So over the last year or so the wife and I have managed to stash away 10 grand. Pretty impressive considering she is a public school teacher and I am a musician. We are homeowners (about 1 year into our mortgage) already and have 2 kids under 3 yrs old. Some other points:
-I'm not really interested in designated "college funds" as they seem to lock you in to a long term investment with penalties for early withdrawal.
-Basically I am looking for a way to get some short term gains to try and catch up a little to families that might have started building wealth earlier in life. We're both 35.
-The wife already has about 60 grand put aside for retirement through her school retirement program (auto from paychecks).
-CD's seem a little too safe and not very high rates. As do US Bonds and the like.
-We'll be meeting with a financial adviser soon from are Credit Union anyway, but I know there are knowledgeable peeps here that might have some decent advice.
TIA
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 9:53 am
by Leedog
I'm no expert, but I have faith that the market will come back. Now is the time to buy. A mutual fund I had previously is down 30%. I just bought more. If it comes back to just where it was, it is a 30% return on the new investment. They always say the time to buy is when the market is down, not when it is up. And you are young enough to wait it out.
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 9:59 am
by stinkdified
you could buy 10 big screens and put them together to make on really, really big screen.
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:03 am
by deadphish
stinkdified wrote:you could buy 10 big screens and put them together to make on really, really big screen.
Hmmmm....I don't know that the wife will go for this. And shit, as I have learned all too well over the years, there is nothing that loses value faster than home electronics. I like the way you think though.
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:04 am
by deadphish
Leedog wrote:I'm no expert, but I have faith that the market will come back. Now is the time to buy. A mutual fund I had previously is down 30%. I just bought more. If it comes back to just where it was, it is a 30% return on the new investment. They always say the time to buy is when the market is down, not when it is up. And you are young enough to wait it out.
Any particular fund you recommend? Or, anyone thing to avoid???
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:22 am
by ksbluesfan
The best time to invest in the stock market is when it's down (buy low, sell high). There are a lot of undervalued stocks out there right now, even on the Dow. I'd probably avoid banks and automakers though. Microsoft and Exxon are both down quite a bit. I have a feeling both will return to glory before long.
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:31 am
by ksbluesfan
deadphish wrote:
Leedog wrote:I'm no expert, but I have faith that the market will come back. Now is the time to buy. A mutual fund I had previously is down 30%. I just bought more. If it comes back to just where it was, it is a 30% return on the new investment. They always say the time to buy is when the market is down, not when it is up. And you are young enough to wait it out.
Any particular fund you recommend? Or, anyone thing to avoid???
You might look for a S&P 500 Index Fund that has no loads such as the Vanguard 500 Index Fund or the AMEX:SPY fund.
Buy low, sell high? Really? This is the advice some of you are giving out? Am I missing the sarcasm?
And let me just say that deadphish's example completely debunks two myths here:
1. teachers are underpaid
2. people are suffering
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:50 am
by deadphish
goon attack wrote:Buy low, sell high? Really? This is the advice some of you are giving out? Am I missing the sarcasm?
And let me just say that deadphish's example completely debunks two myths here:
1. teachers are underpaid
2. people are suffering
Goon, you are right. She's getting her masters this year and will jump up the payscale in the fall. An increase of 43k per year to 52k per year. In 5 years she'll be at 70+. Not to mention Missouri is in the bottom 5 states for teacher salary (according to the NEA).
Are we suffering? Not really. Not when you consider this is basically a one income household (I make less than $10k/per year) and we have 2 kids. I feel like most families our age have more like $25-$50k saved/invested (middle class demographic of course). We'd like to be there in 5 years or so (not just from investments, but saving tax refunds, too.)
KS, I will def check out those funds. How much should we keep in liquid savings? Risk is low for us as far as having the standard 6 months pay saved up for job loss. Teachers have excellent job security.
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 12:04 pm
by Mellanby_equals_grit
You could always deposit it in my bank account.. I'll spend it all, but in the meantime you get 3.5% interest and I'll let you keep that.
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 12:36 pm
by rebelmusic
[youtube][/youtube]
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 2:25 pm
by negronic
teacher pay varies greatly based on the district you are in. smaller, rural districts tend to pay shit, whereas Parkway has pretty decent salaries and unlimited sick days (I know a lady who had cancer and took a year with pay).
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 8:50 pm
by blues22
I apparently need to get into your wife's district. I'm in my 4th year and have my masters, and I only make 39k a year.
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:37 pm
by goon attack
I forgot the tenure issue. Once you're tenured, you're gold!
That kind of job security must be nice...real nice.
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 12:05 am
by marco
In uncertain times I would personally put it in something liquid that I can get access too later in case I lose my job, etc...
GMAC offers 3% Yield on savings account per bankrate.com, that's probably what I would personally do with it. It would only earn you $300 at the end of the year. But if you added another $500/mo to that account it would be worth $16,387 after 12 months. It's not very sexy, but it is secure and it's insured through FDIC.
You could take your chances with equities/stocks but you might have $8000 at the end of the year or could have $12,000... you roll the dice. But you could still get access to your money. And lets say your equities/stocks earn 8% (versus the 3%) and you still deposit $500 month for more stock that account would be worth $17,054... $667 more after 12 months, if it only earned 6% it would be worth $398 more. But that's the risk you take with equities/stocks because a bad bet may mean it's worth that much less than the safe route.
But if you're in it for the long haul, like retirement, then I would probably just go the 80/20 stocks/bonds traditional approach in like a Roth IRA. I would max it out this year ($5,000/yr max I believe), stash the remaining money in a savings account, and max out the Roth the next year and keep doing that if it's for retirement.
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 1:07 am
by ViPeRx007
Take it to Vegas.
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 7:16 am
by goon attack
if you go with marco's last suggestion, stash the rest in an online ingdirect savings account.
Microsoft to slash 5,000 jobs, misses on 2Q profit
Microsoft to slash 5,000 jobs, reports lower-than-expected profit and sales for 2nd quarter
REDMOND, Wash. (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it is cutting 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months, a sign of how badly even the biggest and richest companies are being stung by the recession.
The layoffs appear to be a first for Microsoft, which was founded in 1975, aside from relatively limited staff cuts the software company made after acquiring companies.
The company announced the cuts as it reported an 11 percent drop in second-quarter profit, which fell short of Wall Street's expectations. Microsoft shares plunged 7 percent in pre-market trading.
Microsoft said it was being hurt by deteriorating global economic conditions and lower revenue from software for PCs. The holiday quarter of 2008 was the worst the PC market had seen in several years.
The Redmond-based company says profit slipped to $4.17 billion, or 47 cents per share, from year-ago earnings of $4.71 billion, or 50 cents per share.
It says total revenue edged up 2 percent to $16.63 billion, as software for corporate computer servers helped offset an 8 percent drop in revenue for PC software.
The results missed Wall Street's forecast for earnings of 49 cents per share on sales of $17.08 billion.
Microsoft says the job cuts will reduce operating costs by $1.5 billion as it prepares for lower revenue and earnings in the second half of the year. The company says it is unable to offer profit and revenue guidance for the rest of the year, because of the market volatility.
And, FWIW, Marco's suggestion makes the most sense.
Re: Financial Advice: best way to invest 10g's
Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 9:06 pm
by Blue Beagle
ksbluesfan wrote:I hope you didn't buy stock in Microsoft.
Microsoft to slash 5,000 jobs, misses on 2Q profit
Microsoft to slash 5,000 jobs, reports lower-than-expected profit and sales for 2nd quarter
REDMOND, Wash. (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it is cutting 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months, a sign of how badly even the biggest and richest companies are being stung by the recession.
The layoffs appear to be a first for Microsoft, which was founded in 1975, aside from relatively limited staff cuts the software company made after acquiring companies.
The company announced the cuts as it reported an 11 percent drop in second-quarter profit, which fell short of Wall Street's expectations. Microsoft shares plunged 7 percent in pre-market trading.
Microsoft said it was being hurt by deteriorating global economic conditions and lower revenue from software for PCs. The holiday quarter of 2008 was the worst the PC market had seen in several years.
The Redmond-based company says profit slipped to $4.17 billion, or 47 cents per share, from year-ago earnings of $4.71 billion, or 50 cents per share.
It says total revenue edged up 2 percent to $16.63 billion, as software for corporate computer servers helped offset an 8 percent drop in revenue for PC software.
The results missed Wall Street's forecast for earnings of 49 cents per share on sales of $17.08 billion.
Microsoft says the job cuts will reduce operating costs by $1.5 billion as it prepares for lower revenue and earnings in the second half of the year. The company says it is unable to offer profit and revenue guidance for the rest of the year, because of the market volatility.
And, FWIW, Marco's suggestion makes the most sense.
You know I heard that this morning, and I thought two things really.
1) M$ has to be the most stable blue chip to date, and them announcing job losses is just scary.
2) M$ means to keep $ at the end of their name. How glorious it would be to see a new trendy sell panic for a week, a guy like me might really want to buy some of their stock.
On a side note, Apple reported higher earnings than was expected. Hope you weren't one of them selling when Steve Job's went on medical leave. The volatility is so crazy right now.
