Grown-up topics
I’m going to Italy again this summer! I’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon for 1.5 weeks of cooking and lounging in a Tuscan farm house. As usual, I promise pictures from the trip. I know I’ve also promised pictures of the apartment, but I’m just not happy enough yet with how it looks. It’s high ceilings have makes it seem empty and not cozy enough. Plus, need to buy a headboard for the bed, curtains, and an assortment of large wall decorations. I’m all ears if you have suggestion on decorating a wall cheaply or where to buy headboards.
On the topic of adulty-things like shopping for the apt, Mike and I have been considering investing some of our savings. It’d be good to invest our money is something very low-risk, just to make sure we’re not losing money to inflation. But the moment I open a wiki article on anything finance related, this little nasal voice pops up in my head and says “PPFFFFFFFF WHAT A BORING FUCKING LOAD OF BULLSHIT. Go eat some cake instead.”
(God I love cake)
Bonds, indexes, stocks, Roth IRA…I have no clue what any of it means. Which one is safest? And how do I invest in these things? Do I have to do it through something like Fidelity (which I presume requires extraneous fees)?
Yeah, this post is essentially soliciting you for advice. If you’re a woman, advise me on interior design ideas. If you’re a man, or an awesomer version of a regular woman (I’m looking at you, Koren and Linda), advise me on what and how to invest.
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:31 pm
I find your closing paragraph to be slightly offensive. I know nothing about money because I have none, not because I’m a woman.
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Oh Jen, I don’t mean it seriously — you know that. I know nothing about money because I’m too lazy to educate myself in it. It’s got nothing to do with being a woman.
I thought sexism and racism was funny?
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:52 pm
and because it is a topic that can be rightfully considering fucking boring. I don’t think it’s laziness at that point, it’s just .. not .. interesting. And that’s ok.
Certainly not the most profitable move, but if you know someone vaguely close that’s into banking, trust her/him to do it for you. I gave probably a good half of my savings to my parent’s long time banker. And I have no idea where and how it is right now. All I know is the guy bought a villa in the south of France, and in the meantime, my millions probably produced about 3€ for me. Oh well.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:34 pm
As for investments I have this GREAT business idea. I just need some overhead capital for soil, lubricant, balloons, and a small orphanage!
They’re not ludicrously profitable or anything, but CD’s are safe.
Oh! Or cattle!
Crap, now I am just naming things I have money in.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:18 pm
This is what I remember. Feel free to correct me if its wrong.
Roth IRAs are for retirement, which means you gotta put money into it directly from what you earn. You get money taken away by tax when you put it in, but not when you take it out years later (vs. 401(k), which is taxed after it gets interest).
Stocks are percentage ownership of a company. When the company makes profit, it pays dividends to all the stock owners. More money comes from buying/selling stocks than actual dividends.
Mutual funds are giant pots of money you put your own money into and you earn dividends also. Since the money you put in is invested in lots of different stocks, hopefully, you earn less overall dividend than stocks but there’s much less risk of the value going down like a stock is. Indexes, I think, are like mutual funds for a specific category of stock (energy, medical, corn, etc.)
Bonds are like loans to companies/governments. They’re really stable. They pay low interest, and only when they mature do you get your money back- expect timeframes of years here.
Investment institutions like Fidelity do take money from you, yes, but it’s usually reasonable, based on how much babysitting they have to do for your money and how much profit you actually make. If I were you I’d shop around a little for a broker as such and tell him or her to stick your money in a mutual fund and leave it alone. Actively trading stocks is risky and difficult- almost entirely chance for 95% of people- so leaving your money in a mutual actually could pull you ahead of the game in the long run.
Now’s a good time, since we’re in the shitter and everything is cheap. You just gotta be willing to take the dive and buy before everyone gets all confident again.
Mike fails at being jewish.
June 24th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Lucas, I’m really impressed. And here I thought that all you were good for was sitting around the Destiny kitchen grunting sarcastic remarks at my face.
Thanks everyone for the input! (including Rodeo. Those better be damn good cattles for me to invest in….)