Ce vedem in Barcelona?

Aflata pe coasta Peninsulei Iberice, Barcelona este un oras superb care sta la umbra marelui Gaudi. |Cu o populatie de 1.5 milioane de locuitori, Barcelona este al 2-lea oras ca marime din Spania si capitala Cataluniei, una din regiunile autonome din aceasta tara. In Barcelona se vorbesc 2 limbi oficiale: spaniola si cataluna.

Bilete de avion Barcelona pot fi cumparate din rice agentie de turism sau pot fi rezervate online, un pret bun putand fi obtinut de la agentii ca TravelDesk, Paravion sau Vola.

Odata ajuns aici, cu siguranta vei avea ce vedea, existand numeroase obiective turistice.

Sagrada Familia este cel mai important dintre monumentele din Barcelona. Acesta reprezinta capodopera neterminata a lui Antoni Gaudi iar constructia trebuie sa dureze cel putin pana in 2041. Temelia a fost turnata in 1882 si de atunci acest minunat templu este in constructie. De la varsta de 31 de ani, cand a preluat constructia templului, Ghandi si-a dedicat aproape toata viata construirii acesteia. Proiectul original a fost schimbat de acesta intr-un mod radical. La moartea sa, in 1926, doar fatada, cripta si un turn erau construite.

Acvariumul sin Barcelona este un alt obiectiv impresionant din oras. In cele 35 de bazine de aici vietuiest 11000 de animale marine grupate in peste 450 de specii. Cei care ajung aici, pot incerca o aventura in tunelurile cu rechini sau pot vedea peste 20 de specii de pinguini.

La Pedrera este o alta opera grandioasa a lui Gaudi. Fatada exterioara seamana cu o stanca iar fatada este brazdada de numeroase curbe si concavitati. Constructia casei a fost realizata intre 1906 si 1910 pentru familia Mila.

Camp Nou - Daca esti un iubitor al fotbalului, cu siguranta iti doresti sa ajungi cel putin o data pe Camp Nou. Construit in 1957, stadionul are o capacitate de aproape 100 000 de locuri fiind cel mai mare din Europa. Stadionul din Barcelona ofera si un muzdu al clubului care are un succes imens, fiind vizitat anual de peste 1 milion de oameni.

Gradina Zoologica - Cu peste 500 de specii de animale, Zoo Barcelona este una din cele mai impresionante gradini zoologice din Europa. Cei care ajung pe aici se pot bucura de specacole acvatice cu delfini sau cu balene ucigase. Una din marile atractii turistice ale gradinii a fost Copito de Nieve, singura gorila alba care a trait vreodata in captivitate. Aceasta a murit in 2003, insa a devenit un simbol al gradinii zoologice.

La Rambla este cea mai cunoscuta zona a Barcelonei si face parte din zona veche a orasului. Aici gasesti numeroase chioscuri de ziare, terase si oameni care se relaxeaza, fiind una din zonele preferate de turisti.

Net Worth Snapshot

Here is the net worth snapshot for Mr. and Mrs. FSA.

Current
Assets	Value	Comments
Home	$220,000	appraisal
Car 1 - 2001	$9,000	trade-in value
Car 2 - 1995	$1,950	trade-in value
Checking	$3,900	best estimate
Savings	$1,138	best estimate
Emergency Fund	$1,500	emigrant direct
401 (k)	$0
Roth IRA	$0
Misc	$477	kids 529 plan
Total	$237,965
Liabilities	Value	Comments
Mortgage	$190,000	5/1 ARM
Car 1 Loan	$14,000	60 Month loan
Credit Card Debt	$5,893
Student Loans	$24,000	Husband and wife
Misc	$0
Total	$233,893
Total Net Worth	$4,072

Not too bad so far. The good news is that it's positive. The bad news is that financialbabysteps is catching up to us quickly. That is one financially savvy baby! A little friendly competition never hurt anyone :). Here's the rundown on our assets and liabilities:

We refinanced our home recently so the appraisal value is only a few months old. Funny story about our mortgages. I was just graduating from college and couldn't qualify for a conventional mortgage yet. We wanted to move in and get settled before I started working so we did an IO ARM which allowed us to buy the home when we wanted. After making one payment, I started working and we refinanced to our current mortgage which is a 5/1 ARM with a really low rate of less than 5%. The total P&I payment for the ARM is less than the IO payment of the first mortgage we had which is great. It was fortuitous timing for us since it was right around the time that interest rates bottomed out. We will certainly be moving in under 5 years, so I'm not worried about the ARM reseting at a higher rate. The only negative I have about the mortgage is that we're currently paying PMI. That sucks. I tried using homegain to see what some comps would be for our area, but they didn't have data for our little town. I'm planning on waiting another six months before trying to get rid of the PMI.

We own two used cars. We bought one with cash and the other we financed through our credit union with a 5 year loan. Ordinarily I would say that taking out a 5 year loan is a bad idea for a car, but considering the fact that the interest rate was exactly the same whether I got a 3, 4, or 5 year loan it made sense to me. The rate is below 5% on the car loan as well, and I can earn almost the same amount of interest from an online savings account so I'm not really in a hurry to prepay the loan.

The emergency fund really needs to be more, but we're going to be concentrating on the Credit Card debt first.

You might notice that we have started saving in our kids 529 plan, but hasn't funded my 401(k) or a Roth IRA. More than half of the kids 529 comes from family memebers for Christmas and Birthdays. We did the inial seeding to open the account, but we haven't added anything since we opened it last month.

In terms of the retirement accounts, my company doesn't match until I've worked for a full year. I'll also be getting my first raise at the same time that I qualify for the match, so that's when we'll start contributing.

A large portion of the credit card debt (> 75%) is currently in the form of a 0% balance transfer for 12 months. We're going to be aggresively paying that off in the coming year. The rest of it is from our home improvement project that we did at the beginning of the month and will be paid in full from savings. So far we have yet to pay any credit card interest and plan to keep it that way.

For our student loans I've signed up for the electronic payment option so I qualify for a lower interest rate. My wife is finishing school so we don't have a pay her loans for at least a year. I consolidated my loans and I'm currently paying less than 5% on the balance. My mortgage rate is actually lower than the rate on my student loans :).

So there you have it. Our financial picture for the current year. In another post I'll go over the goals that we have and how we plan to achieve them. Any comments or thoughts on our net worth picture would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Goals

Thanks to everyone that commented on the net worth snapshot post. In this post I wanted to talk more about our financial goals and why financial independence is important to my wife and me.

When it comes to money, my wife and I had similar upbringings. She was born in the US but her parents were immigrants from another country. My entire family (except for one brother born here in the US) immigrated to the US at different times. My wife's parents and my parents both came to the US for two main reasons: better educational opportunities and jobs.

We both grew up watching our parents struggle with money, from paying the bills to chasing get-rich quick schemes. Our parents also shaped some of our frugal habits, for example: we almost always get water when dining out; we gravitate towards the clearance section in stores and stuff like that.

The short end of it is that experiencing our parents respective struggles made both of us resolve to be financially independent and secure, albeit in different ways. It made me want to be rich, i.e. butlers, maids, and mansion rich. It made my wife risk-averse and crave financial stability. As a result, we compromised at financial independence and freedom :).

Ideally what we would like to do is "retire" when we are both 45. By "retire", I mean we want to stop working and do whatever we want for 3-5 years. That includes traveling around the world, spending time with our children and/or grandchildren; visiting every single tourist destination in the United States...you get the idea. Personally, I'm looking forward to being able to spend time with my wife and only my wife. It would be like when we first started dating in college, only this time we'd have more money and gray hairs.

After the initial downtime, we'd most likely become bored and decide to start working again. However, we'd be able to work in "fun" jobs. I'd like to try my hand at teaching, maybe as a high school math teacher, or how about a realtor. Hell, maybe we'll work at Starbucks! The point is that we'd have the freedom to do what we want.

To meet these lofty ambitions, I've calculated that we will need approximately $3,000,000 in retirement assets. I used a variety of retirement calculators that I found online. The main assumptions were usually that we retire at 45, die at 95 and our only source of income is our 401(k) and other taxable assets (so no social security, or pension).

The only caveat is I've promised my wife that if at anytime before we're 45 that our net worth including our primary home is greater than or equal to $4,500,000 then we would retire right away. So if the market has a huge run-up one year and we juuuuust peak over that for a brief millisecond, we have to retire. That's why I've listed our goal net worth at 4.5MM. It sort of corresponds to our target age for retirement, but it was more of a random number we could both agree on.

It's not going to be easy trying to meet that goal. While we are on the right path, I still think there is so much more that we could be doing. Here are some of the areas where I foresee improvement:

- We're going to start funding my 401(k) once my company starts matching. Looking back, I would have started right away, but we've committed ourselves to this method. Plus, instead of funding the 401(k), we're paying down credit card debt. So it's not a complete waste. After this year, I'd like to start funding a Roth IRA while we still qualify.
- We need to do a better job with our budget. I've tried using MS Money but haven't been as diligent as I would like. One weak area for both of us is eating out. We like to eat out a lot. This is especially tempting when we're both tired and don't feel like cooking, and the kids are acting up. We've thought of a few ways to deal with this. One is to budget $20 a week for eating out, and once we've used it all we're not allowed to eat out anymore. Anything we don't use, we save. Another is to try to utilize coupons when eating out, or only eating at places where we have coupons and/or specials (like kids eat free).
- Another area of weakness is impulse buying. To combat this I need to be more vigilant with MS Money (theres that program again) and as Early Riser said: "measure [my] progress and know where [my] money is going at all times."
- We don't do a very good job of living below our means. Part of this is due to the credit card debt we took upon ourselves to furnish our home, as well as a combination of the other weakness mentioned above.

This is the short list of what needs to be done. I would add to it learning as much as possible about all sorts of personal finance issues from books, personal finance blogs, and other internet resources.

I would greatly appreciate any advice from the blogosphere. I haven't the time to peruse through all the great posts that are out there that probably deal with most if not all of these issues I've mentioned. I will keep reading the personal finance carnivals on an ongoing basis as well as contribute as much as I can.

ING Direct

I've recently opened an ING account. If anyone would like an additional $25 for opening the account email me at frankyj009 with yahoo. I'd get $10 for you signing up and contributing $250. Jim, at bargaineering was kind enough to refer me and I got $25. Also, they are currently having their special 4.75% APY period. So now is a good time to sign up.

Thanks.

Final Lotto Post

Anon in my previous lotto post has been playing devil's advocate saying that he/she is still going to play the lotto. Here is the comment:

Well, if the choice is a dollar on the roulette wheel vs. a dollar on consumer goods, I say let the good times roll! or, as you suggest I could take my weekly dollar and put it in a savings account and at the end of 30 years at 4.0% (taxed) I'd have 2,300 dollars which with inflation will be worth less than 1,000. Since I will have saved 1560 dollars from a lifetime of avoiding the lottery and depriving myself of M&Ms, that doesn't seem like very good return. Even if the chance of winning the lottery is teeny-teeny tiny, it is still larger than my chance of getting great honking wads of cash with my dollar any other way. Hey, someone has to play devil advocate! I should mention here that the 2nd dollar that you spend on the lottery each week is completely wasted since it does not appreciably increase your odds. Guess I wont have to skip the diet Coke.

First, if you took that $1/week and invest it in the stock market for 30 years, assuming a 10% rate of return, you'd have almost $9,000. Take into account 3% inflation and you're looking at $4,000. True it's not "great honking wads of cash", but I'll take it.

Ironically, you touch on the second point I wanted to make: "the 2nd dollar that you spend on the lottery each week is completely wasted since it does not appreciably increase your odds". This is even more true over the entire 30 years. I took a look at the fictional lottery that I mentioned before, and here is what I found

After 30 years
Probability of matching 3 numbers	99.9999820851%
Probability of matching 4 numbers	48.7778006739%
Probability of matching 5 numbers	1.0045145272%
Probability of matching 6 numbers	0.0031159717%

After 30 years of playing the lottery, you have a 99.9999% probability of matching 3 numbers. So you'll definitely win that $3 dollars, but you'd have spent $1,560.

You have a 48.77% chance of matching 4 numbers, so then you'll win a couple hundred dollars.

Now it gets really bad, even after playing for 30 years, week after week, you would still only have a 1% chance of matching 5 numbers and a .003% chance of matching 6 numbers. Needless to say, your expected value is still quite negative. Plus remember, this is the cumulative probability, you're still very unliklely to win on each individual lottery game.

So there, that's it. No more lottery posts after this, I swear. :)

On another note, Anon, thanks for playing devil's advocate on this one. If you're going to forgo those M&Ms to play the lotto, that's fine. The sad part is when you have people that forgo food for their families to play the lotto.

Some quick updates

Some quick updates:
- I'm a wiggly worm in the TLLB Ecosystem. Alright!

- Carnival of Personal Finance #33 is up and my goals post is listed. Yeah baby!

- As a follow-up to my 0% balance transfer post, a few things have changed. Credit card minimums are going up to 4% and emigrant direct (one of my online banks) has increased their rate to 4.25% APY. As a result, I expect to make roughly 3.32% APY on the 0% CC balance transfer. I expect to generate roughly $500 in passive income for Mr. and Mrs. FSA. Wohoo passive income! Also, it's been mentioned that doing these offers will hurt our credit score, and I'm aware of that. We're not going to be applying for anything important anytime soon, so I'm not worried about the hit we're going to take. Gotta love arbitrage.

- I've been mulling an idea for a series. I will be starting one called "Conversation with my sons". In each one I'll post a fictional conversation between me and my sons when they are older. The topics will be varied and I'll delve into many controversial issues. I figure the series will be enlightening to my readers as they learn more about me and I hope that it will provide practice for later in my life. When the time comes and my sons ask me some of these questions, it will be nice to have a template of sorts.

Conversation with my son(s) #1: Why don't we go to church?

This series will be a weekly (hopefully) endeavor where I will imagine some hypothetical conversations with my boys when they grow older. Hopefully they will prove insightful. Not too sure on what the format is going to look like, but I'll tweak things as I go along

Son: Hey dad, can I ask you a quick question.

FSA: Sure son, what is it?

Son: Um, well I was just wondering, why don't we go to church?

FSA: Why were you wondering that, if you don't mind me asking?

Son: Well, some of my friends were asking me at school. They were talking about going to church and stuff, and they asked me what church I went to. I told them that we didn't go to church and that we just stayed at home, but I figured I'd ask you why.

FSA: Ok, fair enough. You see son, church is for people that belong to certain religious groups. It's for people who more or less believe the same thing and every Sunday they meet to talk about those set of beliefs and be part of a community of like-minded individuals.

Son: How come we don't go?

FSA: Simply because we don't share one major belief. I'm an atheist, and your mother is a...hmm, spiritual agnostic is the best way to put it.

Son: What does that mean?

FSA: (laughing), for me it means that I don't believe that god exists. For your mom, she's not really sure if god exists, but she tends to believe that there is a spiritual realm to the world...or something like that, you should talk to her and get her thoughts on the matter.

Son: What does that make me then?

FSA: Well son, most likely it'll make you either an atheist, or an agnostic. Most kids usually follow their parents when it comes to religion.

Son: I thought grandma and grandpa were Christian though? Why aren't you a Christian then dad?

FSA: That's a long complicated story, son. Suffice it to say that I took a look at the evidence and it lead me to atheism.

Son: What do you mean by that dad?

FSA: That's going to be a conversation for another time son. I promise we'll get to it though...we could go to a church if you wanted to see what it's like. Maybe we could go to different congregations and we'll talk about what we like and don't like.

Son: Do you think that would be a good idea?

FSA: It's just a thought. I'll talk to your mother about it and see what she says. We might go to a Unitarian Universalist church first and see what they're like.

Son: Ok...what's a Unitarian Universalist?

FSA: I wish I knew son, but we'll figure it out together. (wink)

Son: (laughing) Ok dad, if you say so.

FSA: I love you son.

Son: I love you too dad.

~Fin

So that end's the first of what should be a weekly series. In this short conversation, I wanted to touch on how my sons might feel like an outsider because of our familiy's lack of religion. I hope that I'll be able to do a better job explaining to them, while at the same time allowing them to explore and be their own person. I'll try to refine the format and improve upon the dialogue going forward.