| Currently in my final month of deployment to Iraq. Proud to state that I have completely finished all of my payments on my car. Awesome feeling knowing that when I go back home, I am the sole person that owns the vehicle. I am still continuing to work on aggressively paying down the rest of my debt.
Now that I completed my car payments, I decided to list my vehicle as an asset. I didnt view the car as a true asset only because it did not generate any money for me and if I stopped making monthly payments on the vehicle, I would have truly seen who the owner was when I had the repo man in front of my lawn. I based the value of my vehicle on the trade-in value attained from the Kelly Blue Book website. I rated it in very good condition and with 18,000 miles logged on it, although that is just a rough overestimate at this time.
The stock market continues to suck! I saw my stocks rise to about $5k and then lose all of its gains in a couple of days all over again due to the situation with Greece. Regardless of the matter at hand, my main focus after completing my car payments is to start working on paying off my cadet loan, which Ive had for about four years already. I already started to pay it off faster by rolling my money I had slated for a car payment into my cadet loan.
The "other asset" column is my total contribution to the Army Savings Deposit Program thus far. I wont be able to attain the full 10% interest rate provided by the program, however, making my final contribution has allowed me to accumulate over $9,400. I still plan on directing the majority of it into maxing my Roth IRA for the year of 2011. The rest of the funds will be placed into my emergency funds account.
I have slowed down quite a bit on my financial education due to final mission requirements prior to redeploying back to the U.S. I will conduct a thorough search for a financial adviser very shortly. In my search for a financial adviser, I am looking to have a more defined plan laid out for myself. In my meeting with my financial adviser, I envision being able to talk with the individual and having them review all of my accounts and my current working situation as a military officer. I am also seeking a possible active manager for my financial assets who would monitor my accounts and make recommendations on what I should do with my funds.
As I started my search last month, I am finding that a lot of financial advisers require a minimum amount of investible assets that is way beyond what I currently possess at this time. Even Vanguard requires at least $500k before they will conduct a good portfolio analysis and active fund management. They do offer some other packages for less, however, they will only make recommendations for their funds and there is no tax analysis that is included in the deal. USAA has a couple of interesting active management packages as well, however, the only one that fits my prerequisites requires me to consent that they will have full management rights to my accounts, which means I do not need to approve of them buying or selling a particular fund.
I am continuing my search and I think I may settle with somebody in NYC who works on an hourly basis. Obviously, I need to find out how much this fee is, but if it is reasonable, I am hoping that I will be able to meet with the firm before the end of the year so that I can attain a solid plan on what I need to do to ensure that I have all the assets necessary to enjoy a comfortable retirement.
Still plan on saving, but holding on to the money for the 2011 IRA contribution until I figure out what I should invest in next.
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