mypfvoyage.org

For the second time this month the interest rate for my ING Direct Orange Savings account was reduced. The first reduction took place on March 11 from 3.40% to 3.10%. The latest reduction reduced that rate from 3.10% to 3.00% and that took place on March 19. I hope that the rate will at least stay here for at least a few months. However, that is going to be up to the Fed. My hope is that the dollar can start gaining some strength again.

I know I just posted yesterday about my credit score. However, I now have an update from the Fico Quarterly Monitoring service that I signed up for. My TransUnion score has gone from 664 on December 11, 2007 to 686 on March 10, 2008.

Here are some of the reasons for the change:

* I have a new positive factor helping my score.
* I no longer have a negative factor hurting my score.

In addition to those reasons, TransUnion recently added another credit card account that I opened back in 2003 that is and always has been in good standing. I am sure that help my score also. I will continue getting at least 3 more reports before the end of the year and hopefully I will be at a 750.

On November 11, 2007, I decided that it would be a great idea to start to track my credit score again. My credit score has been declining over the past few years while my liabilities have been going up. So on that day I registered up with www.myfico.com for access to my credit report and scores. I signed up for the Equifax Score Watch which is $8.95 per month. My Equifax score was 645 at the time. I have since started managing my account properly not letting any late payments hit my account and recently paying off one revolving account. Read the rest of this entry »

The month of February was a very busy time for me again. Using www.mint.com has allowed me to see where my expenses are going and how frequently I am paying them. Another feature that I like about Mint.com is that it is always alerting me towards where my money is going and when my next bills are due. Those features comes in very handy. I try to update my information on the website daily. I cannot currently track my savings account with ING Direct or my brokerage account with Sharebuilder (a subsidiary of ING Direct), however that is fine because those accounts are very secure. I recently read that out of all the major banking institutions that ING Direct has the least amount of fraud being committed against them.

Read the rest of this entry »

The month of January was a very busy time for me. I was able to start to improve on my personal financial goals. In addition to my financial goals I was able to pursue some career goals. The lack of posts reflects this busy period. I signed up to track my finances with Mint.com. I also signed up with NCNnetwork.com to track my credit card debt and NetworthIQ.com to track my net worth.

There has been some improvement in the ability to start reducing my overall debt and in general my credit card debt. I will soon have figures and maybe graphs available on the site to visual show my progress. At the end of January my net worth was negative number which did not surprised me. However, it was not too bad. My January net worth was (10,120). The amount that I owe for my credit card debts was $3800 and that came down from $4000 in December. I am happy with my progress so far and hope to continue.