Tax hits

The tax man reduced our cash savings from nearly 12k to 4k this month. Between 2007 taxes owed and quarterly 2008 taxes it has put the squeeze on us, which is never fun. I was dead broke for several years in my twenties and will work three jobs before that happens again. Fortunately May is a quiet travel month, which should reset us a bit.

We are 'trying' to save additional capital for a house purchase towards the end of this year or the beginning of next year. Since we decided this we've amassed exactly zero towards this goal due to a variety of expenses and poor spending habits.

I am also going to be investing 5-10k in a product launch this summer. Unfortunately I don't have a reliable method of predicting the return on this product at the moment. That's something I'm working on.

Stock market

So the stock market has been going wild lately. The wife and I don't do any day trading so it doesn't affect our strategy at the moment. I recently invested more into RPF (Cohen and Steers Premium Income Realty Fund). Managed to buy in at a very low point ($14.20) and it's now back up to $16.60. Pure dumb luck / dollar cost averaging. The dividend on this is $0.16 per share per month.

2007 tax report

The tax results are in - we took a $5k hit due to underpaying throughout the year on my consulting business. Fortunately we have enough liquidity to handle this without undue stress. Scratch the end of year vacation though. Everything else goes well.