This past weekend, my wife and I headed to the great state of Ohio to attend the wedding of my best man. It was one of those trips that I didn’t hesitate to make, even though I tend to be someone who spends much on travel or vacation. And yet already this year we have flown to California, will be flying back to Ohio in September (for a family reunion) and November (for Thanksgiving).

When I went to book flights several months ago, I found a bit of a problem with flying from the Boston area to Cincinnati: Direct flights were over $500. Flights with one layover weren’t much better either, and honestly, how do people have time to spend the whole day flying somewhere, especially when I could drive the same distance in the same amount of time?

So instead, we opted to fly to the Akron/Canton airport, which even now still has direct flights from Boston for $200. We borrowed my mom’s car (thanks mom!) and made the 4 hour drive down to Cincinnati. Sure, we had to pay $50 in gas, but it was still nearly $800 cheaper than had we flown into Cincinnati. Even better, we got to spend father’s day with my dad.

We stayed at a hotel for $99 a night, not a bad rate, and saved about $50 total thanks to AAA. Food was of course mostly provided by the wedding events, although we did make a lunch trip to the Cheesecake Factory.

As for a gift, I was surprised to hear by my co-workers that $100 was the going rate for presents nowadays. So instead of putting together a few pans and dishes from their registry to total that amount, my wife went out and found some beautiful hand-made kitchen pottery for a much more reasonable price.

Overall it was a great weekend. I still believe in the philosophy my dad has tried to teach me, which is that there a certain things in life you should be able to just enjoy instead of fretting about the cost.

This is a response to this question:

I’ve been interested in stocks for the past few years and I’m finally looking to invest in some stocks. One thing that alot of investors recommend is to invest in companies you actually like. I was just wondering if this is a bad idea? I’ve also read about the importance of diversification – pick 5 stocks, all from different sectors, and gather information about said companies.

The companies I’m looking at are Costco and Chipotle. Both have expanded to my area within the past year and I really enjoy the service and environment. I’m a huge Apple fan and I’d love to get some Apple stock but I don’t think it’s within my budget. I feel like there stock can only rise if they meet their sales for the year with the iPhone. Nissan’s stocks look within my price range at roughly $18 a share. I feel like this may be a good pick with their shift to electric cars in 2010.

There’s some truth in the advantages to investing in companies you know. I think Apple is actually a good example. When I invested in it at the beginning of last year, everyone told me it was overvalued, “everyone loves Apple!”, etc. But I saw the huge growth in their PC market, and knew the iPhone would explode no matter what. And what happened? The stock doubled last year.

But the exact same thinking can kill you. I owned Jones Soda (JSDA) mostly for technical reasons (who wouldn’t want to own another HANS), but I also loved their soda, and thought there was a hole in the market they could take advantage of. The stock hit a high of $28 and now stands at $2.90 (though luckily I sold at $24).

So in the end, you have to have other solid reasons for investing in a stock besides the fact that you like it.

Regarding Chipotle: It was a great stock in the last bull market, but one common tidbit thrown around is that the leaders of the last bull market rarely have the same run-up in the next one. It’s in a clear downtrend since peaking at the beginning of the year.

Lastly, the price of the stock should have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with your budget. What’s the difference between 10 shares of a $10 stock and one share of a $100 stock? Nothing! A stock is only “expensive” in terms of its price to earnings ratio. This is a common misconception I hear all the time.

This weekend, my wife and I both sat down in front of the computer. We both placed one finger on the mouse button, and clicked. Yes, in retrospect it was kind of lame, but I wanted to celebrate the moment: I had just paid off my first car.

The car is a 2003 Honda Civic which I named Stella, after A Streetcar Named Desire. I bought it in the summer of 2003, a few months before I moved into an off-campus apartment and needed transportation. I took out a five year loan at a rate of 0.9% interest.

(Yes, 0.9% interest. Having a father as a lawyer, who spends his whole day negotiating, can be quite handy).

So next month, I will take that payment of $278 and funnel it right into savings. It will also make paying the loan on my Honda Accord a bit easier, as for the past six months we have had make payments for both cars.

Now to the other good piece of news. Until recently, Massachusetts did not allow competition for auto insurance rates: They were dictated by the state government. That alone isn’t great, but what made it worse is that the payments were setup in a “socialist” way, in that you didn’t get breaks for being a safe driver, and you didn’t get penalized for being a bad driver. My wife and I have never been in an accident, never gotten a ticket – heck we’ve never even been pulled over. And yet we were still paying a premium of $200 a month.

Then a few months ago, Massachusetts changed their rules and allowed agencies to set their own prices. What does that mean? I found a quote for progressive for $76 a month, or about 1/3rd what I currently pay! And this is for better coverage!

This, combined with making my last car payment, means more than $400 a month extra we will be saving, which is just fantastic.

So I’ll be honest: The market scared me a bit this week. I do not believe this is the top; I do not believe we are in for a multi-year bear market; I do not believe gas prices will be $26 by this summer (but that’s another story).

I began last week with what may turn out to be a mistake: I sold half of my biggest winner, Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF). Here’s why:

As you can see, as of May 23rd the stock had lost a lot of its steam, and I was very worried it was forming a top here. I also was just astounded at how hot commodities were, and became worried that they were too hot, considering how much I was reading about them. The MACD lines had crossed, which sometimes signals a change in momentum. Lastly, I had just hit the mythical 100% number for my CLF holdings, and doubling my money always makes me feel greedy.

Why might it have been a mistake? Well, the stock is up 13% since I sold half, which is part of the reason! So what might have prevented me from selling? First, nothing about the fundamentals of iron and coal have changed, meaning Cleveland-Cliff’s main product is still in as high demand as ever. From a technical standpoint, the RSI wasn’t throwing off warnings yet, the stock was still above its 25 day moving average, and was ripe for a bounce off of its lower trend line. Whoops!

With that cash, I bought two stocks: Occidental Petroleum (OXY), an oil play that my mom (of all people!) made me aware of, and GrafTech (GTI), who makes electric arc furnaces. I don’t pretend to understand exactly what those are, but I do know that they’re part of a supply chain that is in great demand right now, and has a solid looking chart.

And that’s when I got scared. I am very happy with my performance so far this year, and being 100% invested during this correction just seemed to risky to me. So I sold all of Google (GOOG) and Helmerich & Payne (HP). Google hasn’t done a thing since it’s major jump on earnings a few weeks ago, and HP seemed to be stalling out on me.

Our analysts here are showing just slight signs of being worried, but their recommendation isn’t to start moving into cash, but instead to just reign in buying many new stocks.

YTD Performance as of 05/28/2008: Up 13.34%
Performance since inception (04/01/2007): Up 57.8%

Portfolio Holdings

Changes

5/22/2008	SELL	Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF)	93	132
5/22/2008	BUY	Occidental Petroleum (OXY)	96	104
5/22/2008	BUY	GrafTech (GTI)	25	430
5/28/2008	SELL	Google (GOOG)	566	31
5/28/2008	SELL	Helmerich & Payne (HP)	58	252

It’s been another solid week for my portfolio, even with market’s performance yesterday. The masses are still rife with fear, meaning it’s a great time to invest, so I became fully invested as of last week. The more bad news, the better!

Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF) is close to having doubled for me since I bought it. While I would normally be inclined to take at least some profits here, commodities show absolutely no sign of slowing down, and CLF is definitely a leader there.

I am a bit disappointed about Google (GOOG) and VMWare’s (VMW) performance so far this year. I was warned about picking the leaders of the last bull market, as they rarely perform the same in the next bull market, but I just felt very confident about both of these companies. I will still give them time though, especially Google.

Renesola (SOL) has amazed me, up nearly 80% in one month! People can keep talking about how the solar market is overvalued and bound to crash every day now. With my company having made 400% profits from First Solar (FSLR), and me now profiting from SOL, I strongly feel that solar stocks are here to stay. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a correction of some sort sometime soon though.

Since last updated, I added F5 Networks (FFIV), an internet networking infrastructure company, Fluor Corp (FLR), an engineering company involved with oil and natural gas, and Marvel Entertainment (MVL), of comic book fame. I added FFIV due to its strong performance over the past month, as well as it being a subject I’m familiar with (I have a natural tendency to be more interested in tech stories). I added FLR as a test of buying a stock after it’s spiked on earnings, as I did some reading about how most stocks continue to rise even after a one day gain of 10%. Lastly, I added MVL due to the success of Iron Man and betting on the fact that they will continue to make large profits off of their properties (now that they full control the movie making rights to them). I am a bit hesitant about MVL though as it pick based mostly on a few stories I read, and not as much the fundamental and technical research I like to do.

Finally, I sold Immersion Technologies (IMMR), maker of touch screens, after tepid performance for the past month, and added a favorite from last year, China Fire & Security Group (CFSG). CFSG was one of the biggest winners for me last year, and took a massive hit due to what appears to be equivalent to a gossip column about one of the major stock holders. China’s infrastructure boom is huge, especially with the Olympics, and this company seems to pick up contracts left and right to do the fire and security systems for these buildings.

YTD Performance as of 05/21/2008: Up 11.81%

Portfolio Holdings

Changes

Date	Action	Stock	Price	Shares
5/8/2008	BUY	F5 Networks (FFIV)	27	373
5/13/2008	BUY	Fluor Corp (FLR)	187	53
5/13/2008	BUY	Marvel Entertainment (MVL)	34	292
5/19/2008	BUY	China Fire and Security Group (CFSG)	11	1124
5/19/2008	SELL	Immersion Technology (IMMR)	10	620

I feel bad. I missed my child’s birthday. Considering the fact, however, that my child is a subdirectory on a shared server, I don’t feel too bad.

I started this site just over a year ago, starting with my personal, um, personal finance history. My main goal with the site, at first, was to document my learning process as I began to study, and trade, stocks. I also touched on some personal stories which I thought taught good “life lessons”, such as how I was nearly robbed blind by unauthorized ACH transactions.

My day job is as a web content manager at an investment advisory service. Obviously, my company has played a big part in my learning experience when it comes to investing. I haven’t touched much on my actual job though, as it doesn’t have all that much to do with personal finance. But I do know a fair amount about search engine optimization and site monetization, as I deal with that almost daily.

I tried a few times to do that with this site. The problem, I found, is I had to turn the site into something I really didn’t like.

I only like writing when I feel I have something interesting to contribute. I only like linking when I feel that link also offers something interesting to read. I like writing accurate titles instead of ones that appear high on organic searches. I like voicing the contrarian opinion (invest in individual stocks!) instead of repeating the same dull advice of the masses (index fund!). I like venting about things that frustrate me, hopefully in a constructive manner.

What I do not like is writing about the same subject you see almost daily on other personal finance blogs (do we honestly need another list of how to increase your gas mileage, or a comparison between Roth and Simple IRA’s?). Speaking of which – I hate writing lists. 90% of the internet now seems comprised of lists. Do we really need to dumb down our writing that much? I do not like writing several posts a week that solely consisting of links to other sites, solely in order to increase my page rank. I do not like writing posts that serve solely as advertisements. And once again, I do not like regurgitating the same personal finance information you see all over the internet.

So where does this leave me? With a site that won’t make me money (although I was able to sell an ad or two, which was nice) or make me an internet star. It also leaves me ostracized from the personal finance (please find it in your heart to forgive me for using this term) blogosphere. But I’m fine with that, because what it does leave me with is a site I enjoy writing for, and hopefully one that at least some people find entertaining and useful.

I have to admit: I just wrote a list of all the personal finance sites I’ve read over the past year, and pretty much lambasted the ones I really dislike. Then I deleted that, because I’m the type of person who goes to those improv shows but can’t even boo the acts I don’t like (even when you’re told to cheer or boo to decide the winner).

Instead, this is a pretty easy way to find the sites I’m not a huge fan of: In the past month, have they offered $25 to sign up for an ING account? In the past week, have the mentioned a $100 Discover Card offer? If so, chances are I’m not a huge fan. My two problems with hawking these advertisements is that first, I have to read them over, and over, and over again on at least a dozen sites which all latch on to the exact same offer and then mention it every other day on their site.

Second, why do sites which supposedly promote financial responsibility keep pushing credit card offers down our throats? I love credit cards, and I’ve never had a balance in my life, but a lot of people who read these types of sites aren’t in the same situation, and I can’t help but chuckle at the hypocrisy of offering credit cards to them. Even if someone knows how to manage their spending on credit cards, it doesn’t exactly help their score when you try to get them to open up a new account every month. Banks aren’t much better either. Sure, it won’t effect your credit, but slinging your social security number all of the place and having accounts at ten financial institution for a measly $10 or $25 really doesn’t seem worth it – to the reader.

With that out of the way, I’d instead like to individually focus on a few sites that I really do like.

Advanced Personal Finance: This is a really high quality site. Sure, it has a fairly drab design (sorry!), and uses normal paragraph structure instead of a list every other post (gasp!). But it has solid content from a good writer, few ads, no empty posts just consisting of links, and is only updated when it has something interesting to say.

An English Major’s Money: I love this blog. Catchy title too. It takes the word “personal” in personal finance to heart, and more than any other site I really feel as though the writer lets you identify with her financial situation. It’s also the only site I can say inspired me to write more in their style.

Ask Dong: This guy is funny, to the point, and writes interesting posts. He also avoids all the things I hate.

Monogamoney: This is a newer blog, that I found when they left a comment on my site. It’s another clever name, written with a personal touch, and is very open in its writing.

Hmm … and it seems like that’s about it. I think part of the problem is that a lot of these sites don’t offer much to stand out from one another.

So what’s next for The Money Mythos? I’ll continue posting interesting personal finance stories as I happen upon them (or as they happen upon me). I’ll also continue updates on my stock trading, in the endless pursuit to show the average person that they can succeed buying individual stocks (up nearly 10% this year!).

Thanks for reading.

(Click for big)

So it’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these, mostly because I still can’t find an easy way to dynamically display my portfolio online. So for now I’m back to taking screenshots of the spreadsheet I use to track it.

About two weeks ago, for the first time this year, my portfolio went from the red to the black, and I finally showed a profit! My portfolio currently has a gain of 3.63%, compared to -5.59% for the S&P 500. I am very happy to be outperforming that index by over 9 points.

The big winner this year has been Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF), up an amazing 88% since I bought it in mid-December. This kind of performance in a bull market would be exceptional, but seeing this growth from the past four months is amazing. Commodities are very hot right now (and have yet to show any slowdown), and CLF is really leading the way.

I am also very happy with Google (GOOG), which I talked about in a post a few weeks back. It trounced earnings estimates after the unnecessary, fear driven sell-off. I do hope it can keep up the momentum it got from that. My company doesn’t really believe in investing in “last year’s” bull market leaders, which is my only hesitation with holding GOOG.

Two of my other energy stocks – SandRidge (SD) and Helmerich & Payne (HP) are performing decently. It’s pretty funny how I discovered SD – I was watching a somewhat entertaining show called Wall Street Warriors, in which a money manager is heavily investing in Sandisk. Curious as to how the stock ended up performing, I entered “SD” expecting that to be Sandisk, but instead found SandRidge, and immediately noticed how strong the chart looked. So I bought it, and it’s returned 24% since. Not bad for a stock I stumbled upon!

Two of my recent additions – VMWare (VMW) and Immersion Corporation (IMMR) are both down a bit. I’m not too worried about VMWare, but I’ll need to take another look at IMMR (a touch-screen technology company) if it drops much further.

My wife and I married at 22, about three months out of college. A lease started on our new apartment in Philadelphia literally three days after our wedding, so we had a brief honeymoon in Rockport, Massachusetts (just a thirty minute drive north from our wedding!). For the next two and a half years I was in graduate school, paying for it from my day job to avoid a loan, and at the same time starting to pay my undergraduate loan. So vacation wasn’t exactly an option, though we did manage to get to a few family get-togethers.

So now we’re about 26 years old, and with discussions of starting our own family taking place, we decided that it was really about time we take a vacation together – before it’s too late!

About a month ago, I started looking at vacations in the Caribbean. We had never been anywhere tropical, so we figured it’d be a great place to go. Aruba sounded like a perfect destination, until I made the discovery that fares from Boston rarely got below $400 per person. Next I see that hotels average around $300 a night, and that most people spend over $100 for dinner! Adding all this up, along with the miscellaneous fees and spending money for excursions, and we were looking at well over $2500.

I scoured the deal sites that everyone recommended to me, but either they were too strict in their dates, or the “deal” evaporated when you read the fine print (or reviews for the resort).

I had nearly given up hope when last week, I was browsing through Farecast when I saw a small inconspicuous link which said “Deals from Boston”, and below that “SFO for $220.” SFO? As in, San Francisco? As in, a coast-to-coast flight for about $200? Say it ain’t so!

In a frenzy of instant messages my wife and I tried to decide whether to jump on this or not. Of course, while we were doing this, the flight doubled in price back to the standard fare, and I felt crushed. I swore if I ever saw an opportunity like this again, I would just jump on it.

So when the same fare reappeared three days later, I did. I sent a message to my wife – “We’re going to San Francisco in 7 days” – and bought the tickets. Yes, this flight was indeed for the next weekend, or six days from today. I am rarely this impulsive, but after a month of frustratingly searching for the perfect vacation, I wasn’t going to miss my chance.

Next I started looking for hotels. They were quite expensive, with even one or two star hotels averaging over $200. I looked at places outside of the city, but San Francisco is very friendly to walkers, and I didn’t necessarily want to have to drive into the city every day.

So I couldn’t believe it when I saw the Omni Hotel (a four star luxury hotel rated the #3 luxury hotel in the U.S. by TripAdvisor) had a deal for $185 per night through Expedia – about one quarter of their normal nightly rate! I have no clue what caused this deal, but I thought the opportunity to stay in a luxury hotel for less than $200 per night (compared to their standard rate of $699 per night) was too good to pass up.

We’re both very excited about this vacation, but I have to admit that it took a lot of effort for us to spend money on it. See, when it comes to quality, long lasting purchases (like the couches we bought recently, or a new computer), I am able to justify these purchases to myself. Sure, leather couches may cost $2000, but they will last at least five years, and are something we use every single day. In the end, we’re spending about one dollar per day for those.

Compare that to a vacation which might cost $2000 for four days, and we’re instead spending $500 per day, or 500 times the amount of those couches! Of course, sitting at home watching a movie on those couches will not be nearly as thrilling as walking through Muir Woods or taking a cable car to Chinatown. But at least from a financial standpoint, it’s very hard to weigh those two things against each other.

Still, I don’t regret it. We have been married three and a half years, and deserve a vacation together, and I think that we aren’t being nearly as extravagant as we could be with it.