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The second quarter of 2006 is over, time again to check in on my progress towards my 2006 Financial Goals. See my progress in Q1.

Separate business and personal financial worlds
Actually, I have recently incorporated my self-employed business as an S-Corporation. I’ve been meaning to write more about this, but I’ve found it hard to condense the information into a blog-sized bit. I’ve also learned a ton about setting up an IRS-recognized home office and tax deductions for self-employed businesses. More on this soon.

Roll over Traditional IRA to Roth IRA
I don’t think I’m going to do this anymore, given that we are not going to be in the 15% tax bracket like I thought we might this year. I will instead contribute more to other retirement accounts.
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I’ve been feeling very unsatisfied with myself recently. Initially I thought it was pure laziness (which I’m sure still plays a part), but in fact I think it is the fear of failure. There are so many ideas that I haven’t tried or put off because ‘I wasn’t ready’ or ‘It probably wouldn’t have worked’. Screw that. All successful people have had spectacular failures and are not ashamed of them at all.

This realization was partially inspired by listening to Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford. You can see the entire transcript here, the iTunes audio here, and a partial video here. No matter what your feelings on Apple (or Stanfurd ;P), Jobs is a great speaker and I think listening to the whole thing is the best way to experience it.
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Intro
My large credit card debt is on purpose, so please don’t yell at me to pay it off with my cash 😉 Please see my posts on taking advantage of no fee 0% APR balance transfers for more information. In short, I’m borrowing the money for “free” and keeping it in safe investments while earning me interest. Some recent examples are my $9,000 from Citibank and $10,000 from Discover Card.

Thoughts
April was a busy month. We moved, for one thing. Thankfully we got our entire safety deposit back from our previous rental and simply rolled that over into our new one. We threw away a lot of junk and moved most of our stuff ourselves, but did pay a couple hundred dollars for some professional movers for the heavy stuff.

I moved $10,000 of our cash into my new Scottrade account, and still need to invest it. We also filed and paid our taxes, which also included contributing $2,500 into a SEP-IRA (we already maxed out our Roths earlier). Finally, the stock market was bullish in April, leaving us with a good month overall.

We are getting ever-closer to the deadline for our Mid-Term goal, which it looks like will be hard to reach. Still, we have a year and I have lots of ideas that need to be implemented! Go Go Go!!

The first quarter of 2006 is over, time to check in on my progress towards my 2006 Financial Goals.

Separate business and personal financial worlds. – Partially done, but not completely. Still need to research LLC v. S-Corps.
Open a SEP IRA for 2005 business income at Vanguard. – Done.
Do my taxes and research to maximize tax return. – Done.
Roll over Traditional IRA to Roth IRA. – Holding off for now since we may not be in the 15% tax bracket, will reconsider at years-end.

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I dislike resolutions, mostly because I am horrible at keeping them. I tend to look backwards at them, as in “Oh, I resolved to do X back then, but I haven’t. Oh well.” Goals are better for me, because it’s something to focus on with a date attached. I need deadlines! Here’s what I came up with:

Q1 2006

Separate business and personal financial worlds.

Open a SEP IRA for 2005 business income at Vanguard.

Do my taxes and research to maximize tax return.

Roll over Traditional IRA to Roth IRA.
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