Friday, March 21, 2008

Taking Inventory

Where do I sit right now? At the start of the year, I had two student loans at an interest rate of prime +2.5% for roughly $4.6K and $9.3K. Now that it's nearly a third of the way through the year, the amount has gone down a tad. Between the two of them, there's $2710.92 in payments to be made this year. I'll estimate that about $1000 of that will be interest and that's tax deductible, so I should get about $250 of it back on my tax return.
Besides that, I should be getting about $2000 back on my income tax. I'm going to be getting $4000 back for a personal bail out loan that I made earlier and I'm not sure if I'll be getting all of another $2000 I loaned out back this year. I'm determined not to make any more personal loans for a while. $6K tied up in loans with another $2K in tax refunds is quite a significant portion of my net worth at the moment.
I'm purposefully ignoring the amount I have in my RRSP at the moment, because my goals are more short term than when I turn 65. Though off the top of my head, I'd guess there's about $7.5K in there.
Then there's about $5K in common stock and $1.5K in income trusts, with a combined yield of about $300/year right now. Then there's about $6K in cash getting 3.35%.
Umm, this is a seriously disorganized mess. First order of business should be categorizing things. Second order of business, I've been running under the assumption that I can get a better after tax return investing my money than paying off my loans, I should revisit that.

Money aside, I also have decent health. I seldom get sick and seldom stay sick for long. I do however worry about my health. My family has a history of autoimmune disease and I worry that I might be affected too. I'm also decently fit. Currently I've got a decent amount of employment income coming in. I'll have to say that my job sucks, I hate it and it really tears me apart. I also have a couple good friends. Moral support can't be neglected at a time like this. Granted, I seem to be the only one of them trying to build a financial safety net. See above regarding ~$6k of bail outs. I will get to a point where I feel I have some security before making any more personal loans.

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