SigFig

As I mentioned in an earlier post, it's important to have a little help when you're trying to reach a goal.

In my case, my quest to save $20,000 over the course of two years has to be aided by multiple sources. I download random apps for my iPad, use a couple of different web browser based tracking programs, and occasionally, I use pencil and paper to add, subtract, and doodle.

I recently came across an app on my iPad called SigFig. Touted as a financial app that analyzes your portfolio and offers unbiased suggestions, SigFig seemed like a good tool for me to use.

I downloaded the SigFig app, and after a quick five minute registration process and security setup, I tried adding my investment accounts.

My Fidelity accounts were set up without a hitch. That's when things began to go south.

SigFig couldn't connect with my Ameriprise Account and kept sending me to a Quicken page within Ameriprise's site. I consider myself to be a pretty savvy web and technology user, but I couldn't get around this step.

Next, I attempted to add my OptionsHouse account to SigFig. Only problem, it's not one of the major trading platforms in SigFigs' system. E*Trade, ScottTrade, Schwab, Sharebuilder all work for SigFig. OptionsHouse did not.

I abandoned the app because, really, who wants to see only 1/3 of their portfolio when analyzing data?

Fortunately for me, SigFig partnered with CNN Money. I was able to create an OptionsHouse workaround by manually adding each stock. My Ameriprise Account still won't connect, but I've given up trying and no longer blame SigFig for that issue.

After a couple of days, SigFig analyzed my Fidelity portfolio. It liked what it saw in my employeer based Fidelity Fund, but thought that the IRA I chose could use a little work.

SigFig offered up three different fund suggestions, all with a SigFig score of 90% or higher.

SigFig compared my fund against the ones they found. I was able to have "side by side" look at each fund, comparing 3 year returns, fees, Sharpe Ratio, and Lipper Ratings.

After comparing the suggestions, I was happy to stay with the fund I picked. Despite the other funds offering a little bit more on the 3 year returns, I saved a bunch of money in fees and expenses.

SigFig also feeds in personalized news, highlighting stories that pertain only to the stocks or funds that I've entered into the program.

I'm happy to continue using SigFig, but only through CNN Money. The iPad app is a little cumbersome and is less navigable than the web browser version.

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Mint.com

Every hero needs a sidekick to help him along on his righteous quest.

Batman has Robin. Fred had Barney. Howard has Fred (and Robin). Bart has Milhouse. The Lone Ranger had Tonto.

Watson sticks by Holmes, Spock saves Kirk, Donkey follows Shrek. The list is endless.

Without the sidekick, the hero often times finds himself stuck in the mud or wandering around aimlessly.

In my quest to save twenty thousand dollars over the course of a two year period, I too need a sidekick to keep me focused and in line.

My sidekick is Mint.com.

Mint.com is perfect for me. It helps me keep track of my progress towards saving the $20,000. The goal feature allows you to attach savings or investment accounts, and maps out a plan of attack to help you reach your goal. You can set up a goal to help save for retirement, buy a house, a car, or to put a little something away for a rainy day or emergency fund. 

Mint.com offers a lot more than goal setting. Once you safely and securely add bank, investment, loan, and credit card accounts, Mint will analyse your "portfolio" and offer up suggestions.

If Mint sees that your bank's savings account is offering up a pitance for an interest rate, it will suggest that you look into a high interest savings account run by Ally, Orange, or Capital One.

Mint takes a look at your investments and offers up alternatives if it thinks you're being charged too much in fees. Mint also offers up alternative investment choices like "Betterment".

Mint helps you track and organize spending patterns. If Mint sees that you spend a lot of money on a certain purchase (gas, dining, groceries) it will suggest credit cards that are geared toward earning cash back or points based on those purchases. 

Mint can send you an email when your bank accounts have a low balance, which is handy if your bank isn't mobile app ready yet.

Mint also helps you find a quote for auto or life insurance, helps you set up an IRA, and can even get your Home Loan rates if you're looking for a mortgage.

Mint.com is the perfect companion for me in my quest to reach $20,000.

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Not Saving

What if I told you that all these money saving sites were actually costing you more money than the savings they're promising?

Living Social or Groupon have to be one of the biggest offenders of costing you more than the alledged savings their touting.

Sure, they're got some great deals on things you didn't know you needed. 50% off hot air balloon rides? 75% off a Spa day? Discounted tickets to your local comedy club?

These offers sound awesome, but in reality, they're costing you money. Take my past experience with Living Social as a lesson in savings lost.

Living Social was offering this great deal on a 80's themed party boat ride around the city. Tickets only cost $25 per person. $25 for a night cruise ride around New York City? That's a fraction of what it would normally cost for a wonderful night out in NYC.

The only problem, by night's end, I wound up spending over $200.

As the great Desi Arnaz once said, "Lemme splain".

I picked up my wife from work (we were both based in White Plains, a 30 minute car ride from the city) and we headed to the location where our boat was docked.

Extra Cost #1 - Gas and Tolls. Normally, I'm not headed into NYC on a Thursday night, and don't normally need to fill up my tank and pay the insane bridge crossing tolls that allow you to get into Manhattan.

Once we got close to our destination, we needed to park the car.

Extra Cost #2 - Since we drove (carpooled for that matter, we had three others in the back of my old CR-V) we had to pay for parking. Final cost for parking led to me shelling out $45. That's just short of the total cost of the two boat tickets.

After sprinting four blocks to the dock, we all quickly headed over to the bar.

Extra Cost #3 - First round was on us, which only cost $40 (mixed drinks were $10 each, beers were $7). On a normal Thursday night, my wife and I are at Chili's restaurant, spending roughly $40 on dinner and drinks.

About half way through the boat ride, the Living Social folks announced that "food" was being served.

Extra Cost #4 - For $10, you could get something that resembled a meat and rice sub. Not only was the food overpriced, you should never ever ever eat a hot pie on a boat ride.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the event. We all had a blast, probably the most fun I had in a long time while in NYC. We never took into account the extra money we were about to plop down on an event that was billed as a saving extravaganza.

After the boat pulled back into port, and after dropping a couple extra Jacksons on beers and drinks, we all decided that the hot pie wasn't substantial food. We headed over to a 24 hour diner and ordered dinner (at 1 am, a hour I'm not quite familiar with anymore).

Extra Cost #5 - My wife and I ordered rueben sandwiches and I ordered another beer or two which came with a $35 price tag. I was hesitant to add this extra cost into the article, because technically, we would have needed to eat dinner anyway. However, we rarely spend $35 on ruebens and beer at one in the morning.

So, in closing, Living Social's promised savings actually put us back a weeee bit. Their $50 tickets to a boat ride wound up costing us more than we normally would have spent on a Thursday night. Sure, we had a great evening and we had a blast hanging out with co-workers, but the idea that we saved money that evening is completely ridiculous.

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Stock Purchase: Zales

Every time I purchase a stock, I make myself write down why I thought it would be a good idea to make the purchase.

* Disclaimer: This article is in no way a solicitation to buy, sell, or trade for the stock. It is just my analysis of my thought process when I purchased the stock. *

Stock Name: Zales
Stock Ticker: ZLC
Purchase Date: (Initial) February 11, 2013
Purchase Amount: 45 shares @ $4.83

Mindset during initial purchase:

I purchased Zales stock a couple of days ahead of it's February earnings report. I also purchased the Zales stock a couple of days before their big holiday; Valentine's Day.

CNN Money forecasted Zales stock on February 8, 2013 as:

Low - $6.00
Medium - $7.00
High - $10.00

Some of the highlights that made the Zales stock interesting were the following:

- Zales had nine consecutive quarters of same store growth
- Zales is currently re-developing its website to allow for increased web based sales.
- Zales lowered its borrowing interest rates from 8% to 4%


Lessons Learned from Purchasing This Stock

Zales (at the time of this post) is currently trading around $4.10-$4.15. It's one of those stocks that I'm constantly waiting for it to break out, but it never really moves that much. Four analysts labeled Zales' stock as "outperform" and one analyst marked it as a "hold".

Just for my own edumication, stocks labeled "outperform", according to investopedia, means that analysts expect the stock to do slightly better than the market return. 

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Stock Purchase: Starz

Every time I purchase a stock, I make myself write down why I thought it would be a good idea to make the purchase.

* Disclaimer: This article is in no way a solicitation to buy, sell, or trade for the stock. It is just my analysis of my thought process when I purchased the stock. *

Stock Name: Starz
Stock Ticker: STRZA
Purchase Date: (Initial) January 15, 2013
Purchase Amount: 9 shares @ $15.84


Mindset during initial purchase:

Starz was initially spun off by Liberty Media on January 14, 2013. CNN Money was forecasting a huge jump in the stock price.

How big?

CNN Money Forecast (STARZA) on 1/17/13
Low: $112.00
Medium: $122.50
High: $155.00

Of course, I was fooled by the inaccurate (or yet to be updated) forecast. CNN Money was still forecasting Starz's parent company (Liberty Media) and hadn't done a proper forecast on Starz (as of my initial purchase).

The revised forecast appeared on Valentine's Day:

Low: $10.50
Medium: $15.34
High: $21.00

According to Zach's (on the date of my initial purchase), Starz currently has about $1.1 billion of debt and access to $450 million bank credit facility.

Lessons Learned from Purchasing This Stock

Ooohh!!! A new term for me to learn! Bank Credit Facility.

Bank Credit Facility: a type of loan made in business or corporate finance context. (Scratches head)

According to investopedia: Companies frequently implement a credit facility in conjunction with closing a round of equity financing (raising money by selling shares of its stock). A key consideration for any company is how it will incorporate debt in its capital structure, at the same time it must consider the parameters of its equity financing. The company must look at its capital structure as a whole, determining how much capital it needs immediately and over time, and the combination of equity and debt that it will use to fulfill those requirements.

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Stock Purchase: BSDSI

Every time I purchase a stock, I make myself write down why I thought it would be a good idea to make the purchase.

* Disclaimer: This article is in no way a solicitation to buy, sell, or trade for the stock. It is just my analysis of my thought process when I purchased the stock. *


Stock Name: BioDelivery Sciences International
Stock Ticker: BDSI
Purchase Date: (Initial) March 13, 2013
Purchase Amount: 25 shares @ $4.10

Additional Purchases:
April 5, 2013 - 25 shares @$4.25


Mindset during initial purchase:

A while back I read about a health care stock that was pretty inexpensive and was considered to be a "takeover candidate". I bought a bunch of shares and a few months later, the stock price doubled when they were bought out by another company.

I read an article about BDSI that pretty much echoed the same situation as described above. BioDelivery Sciences International is a healthcare company that focuses on therapeutics in pain management and oncology supportive care.

In lay terms, the company supports pain management for folks with tumors and cancers. Both of those horrific conditions are rampant in the world today.

Stock analyst company/website Zach's gave BDSI a rating of #2, or buy.

CNN Money's forecast (at the time of my initial purchase) had a low of $5, medium of $7.63, and a high of $11.

"Piper Jaffray" had recently upgraded the stock to overweight.

Lessons Learned from Purchasing This Stock

One of the neat things about purchasing this stock was that I learned the meaning of the phrase "overweight". I'm learning to force myself to research the little details about a stock, instead of just assuming I know what the articles are talking about.

Overweight, when talking in the financial industry, means that the stock is considered to be a better value for your money than other stocks.

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Missed Opportunity

When I opened my mutual fund account with Ameriprise Financial, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I got an account manager to go with it.

To protect this account manager's identity, as well as to be able to speak ill of her in her presence without her actually knowing that I'm mocking about her, I decided to nick name her "Tommy Hagens".

That's right, Tom Hagens. After the famous Godfather consigliere played by legendary actor Robert Duvall.

Being Italian, I thought it only appropriate to have my own financial consigliere to help me amass the millions of dollars I was going to acquire by dominating the stock market.

My grandmother made a ton of money in the stock market as a young lass. She was unbelievably smart, knew what to buy, when to buy, why to buy. She purchased Xerox when in an initial stock offering. My grandmother was a woman ahead of her time.

Armed with that knowledge, I only assumed that her ability to pick a stock would be genetic and passed down to her grandson. My grandmother told me to "Buy what you know", a great piece of advice for investing. Purchase products that you love and constantly use.

When "Tommy Hagens" came over to chat with me about my pending portfolio, things couldn't have gone any worse. I came prepared with a list of stocks that I wanted to invest in.

As a person who is tech savy as a result of what I do for a living, I have a really great opportunity to try different products and I know what works and what doesn't. I use Canon, Sony, and Panasonic cameras to shoot weddings. I use Apple products to edit all my films and projects. On my way to and from jobs, I listen to Sirius XM radio. These are all companies that I strongly support, know, understand, and most importantly, "love".

I told my "Tommy Hagens" that I wanted to invest in Sirius (prior to the merger that created Sirius XM). The stock was trading for something like twenty five cents a share. I presented her my case as to why I thought the stock was formidable and had a good future. Sirius was striking deals with car companies (an innovative idea to acquire new subscribers). Sirius has a continuous cash flow opportunity derived from it's subscription based service ($14 a month, for over 1 million users is a lot of cash). Sirius had just signed on one of the greatest radio entertainers of all time, Howard Stern.

That's where my pitch went horribly wrong. My "Tommy Hagens" hated Howard Stern. She described his radio program as pure filth and a waste of time. She chastised me for listening to such a degrading radio program; I was a college educated student, I should be listening to NPR... She refused to even entertain the notion of helping me invest in Sirius stock.

Let me break down exactly how much money my "Tommy Hagens" cost me because she had a personal bias against Howard Stern.

My initial meeting with "Tommy Hagens" was in November of 2008. Sirius stock was trading roughly around $0.25 - $0.30 per share at the time. I had $5000 I wanted to invest in the stock. Let's say, for arguments sake, I purchased the stock at $0.25 a share.

$5,000 x $0.25 per share (trading fee waived because I'm so darned handsome) equalling 20,000 shares purchased in November of 2008.

So, if I still had that stock, and sold it today (April 10, at it's current price -$3.12)...question for the class... How much money would the stock be worth today?

$62,400.

Unless my math is off.

Which is quite probable. It took me 30 minutes to figure out this equation using the phrase "If an apple costs twenty five cents and I have five thousand apples, how many apples could I purchase?"

I've told this story a hundred times since the night it happened. I won't even go into detail about how she also shot down my suggestion to invest in Apple stock. My blood pressure just can't handle another one of those calculations.

I've told this story to my wife's uncle, who is in the same line of work as my "Tommy Hagens". He always shakes his head in disbelief and disappointment whenever he hears me retell this story. He constantly reminds me that it's the account managers job to work for the client, not the other way around. He pointed out that the funds I wound up investing in (at "Tommy Hagens" insistence) were funds that had higher management fees and were currently losing me money.

The funds haven't made anything since I first purchased them. Overall, they bounce back and forth between losing and gaining roughly $1,000.

I learned a really good lesson with investing with "Tommy Hagens", one that my uncle-in-law constantly reminds me whenever I see him. "It's your money, you invest it how you want. You'll have nobody to blame but yourself if the stock gains or falls. We're only advisors, not the end all, know it all experts that "Tommy Hagens" painted herself to be.

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Stock Purchase: NOKIA

Every time I purchase a stock, I make myself write down why I thought it would be a good idea to make the purchase.

* Disclaimer: This article is in no way a solicitation to buy, sell, or trade for the stock. It is just my analysis of my thought process when I purchased the stock. *


Stock Name: Nokia
Stock Ticker: NOK
Purchase Date: (Initial) April 9, 2012
Purchase Amount: 16 shares @ $5.10

Additional Purchases:
April 10, 2012 - 58 shares @ $5.08
May 16, 2012 - 26 shares @ $2.82
April 5, 2013 - 25 shares @ $3.35

Mindset during initial purchase:

When I was first researching and buying stocks, I was a fucking moron. I did everything wrong. I traded with extreme fear and wasn't patient at all. I did the stupid first time stock buyer thing; purchase penny stocks with dreams of getting rich quick. Nokia is the shining example of my first time stock purchasing blunders.

Looking back at my first initial order, I saw three cancelled orders. Apparently, I was attempting to buy the stock during a price upswing. I kept missing out on all the price targets, so I kept canceling orders trying to chase the stock. Eventually I landed at $5.10 a share, and then the Nokia stock "bottom fell out".

The stock would eventually drop to sub $2 towards the end of 2012. I couldn't believe how much money I "lost" on the stock. As you can see, throughout the year I tried to hedge my losses by purchasing more Nokia stock at lower prices in attempts to make up ground.

That's a stupid way to invest. It's a form of gambling that I need to learn how to control.

I also needed to learn, I technically didn't lose any money, because I hadn't sold the stock yet.

Reasons Why I Purchased Stock:

Nokia is a famous phone company and the mobile industry was booming. Nokia held the largest world wide share of phone users and the stock was dirt cheap!

CNN Money forecasted that Nokia's stock would jump to around $10 (at the time I purchased it). I thought I would be doubling my money. (CNN Money currently forecasts the stock to go as high as $7).

Nokia pays a dividend. I like stocks that pay dividends; it's free money.


Lessons Learned from Purchasing This Stock

Just because a stock's price drops, doesn't mean that you lost money. You can only lose money if you sell the stock. I also learned that the opposite also doesn't apply. If you have a stock that's worth more now than when you bought it, it only means you made money once you sell the stock.

Dividends can hurt a stock price. Usually, after a company pays out a dividend, the price drops the same amount of the dividend payout.

Be patient. There's no harm in waiting out a stock price. It was silly of me to keep canceling orders and chasing the stock price. It only cost me money in the long run. If I waited even one week to purchase this stock, I could have owned twice as many shares at only half the price. I know I don't have a crystal ball and couldn't see that coming, but it taught me to take a deep breath before I press the order trigger button.

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Ramblings of a Ten Year Old Child Slave

As I've mentioned before, I used to have a lot of odd jobs growing up. Snow shoveling in the winter, camp counselor in the summer, busboy all year round.

You could probably imagine that my brother and I made quiet a pretty penny working these odd jobs. We would often get $25 a driveway, which to a ten year old, was like a million dollars. We could do five to ten driveways in a day, and that would (in theory) expand our video game collection immensely. Or that money would be just the right amount to purchase the ultimate pong slammer or expansion deck for my Magic the Gathering collection.

You could imagine.

Because that's all my brother and I would do.

For every driveway we shoveled, we kept $2. So instead of that $250 payday, we only got to keep $20.

Every night, when I came home from the restaurant, seventy five percent of my earnings, my mother took from me.

When all the camp counselors were celebrating payday with "Wing Night" at the local watering hole, I was back at the restaurant trying to make up for the seventy five percent hit I just took on my earnings.

My brother and I were extremely frustrated. Mom and Dad were stealing our hard earned money. We were child slaves! We worked insanely long hours and got nothing in return.

We started to hate having to go to work. We were the only children who prayed for the snow to stay away. We were pro global warming ten year olds who hated the sound of the phone ringing in the morning (the infamous teacher to teacher phone call chain letting people know school was delayed or cancelled).

When I got older, my hatred for the phone would continue. When I was home from college and the phone would ring, I knew someone was calling me to fill in for a teacher or aide who took the day off from work. I hated the thought of going into work because, I knew, no matter how much money I made, I was only seeing a quarter of the money. I had enough money to fill my gas tank to get me from one job to the next.

My brother and I were convinced we were child slaves. Cute, white, middle American child slaves. We had to do something, we had to put an end to these horrific working environments.

Good thing our parents didn't listen to us.

Every time I forked over the seventy five percent of my earnings to my Mom and Dad, they would stash the money in an envelope and write down in a journal how much I made.

Since my parents started doing that for us, I amassed a small fortune. I used this money to pay for all my college text books. At the age of twenty three, I was able to open up an account with Ameriprise Financial, seeding the account with $20,000. At the age of twenty four, I was able to invest in equipment that would help me launch my videography business. At the age of twenty five, I was able to pay down a large chunk of my college loan. At the age of twenty seven, I was able to put $10,000 towards a down payment on our townhouse.

When I look back on the amount of money I could have possibly blown on CDs, DVDs, video games and other useless crap, I am extremely thankful to my parents for "robbing" me of that seventy five percent of my earnings.

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Saving 30

I just hit a big milestone in my life. I just turned thirty.

Turning thirty made me take a step back and take a look at where I am in life, where I'm heading, and where I'd like to be heading.

With my twenties behind me, I started to realize, I've (hopefully) only got thirty more years until I get to reitre. I know it's an odd thing to say, but it's something that we're all looking forward to one day.

And I'd rather wake up now, then say, ten years out and start worrying about my impending future.

My parents are retired. My in-laws are retired. Two of my uncles and one of my aunts are retired. I'm lucky to have a first hand look at the retirement process now, and learn from my family's victories and from their mistakes.

My wife and I are happily married, we own a nice little townhouse (or at least the bank does) and just adopted a psychotic puppy named Kenzie. We both have great jobs (hers pays well, mine helps me sleep at night). I am the proud owner of a small videography business (we shoot weddings on the weekends).

Saving money was something my Mom always tried very hard to instill in me. My brother and I started shoveling driveways during the winter while I was in elementary school to make a couple of bucks. I worked for a landscaper a couple of times, worked at a town day camp throughout high school and college. I tutored middle school and high school students during the week. During spring and winter breaks, I would sub for teachers and teaching assistances in the North Rockland and Ramapo School districts (mentally, emotionally, and physically disabled programs).

Once I turned fourteen and got my working card, I would bus tables at a local restaurant (Annie's Snack Shack) every Friday and Saturday night. I worked my way up to become a waiter and then eventually the bartender. Even when I got my first full time job out of college, I would rush out of work to cover the 6pm-1am shift at the restaurant, four days a week.

Needless to say, my parents made sure they instilled a hard work ethic in my brother and I. It paid off in the long run despite my shortsighted temper tantrums, but that's a whole other story.

So, I've created this website as a way to document my current financial situation, and who knows, maybe my life in general. Industry experts suggest that by writing about and keeping track of your savings, you tend to pay more attention to what's going in and out of your wallet.

I'm not claiming to be an expert in this field. Please don't take anything I write on this site as gospel or expert advice. It's just my way of keeping myself in line and keeping an eye on the future.

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