Cardtrick's Personal Finances

It seems like the moment you stop giving thought to Murphy, he sneaks right up on you.

New expenses I need to figure out how to pay for:

1. Replacing windows. $4500
2. Possible hike in HOA dues, for roof and deck replacement. I'm guessing my total cost will be in the $7-10K range.
3. Helping parents out with home renovation. $40,000. Perhaps, $5000 or so every month.
4. This one wasn't unexpected, but another $3300 tuition payment for the GF in March.
5. $3500 in taxes.

At the rate that I'm giving money away, I need to be making closer to $400,000 a year.

On the brighter side, my income shot up significantly in January and I paid off most of my credit card debt. All I'm left with now is $4700 on a 0% card till Dec 2014 and a $130,000 mortgage.


Current net worth excluding house and mortgage - $120,300.

I've been making a bit of money during the holidays from retail arbitrage for the past few years. This year, I realized that it has gotten really crowded out there and isn't worth the effort anymore. I noticed that prices adjust on Ebay much more quickly after retailers post deals. Total profit this holiday season has been $100 only. Below is a list of things I've bought for reselling.

1. Cameras from Bestbuy. Purchased 2 @ $799 each. Ebay sold prices before were $1500. As soon as I received the items, prices dropped to $900. I returned the items to Bestbuy.

2. Diesel watches. 20 @ 125 each. Ebay sales indicated that they would sell for around $265 each. Prices dropped to $150 by the time I was ready to ship.

3. Also tried my luck with 3 PS4s @ 399 each. Sold 1 for a profit of $100 and the rest were returned.

Lucky for me, all purchases came with either free return shipping or free store returns. However, after accounting for the time spent researching all of this, I don't think I came out ahead. I won't be trying this out again unless I can find deals on products that are highly liquid with stable prices. This space has gotten way too crowded.

I've decided to take a very non-traditional approach to investing my retirement funds. I will not be putting anything into index funds. Maybe when the accounts grow and I get more risk averse, I'll just buy a total market index and forget about it. For now, I plan on just picking good stocks in beaten down sectors.

With that said, I picked my stock for the 2013 contribution. Hecla Mining (HL) is a silver miner that has been around for 150 years. Great small company that has a cash cost of about $5 per oz of silver. Stock is currently trading at extremely depressed levels and the CEO of the company bought a ton of it recently and not many of the insiders have been selling. Only time will tell if this was a wise decision.

I've already started looking for a stock that I would like to own with the 2014 contribution. Looking at agricultural stocks and maybe commodity producers. Everything else just looks too expensive.

Assets:

Cash - $3300
Roth - $5500
401K - $21700 ($6000 of it is Roth)
Gold - $15000
House - $160,000 (Purchase price - Likely worth more)
Short term trading account (Futures) - $50,000

Liabilities -

CC Debt - $21,500 (0% APR until Sep 2014)
401K Loan - $3000
Mortgage - $130,000

Net worth excluding the house is about $70,000.

I can't seem to go even an hour without thinking about the CC debt. I could pay it off in a week if I really wanted to, but my trading is making me a ton of money. Only $17,000 of it is my principal. I had initially funded the account with $40,000 but have withdrawn some and paid off CC debt (which was used to fund the account). So, I made about an 80% return in 6 months. The plan is to wait and watch what happens in the next 2-3 months and hopefully pay off the CC debt completely.

A couple of more developments I need to take care of, in 2014. The GF is going to grad school and I committed to paying for it till she can get a full-time job. First quarter cost is around $3000 and either $3000 or $6000 every quarter going forward. And a week after committing to this, my sister informed me that she was going to start grad school. I promised a while back that I'd pay for her school but I didn't expect her to start in January. Her grad school is likely going to cost me $10,000 per semester. It looks like I won't be able to save much money in 2014 with all these college costs. After maxing out 401K and Roth, my annual savings are around $30,000 including bonuses.

I'm hoping my trading pays off really well in 2014 because this will likely be my only source of savings in 2014 and possibly even 2015.