Money Diary - Aug 17th

Got up this morning to a nice cup of tea , got ready and left to work.

Got a muffin sandwhich with egg whites and coffee for $3.07

Transfered $3500 to my ING savings account. I had subscribed for ESPP at work and was able to stack away $4300.

Came home for lunch -money spent - $0

Hubby paid $600 towards our land mortagage.

Went to see my Sis after work and reached home at 7.00pm and cooked , had dinner with hubby -money spent -$0

Its my birthday today, got a nice Godiva chocolate collection from my cousin, waiting for the perfumes my hubby ordered for me..

June -Round Up

This has been an awesome month financially for two reasons. First, being that I was able to get my CC balance under 5000 dollars and Second, for being able to save $3600. I subscribed for ESPP (Employee stock purchase plan) at work and it had an automatic payroll deduction even before I saw the money. It was hard initially to cover all the expenses but as time passed by I was able to manage and was able to save another 150 on top of that after all bills are paid. ESPP for first part of the year ends today but I did not opt myself out of the plan which means that I would be able to save another 3000 dollars by the end of December and make a cool 15% profit since employees are given a discount on the existing market price (of course we need to pay the capital gains tax).

Seeing my CC balance under 5000 dollars makes me feel good because the number makes me feel more comfortable. I will do my best to save every dollar that I can to pay this off quickly. Ideally I would like to have it knocked out by the end of August but it would be a long shot. Nevertheless, I am happy as long as I can knock it out 3months before my India Trip.

Apart from the finances, I made a business proposal to one of good friend who lives in the same city as I do. She was looking to open up her own beauty salon but she is short on cash. I told her that I can invest 5000 dollars and asked her to think about it. Even though I do not have the skill set that is required to run a spa, I definitely do have some business experience coming from a business family myself. I will know something about it in the next few weeks and once I hear a yes from her, I will move forward. This would help me make some extra income and I can use my weekends to learn a new skill and find innovative ways to take the business to the next level.


Overall, has been a good month at work, home and financially.

How I got myself in and out of an embarassing situation at work

This morning I have gotten into a worst situation I could ever get into at work. It all started with a call from my senior manager,let’s call him C for now, this morning while I had my immediate manager at my desk. I had asked C couple of days ago if he would have time to sit with me and discuss about another position with a different application we have within our group. Though the first instinct told me that I have to let my immediate manager know about my interest in this position, I kind of ignored it telling myself that its just going to be an informational session with C” , not like a real interview or anything. I even asked around people in my office on what the best approach would be and “them all” told me talk to C first. Again, for the 100th time in my life I went with what others told me instead of using my best judgment. Fast forwarding to this morning – C asked me if I had spoken to my immediate manager already, by this time, I can feel blood gushing to my ears(which happens to me when I am nervous, or in an awkward situation) and my heart pounding in my chest as my immediate manager was right next to me. I told C that I haven’t yet and he told me in a very casual voice to talk him and to express to him that I am interested in this other position within my group. By the time I hung up the phone , my immediate manager could already guess what was going on and asked with a corny sense of humor – “So when are you planning to tell me about this” , I was so embarrassed to look at his face. I apologized to him and told that I was not in this kind of situation before and I did not what the best approach would be in such a situation and that I was curious to know what the position was all about before I even started thinking about seriously pursuing it.

He said that it was okay and gave me good feedback on what kind of approach to take when in a situation like this. He mentioned one thing about how he thought that both of us had open communication and this incident made him think twice about the kind of professional relationship we shared. I apologized to him again and I told him that I was really sorry and did not mean to offend him in any way. He got over it and told me forget about it and put this behind us.

So for all you new Yuppies’ out there. Lessons to take away from my experiences are:

1.Think it through before you approach anyone above your manager in your organizational hierarchy.

2.Take only expert opinion. Don’t ask around anyone you see, because these folks don’t mean harm but they will advise you based on their life experiences.

3.Look at the situation based on the kind of relationship you have with your manager.

4.Take expert opinion but let the final decision be yours.

5.The first instinct is always...always always right when you are stuck in these kinds of situations.

Wall Street employee's humbling experience.

I was reading an article on WSJ and it ran jitters through my spine. The article was about a Wall Street employee who lost everything due to the market meltdown. This person, who was once earning more than 200, 000 dollars a year, now earns 25,000 dollars and works as an escort to seat hotel guests. It’s hard for me to comprehend how people can go through or cope up with such transitions in lifestyles. Reading through the article, I felt like this person was making good financial choices like having an emergency fund, a saving account etc but in spite of all that his family could not escape the wrath of a failing economy. While I work hard and hope that I never get myself into those situations, it’s often too easy to forget the life lessons. Give it a read; it might make you more committed to your financial goals. Hey, the wise always learn from “Other people’s mistakes”.

May - Round Up

Things are still running at a slow pace with expected but delayed bills coming our way. I have not been able to pay the same amount towards CC, I used to 2 months ago. I am consciously cutting off all the unnecessary expenses but it seems like paying bills is more like a daily affair now-a days. I received a bill for 360 dollars from my insurance company for my DNC procedure. It seems that the expenses are not covered for a female under 30. I paid off that bill with the amount I set aside for my CC payments. I still have to come up with 660 dollars for my Advance Parole application which gives me the flexibility of traveling in and out the country. I am planning a trip to India this year and I won’t be able to get back into US without an AP. (Green Card looks like a far away dream now). The bright side of this is that I still have a job to take care of the expenses and to not fall behind. I am shooting to pay off my CC balances 3 months before my Trip, that way I can save for my trip expenses instead of digging back to CC’s. I think I got a good hold on my CC expenses. I am able to the go to the mall, admire at a nice piece of clothing and walk away without being tempted to buy it or feeling bad for not being able to afford it. All that said, here is how I did this month.

Balance on CC – $6892 (was able to pay only 765 this month)

Auto Loan – $21300

Career Confusions:Suze.O comes to the rescue.

The only thing on my mind these days is the “direction” of my career. I graduated with double masters in Finance and International Relations and what I am doing right now has nothing/very less to do with the years I have spent earning those degrees. I work as a financial systems analyst, managing the reporting systems. I should say that not being happy where I am does not stop me from giving my 100% to the job I am in right now. I have learned quite early in my age to do every task/job with utmost dedication. I know I do not want to see myself doing the same job 5 years from now, if I am, then there is something seriously going wrong but on the other hand I do not know which direction to take to keep myself from getting stuck in this job. I have been in this state of flux for the past 6 months. I had this drive in me to excel but I had no clue in what!. I picked up Suze Orman’s YF&B book the other Friday and she mentioned something relating to this problem which made a lot of sense. I have summarized the lessons that I have learnt below:

Do something about it: The most important thing I have learned through meeting people who have excelled in their lives and through reading books is that if you do not like the status quo in your life then “Do something about it”, people can go on and on about how much they hate what they are doing or how much they love to do such and such but if you do not take action to change the status quo then things are not going to change or get better for you. Identifying the problem and taking action are two different things. We need to push ourselves to go beyond the first step.

Do some research: Now that you have identified the problem, the next step is to do some thorough research, I had no clue how to go about this, but again Miss.O’s (not Oprah! it’s Orman) book threw some light on it. Her advice to the YB&F’ers is to pick a career that interests them and do some research on it for at least a week. A thorough research will bring to light the pros and cons of choosing that particular profession.

Make the shift early: If you are in your 20’s or early 30’s making the shift now is much easier now than waiting for couple of more years even if that means settling down for a lower salary. The longer we wait the harder its going to be to make that shift because of the family and financial obligations we might get into. Mr. Scorpio just hit 30 last year and has been working as an IT consultant for the past 7 years. He wanted to get an MBA and make the shift to Finance for a long time and finally he has taken action and is enroute to make that change.

and finally,

Keep the faith: Once we have decided to make the shift or have had made that long waited shift, the initial obstacles might make it tough to ease into the transition and the best thing to do at that point is to keep the faith and have the eyes on the prize. Its more like practicing "frugality", its hard intially but in the long term turns out to be fruitful.



Have you been in situations like these, of so what did you do and how did you make that transition?

Amex just closed off my account that had the longest credit history!!!

Did it ever happen to you that the credit card you had for the longest time is closed off by the issuing company without even letting you know or sending a notification? Well, it happened to me, I have had Amex for 6 years now and infact it’s the first ever CC I got when I first came to US 6 years ago. I have always paid my dues on time and never over charged it; however, I recently paid off all the balance remaining on this CC about 8 months ago and haven’t charged anything on it since. I went to the website recently to see if I have any outstanding balances since I also have a Corporate Card, to my dismay I saw a message on my account website stating that my account has been closed due to inactivity. I am not sure why they would do that, at first thought I assumed that it’s because of the recession. Companies could be streamlining all their accounts and businesses. Amex has been different all the while; they are very stringent on their lending policies, I have had an experience 4 years ago where I was running close to my credit limit and once I paid off the balance they cut my credit limit too. I understand that but cannot comprehend why they would choose to close an account that is in good standing for the past several years. My biggest concern is not loosing the CC but the credit history attached to it, I am aware that credit history accounts for 15% of the FICO score, and its just not right to close an account without notifying the customer, that’s just not good customer service. I will be calling the company today to enquire about the reason that had led to the closing of my account.

Has this happened to you before, if so what did you do, any advice?