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Net Worth Tracking and BenchmarkingYes my investments have been clobbered too! But it's only a loss if you sell. The "good news" is that stock is on sale. With dollar cost...- cdub
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I'm sorry YNAB, but the default budget categories kinda stink...My job doesn't have a 401k so I do it all after I get the paycheck. Currently "automatically" put 15% gross of each weekly paycheck into a 15%...
- cdub
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Following Dave Ramsey’s Seven Baby StepsI don't have that much cash currently. I have some invested in a non retirement account that I guess I could use to pay it off but don't want to...
- cdub
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Net Worth Tracking and BenchmarkingUPDATE: Oct 2022 - Man this year the stock market has been rough. As a result this is the first year that my net worth growth rate has been...- MTorrez
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I'm sorry YNAB, but the default budget categories kinda stink...That is bizarre. Some savings can be done automatically, before you ever get your hands on it, like a work sponsored retirement plan (401k, 403b)...
- MTorrez
Latest articles
The Mortgage Payoff Club has had 10 members pay off their entire mortgage so far. Our community is a huge source of inspiration to help them do it.
Mortgages get paid off quicker with support from others who have the same goal that you do. It's a long and hard journey and it's not always a...
NOTE - When this article was originally written in 2015 it referred to the old version of YNAB, YNAB4... a new web based version is out. (which is still awesome - just a little different)
I absolutely love this program. Is it strange to love a financial and budgeting program? Maybe not...
Having 3 to 6 months of expenses in an Emergency Fund is EXTREMELY important. It'll stop you from reaching for that credit card and going into debt during emergencies such as losing your job or your transmission blowing up. (a GREAT way to figure out your total needed monthly expenses is to use...
Want an easy way to calculate how fast you can pay off your mortgage with extra payments? There are a lot of Mortgage Payoff Calculators out there but I decided to learn something new and create one myself using Google Sheets. After all it's just math? Can't be that hard... right? Right?
It...
What is the best way to use YNAB's Budget Categories? I've been using YNAB since way back when it was on version 3 where it ran on your PC or Mac (so around 2010) so I've gone through a ton of different ideas on category organization....
The default categories that YNAB defaults to are an okay...
Inspired by Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover" and the blog Budgets are Sexy, I decided to create this club to help find like minded individuals who can join me on this journey towards a mortgage free life.
Just like how one does better at working out with a partner (or partners), working on...
Latest blog entries
Having an emergency fund is extremely important. Knowing that you can handle an emergency without going into debt is a great help for your peace of mind. Everyone should have at least 3 to 6 months of expenses squirreled away in a Checking or Savings account for an emergency. Now the question...
I discovered Dave Ramsey and his baby steps to financial peace by downloading The Total Money Makeover from Audible in September 2011.
The book spoke to me. “The borrower is slave to the lender” How true is this? How often have I felt controlled by debt in the past. I’ve gotten it under control...
(This article is completely outdated and irrelevant now that YNAB is a web app but brought it back online for posterity)
As you may already know… I adore YNAB.
And I adore Google’s Chromebook – their cheap, fast, safe, and worry free computer that has become my main computer. The only time I...
Like most people – I’ve had a roller coaster relationship with debt and money. I never really understood money – or the real value in it until my twenties when I got married. Before then I always seemed to be getting into debt and I felt like that was “normal”. Well it may be “normal” for most...
Some people were curious so I thought I’d post how I use my YNAB budget categories. I got my idea on how to do this after reading Elizabeth Warren’s All Your Worth where she recommends sorting everything into three categories: Must Haves (I call this category “Needs”), Wants, and Savings.
I’ve...
What? I'm badmouthing YNAB? The best budgeting or personal finance software out there? That's impossible!
But yes, I am. They can't be perfect all the time. I'm sorry Jesse and the YNAB team... but there is one glaringly HUGE FLAW in the default YNAB budgeting categories.
The default budgeting...
One year along and not as far as I would have liked due to Murphy arriving as my wife's job went away in June and hasn't been able to find a good new one yet. But 2022 is looking good. :) Once our Emergency Fund gets back up to $20 to $25k (at ~$14k now) we'll start hammering at it again. :)...
I thought it'd nice to do an annual status report grading my progress paying off the mortgage. Above is a graph comparing my current progress in paying off the mortgage vs what my mortgage balance would be without paying extra.
But first.... some stats:
Original Balance:
$288,225.00...
When I first joined the Mortgage Payoff Club I was starting my 4th consecutive year of additional principal payments, 26 months later and I was done. It was, and still is, exciting to see Club Members progress thru the Leader Board to the paid off section at the top, and that had been my goal...
It is October, and arbitrarily this is the month I update my net worth tracking excels. I suppose it is odd to use an excel tool, when I already use Personal Capital which tracks net worth on a day to day basis, but I find that the annual exercise is a better perspective with much less noise...