iBrianEarley {dot} com
Reviews of Movies, Games, Books, and Things I Enjoy

Starting this month, I will be giving away Amazon gift cards to my followers every month. The total will be for $10 of my own money that I put in there or 5% of the income that my site generates, whichever is greater. For example: if you order something from Amazon by clicking on the link on my site, it will add 5% of what I make from that sale to the total that will be given away as a gift card. Like before, you can enter twice per day. If you would like to get in on the drawing on February 1st, just follow these two steps:

1. Follow @BrianEarley on Twitter
2. Tweet this message to your followers:

I just entered to win an Amazon gift card! You can enter by following @BrianEarley and retweet this! http://ow.ly/V6cO #BE0110

Update: If my follower count reaches 1,000 I will make it a $25 gift card!

What a great start to the year for the stock market! The S&P 500 was up over 2.5% and gained every day last week. My fantasy portfolio more than doubled the gains seen by the S&P 500, but the markets are very overbought right now as the technical analysis shows, so a pullback might be on the horizon. It might be a smart decision to lock in some of your gains by taking a little bit of the profit, and buying again after the pullback occurs.

I am going to be taking my profits off the table this week on anything that has over a 20% gain, and letting the rest ride. Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM) will be taken out of my portfolio, and replaced with the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD), because AEM has become far too volatile for my tastes. Investing in an ETF that tracks the price of gold seems to be a smarter decision than owning a gold mining stock that could be susceptible to issues that could slow the business down.

S&P 500 at Year Start- $1,115.10
S&P 500 at End of Week – $1,144.98
S&P 500 Point Gain – +$29.88
S&P 500 Percent Gain – +2.68%

Portfolio at Year Start – $141,591.98
Portfolio at Week End – $150,145.21
Portfolio Total Gain – +$8,553.23
Portfolio Percent Gain – +6.04%

Transactions

None

Dividends Paid

1/6 $126.00 from 300 Shares of T at $0.42 per Share

Important Info and Disclosure: Fantasy Portfolio traded on Wall Street Survivor using principles learned from Jim Cramer’s Action Alert Plus. I do own real shares in AT&T (T) and Nordic American Tanker (NAT).

It’s the end of my first full year of running my fantasy portfolio on Wall Street Survivor, and I have made some very decent gains with it. The benchmark for market performance, the S&P 500 finished the year with a very nice 23.45% gain, but my portfolio’s performance crushed that with a 30.00% gain for the year. Most of my success can be attributed to what I have learned from watching Mad Money on CNBC, as well as reading my collection of books by Jim Cramer. His lessons are invaluable.

I have decided to lock in my big gains and use the profits to reinvest at lower levels. My portfolio definitely needs some more attention this year if I want to continue to outperform the market and use my experience to do so with my real money. As it stands today, the markets are up from a nice rally on Monday and are continuing higher right now after a quick selloff in the morning.

S&P 500 at Year Start- $903.25
S&P 500 at End of Week – $1,115.10
S&P 500 Point Gain – +$211.85
S&P 500 Percent Gain – +23.45%

Portfolio at Year Start – $104,435.54
Portfolio at Week End – $135,768.53
Portfolio Total Gain – +$31,332.99
Portfolio Percent Gain – +30.00%

Transactions

None

Dividends Paid

12/28 $178.5 from 525 Shares of JPM at $0.34 per Share

Important Info and Disclosure: Fantasy Portfolio traded on Wall Street Survivor using principles learned from Jim Cramer’s Action Alert Plus. I do own real shares in AT&T (T) and Nordic American Tanker (NAT).

Well, it has been a year since I started keeping track of my finances for everybody to see. 2009 was a very good year for me financially, as I started a new job and earned a promotion and almost a second which I hope to get this year. There is a good chance that I might even get to be a store manager in the very near future too. Along with the increased pay from getting the promotion, I also received my 120 day and one year raise. My income from my job has increased by $200 a month in only a year.

My passive income has taken a little bit of a hit this past year though. I took some money out of my Prosper account while it was dormant for a while, and many charge-offs also brought my income down. Adding money to my stock positions increased my dividend payouts slightly, but Nordic American Tanker (NAT) reduced their dividend payout, so I’m not making as much as I originally thought I would with dividends.

In the expense department, it has increased significantly as I am now paying rent to my girlfriend for living with her. The money goes towards living expenses and utilities, but I still keep it a flat rate. My car insurance decreased, because I turned 25 in January. That was a big help! I also payed off my medical bills finally, even though my final payment didn’t go through, and they didn’t notify me. Five months later, they decided to inform me with a “final notice.” After much complaining I finally paid it off, but let them know that I was very dissatisfied. Both my net monthly cash flow and passive income as a percentage of my expenses have decreased considerably. I’ll be working on fixing that this year.

Total assets have dropped slightly, which was mostly from my friend paying off his debt that he owed to me. Kudos to him! OneSeason went down the tubes, along with almost $200. It was a small risk I was willing to take to see how the website would work. As stated before, many of my Prosper notes were charged-off and put me $200 in the red for that investment as well. That should turn around this year with the improving economy and people being hired again. The bright spot was more money being invested in the stock market which has appreciated nicely, and should continue to do so.

My total liabilities and debt was reduced by $6,000 in just one year! That brings my total debt to around $21,000, and net worth to only -$15,000. If I can keep up with that pace, I should be able to be debt free in around three years! It doesn’t take a fancy “get out of debt” program to help you live a better financial life, it just takes a little common sense and planning out your expenses. What you need to know when it comes to budgeting and managing money you already learned in grade school, you just might not have realized you can apply it to get out of debt yourself. Have a happy New Year and I hope you make it a prosperous one!

$1,874.24 Total Income

$1,800.00 Monthly Pay Checks
$2.39 Checking Account Interest
$0.12 Savings Account Interest
$9.17 Dividends ($53.40 / qtr.)
$62.56 Prosper Loans

$1,224.83 Total Expenses

$188.00 School Loans
$192.00 Car Payment
$450.00 Food & Utilities
$100.00 Gas
$82.00 Cell Phone
$50.00 Entertainment
$129.86 Insurance
$32.97 Personal Loan

$649.41 Net Monthly Cash Flow
$74.24 Passive Income
6.06% Passive Income % of Expenses

$6,567.66 Total Assets

$761.08 Checking Account
$107.72 Savings
$115.56 Scottrade Account
$29.52 Prosper Account
$16.48 ChaCha Account
$9.05 Paypal Account
$919.93 IRA
$1,198.79 401k
$3,409.53 in Stock
$1,145.93 Loans on Prosper

$21,852.99 Total Liabilities

$12,593.69 School Loans
$7,486.35 Car Loan
$810.84 Credit Card
$547.37 Prosper Loan

-$15,285.33 Net Worth