Monday, July 13, 2009
3 Years at IBM
July 10th marked my three-year anniversary at IBM. I happened to take the day off, but that was just a coincidence. I have to say, I don't feel a whole lot different. While I purchased a home, got cats, and gained other adult responsibilities/experiences, I can't point to any real personal growth. I guess that gives me a goal for the next three years.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Mortgage Refinance Completed
On Wednesday, May 20, 2009, I completed my first mortgage refinance using United Home Loans. I stayed with a 30-year fixed mortgage, but was able to reduce my interest rate down to 4.625% and save $176.51/month on my monthly payment. The process will have increased my principal by ~$5000, but a lot of that is the interest for the month of May that I rolled into the new loan, a quarter point for waiving escrow, plus some money back to ensure that I didn't have to mess with getting a cashier's check. The closing costs were comparable to the other places I looked, and the rates were quite competitive.
Most importantly, yesterday marked one of the worst days in the MBS (mortgage-backed securities) market, which resulted in rates climbing into the 5.25%-5.5% range. I timed my closing pretty well! The site I follow, Mortgage News Daily, seems to think rates will come down again this year, but it's a whole different feeling to follow the MBS market when I have no direct financial stake in the matter.
A couple people have expressed surprise that I decided to waive escrow, seeing how it cost me .25% of my loan amount. I did some number crunching before coming to this decision, and in my case it definitely made sense. First, I had just paid property taxes, and my insurance doesn't have to be renewed until December, yet they were going to collect 6 months worth up front, or about $3000. I don't think I'd like to pay $3000 out of pocket now if I don't have to, which means I probably would have rolled that cost into the new loan amount. A $3000 loan equates to $15.42/month in extra payments, which means I will recoup my escrow payment in about 3 years directly. That .25% is listed as a discount point, though, which means its tax-deductible. I also get some interest on the $3000 that can stay in my savings account (I actually used it to max out my Roth IRA for the year, so hopefully that will result in even better returns). I also keep the flexibility of scheduling my property tax payments. This gives me the opportunity to shift my tax burden between years a bit by paying either half or all my property taxes in December. Mostly, I don't like the idea of giving my money to somebody and getting nothing out of it, so there is psychological value for me in waiving escrow.
Some of the closing costs are offset by not making a payment in the beginning of June (at the cost of increased principal, of course). This will mean $1500 extra into my pocket this month. I think I will lower my payment to $1400/month on my new loan, however. This will mean an extra $100/month for me, but still be prepaying my mortgage faster than I was on my old loan. Here, I'm fighting the strong psychological benefit of paying off debt with the intellectual knowledge that prepaying on a 4.625% (tax-deductible) loan almost certainly is not the best use of my money. I just love seeing the balance jump down!
Most importantly, yesterday marked one of the worst days in the MBS (mortgage-backed securities) market, which resulted in rates climbing into the 5.25%-5.5% range. I timed my closing pretty well! The site I follow, Mortgage News Daily, seems to think rates will come down again this year, but it's a whole different feeling to follow the MBS market when I have no direct financial stake in the matter.
A couple people have expressed surprise that I decided to waive escrow, seeing how it cost me .25% of my loan amount. I did some number crunching before coming to this decision, and in my case it definitely made sense. First, I had just paid property taxes, and my insurance doesn't have to be renewed until December, yet they were going to collect 6 months worth up front, or about $3000. I don't think I'd like to pay $3000 out of pocket now if I don't have to, which means I probably would have rolled that cost into the new loan amount. A $3000 loan equates to $15.42/month in extra payments, which means I will recoup my escrow payment in about 3 years directly. That .25% is listed as a discount point, though, which means its tax-deductible. I also get some interest on the $3000 that can stay in my savings account (I actually used it to max out my Roth IRA for the year, so hopefully that will result in even better returns). I also keep the flexibility of scheduling my property tax payments. This gives me the opportunity to shift my tax burden between years a bit by paying either half or all my property taxes in December. Mostly, I don't like the idea of giving my money to somebody and getting nothing out of it, so there is psychological value for me in waiving escrow.
Some of the closing costs are offset by not making a payment in the beginning of June (at the cost of increased principal, of course). This will mean $1500 extra into my pocket this month. I think I will lower my payment to $1400/month on my new loan, however. This will mean an extra $100/month for me, but still be prepaying my mortgage faster than I was on my old loan. Here, I'm fighting the strong psychological benefit of paying off debt with the intellectual knowledge that prepaying on a 4.625% (tax-deductible) loan almost certainly is not the best use of my money. I just love seeing the balance jump down!
401(k) Surpasses Merrill Lynch
Friday marked the first time my 401(k) account was worth more than my Merrill Lynch investment account. Before the recession, this was a milestone I wasn't expecting to happen for another couple of years yet. Since my Merrill account has been halved by the economic downturn, though, my regular 401(k) contributions have a larger relative effect. Of course my 401(k) was halved, too - I don't mean to badmouth Merrill Lynch.
There's nothing more to say on this topic, really. I just found it interesting how the economy tanking altered my various accounts relative value. For example, my Roth IRA is not roughly half of my Merrill or 401(k) account, which is far higher than originally projected. Fun times!
There's nothing more to say on this topic, really. I just found it interesting how the economy tanking altered my various accounts relative value. For example, my Roth IRA is not roughly half of my Merrill or 401(k) account, which is far higher than originally projected. Fun times!
Thursday, May 7, 2009
.NET Compilation for 64-bit Platform Support
At work, I was faced with a problem of a .NET program looking at the wrong registry values, and picking up the wrong machine.config. You see, a 32-bit application running on 64-bit Windows is supposed to be presented with its own 32-bit view of the machine, from registry entries to system DLLs. This is all pretty spectacular, which is why they call it WOW. For more information on WOW64, Wikipedia is your friend.
.NET is a bit tricky, though. By default, .NET applications are compiled with the /platform:anyCPU [MSDN /platform documentation]. This means they will run as 32-bit applications on 32-bit systems, and as 64-bit applications on 64-bit systems. When a .NET application is part of a larger system of applications, this can cause incompatibilities. All the regular C-compiled executables will run in 32-bit, but your .NET app will be interacting with the 64-bit environment and be out of sync.
To solve this, you can simply specify /platform:x86 when part of a 32-bit package, and /platform:x64 when part of a 64-bit package.
The next question is: How do I know if a .NET program was compiled with the /platform option specified as x86, x64, or anyCPU?
For regular applications, a Google search yielded the following blog post on using dumpbin to determine if it is a 32-bit or 64-bit application. For .NET applications, using dumpbin /HEADERS isn't quite enough. Programs compiled with the anyCPU option will still show up as:
14C machine (x86)
32 bit word machine
Dumpbin has other options, though, and /CLRHEADER comes to the rescue. For anyCPU applications, the relevant portion is:
1 flags
IL Only
x86 applications get:
B flags
IL Only
32-Bit Required
Dumpbin is a highly useful diagnostic tool, as I find out often.
Update: I just tried dumpbin on an /platform:x86 application running on 32-bit Windows, and the "flags" attribute had no lines beneath it, but it looks like the "1" vs "B" is still accurate. Perhaps this expansion is new in Visual Studio 2008's dumpbin.
.NET is a bit tricky, though. By default, .NET applications are compiled with the /platform:anyCPU [MSDN /platform documentation]. This means they will run as 32-bit applications on 32-bit systems, and as 64-bit applications on 64-bit systems. When a .NET application is part of a larger system of applications, this can cause incompatibilities. All the regular C-compiled executables will run in 32-bit, but your .NET app will be interacting with the 64-bit environment and be out of sync.
To solve this, you can simply specify /platform:x86 when part of a 32-bit package, and /platform:x64 when part of a 64-bit package.
The next question is: How do I know if a .NET program was compiled with the /platform option specified as x86, x64, or anyCPU?
For regular applications, a Google search yielded the following blog post on using dumpbin to determine if it is a 32-bit or 64-bit application. For .NET applications, using dumpbin /HEADERS isn't quite enough. Programs compiled with the anyCPU option will still show up as:
14C machine (x86)
32 bit word machine
Dumpbin has other options, though, and /CLRHEADER comes to the rescue. For anyCPU applications, the relevant portion is:
1 flags
IL Only
x86 applications get:
B flags
IL Only
32-Bit Required
Dumpbin is a highly useful diagnostic tool, as I find out often.
Update: I just tried dumpbin on an /platform:x86 application running on 32-bit Windows, and the "flags" attribute had no lines beneath it, but it looks like the "1" vs "B" is still accurate. Perhaps this expansion is new in Visual Studio 2008's dumpbin.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Taxes 2008
This post is analogous to last year's tax post.
Taxes for 2008 turned out to be much simpler than last year for the following reasons:
I was actually fairly pleased with TurboTax. It still had a few problems (there was no official way to enter short sales [such as cash-secured puts], so I'm not sure I did that right, but the total profits/losses are correct), but was improved from last year overall.
In addition to TurboTax, I used Kansas' WebFile page to e-file my Kansas return. I basically just entered things in line by line from the form TurboTax generated, but didn't have to print it out or mail it. I think that will be the more environmentally friendly route, plus get me my refund sooner.
Speaking of refunds, I get big refunds! From the federal government, I get $5397 back, and I get $854 from Kansas. Governments, you're welcome for the 0% loans over the last year! Please place money in my savings account soon.
What will I do with all that money? Well, you should read this post on things I want to buy, and this post on mortgage refinancing, all while keeping in mind that a cash reserve is nice to have and build.
Why was my refund so large when I owed so much last year? Another list:
Taxes for 2008 turned out to be much simpler than last year for the following reasons:
- I only lived in one state, and so did not need to split my income.
- I closed one of my accounts to pay for the down payment on my house in 2007, so I no longer have to worry about all those forms and trades. That account had tons of trading activity.
- I was familiar with which sites I needed to log in to in order to get various 1099 forms - mainly Countrywide.
- TurboTax imported last year's return so I didn't have as much data entry on my personal information.
I was actually fairly pleased with TurboTax. It still had a few problems (there was no official way to enter short sales [such as cash-secured puts], so I'm not sure I did that right, but the total profits/losses are correct), but was improved from last year overall.
In addition to TurboTax, I used Kansas' WebFile page to e-file my Kansas return. I basically just entered things in line by line from the form TurboTax generated, but didn't have to print it out or mail it. I think that will be the more environmentally friendly route, plus get me my refund sooner.
Speaking of refunds, I get big refunds! From the federal government, I get $5397 back, and I get $854 from Kansas. Governments, you're welcome for the 0% loans over the last year! Please place money in my savings account soon.
What will I do with all that money? Well, you should read this post on things I want to buy, and this post on mortgage refinancing, all while keeping in mind that a cash reserve is nice to have and build.
Why was my refund so large when I owed so much last year? Another list:
- This was my first full year of paying my mortgage, which means a full year of mortgage interest deducted.
- This year sucked for investments, so I had no realized capital gains. I'd rather pay taxes than not be building wealth, though.
- This was my first full year of paying property taxes, which are deductible.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Things I Want To Buy #2
This is a follow-up post to Things I Want To Buy.
I didn't end up buying a restringing machine, and gave up the idea after my uncle said it was definitely more trouble than it was worth. I got a new primary computer, but have had some problems with it. Mainly, it runs hotter than my friend's similarly spec'd one. Rather aggravating.
Anyway, an updated list!
I didn't end up buying a restringing machine, and gave up the idea after my uncle said it was definitely more trouble than it was worth. I got a new primary computer, but have had some problems with it. Mainly, it runs hotter than my friend's similarly spec'd one. Rather aggravating.
Anyway, an updated list!
- I still need my deck repainted/stained. I want to get that scheduled by the end of the month, at least.
- I still need a new electric lawn mower. I plan on giving my old one to my brother for his rental house, and I never want to use it again. Thus, I will need this before I can mow my lawn.
- I want a storm door for my front doorway. Storm doors are apparently rather expensive, so I may wait until the end of summer, as a warm draft is not nearly as bothersome as a cold draft.
- At some point, I'll need a new car. My current car keeps getting something else wrong with it. Most recently, I noticed that it no longer beeps at me when my seat belt isn't buckled. This doesn't actually bother me, but it's a sign that the car is aging. I'm hoping to get another year or more out of it, though, especially since I don't drive all that much.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Raid Write Intent Bitmaps
During my last raid crash, I couldn't seem to get the damn thing to resync. I tried multiple times, but it would always lock up. I almost took the drastic step of borrowing a raid array to back things up as much as possible and then rebuild from scratch! However, in my many hours of research into potential solutions, I found that most people prevented the problem using a little thing called write intent bitmaps.
As far as I know, they are not available with hardware raid solutions, such as dedicated cards or those built into motherboards. Linux software raid, however, makes it ridiculously easy. Once I finally did get things resync'd (dumb luck, really. I didn't try anything new - it just started working), I immediately turned on the write intent bitmap feature.
mdadm --grow --bitmap=internal /dev/md0
This may reduce write performance slightly (up to 10%), but given that something is funky with my machine and it crashes during most full resyncs, I'm all for the saved resync time. Since I've turned this on, I haven't had a single problem with the array or the machine. There have been a couple blown fuses due to a space heater on the same circuit, but the machine came up and stayed up just fine, barely requiring a few seconds to resync. I can't tell you how happy I was.
So, switch on over to mdadm, add an internal bitmap, and rejoice in the short resync times.
As far as I know, they are not available with hardware raid solutions, such as dedicated cards or those built into motherboards. Linux software raid, however, makes it ridiculously easy. Once I finally did get things resync'd (dumb luck, really. I didn't try anything new - it just started working), I immediately turned on the write intent bitmap feature.
mdadm --grow --bitmap=internal /dev/md0
This may reduce write performance slightly (up to 10%), but given that something is funky with my machine and it crashes during most full resyncs, I'm all for the saved resync time. Since I've turned this on, I haven't had a single problem with the array or the machine. There have been a couple blown fuses due to a space heater on the same circuit, but the machine came up and stayed up just fine, barely requiring a few seconds to resync. I can't tell you how happy I was.
So, switch on over to mdadm, add an internal bitmap, and rejoice in the short resync times.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Refinancing Calculator
I'm actually pretty proud of the utility of this calculator. I hope you find it as helpful as I have in finding the interest rate needed to make refinancing make sense.
First off, I apologize for any style issues. Using blogger has it's drawbacks, especially when putting scripts or styles in a post - the formatting has to be unreadable or the automatic line-breaks-to-br-tags conversion makes them not work at all. I also can't make the table any wider without really screwing things up, apparently. Now, on to the explanation:
Hopefully all the columns are self-explanatory except the last few. The "Monthly Savings" column refers to the difference in total payment amounts. The adjacent "Months to Recoup Costs" column uses this value to figure out how many months it would take before your out-of-pocket costs are back in your pocket. Thus, this column is best used when you are NOT financing your closing costs as part of the new loan.
The "Monthly Interest Savings" column is how much less (or more) interest you pay per month as part of your monthly payment. When you finance the closing costs, then, the last "Months to Recoup Costs" column shows how many months it will take to get the new loan balance back to your current loan's levels.
Any comments or suggestions on how to improve this post? Barring blogger limitations, I will do my best!
| Your javascript is disabled. |
First off, I apologize for any style issues. Using blogger has it's drawbacks, especially when putting scripts or styles in a post - the formatting has to be unreadable or the automatic line-breaks-to-br-tags conversion makes them not work at all. I also can't make the table any wider without really screwing things up, apparently. Now, on to the explanation:
Hopefully all the columns are self-explanatory except the last few. The "Monthly Savings" column refers to the difference in total payment amounts. The adjacent "Months to Recoup Costs" column uses this value to figure out how many months it would take before your out-of-pocket costs are back in your pocket. Thus, this column is best used when you are NOT financing your closing costs as part of the new loan.
The "Monthly Interest Savings" column is how much less (or more) interest you pay per month as part of your monthly payment. When you finance the closing costs, then, the last "Months to Recoup Costs" column shows how many months it will take to get the new loan balance back to your current loan's levels.
Any comments or suggestions on how to improve this post? Barring blogger limitations, I will do my best!
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Mortgage Refinancing
I submitted my info to LendingTree.com a couple days ago and have been talking with mortgage people all yesterday. At the moment, the best rate I can get is 5.125% with 0 points. My current rate of 5.75% is already a decent rate, but refinancing would lower my minimum monthly payment by about $100, while increasing the amount of principal I pay each month. I would recoup my refinancing costs inside a year, but I'm still not sure if it's worth it.
The worsening economy hints that interest rates may fall further, but every month I wait, I'm effectively adding $100 to my closing costs. I'm not sure if refinancing works the same way as a first mortgage, but with my first one, it was best to close at the very end of the month to reduce the amount of prepaid interest you have to pay. Sometime next week I think I might be going to the Community Home Lending offices and discussing the timing of everything. It may be that I have a few weeks to think about it just waiting for an optimal closing date.
What are other people's thoughts on refinancing? Any questions I should definitely ask?
The worsening economy hints that interest rates may fall further, but every month I wait, I'm effectively adding $100 to my closing costs. I'm not sure if refinancing works the same way as a first mortgage, but with my first one, it was best to close at the very end of the month to reduce the amount of prepaid interest you have to pay. Sometime next week I think I might be going to the Community Home Lending offices and discussing the timing of everything. It may be that I have a few weeks to think about it just waiting for an optimal closing date.
What are other people's thoughts on refinancing? Any questions I should definitely ask?
Friday, December 5, 2008
Chase Freedom Rewards
My Chase Freedom credit card gives me an extra $50 bonus if I save up my rewards until I get $200. I'm quite close, and after this month, I may just hit the $200 mark. I've been putting tons of stuff on my credit card, including buying gifts online on behalf of my parents as a method of paying them back the money I borrowed earlier. I also purchased a new TV for the living room; a Sharp Aquos 42" LCD 1080p.
All told, I've got $1300 in purchases racked up over just two orders. Since I get at least 1% back on that (plus 2% of the ~$500 I spent at newegg.com), I'm estimating a healthy reward for doing my part in helping the economy recover. Oh, and I'm thinking of spending another $350 or so to get a second 24" monitor so I can be more productive during my online TV watching. In fact, I may just do that tomorrow...
All told, I've got $1300 in purchases racked up over just two orders. Since I get at least 1% back on that (plus 2% of the ~$500 I spent at newegg.com), I'm estimating a healthy reward for doing my part in helping the economy recover. Oh, and I'm thinking of spending another $350 or so to get a second 24" monitor so I can be more productive during my online TV watching. In fact, I may just do that tomorrow...
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