Gas $avings

The next few months shouldn't be any fun for those that buy gas. I've already broken the $30 fill up mark for my Subaru. It sucks. But there are two things that I do that should help in the long run.

1) I drive sensibly. I try and accerlerate modestly away from stoplights. Never getting the RPMs above 2500. It sure does anger the lead footed driver behind. Some of them frantically cut off the driver in the lane to the next, only to brake at the next stoplight 20 seconds down the road. Not very gas savvy. By my calculations my slow starts add between 1/2 to 1 mpg for city driving. Not a whole lot. But enough to keep at it.

Here's why: a lot of financial bloggers always maximize the different incentives credit card companies offer. As such, I feel good about the 1% I get back by using my Visa. Adding 1 mpg to my driving equals a 4% improvement. Not bad.

2) Keep those tires inflated properly. Check them every week. Buy a small air compressor so you can add air yourself. Just read about a study that stated over 70% of cars don't have all tires properly inflated. And that keeping tires inflated properly can save over $800 over seven years (the average life-span of a vehicle.) That's no chump change. And as gas increases it'll save you even more.

$35 cup of coffee ... mmmm good

Just bought a $35 cup of coffee. It was hot and fine. But I did get almost 12 gallons of gas with it. The Shell station up the street is giving away free coffee with 8 or more gallons of gas. It hurts as it is to gas up today. So the free coffee makes it a little easier. Or I just think of it free gas with expensive coffee. What a deal!

PEIX sell

Sold position on PEIX. Total gain of $564.32 or about 11.5%. Missed the high but got out before the continuing sell off Thursday. Pleasant return for the week.

Stock Trades

The past few weeks I've been trying to do short term trades in one of our IRA accounts to see how well I can pick them. The benefit of course for doing this in our IRA is not worrying about capital gains and losses. So far the results have been great:

GOOG:
Bought 3/27 10 shares @ $366.24
Sold 4/4 10 shares @ $389.13
Gain 5.8%

FRG:
Bought 4/4 800 shares @ $4.839
Sold 4/11 800 shares @ $6.01
Gain 22.5 %

Current play is:
PEIX:
Bought 4/12 178 shares @ $27.25
Today if sold at $29.25 gain of 7% but hoping PEIX goes a little higher. Plus I have to wait for funds to settle before selling.

$200k Net Worth Milestone

As of today we are above the $200k mark. Quite a feeling.
Here's the updated networth figures:


Savings- $6,374 from $5,500 increase of $874

Money Market- $62,841 from $62,645 increase of $196

Stocks- $36,352 from $35,412 increase of $940

IRA stocks- $12,633 from $11,947 increase of $686

Mutual Fund- $4060 from $3,947 increase of $113


For now I'm keeping the home equity and car values the same. As I mentioned in an earlier post, our neighbors put their house for sale. It's currently subject to inspection. We hope to see a price near the asking price. At which point we can revalue our house from that price point. It should add good amount to our assets.

It's nice to have increases in all categories. Can't expect this every month. All that matters is overall net worth over the long run.

Net worth update

This week I'll update our networth. So far the changes we've seen in our stocks have all been positive. Our main account gained $205 as of today for a very modest gain of about 0.5%. Our IRA did much better gaining $152 or about 1.2%.

April is generally the best month of the years for stocks. So we're looking for solid gains this month before the anticipated summer slow down.