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This is not a new topic in our house, but one that I did want to “blog” about because I am very happy that I finally took the initiative to start tracking our net worth. I decided to go the typical spreadsheet route. The spreadsheet I am using is based on the template available over at moneyunder30.com. It’s a basic month over month tracking spreadsheet that can be customized to reflect your individual accounts. I also prefer to use Google Docs, so we can access the information from anywhere.

We are now in our third month of tracking our net worth and I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I actually look forward to updating it at the end of each month. I get to plug in the previous month’s figures and see how things look based on our overall financial picture. Granted it isn’t exactly constantly evolving on a huge scale, but it’s interesting information nonetheless.
Another interesting take on using your net worth the deduce Financial Freedom was blogged about by Jonathan over at My Money Blog. I have been a long time fan of Jonathan’s blog and his explanation of the theory is certainly interesting.

Are you tracking your net worth? How are you doing it?

My time is not entirely filled with programming and bonus offers. This past weekend, my wife and I decided to try our hand at growing some new plants… from seeds… If you’re like me, the thought of waiting for a seed to turn into a plant and then grow into something the size you’d buy at the nursery may sound like a daunting task, but we’re giving a go nonetheless. 

What am I growing?

I decided to try out just two herbs; Garlic Chives, and Basil. I like both herbs quite a bit and if they do well, it may actually give me more motivation to find better Italian recipes.

What is my wife growing?

On a recent trip to visit my wife’s family in Florida, her mom gave her some seeds from a yellow trumpet tree. It’s a beautiful tree indeed and since we’re starting it from seed, I’ll let you know how it turns out in about 20 years.

My wife also got a mix of wildflowers seeds and our hope is that we may be able to put them in our garden in the backyard some day. When it comes to flowers, I have always preferred perennials to annuals and if they turn out anything like they looked on the seed package, I’m sure we’ll both be more than pleased.

Coincidentally, shortly after getting the seeds all planted, I happened to notice that Brooke over at DollarFrugal just recently did some planting. Strawberries, yum! Could I handle the pests though…

Have you done any spring planting? 

I have decided, as most do, that I will be listing the signup bonuses that I either take advantage of or if I think that they are worthwhile.  The first one to come down the pipe is a $50 offer from Sharebuilder.

Breakdown:

• Sign up for a Sharebuilder account using this link or simply enter the promo code “50G028″ during the signup process.
• During the singup process you will be asked to choose a pricing plan. I decided to go with the free trial for the Standard pricing plan, but you could certainly choose the Basic plan if you don’t want to have to remember to switch back to the Basic plan before the trial period ends.
• That’s about it. Once you have chosen your pricing plan and how you’d like to fund the account, your account will be open. The final step to meet the terms of the bonus offer is simply make a purchase.

The “Nitty Gritty”:
Since my Dad and I both made use of this signup bonus and we went about it two seperate ways, I thought it worthwhile to list the different options we chose.

Me:
I chose to set up the Automatic investment plan to purchase $5 worth of Walgreens stock (WAG) and once the buy order was complete, I deleted the automatic investment. The end result is I will receive $45 in cash from the offer and $5 in stock. Due to the high price to sell your shares or move them from Sharebuilder, I decided to just take advantage of the promo for the cash.

My Dad:
My Dad currently has a free discount broker, but yet he still decided to make a larger stock purchase than I. He chose to drop $20 of his $50 on Countrywide (CFC). My Dad is great to talk to about investments. In general, he doesn’t have a very high risk tolerance, but when the decision involves money that he doesn’t need to rely on, he will typically just let it fly. Example: When he told me that he decided to buy Countrywide, before I even had a chance to ask why, he said “and I bought it because all of the analysts say to avoid the financial sector and THEY’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!”. If those aren’t words to live by, I don’t know what is.

Promotionally Speaking:
If you decide to take advantage of this offer, please post a comment to let me know how it went for you. Also when this promotion ends, you can still get $25 for signing up by using my referral link. If you’re interested in using me as a referral, please feel free to contact me and I will initiate the referral email.

I will try to continue posting bonus offers on the blog, but my goal is to stick to only the offers that I actually follow through with or offers that I am considering. There are some very good sites/blogs out there to find more comprehensive lists of available bonuses and I see no real need to be just another “deal aggregator”. However, with any luck, maybe someone will happen by my blog and post comments about other great bonus offers that they’ve found and how they turned out for them. I know… Wishful thinking.

I finally did it! I have been kicking around the idea of starting a blog for years. There have been times over the years where I would actually think of how certain pieces of information would make great blog topics, but I guess the two main things holding me back were:

• I read so many great blogs that I didn’t think I had any extra time to start one of my own.

- AND -

• I’m a web developer by trade and generally didn’t think I would want to spend more time writing web applications.

This is where WordPress came into play. Rather than dealing with the lead time of writing my own blogging software, I decided to give wordpress a try. I have been playing with it for about a week and so far I am really impressed. I also really like the template I found from www.live-tr.com. Since programming is my forte, not design, this template works out very well for me and I have been tweaking it ever since I downloaded it. So, if you’d like my version, let me know and I can send you it to you.

So, that’s it. First post. Not much about me, but you’ll glean more information about me as time progresses and your interest in what I have to say doesn’t fall off (I wouldn’t blame you)