Lucky Day 13

I am not even half way through the month and Blogger has already truncated January 2011 because I have exceeded the length of what they feel is normal. I guess this is not a normal month of posting for many reasons. It is a new decade and too darn cold to be boots on the ground outside except for side trips. Barb joked that we might go sledding and I made sure that she knows we don't have a sled and sledding is on my reverse bucket list. I am just too darn old to really get hurt doing something cold and stupid. I think she was making a joke because I know she hates the cold even worse than I do.

here is Lucky Day 13's worth:

INVESTMENTS are a great part of life and worth all the time you spend on them. In the Budget step, you need to set aside a portion of your income to cover investments. I consider a house to be the biggest investment as a start to investing. It should be the foundation of your program and your net worth for a large part of your life. (I have at least one reader that disagrees but he was in California for the housing crash and not here in the Heartland where houses generally have held up their value. Houses are generally 20 to 25% of your outgo. I advocate much like Dave Ramsey that you save a nest egg to help cover the cost of repairs and replacements that pop up. Just this morning the wife reports that the Microwave is making funny noises. If we were at an earlier place in our life, that could be a major budget buster. Now days, it will be a quick trip to Best Buy and no big deal. I would recommend that you have 1 to 5% of your salary in a savings account just for this item. I would then start a regular savings program for retirement. It will blow the wheels off you how this area can add up. I have an IRA that we put money in Tax Free in the 80's that have turned $8,000 into over $30,000 now. The only mistake we made was that when we did our computations, we did not figure the taxes we would have to pay on those investment would be about 30% when we used them. Lets see, $8,000 then, $30,000 now less 30% taxes - still about $12,000 to the good, and the return of the 8,000 - Bonus. The good news is that we will have the money to pay that 30%. The final investing advice is to spread your money out and DO NOT PUT IT IN ONE POT. Also the age old advice is if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.. The only way an investor can beat the rest of the market is by using too much risk or stealing. Either way the return of my money has always been more important that the return on my money. My only bad investement place has been the Stock Market. I have lost all the money I put into the Over the Counter and the regular Stock Market. The good news is that in both cases, it was chump change.

Oh, By the Way, I do know I am a day ahead on these posts. I just wrote a lot of it way early and want to share.

MUD