2006 was a good year

It's been more than a year since I posted my last article.

I want to give you an update on how my financial state has changed in only one year:

I have changed jobs twice. The company I worked for was a consulting company with about 30 software developers. I started working with a very small start-up company in March that had just received it's initial round of funding.

I relived some deja vu by working there, and grew skeptical. I decided to quit after working there for only 3 months.

I have been working for a new company - which coincidentally has financial institutions, namely portfolio managers, for customers. It has a lot in common with Arthur Andersen, in terms of my co-workers and level of job responsibility. More is expected of me, of course, because I was an entry level programmer back then. At Arthur Andersen, when I was in my late 20s this work environment bothered me. It seemed too slow paced. But now, I enjoy it either because I'm older or just have over a decade more work experience.

We'll refer to the original company I worked for a year ago "company A". We'll call the company I worked for after that "company B", and my current company, "company C".

Between company A and company B, I earned $11000 more in annual salary. I switched from a PPO with a $250 deductible (which I never used) to a High Deductible PPO with at $2400 deductible (also never used), and enrolled into a Health Savings Account (HSA) to which the company contributed $200 per month. I lost my dental insurance (they didn't tell me about this during the interview process, by the way, although it wouldn't have mattered because of the salary increase). My commute dropped in cost by about a third. I lost my 401(k) plan, but I wasn't contributing to very much since the company I worked for only matched 15% which didn't vest for 4 years. That was bunk that was offset by the shares I never expected to cash out.

Between company B and company C, I earned an additional $5000 in annual salary. I now have everything in terms of benefits - it's at least as much as I ever had in my life. I gained a week of vacation - 3 weeks now instead of the original 2 - which for me is better than additional money. I take public transportation and the cost is that of a $45 FastPass. The company offers commuter checks, which allow me to pay that $45 before taxes are accounted for. I enrolled into a Flexible Spending Account, which works for me now that I am not afraid of going to the hospital for a check up or to the dentist - and I have gone to both. Oh, remember that HSA? Free crown. I do have to pay a small portion for my benefits. But overall, it's worth it. I regained a 401(k) plan that matches 50% of the 1st 6% I contribute. I contribute exactly 6%. I enrolled into a Legal Plan which costs about $8.50 per half month. I'm using it for estate planning - something I've put off for a long time.

I'm looking at a Microsoft Money report on my "Net worth over time", customized from 1/1/2006 to 1/1/2007, and it shows a steady gain of $54,645. And it doesn't have any 'corrections' like a house re-assessment. It's a real increase in net worth over 1 year. I haven't analyzed where the greatest gains came from.

Remember the money market account I wrote about in my article titled 'Diversification'? It has grown to have quite a large amount of money in it. I contributed to it, gradually, over the past year. At some point, I moved cash that was in my Ameritrade account (earning less than 1% interest) to this account. I felt like a fool because I left more than $15000 - just sitting there. Interest rates had been rising over the year, and my money market account was already paying about 4%. I have a car loan that I won't pay off because the interest rate is lower than what I get from my mutual fund (regardless of having to pay tax on the interest). I have over $80,000 in my money market account.

My company had a laptop stolen that contained some personal information about employees. Someone broke in and stole a laptop in December. It had our social security numbers and addresses in a spreadsheet, or something like that. So, to make us feel better, we all got free accounts so we could see our credit.

The last time I checked, was when I re-financed my home loan in 2001, and my score was 791. Now it's 805. According to the service, that translates into having better credit than 99.97% of consumers.