Neville's Financial Blog

This blog will be dedicated to tracking my financial progress. Today I turn 22, let’s see how far I can financially advance by the time I am 23.

A million in liquid assets is an extremely lofty goal. Is it even possible? Of course. To make $1,000,000 in five years I will need to:

Save $200,000 per year

Save $16,666 per month

Save $3,846 per week

Save $549 per day

Keep in mind this is saving $X.XX per year and does not include expenses.

I mandatorily put away $400 per month for investing and permanent savings, and after I get paid (from any source) I put away 60% if not more. Since I started working, I have been putting away roughly $685 per month. My current savings per month needs to increase by 2,400% immediately to meet my goal by 27.

One of the reasons I started this blog was to track if I was meeting, exceeding or falling short of my goals. One of my short term goals was:

By December 31st, 2004, I should have made $5,000 since September.

Am I close? I only have 29 days left, let’s take a look at the money I’ve made and lost since September:

September Business Profit: + $468

October Business Profit: + $459

November Business Loss: - $9 (Server was down)

December Business Income: TBA

Profit from Wheaton Sale (WHT): + $567

Profit from Syntel Sale (SYNT): + $776

Loss from V.I. Tech Sale (VITX): – $316

Birthday Money: + $101

Parents: + $240

Work: + $1,398



Total Income: + $4,009

Total Losses: – $325

Total Money Made: $3,684



Money I have to make in the next 29 days: $1,316



I have some money owed to me for webpages, I have two more paychecks coming and I have 400+ profit sitting in stock with the possibility of going further up (or possibly down). The online business will also be rather profitable since it’s the holiday season. Hopefully I can accomplish my goal of $5,000 since September in 29 more days.

I think everyday I should post what I have done to improve my fiancial situation or life. My goal here is to not let the days slip by.

Today was a slow day:

-Sent out a letter to all TX Entrepreneurs inviting them to get together and talk business.

-Went to the library to research business advertising.

At this rate, I am going nowhere. This list needs to expand, and quickly.

My last semester of college starts tommorrow, and I am very excited. I also start working tommorrow. I love when everything is in full swing!

I need to concentrate not only on school, but meeting my $11,000 goal by April. I also need to have at least 3 or 4 steady side incomes by the end of this semester in May.

There is no excuse this semester to mosey around, because there is PLENTY of work ahead for me!

Sometimes I will find myself with a great business idea and never carry it through. These ideas are put on the back burner when things get busy and then lose their steam. This is common among people who are busy or have other ideas to pursue….and unsuccessful people. I will not let myself land up unsuccessful in the longrun.

I’ve noticed what happens:

The stages go:

-Great idea pops into my head.

-Getting excited about it.

-Working out the details.

-Only partially following through.

-Putting the project on a temporary hiatus.

-Never completing the project.

-Regretting never completing the project.

What I do now is FORCE myself to get the project done. I should have fully designed Resumite’s over 2 weeks ago, but haven’t. So on Monday morning I will put up all my flyers around the UT campus, and be “forced” to design the rest of the site so people will not see a shody website.

I also did this to learn about stock. I simply bought some stocks, and since my own money was on the line, I learned VERY quickly how to valuate a company, read financial statements etc.

Writing NevBlog greatly helps. When I post my goals, everyone can see them and question if I have completed them in time. When people mention my name, I want to be known as some who can GET THE JOB DONE.

As things start to gain speed at school and I have more and more non-academic projects to attend to, I sometimes feel like there are not enough hours in the day.

If I kept a minute-by-minute log of my daily activities, I can see there are enough hours in the day, I just don’t use them efficiently.

At a few points throughout the day I notice large time wasting periods. I’ve found a huge factor in my laziness during these times is food. If I am very full, not much gets accomplished. I work at night some days, so sometimes dinner starts cooking around 1:00am, while other times I eat at a more regular 7:30pm. My dinner is usually very heavy, as I often don’t get much time to eat lunch on campus, so I get tired after dinner and laze around. I currently don’t have a roommate for the next few weeks, therefore I have no one to make me feel self-conscious of my laziness.

The time I spend on campus is always more productive, but I can’t spend whole days there without spending a fortune on eating out. I enjoy being at my apartment, but I just don’t get a whole lot done there.

My workout times are sporadic also. Sometimes I go to the gym at 3:00pm while other times I start working out after work, at midnight till 1:00am. For now, moving closer to campus is not an option. I am only 4 miles away, but rush hour traffic (5-6:30pm) through downtown Austin makes that 4 mile bus ride an hour long.

I need to start regulating my eating times and scheduling a routine workout time. This would help me have more energy and ‘pep’ during the day. If I could properly utilize the time spent at my apartment after meals etc, I would get twice as much work done in a day!

One thing important to me right now is mobility. I am graduating pretty soon, and if an opportunity arises in a different state, or even a different country, can I attend to it easily?

I recently moved to a larger apartment right across the hall from my old one, and the simple move took much longer than expected. Since then I have got rid of some “junk” and started to unload some more bulky items like my monitors (I’m selling them on Ebay). My plan is to fit all of my posessions in two suitcases.

A drawback to this is a rather boringly decorated room:

Not winning any “best-decorated” reviews eh? After I send my guitars and piano back home, the only bulky thing I will own are my speakers. I am a high-quality-sound-fanatic and can’t yet part with my THX certified Klipsch speakers, no matter how many neighbors they annoy!

Other than that, I can pack up my clothes and Tablet PC and leave town whenever I want.

There is something about the city of Dubai and its “Big Thinking” that attracts me to it. Every new structure they build outdoes the last.

The newest additions to the Dubai coastline are two man-made islands in the shape of giant Palm leaves. They also have made 300 new islands in the shape of the world. A friend who lives in Dubai told me about this project and thought it was a bit crazy, so did I.

Now several years later the islands are nearing completion:

I’m sure when The World was proposed, many people doubted its feasibility. We’ll see who has the last laugh when the hyper-rich people of the world start paying for some of the most unique real estate on the planet.

The Palm’s are equally impressive. I never would have imagined such a thing:

-See time-lapse photography of The Palm construction here.
-More info on the Palms and The World: http://www.gizmag.com/go/3310/

One of the things I want to do in my lifetime is stay with family and friends at the Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai. To me, it represents MUCH more than a simple hotel stay.

Every time I see a picture of the Burj Al Arab, it motivates me.

Click to enlarge each Burj Al Arab picture from Dubai which can be used as desktop wallpaper:

The BurjAlArab at Night:

Just glancing at the interior pictures can make me shudder:

One day you will find me vacationing at the Burj Al Arab. Look for me, I’ll be at the spa getting a massage.
-Nev

I have a lot on my plate right now, and managing time has been getting a bit difficult. Since I am frequent user of my tablet PC, it’s the perfect place to keep my to-do list.

Here is what my computer desktop currently looks like:

I made a wallpaper (download it) with a “Today” section and “This Week” section and used it in conjunction with AT Notes, a very efficient and free program that lets you put “Sticky Notes” on your desktop (The program was brought to my attention from TheKirkReport).
I’ve been using this system for a week or so, and it has been very effective so far.

I know what must be done everyday, but managing my time is difficult for me. To solve this problem, I bought this little egg timer.

Now I can set one hour for reading school work, the next hour for business, then another hour of school work etc.
Once the bell rings, I move onto the next thing on my agenda. The timer works well at work.

I also bought this big dry erase board to keep track of business projects. This way I can see the most important tasks on my agenda in one place. I hung it above my desk.

Hopefully this will make it slightly easier to manage my time between business stuff and school.

-Nev