I have $2526 in this fund)
- Put at least some money into my car fund. I have a car fund created at ING with about $25 in it but need to start saving for a future car purchase.
- Go to Scotland for a week in May for a ghost tour and stay a few days in New York city.
- Might have to have another expensive roof repair. Last year or so I had to have half the roof done and was very satisfied. But I think I have to have the rest of the roof done now.
- Take a short trip to New Orleans for Halloween.

2010 Goals:

X- Pay myself back for latest car repair (rear breaks)
X- Add $400 to my E-Fund
(Added $410)
X- Continue putting whatever money I can into IRA fund for 2010 and 2011.
X- Put $3000 into IRA for 2010
X- Have income taxes done before end of March
X- Continue paying at least $100 extra on Principal of my mortgage each month
X- Continue putting whatever extra I can afford into my Travel Fund
X- Have to call Tours of Terror to make arrangements for Ghost Tour in Scotland for next year.
X- Try to take a trip to west Virginia in Spring or early summer.
- Take a short trip to Phoenix Arizona if I can get very low cost tickets. (FAILED. Couldn't get cheap enough airfare)
X- Figure out exactly when I can pay off the rest of my mortgage. It might be this year or the end of next year.

"Lofty" 2010 Goals:

X- Pay off my house completely by November. This one is not so lofty cause I will be paying it off sometime regardless. November will be the absolute earliest though.
(Paid off end of October)
X- Start an Antarctica Fund and save at least $1000 in it. I want to go there someday but its very expensive and my Travel Fund alone will never be able to handle it. (Put in $1200)
- Put at least an extra $1000 into my 2010 IRA than stated above but put it into a Roth instead of a Traditional.
(Failed. Never got around to this one)

2009 Goals:
X- Pay myself back $344 for muffler repairs on my car from December of 08.
X- Add $400 to my E-Fund.
X- Continue saving for a total of $4000 for 2009 IRA.
X- Start saving for total of $3000 for 2010 IRA. (Saved $690)
X- Have my first ever yard sale when the weather starts getting nice this spring.
X- Try to take a real vacation around July or August possibly to Costa Rica.
X- Pay at least $100 extra per month to Mortgage principal. I plan to pay off my mortgage completely before the 20 year mark which is about 3 years from now.

2008 Goals:
- Continue using Quicken to keep my checking and other accounts in order.
- Save at least an additional $400 into my
E-Fund (DONE) which currently has $1,200 in it. My overall goal for E-Fund is $12,000.
- Slowly work on building up a car fund. (VERY SLOWLY)
- Save enough into Travel Fund to take a good vacation in October. (Saved enough money but cannot travel this year)
Save $4000 for 2009 IRA contribution.
- Continue my "Paper (clutter) Challenge"
- More to come as I think it over.

A few little notes.

October 10th, 2008 at 05:13 am

I tried making a few changes on my companies 401K and profit sharing investments and didn't get very far. They have it set up so complicated that I just couldn't do it. I talked to a customer service guy on the phone and he wasn't much help.
I did do one thing but I'm not sure if it was a wise idea. I actually upped the amount I'm putting into my 401k by 1 percent. I figure its a small difference but might as well buy a little more stock while things are low.
I'll take my time with the other changes I wanted to do.

I got hit in the head at work Weds. and had to go to the hospital. Got 6 stiches and a tetanus shot. There goes the modeling career I was planning on. :-)
It cost my company a lot of money for a fairly minor accident. They not only had to pay for the emergency room visit and the shot, but they also make you take a drug test if you get injured. Waste of money completely but if they want to waste it ohh well.

Nothing much else new here. I did buy gas at $2.95 a gallon today. That was kinda nice in comparison to what it has been.

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

7 Responses to “A few little notes.”

scfr Says:
October 10th, 2008 at 02:48 pm 1223650080
1223650080

Ouch - Sorry about the accident.
Broken Arrow Says:
October 10th, 2008 at 03:22 pm 1223652171
1223652171

Yes, increasing your retirement contributions anytime, but especially when the market is down like this, is a very wise move in the long run.
toyguy1963 Says:
October 10th, 2008 at 04:20 pm 1223655607
1223655607

Thanks scfr. My head is feeling much better. Just have to get the stiches out in a couple weeks.

Thanks BA. I'm glad you think it was a good idea too.
I'm wanting to put the funds that are currently in my 401 and pension into a couple of more conservative funds for awhile. But the money I'm cuurently adding I want to put into agressive funds. But thats what I was having trouble setting up.
dmontngrey Says:
October 10th, 2008 at 04:30 pm 1223656208
1223656208

Sounds like a good plan with the 401k! Just this week I have had 3 requests from employees changing their election to 0%, plus one employee who got suspended. Suspensions usually happen when an employee takes a hardship withdrawal. Such sad times and I hope it was dire need and not market fear that prompted this.

Sorry to hear about your head! OUCH! Companies have to cover themselves as well, and a drug test is a small price to pay for these things. Good to follow policy.
toyguy1963 Says:
October 10th, 2008 at 04:58 pm 1223657932
1223657932

Thanks dmontngrey for the response.
I think that the people changing their contributions and such to 0% is part of the panic thats setting in and just makes things worse. At first I decided not to do anything at all and just ride the storm. But now I'm trying to work the system a little bit to see if I can actually come out ahead in the long run.
fern Says:
October 11th, 2008 at 09:32 pm 1223760766
1223760766

I think you're making the right move with your 401k and just wanted to say, hopefully you're not investing in your own company's stock. It sounded like you're doing mutual funds. If it was company stock, at most you should only up to 5%. It's just too un-diversified and risky.

Sorry about the bump on the head. Lucky for YOU it happened at work so they picked up the tab, as they should!
toyguy1963 Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 04:29 am 1223785772
1223785772

Thanks Fern for the comments. I still haven't been able to move the funds around like I was trying to do. I'll probaby just do it on my own on my next day off. Just need to take my time and figure it out. As it is right now I am as diversified as possible. The majority of it is in various mutual funds. It was doing pretty well until recently.
At least I'm feeling pretty good that I uped my 401 contributions a tiny bit. Just trying to tweak things as best as I can.

The bump on my head is doing fine. It hasn't even hurt except for the first night it kinda throbed a little.

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The Toyguy's Blog

Chugging along at a snail's pace.

A few little notes.

7 Responses to “A few little notes.”

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