<p>I am not putting my limited cash into the stock market to partake in legalized gambling. My retirement funds are volatile enough, thank you very much,</p>
<p>Most of my cash on hand will be used in the next 3+ years to pay my EFC. I can’t risk losing it.</p>
<p>The Fed scre** savers. </p>
<p>Then we hear complaints from the Fed that American people don’t save enough.</p>
<p>The bs is amazing.</p>
<p>agreed, savers and people who pay their bills on time subsidize those that don’t. </p>
<p>sucks to be conscientious.</p>
<p>Our society rewards risk takers, not savers. It does suck. These rate cuts cost me a bundle. Now I am supposed to take my hard earned money and speculate in overpriced real estate.</p>
<p>Investing=Savings. It does not have to be in some money market account. I’m no fan of Wall Street but a good mutual fund over time will do you very well most of the time. Buy what’s on sale. I’m going down to LV next month to look at some deals. They are priced 30-50% off the peak. LV will grow and has great fundamentals as a city. Job growth, income growth, everything you want. Now don’t try to go to Detroit or Cleveland and beat the odds, that’s stupid investing.</p>
<p><a href=“^GSPC Interactive Stock Chart | S&P 500 Stock - Yahoo Finance”>^GSPC Interactive Stock Chart | S&P 500 Stock - Yahoo Finance;
<p>where would you put money if you don’t have ‘time’ on your side. </p>
<p>My tolerance for risk is 0 with the 50K in savings that I have. </p>
<p>That’s my entire life savings (except for retirement but Uncle Sam adds what I put into my pre-tax retirement fund back into my fafsa available income as spendable income anyway)</p>
<p>“Investing=Savings” </p>
<p>The risk and reward are different between investing and savings. That’s what I am talking about.</p>
<p>A lot of what we call investing is speculation.</p>
<p>A friend of mine was in LV 2 weeks ago and said prices have come down in certain areas enough to make things interesting. His opinion, and it is just an opinion, another 10% down and that’s it.</p>
<p>sueinphilly, you can’t invest. I thought you said somewhere you need that money in 3 years. You have to save.</p>
<p>dstark, thanks for confirming what I already knew. my nest egg is for the next 3 years of EFC. </p>
<p>The day my son is financially independent from me will be a very good day indeed. Disposable income for me! Whatta concept, one that I have never had in my 46+ years on this planet.</p>
<p>“The day my son is financially independent from me will be a very good day indeed.”</p>
<p>I know what you mean. Enjoy all the days including these.</p>
<p>If you have 5 years I’d put half into a noload market type fund and half in the highest paying insured CDs I could find. Right now they are paying 4 to nearly 5% for insured $25,000 CDs depending on the term. But hurry–they may go lower soon.
You can buy some Series I government bonds paying about 4.3% tax deferred. Maximum of $5000/yr. Need to hold 5 years to avoid a small penalty.</p>
<p>I just saw the 3 year horizon. Then I would just shop for CD’s or figure the penalty on the I bonds. You should be able to get around 4.5%.</p>
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<p>…and just like anyone who holds stocks, including me. Guilty as charged…</p>
<p>The entire country seems to be running on debt financing. Wall Street needs real interest rates near zero to maximize deals and commissions.</p>
<p>It is pretty amazing what we are doing with debt. The first time we lowered interest rates we got a big bang for the buck. Now its our second way down. Won’t be nearly as effective this time because this time people are up to their eyeballs in debt. The third time its lights out.</p>
<p>My two cents…it’s all about GREED. If it’s not the crashing dot.com market that was speculation all over the place (at least no one bailed out the chumps who didn’t sell their ‘E-Toy’ gamble on time!) but now it’s the mortgage mess. Way too many people not willing to get a ‘starter home’ or a home that they could reasonable afford…at least in southern Cal that seems to be the case. I’m an old hand at up and down markets and have played it conservatively all the way along…20% down, if not more and purchasing a house that would only cost 1/4 of our monthly income. Do I feel sorry for all the spoiled yups that HAD to have their gourmet kitchens with granite counters, their $200K backyard resorts, their customized media rooms? NO WAY. I hope their credit gets so messed up that their in the hole for years.</p>
<p>But on the other hand…that probably makes their kids more likely to get that financial aid for college…our system is really upside down. I agree the savers in this country get screwed.</p>
<p>when I bought my house in Jan 2002 (first house ever, at the age of 40), I was encouraged to buy way more house than I wanted because 'the mortgage calculator says you can afford it). ??? But I didn’t. I only put 3% down and got a mortgage payment of ~$750 (which included private mortgage insurance). I refinanced 18 months later and because of getting a higher appraisal (prices in my neighborhood had already started to go up) and a lower interest rate, I lowered my payment to $670 (got rid of PMI ). These were both 30 year fixed rate loans.</p>
<p>This is the only loan I’ve had since paying off my ‘new car’ in 1989. I’ve paid cash for used cars since 1993.</p>
<p>I my entire life, I have never bounced a check, made a late payment or paid interest on a credit card. And I lived on <$40K until about 5 years ago. </p>
<p>I think I must be some kind of freak</p>
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<p>If so, then you are a freak who can sleep like a baby instead of waking up in the middle of the night worrying about how to make all the payments!</p>
<p>There certainly are two types of people in the world–risk averse and risk takers. If you want to sleep soundly don’t be a big risk taker–the two are mutually exclusive. Nearly every developer I know has lost nearly everything at least once and had to start over. Same for people who start companies or other businesses-few hit a homerun the first time. But it’s the only way to get rich too if that is important to you. Most of the rest of us are risk averse and can still build a nice nest egg with cautious investing. But you probably won’t get rich. So do you need to be rich? I don’t so I’m pretty conservative. But I don’t hate the rich or envy them because I know what it took to get here for most of them. Sleepless nights, ulcers, the sting of failure and having to bounce back. If it were as easy as Mini and other socialists think everyone would be doing it. It’s not and I don’t begrudge them their success and 10,000 sf homes. Lots of guys like me make a good living serving their needs.</p>
<p>Barrons, I really like your post #38.</p>
<p>Real risk takers are willing to take the losses. It’s the risk takers who aren’t willing to deal with the losses that make me mad … the ones OaksMom references. We have a lot of them in MI, and they are whining about losing their rear ends in the current housing market. It burns me that people take gambles & lose the gamble, then expect the rest of us to give them some kind of handout to bail them out. </p>
<p>Sueinphilly, you are not a freak. While I purchased a home many years before you, I am just as careful & cautious with my money. H & I bought a home we can actually afford, and we don’t buy anything we can’t pay for (including our fleet of used cars!). I know plenty of spoiled brats in their 30’s & 40’s who have been living in an interest-only mini-mansion (often on the water), driving fancy cars & taking wonderful vacations. Suddenly, it’s time to pay the piper … the house of cards is coming down, and these whiners want to know what the rest of us are going to do to help them out. I say, “Deal with it yourself.” </p>
<p>If I saw the bail out proposals geared toward helping people who are losing their homes due to job loss/pay “adustments,” I might feel differently. But helping people who lived the high life & now need to pay up … or mortgage companies that enjoyed the high profits they made while extending mortgages to those who quite frankly could not afford to pay … NO!!!</p>