Compounding interest, here I come!

I logged into my Prosper account this morning and saw that my cash balance has finally surpassed the $50 minimum bid mark at $51.34. It took a bit, but I finally received enough in repayments to bid out for a new loan without adding more money from my checking account. So right away I searched for some loans that fits my criteria.

I found a couple but eventually decided on a business that needed $6,500.00 to change all their warehouse light bulbs to fluorescent fixtures. Their old fixtures were 400watt bulbs, so they foresee at least a savings of $2,000.00 in their electricity bills. His DTI was average at 34%, and his income looked sufficient enough to support the loan. He was also at a C credit grade, so everything seemed fine. What was icing was that the loan was 3 hours from ending and it was still at 35%. I bidded a minimum of 21.99% to be conservative and was rewarded in the end. The loan ended at 25.00%, which should bump up my portfolio's average of 21.xx%. Pretty exciting.

So once this loan is approved by Prosper, I'll have 6 loans with a total original principal loaned out at $300.00. My personal investment, $250.00. Current value of portfolio is at $268+. I'm hoping to add some more funds in there to fund more loans and increase this area of investment. But I'm pretty satisfied at how fast I was able to fund a loan from repayments (It helped that one of the loans is paying faster than the 3-year plan). I should be able to fund another one soon too as this most recent borrower is looking to pay back the loan early as well.

Nothing much happening in the other areas. ING is growing slowly but steadily. Market's pretty rough right now, so nothing happening with Sharebuilder. Just the regular investment amounts.

Another Great Blog

So I was doing my daily reading and I found a pretty nice blog that detailed a man's 20-year battle with $35,000 debt. He has since paid it all off and the only debt he has left is his mortgage. It looks like a very decent blog with a lot of interesting topics and links. He definitely has a lot of stories to tell. Sure, everyone has stories, but having the time to write it down is different. I hope to put some of mine on here when I have more time as well.

I just came back from vacation, and boy did I spend quite a bit. I was reviewing my finances and I noticed a large jump in expenses. I was quite annoyed for a bit since that with my vacation added up to a large draw on my funds. But after doing some research, the expenses were things I couldn't have prevented or I had already accounted for. This is where having an emergency fund/extra cash tucked away is a great idea. I spent $200+ on new tires, when my front passenger tire went flat. I spent another $200 on a Nintendo Wii (haha, I'll admit this was a splurge, but I had $125 in Best Buy cash, so this hit could've been worse). I also have some extra fees from signing up for the gym, but this monthly expense is still lower than my kung fu class which I quit a couple months ago.

In any case, I was prepared for this spike in my monthly expenses and will spend the next few months building up my emergency fund again. I have avoided tapping into my cash at my ING accounts, so this situation played out nicely. I just have to spend less the next couple weeks (I've been cooking/preparing my own lunches to avoid spending during the week) and then work at saving again.