Budgeting and Envelope System Update

I've now tried the Envelope System for two months. I allocated $150 each month for groceries and $200 for going out to eat.

December
Groceries - Wow, was December the completely wrong month to try to start this! Besides regular groceries, I cooked Christmas Eve dinner for Dave & his parents which was an extra chunk of cash. Trying to stick to a budget makes you realize how expensive meat is! I bought the prime rib on sale for $4/lb, so it cost $28. Between Christmas Eve dinner, there was also New Year's Eve. Those two "events" put me over my budget for the month by $89.

Dining Out - I managed to avoid the Christmas Eve dinner to Providence which would've set me back $150 easily. Instead, I came in $25 under budget. Woo-hoo! I really had to make an effort to do this. I had to turn down going out for dinner and stop myself from making a quick stop to pick up a quick something. This took a lot of conscious effort.

January
Groceries - I was out of town for over a week, which helped cut down on the groceries I needed to buy for the month. I stocked up on stuff that I can use over the next couple months, including 25 pounds of flour and hamburger patties. I came in $8 under budget!

Dining Out - I spent some money on the cruise for alcohol and ended up coming in $18 under budget!

So, over the last two months, I spent $38 more than I had budgeted, but! I feel like it's been a success. I easily could've spent a lot more money on both areas, but didn't because I was consciously spending. Or rather, consciously NOT spending. Normally, I'd just go with the flow and go out to eat whenever, but now I'm trying to plan ahead to figure out whether I want to spend the cash to go out. The groceries should be fairly easy to manage I think. It'll be tougher when I'm going to be entertaining more.

I'm going to continue on with the system for at least a couple more months and then reassess. The economy is totally going downhill, with no end in sight. Even though I have money saved, I'm definitely trying to save more money. It's always good to be prepared in case of an emergency and who knows, maybe I'll want to buy a house. I stopped at an open house yesterday and the home prices in Burbank have come down, with several of them even under $500K, but frankly, I think they'll come down a lot more over the next year, so I'm just going to sit tight and save up some more cash.

I did decide to not max out my 401(k) this year, but instead take more cash in hand. There's no company match where I work, so it's not like I'm giving up any free money. I'm still maxing out my Roth IRA though. I'm still investing in my investment account that is outside of my retirement account. That has been the most difficult. To keep investing the same amount of money in there without feeling a twinge of "OMG I'm going to lose money". I keep remembering what I read in the The Coffeehouse Investor about how the no matter what the worst five year span is, it basically always goes back up... at least historically, it has! So I'm going to just chill and wait. And cross my fingers and hope that everything goes back up eventually. Besides, like Chris said, "It'll eventually go back up and if it doesn't everyone will be screwed, so it won't even matter."

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Envelope System: Halfway through December 2008

I decided to make December my "test" month for trying out the envelope system. I put $150 in my Groceries envelope and $200 in my Eating Out envelope. We're now a little more than halfway through the month and here's how it's looking so far...

Groceries
I've spent $104.62 on groceries so far, of which $14 was for vanilla extract that will probably last me for the next two years and $7 was for pure entertainment of friends (some chips and dip). It's gonna be tough to stick to this and I may have just allocated too little to this envelope. Especially with cooking Christmas Eve dinner and co-hosting a New Year's Eve party. I only have $45.38 left and the standing rib roast I want to make will likely take up $25 of that even with the meat on sale this week. Hmmm... Maybe if I can spend less in the eating out department... How's that looking?

Eating Out
Tonight was my major outing for the month, an annual Christmastime tradition of eating $18 AMAZING grilled cheese sandwiches at Campanile. Add wine, cheese as dessert and a mandatory gratuity for a large party (not that they don't deserve it because the service at Campanile is excellent!) and you've got yourself a $50 dinner. I am proud of myself for not falling into the valet trap. I found street parking for free, a block away, while everyone else paid $6.50 plus tip for valet parking. I will gladly walk two blocks to save $8 dollars for nothing. I had planned on spending up to $60, so I am happy that it was only $50.

Back to the progress report... I've spent $104.86, so I'm on track to be OK for the month if I don't go crazy. I've been invited out for drinks tomorrow night with one group of friends and dinner with another... I might have to skip one or both if I want to have leftover money to put towards extra groceries and party supplies.

Overall
I'm happy with the budgeting. I've been taking some ribbing from friends, but I can take it. It's my money and sure, I might look cheap sometimes, but at least I am in control of what I'm spending and more importantly, I'm consciously spending my money. The envelopes definitely help with this because seeing the money in the envelope and writing down on the outside of the envelope exactly how much I spent helps me keep an eye on it. I've also been enjoying cooking more at home. It makes me feel more productive. It's a nice feeling.

Tightening the Financial Belt

I have been completely avoiding looking at my Vanguard account because I knew that my stocks must be down. I invest mainly in index funds, so I've been positive they would be down, down, down... I finally logged in to check on them and sure enough, they're so low that it's almost enough to make my stomach turn! I haven't stopped my regular contributions though. I'm gonna struggle through the emotional side and just keep plugging away at it. It did really help me resolve to buckle down on cutting my spending.

Which brings me to the next big thing that I've put off and off... trying to make a budget! Or I should say: MAKING a budget. I guess the even tougher part will be STICKING to it.

That is one of my goals this weekend. To figure out how much I am spending on the essentials and then how much I want to spend. I'm dedicated to eating food out of my pantry and freezer though, so that should get me through a lot of December. I have a lot of food in there!

I am pretty certain that my biggest expenditures are traveling (one of the downfalls of having a long-distance boyfriend) and eating out (foodie friends will kill you in that department!). So, I'm going to institute the Envelope System for the eating out and maybe groceries. I have no idea how much I actually spend on going out to eat each month, but should I be spending more than $200? I think not, so I'm gonna stick $200 in an envelope and every time I eat out, I'll take it out of the envelope. If I run out of money, I won't go out to eat. Luckily, so far, I only have two times this month that I KNOW I'm going out. I may adjust this amount if I come up with some data while making the budget that makes sense.

How much to budget for groceries? I'm a single woman who entertains often... $150 a month? Hmmm... that's a toughie. Maybe research is required on that one. I guess I could try $150 a month and see how it goes. December has the danger of being more expensive with New Year's and Christmas dinner thrown in there. Meat's expensive!

As far as traveling goes, most of my traveling can be broken down into: going to see Greg and gaming conventions. Gulf Games is coming up in February and I really don't want to miss it. I have a roommate lined up and maybe I could use a free ticket I got from United for being bumped on my white water rafting trip. That would make it more affordable for sure! *sigh*

OK - I can do this. Deep breaths...

No Christmas Gifts This Year

I don't know about you, but I've definitely been much more conscious of my spending. Buying a new-to-me car took a big bite out of my savings and with my 401(k) and investments taking a dive, I've decided to just chill out for Christmas and not buy Christmas gifts. *gasp!*

This decision was also helped by doing Ramit's savings challenge the month of November. He created a website called No Christmas Gifts This Year and I've already used it to send out cute emails to some of my friends to let them know that instead of exchanging gifts, I'd much rather spend time with them playing board games or cooking a meal together. My free time has really become more precious this year and spending it with people I love is much more important that having more stuff. Especially when I'm constantly trying to fight the battle of The Stuff in my one bedroom apartment!

That said, this isn't a hard and fast rule. I adopted a woman through my church who needs some help and I'm planning to buy something for my boyfriend and my nephew. I might also give away things I currently own as gifts. I already started before I left town by clearing out my closet and giving Shane some clothes. I have my eye on something else to give her as a gift.

I also plan on sending out Christmas cards. I think I failed to accomplish that last year and I want to remedy that this year. I usually participate in the BGG Secret Santa exchange, but I downgraded myself to the Christmas card exchange. I'm very much looking forward to it as I have several people on my "to send" list and half of them are out of the country! If you aren't sure you're on my Christmas card list and want to be, send me an email with your mailing address!

The final issue is this... I'm not sure about buying a Christmas tree. I love having one and decorating it, but they do cost about $60-90 depending on how tall they are. That may have to be my one Christmas indulgence. I'm hosting a couple Christmas get-togethers and I think a decorated tree will be a nice addition to the festivities. Maybe I could get a shorter one? I love the big, tall trees though. And I know the fake trees are more practical, I don't know if I can revert to one! The real ones are just so darn pretty!! Oh, the dilemma! I think I'll just buy one. It just won't feel like Christmas without the tree...

Next to try... the Envelope System...

The Financial War Within

I try to be good. Really I do. I want to save money. Heck, I do save money. But I know I could be saving more. Much more. If I was more disciplined... If I didn't travel to see friends... If I didn't have a boyfriend that lived across the country... If I didn't get talked into eating out all the time...

The problem? I haven't been disciplined enough about money. I've been thinking for months that I should make a budget and stick to it so I can save more money than I am now. That's why I'm happy to be focused for November with Ramit's "Save $1,000 in 30 days."

I am going to BGG.CON this month, so what I'm focusing on this week is not going out to eat. I go hiking almost every Tuesday and we usually go out to eat afterwards, so I'll probably do that, but other than that, I'm going to reduce how much I go out to eat. I haven't decided if I should pick a dollar amount to stay under or adjust the frequency? I think I'll aim for less than $40 this week. We'll see if that's doable! I think it should be. I don't have any plans to go out for lunch this week and other than hiking, so far, I don't have any set plans to go out for dinner, but I'm sure something will pop up on Friday or Saturday...

Rollover 401(k)

I rolled over my 401(k) to Vanguard in July. It was super easy to do, but earlier this week, I finally sat down and figured out what I wanted to invest my money in. When I did the transfer, it defaulted to a prime money market fund, which is basically a cash/savings account at 2%. I put a chunk of it in the Vanguard 500 index fund based on this recommendation, but then split some of it out into other index funds. I moved about 20% of it over and I'm going to set-up an automatic exchange every week or two to make it move money over so I can do some dollar-cost averaging. Although, I'm wondering if I do it over such a short period (six months to a year), if it will really matter or not?

When I get home, I do want to start looking at my finances a bit more to see if I can save more money. The longer I date Greg, the more I start thinking that not working (or cutting back) after having kids is a real possibility, so I want to save up as much as possible to prep for that! It's a ways off I'm sure, but saving early is always a good idea!

Savings Inspiration

As I've been endlessly pondering what should be my New Year's Resolutions for 2008, one of the topics (as always!) has been how much I should try to save! I ran across this blog post about the "America's Cheapest Family" and fell in love. I love it when people are committed and follow through on something like this. (In case you don't read the article, it's a family of seven that lives off of $35,000 net a year and paid off their house in 9 years!)

Is it for everyone? Probably not. Frankly, I think most people don't have the discipline it takes to pull off something like that. But man, it's inspiring, isn't it? And it's full of links and tips! I haven't had time to explore them all yet, but one of them is for how to pull off "once a month cooking" which I've been interested in for a while. The closest I came to trying that was doing the Saving Dinner Mega-Menu Mailer, which was actually pretty cool, but I just haven't worked up the time/energy to do a repeat of it. Perhaps something to work on this spring. The recipes needed work, but the idea was a good one!

Hey... maybe that's a good idea for a resolution? Hmmm... I'll add that to the list of potentials... Speaking of, I think I'll be finalizing the list sometime next week.

New Cell Phone Number

I decided that it was high time I changed my own cell phone plan. The one I've had since 1998(!) was a super low cost one, costing only $15.00 per month for 100 minutes. No long distance or roaming was included, but it did feature first incoming minute free (which they usually don't offer anymore). I hardly ever went over my minutes, so it's been an excellent plan.

However, with all the traveling I've been doing lately, I decided to sign up for the Sprint Employee Referral Offer that was described on MyMoneyBlog.com. Here's what I'll be getting for $30/month:

• 500 anytime minutes per month
• Unlimited nights and weekends starting at 7 PM
• Includes long distance and roaming
• Unlimited text messages
• Unlimited PCS Vision (web browsing) capabilities
• Free mobile-to-mobile calls
• Caller ID, 3 way calling, voice mail
• No activation fee

I got a Treo 650 from my boss at work, so now when I go out of town, I can access my email accounts through my phone! Now all I need is a bluetooth headset.

The downside? I had to change my phone number because it only works for NEW phone lines. So, once the new phone is activated and confirmed to work, etc., I'll be sending out an email to everyone with my new cell phone number on it.

Sprint Cell Phone Plan

When I saw this, I should've immediately posted it to my blog, but I didn't. I hope it's still available!!

Check out the details on this Sprint plan. It's $30 a month and it includes 500 minutes, nights start at 7 PM and you get free text messages and Sprint vision!! I think you can get another $50 off. Read his "Deals" section.

Jump on it though. It may run out soon!

Wawanesa - Awesome Auto Insurance

I haven't posted about anything money-related in quite a while and it's been kind of bugging me. Mainly because I know it means that I probably haven't been paying enough attention to money stuff. (A quick look at my checkbook register tells me nothing has even been written in it since 1/26/07! Whoops! Lunchtime project!) Which needs to change. Soon. Starting now...

My auto insurance renews today. I've been a customer of Wawanesa Insurance for almost 10 years. I know, you're thinking to yourself, Wawa-who? They are a direct writer of insurance and if you live in California or Oregon and have a clean driving record, listen up! Because this, I can *almost* guarantee you, will save you bucks. Lots of them.

The first time we purchased a joint auto insurance policy after I married my ex-husband, we went through a broker. I think this is probably pretty typical. I forget which company we ended up with, but after a couple years, my sister-in-law suggested we call her insurance company: Wawanesa. We had never heard of them, so we were reluctant to call them. But finally we did and got a quote that at the time was *significantly* less expensive than the renewal quote we had received from our broker. He asked us, "Are you sure it's for a year's coverage?" Which it was. In fact, it states that fact very clearly on it, because I assume it's a common question. He reviewed our quote from them and said, "Looks legit..." so we switched and have never looked back.

Some auto insurance basics: The minimum required by California is $15K of bodily injury liability for a single person, $30K bodily injury liability max per incident and $5K of property damage liability. The minimums are really quite paltry. Can you imagine having even a fender bender with some of these $50K cars out there on the road with only minimum coverage? Yikes! That $5K would barely cover a bumper!!

Back to the present: I had some changes that I started making last week to my policy (address, deleting a car/driver) so I had not received my quote yet. I called Wawanesa and went through a few voice mail menus and reached a real live person within a couple minutes. This, by the way, is pretty typical. You will often reach a live person within just a minute or two. Anyway, she looked up my account and gave me the quote over the phone. The total for a year of coverage? $763!!

Pretty damn good. And that's with much more than the minimum coverages in place. I am 32 years old, female and have a 1998 Honda Civic and for my $763, here's what I was getting:

• $100K bodily injury liability for a single person
• $300K bodily injury liability max per incident
• $100K property damage liability
• Comprehensive with $300 deductible - covers theft & other stuff that happens unrelated to accidents
• Collision with $500 deductible - Accidents and such
• Un/Under-insured Motorist coverage (& bodily injury) - Everyone should have this!
• Rental Reimbursement ($25 per day/$750 max)
• Towing & Labor ($50 per incident)

I heard a friend complaining about how much his car insurance was going up because he moved to Burbank in the past year and they finally had his correct information for the renewal. His policy with AAA was going to renew for about $1,200. I suggested he call Wawanesa to get a quote. He called, they emailed him a quote about 30 minutes later and his new rate? About $750 with better coverages than he had with AAA.

Service: You might be pretty doubtful, thinking to yourself, this is too good to be true! Well, it *is* true. And I've had excellent customer service from them. I've had someone hit one of our cars and it required body work. I've also had a car stolen while with them. Both experiences were painless. The person always called, they sent the checks, and they were more than fair with the amount paid out for the stolen car. Most importantly, it's always been pretty easy to get a live person on the phone.

Bottom line: If you don't have any tickets on your driving record, call them at (800) 640-2920. Or apply for a quote online. Either way, it will probably only take about five minutes. Do it!

I'm not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure that you can cancel an auto policy at any time and receive a refund in any paid premiums. Don't wait another six months to start saving money. Call them or go online today.

If you do give it a shot, please post a comment and let me know what you thought.

Are you saving enough?

Are you saving enough?

Well, if you're like the average American, the answer to that question is a hearty "NO!" According to this article just released today, the average savings rate for 2006 was -1.0%, which means that people are spending everything they have left after paying taxes and then some.

According to this AP article:

"The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only four times in history — in 2005 and 2006 and in 1933 and 1932. However, the reasons for the decline in the savings rate were vastly different during the two periods. During the Great Depression when one-fourth of the labor force was without a job, people dipped into savings in an effort to meet the basic necessities of shelter and clothing."

That's a little scary! Having a negative savings rate during the Depression seems totally reasonable, but wow, I keep wondering about people who don't save and how will they survive once they get older and can't work anymore? The article says that many people may be counting on the increase in their home values and stocks (I guess in their 401Ks) to take care of them.

I think I probably save money...? I haven't been tracking my incoming and outgoing money in months, so it's hard to tell if I've been saving money or not. I know my net worth has increased, but that really could be due to my 401K and investments increasing, not really me saving more cash.

That is something I want to change. I think I'm going to start an automatic payroll deduction to my savings account for 10% of my take-home and see if I notice it missing from my money to spend on bills and fun stuff. If I make it automatic, then I won't even have to worry about tracking my spending etc. Although once I get more into "Your Money or Your Life," I think I will need to do the tracking as one of their recommended exercises. I expect to write about YMYL once I get done. It's fascinating!!

2007 New Year's Resolutions

I like resolutions. I love the idea of New Year's Resolutions. The idea that there's a fresh new year in front of us and *we* can make changes to make our lives better. I love that! I'm constantly striving to make my life better and more enjoyable for myself and all the people I am lucky enough to call my friends. Though I am constantly reassessing myself and my life and trying to improve it throughout the year, there are certain milestones (like a birthday or New Year's) really helps focus my mind of thinking about what I want and how I'm going to go about achieving it.

I also love having a plan. Things don't get done without plans and details to go along with said plan. I think people who don't plan are probably not getting as much done as they could. And that may be OK for some people, but I definitely prefer the "plan" route. Sometimes even having a list of things you need to get done like "sweep the floor" is enough to make you get up and sweep the floor. It's very motivating and focusing. It also makes me feel more settled. Resolutions are like my general personal growth plan for the year!

Some of my resolutions (esp. financial ones) are repeats of last year. I had a much harder time with personal goals for the year. I feel like now that my divorce is final and I'm dating and have *lots* of friends that I love, I'm having a hard time desiring more than I have (which is a good thing, I know!). I'm actually quite satisfied with my social/personal life and work life. I guess I'm pretty happy with most aspects of my life at this point. But I went ahead and tried to think of stuff that I could improve, because there is *always* room for improvement.

And without further ado, I present my resolutions for 2007.

Personal
1. Spend more time at home alone. This will allow me to keep up with my household duties and bills, etc. - By far my most needed resolution. If I'm home more, I will have things a bit more organized and cleaned up.

2. Be more physically cognizant of myself - get more sleep, drink more water, eat better foods, move more. - Kind of related to #1. If I am home more, hopefully, I'm getting to bed earlier, exercising more and cooking healthier meals at home.

3. Floss. I never floss and every six months, I tell my hygenist Mary that I'm going to do it. So, my goal is to floss. Ultimately, every day is my goal, but for starters, I think I'll aim to floss a couple times a week plus some.

Ways to Expand my Horizons
1. Watch one new-to-me movie a week. I am considering making Mondays my movie night and on that day, I will watch one movie I have not seen before. I think I'll post the planned movie in advance so that people can join me if they'd like to.

2. Read one book a month. I have really slacked off on reading, mainly because by the time I get to bed, I'm exhausted. However, if I'm getting to bed earlier, I might actually stay awake for more than two minutes so that I can read a book! I received some books for Christmas, so that will keep me busy for the first few months at least!

3. Go out to eat at a new restaurant once a month. This, most likely, will take the form of a small monthly dinner club consisting of 4 or 6 people. Members yet to be determined.


Financial
1. Make a living trust and medical power of attorney.

2. Max out 401(k) and Roth IRA contributions in 2007. The 2007 maximums are: 401(k)= $15,500 and Roth IRA = $4,000 - I maxed both out for 2006 and foresee no problem maxing it out for 2007.

3. Save more money outside of retirement accounts. Ultimately, I'd like to save at least 10% of take home pay. I don't know how feasible that is since I'm putting so much towards retirement, but I want to at least try. It's all about goals, right?



So there they are. I just realized that I have three in each of my three categories! Perfect! Not too many, juuuuust right! Does anyone else make resolutions? What are they going to be this year?

Looking Back at my 2006 Resolutions

Looking back at the resolutions I made at the beginning of the year, I realize that they were all financial! Maybe because at the beginning of the year, I was pretty worried about that because of the upcoming divorce.

So you don't have to click back, here are the resolutions I made:

1. Continue and increase saving money outside of my retirement accounts - I have done this, but not enough. I haven't been tracking my savings and balances enough. I just know I have enough right now, but I could probably be a bit more careful and save more.

2. Write a will or living trust and a power of attorney for my medical needs - I did not do this. This will go at the top of my list for 2007 financial goals. I kind of put it off because I thought that until the divorce was final, I wouldn't be able to designate someone other than Jason to handle that stuff. I don't know even know if that was accurate. I guess I was OK with him handling it for me in case I became ill or died during the process of the divorce.

3. Start investing outside of my retirement accounts - I did finally start my investment account at Vanguard. It has continued to grow, so I've been happy with that!

4. Rebalance my 401k account quarterly - Our company changed 401(k) providers in July and I'm pretty sure I set it up to rebalance quarterly, but I will double check that to make sure that's accurate.

5. Increase the amount put in my 401(k) (ultimate goal is to max it out) - DONE!!! I maxed out my 401(k) for the year with my bonus check during the second week of December. So, the plus for me is that now for the last few checks of the year, I get bigger paychecks because there's no 401(k) deferral!

Vanguard account opened!

After much contemplation, I finally opened up a Vanguard account today for investing purposes. It was hard to decide to do it, especially after receiving an email from my credit union that let me know about a 7 month CD that pays 5.6% APY. 5.6% guaranteed vs. trying to do better with a Vanguard account? Well, I did say that I wanted to gamble more in my life, right? So here goes!

I put an equal amount of money in the following seven index funds:

• Total stock market index
• Small-cap index
• Value index
• Mid-cap value index
• Small-cap value index
• European stock market index
• REIT

Other than this, I'm going to keep a reasonable amount in my EmigrantDirect account for easy access and put the rest in that 7 month CD at Lockheed.

We'll see how things progress!

The Coffeehouse Investor

I finished reading this book while sitting in a beach chair in my front lawn this past weekend. The sun was out, but it was chilly and I loved it!

The book has basic information about investing and the author, Bill Schultheis, makes a very good case for indexing. So, I changed my 401k to index funds and I'm going to stop worrying so much about it. I would highly recommend this book. His advice makes a lot of sense and it's an easy read. It encourages being informed. I agree with that. I think too many people make financial decisions without looking at all towards the future. He doesn't recommend not living your life now to save, he just wants you to recognize that decisions now do affect your future and to what extent.

A few facts and figures stuck out to me... A 25 year old starts saving $300 per month vs. someone who starts saving $300 per month at age 35. Those extra 10 years (and $36,000) end up making a difference of about $457,000. Wow!! Don't cash out those 401ks when you switch jobs. Hang on to them because time is on your side!

There is a retirement worksheet and based on my current savings and age, I need to save $927 - $1,003 per month (depending on if I count my Roth IRA). So, I'm right on track! Perfect! His worksheet assumes 7% return which I think is a fairly good number. Only time will tell, but it's not too conservative or too agressive. It's just right!

A little money obsession

Every once in a while, I start getting this little money obsession. I usually work it out by chatting with my friend Marilyn because we often talk about our personal finances together. I love reading articles on MSN.com in the Money section and I even have a couple favorite authors! My favorite is M.P. Dunleavy. She's young and in touch with the challenges facing the 20-30 somethings out there.

I was cleaning off my bookshelf of old magazines and found a Money magazine from 2002 that had one the cover "The Great American Wealth Test". Marilyn and I took the test and turns out that we're both ahead of the median stats for our age groups and income levels. So that was the good news! We also confirmed what we already knew: We are both good at saving and good at planning, but not so hot at investing. Other than our 401(k) accounts (and my Roth IRA), we don't have any investing accounts. We both have money sitting at ING earning 3.8%, but isn't the 5-15% we could be earning if we had our money invested in mutual funds or something else. More risk, but potentially more return. By the way, if anyone needs an ING account, email me and I'll send a referral to you so you get $25 when you start an account with $250 or more. I'd recommend putting in the minimum of $250 and then you can add more as a separate deposit so you can take advantage of their winter special of 4.75% on any amount added now til April 15th.

This brings us to my order from Amazon this week. I ordered a book called The Coffeehouse Investor which is supposed to discuss diversification and allocation. I hope it will help me with my 401K and with investing that will be coming up soon!