Broken arrow mentions passive income in one of his recent blogs.
I just checked and I earned close to $25,000 in passive income for 2007. That is income that I did not have to work for, but instead is just interest income. Of course, as rates go down this year, this income will go down, but still I never thought this day would come!

I love Vanguard. When I go and look at my accounts, there is a place for me to add my investments in other mutual funds. I put in the ticker symbol and the number of shares and my mutual fund net worth is calculated for me daily.
That makes doing my new worth so much easier cause I keep track of what I have in my money markets and savings accounts.

I did find out one thing that I need to do. It you buy or sell share, or you get a dividend at the end of the year, you need to edit the amount of shares that you have, in my case I increased the shares yesterday.
Once this is set up, it is a lot of fun (except when the market is like today) to go in and see your mutual fund net worth.
Before I had a computer, I use to call each company to see what my mutual funds were worth on the first day of the month. This is so much easier!!

I had a small AARP life insurance policy on my husband. A few months ago, the price went up, so we decided to drop it and just self insure ourselves. I have kept up the small premium and I will just pay it into my challenge money. So, I have $50 to add today.
Prev. total $883.00
today 50.00
new total $933.00

Today is Elvis' birthday. I was a big elvis fan when I was young. I have an Elvis' bedroom with all my old 45's and lp albums from when I was just a kid. I have Col Parker's signatures and a set of drumsticks signed by Elvis' drummer, D.J. Fontana!
Happy birthday to the King!

I do a monthly net worth the end of each month. Even tho the stock market went down, my net worth rose about $6000. I think that is because of the saving that I did and my interest. Up sure beats down!

I mentioned yesterday that I budget $160 a week to pay some annual and semi annual bills. They are: property taxes, house insurance, car insurance (5 cars) and car tags (6 tags) I let this sit in my personal checking account which pays no interest.
I really should change this and put this money in my money market checking account which now is paying. 4.1% interest.
I put it in my regular checking account and let it sit as a cushion.
If I put it in a money market account, I will have no cushion in my regular checking.
Cause, I only put in what I need to pay bills.
My question is, how much of a cushion should I put into my regular account? It will have to sit with no interest. I do balance my checking accounts once a month and can monitor them on the computer.
What do you think?

I received a check from Chase bank yesterday. It is for using my chase master card. It use to take me several months to get a check for $100 on my GM card, but Chase lets you redeem for $50 when you have 5000 points
The check was ordered last week, so it came pretty quickly.
I should have enough points when I get next months bill, to redeem the points again.
I love being paid back for charging. They pay back 3% on home repair and we use the card mainly at Home Depot for supplies for our customers.
This will be added to the challenge.
Prev. total $833.00
today 50.00
new total $883.00

I kind of paniced when I opened up the mail to get my tag bill of $551 and my home insurance bill of $1108.
However, I realized that I do budget $160 a week for those things and I put it in my personal checkbook and leave it there during the year. It does not earn any interest, sadly, but it is always there to pay the house insurance, car insurance, property taxes and car tags.
Both bills are not due until the first part of February and I realized that I will have enough money in my check book to cover it.
I have been trying not to take any money out of savings, and now, I won't have too. That is a relief!!

I have had all kinds of expenses the past three months, both planned and unplanned. First my dishwasher and ice machine both went out on me.
I had them fixed, but the "fix" did not take, so I bought a new dishwasher and a new refrigerator.
Then my car stopped. It need a new fuel pump and the repair was almost $2000.
Christmas came and with that came $3000 worth of property tax.
Today I got the bill for the annual house insurance ($1100) plus the car tags ($551).
I know life happens, but I sure wish it could happen a little cheaper for a while. I am ready to do some major saving and no more major spending.
Of course, the money for the property tax, house insurance and tags is all budget for. I put away $160 a week to pay those bills, so I am prepared!

Well, I got the registration forms to get new tags for the vehicles. The total cost is $551. Do you think they will be dipped in gold or something?

My husband just finished a small custom home and the people came to look at it, for only the 2 nd time, since it was started. (They live in south florida) They were thrilled. Plus, we came in, cost wise, about $10,000 under budget. So, they asked us to finish the basement, giving them twice the living space.
My dh went to pull the permit yesterday for the basement. He asked the lady in charge if she had given out many permits lately. She stated that she had not had even one NEW permit in the past month.
We can see things are really slowing down. The main business in this town is new construction and real estate and no one has anything to do.
I am so glad I have built up such a large savings. We may have to live on that savings for a while, maybe even a year or two. Hope not, but at least it is there.

I have $8 more to add to the challenge money. Using my advantage card at Ingles today saved me $5. I walked a mile yesterday, did 20 flights of stairs and used no gas, so that was $3 more.
Total $8.

I am opening a new account with umbrella bank today. Their pot o gold money market. I am a little leery of on line banking cause I know so little about a computer. However, they are still paying 5% on deposits, so if I can figure out how to look up my account online to see my balance, then I will send them more money.
They did say they would send me a paper statement for a $5 charge everymonth, but I hate to waste the money.
Has anyone here had dealings with Umbrella bank??

DH came back home this morning after buying bird seed from Ace Hardware. He buys it in 50 pound bags which cost $22 plus tax. We have to buy a big bag every few weeks, but the birds are worth it!!They really depend on us, especially in the winter time!!(wonder what they did before everyone had feeders??) We put out corn too for any other critter that wants it.

What is with the birds this winter? They are all over at my house. I have to fill the feeders every single day and I have 4 huge feeders.
My dh will have to get a second job to pay for all those sunflower seeds that they eat. We also put out corn for the deer and any other critters.
Even the price of bird seed has gone way up this year. I guess we need to get another 50 pound bag by tomorrow.

I have used the envelope method all my life. I just divide monthly bills up, intoo 4 weeks and put 1/4 away each Monday. Occasionaly, because there is an extra Monday in the month, my envelopes are over funded!!
I always add my extra electric money to the challenge each month.
Today, i am adding the extra cable tv money. For some reason that envelope hold about $50 more than I need to pay my cable tv bill, which is about $40 a month. So, I will add in the $50!
Prev. total $775.00
today 50.00
new total $825.00

We were supposed to meet friends for dinner last night. There driveway is very steep and it never got higher than 25 yesterday, so they were stuck at home. We could get out alright but knew the restaurant would close early because of the weather, so we decided to stay home and eat in.
I had a no spend day yesterday, walked 20 flights of stairs and saved $20 not eating out, so that is $22 to add to the challenge.
Prev. total $753.00
today 22.00
new total $775.00

Well, I took your advice and called the bank officials about dh's name being on the loan that BIL took out to fix up FIL's roof.
She said that BIL orginally got the loan in his and his wife's name, but when the bank researched the property, it was in my dh's name, my BIL and my younger BIL
So according to her, my dh is liable for the $50,000 heloc!
That is her bank's policy!

She said not to worry, if BIL defaults on the loan, they would just take FIL's house. The only thing it would do to my dh is ruin his credit.
I don't know about you, but our credit is very important to us, plus my husband is a builder and MUST have great credit.

So next step, dh called BIL. BIL has never filed the quit claim deed my dh gave him. DH Just handed him the paper giving him his share of a duplex house.
BIL handed the phone to SIL, who said, sign the mortgage.
When DH said he would not sign, SIL threw the phone down, the BIL came on the phone and hung up on dh!
We are in shock!!
Now we don't really know what to do next. We called FIL, who told us that they are in the process of buying a $6000 horse, their 7th horse that they own. No wonder they need the money!!

We are snowed in today, so we have been taking down all the christmas lights and decorations. I say we, but my husband has done most of the work. I am just helping him take things up to the attic. It sounds like a good day to pay some bills and do my net worth for the month.
We only have about an inch, but here in the south, an inch keeps you home til the roads thaw up. It is not supposed to get above freezing today, so we may have to have supper at home tonight!!
We have friends that are at their vacation home here right now. They are from florida, so I bet they are thrilled!!

I added up all the interest I earned in my savings, money market checkings and c.d's for the month of December. The total came to $2148.69 That is not as much as last month but the interest rates have all gone down.
I have a c.d. coming due the end of the month and I need to try and find a good rate.
We went to an early new year's eve party last night. It was over at 8 pm. It was called the "running of the trains" The guy has the 2nd largest railroad display in the state of Georgia.
( My husband built his house)

another check came in the mail yesterday. It was from Sears. We got a rebate back from a promo when we bought our new refrigerator in November. So, I now have $65 to add to my challenge money.
Prev. total $688.00
today 65.00
new total $753.00

I got notice from Blue cross/blue shield several months ago that the premium of dh's health insurance is going up. It seems to go up every few months. (I don't have any)
I started funding for the higher premium several week ago, so now that I have paid this month's premium, I have $80 left over in the envelope. So, I am getting a real good start to the 2008 $20 challenge and going to add that money to the challenge.
Prev. total $608.00
today 80.00
new total $688.00

I got my electric bill for the month. It was $70 under budget, so i am adding that to my challenge money.
Prev. total $ 538.00
today 70.00
new total $ 608.00

I am ready to start my 2008 challenge today. I will start with a check that came in the mail for $538!!

Prev. total $ 0
today 538.00
new total $ 538.00

I ended 2007 with a total of $26,271.00 and I am very happy with that.

Happy 2008 everyone. They are calling for about 3 inches of snow tonight, so I had better head to the store and get something for dinner. We went to an early party last night. It started at 5 pm and was over by 8pm. Everyone left by 8 pm. too, cause the serving girls took up all the food at 7:30! But, it was nice!!