Investments

[bear]

It's all good..........BUT........whether stocks, currencies, long term savings, real estate etc.
Consider:
1. I bought my first car in 1969 for 2grand,
my first house in 1975 for 50 grand ....and thats when the dollar was a strong and relatively stable currency! That was a time when varied markets were more trustworthy and business ethics, in my opinion , more honorable. Your dollar today>>>>>may be non-existant in 20 years!
You may need $500 to buy a loaf of bread.
Congressmen throw BILLIONS around like they don't know the difference between a million and a billion...1 billion is one thousand million dollars...now how much to clean up a city after a hurricane?? .........MY POINT....after the ramble...
Dollars are fast turning into pieces of crap but are very valuable today in their purchasing power relative to what they may be able to buy tommorrow!!!!!!
You may want to turn dollars (a depreciating currency) into Harder assets that will appreciate and build wealth, over time. Example...land,fine art,precious metals (unscrupulous markets), careful now with Real Estate....as poor get poorer over time and jobs are lost to foreign producers ...masses of poor will pay little in taxes but still have children who go to school....... the TAX burdens of home ownership might really sap this investment.
I guess it's just not as easy or predictable as it used to be........Just like football games :shrug:

bear

 

[Dead Money]

Also throw a small dab every payday in gold and silver..

Also throw a small dab every payday in gold and silver..

Available from a local coin dealer.

The seeds are sown for massive inflation, bullets and butter did not work during Vietnam, not going to work during Iraq.

Traditional money advocates stocks, smart money protecting wealth with gold.


Gold's 1980 high was 850.00 per ounce; adjusted for inflation today it would have to be 2000.00+ to equal that number. Currently 660.00

Silver's 1980 high was 45.00, now 13.85 per ounce.



glta

 

[Morris]

If you want email me. I have some info on the firefighter occupation. Salary info and the like.

 

[Lookn4help]

Air

Air

AS has been stated...get an education regarding investing. I would suggest you also look at realistic budgeting, a book called The Wealthy Barber, and sit down with a CPA and get questions answered. Good Luck

 

[Smitty]

the roth IRA looks good to me (thanks kneifl) as you can withdraw any ammount at any time i believe.

other than what doughboy mentioned, you can only withdraw your contributions at any time without penalty. you'll pay taxes and a penalty on any capital gains. i'd been meaning to open a roth for years, and finally did it a few months ago.

 

[hsams]

1-gold right now would not touch

2-look for sectors when purchasing stocks (alt energy for example)

3-Non-fad collectables-good idea

4-Real estate depends on your area of the country
(if you live in a low tax state I say dont buy RE-High state tax I say buy all you can--reason for this is eventually tons more people will rent rather than buy because they cany afford to buy themselves)

5-Get involved in a small starter business in a area that you love-ie hobby etc--I will give a write up about this later--I have never worked for anyone a day in my life-always had my own business from the age of 16 all through college and now I am in my 30's--sold 2 businesses for over a 20 year period and now have my third that I will own till i retire........you r best bet for financial independence is your own business not working for someone else--thats a fact...........

 

[saint]

Many people gave advice but few said the most important thing...EDUCATE YOURSELF. Regardless of which method you choose, never throw your money into anything blindly. You will get destroyed with fees and commissions from brokers it's not worth dealing with anyone but yourself.w

 

[Terryray]

start investing now!

start investing now!

Education is your most important asset. The key is understanding the magic of compound interest.

an standard example you see all over, this one by Bernard Katz:


"The idea of compound interest is simplicity itself.

You invest a certain amount of money. At the end of each year you not only reinvest the original sum but the interest it earns as well ? so that the interest (as well as the original principal) keeps on earning additional interest. And you do this year after 1 year. The results are so phenomenal that it's as though you put Miracle-Gro on your money.

Try this example. A child is born. At the age of 1, say, a doting grandparent invests $2,000 in some vehicle returning 9%. How much will the child end up with by the time he's 65 ? the current retirement age under Social Security?

...the beneficiary retires at age 65 with a whopping half-a-million dollars and a yearly income of over $46,000. At this point reinvesting at 9% stops and the beneficiary takes out the interest to do what he wants with. That amounts to $46,080 a year, year after year!"

...............

in the above example, you'd have $256,000 at age 57...... and to catch up with the example here in your life, you'd have to have $16,000 in the funds by age 25. Starting as early as you can makes a huge difference!


this example assumes a 9% annual return, over the long haul---about what it has been doing last 50 years. The historical real stock market return averaged about 6.3% since 1871.


of course, if you were real unlucky and planned to retire after a big market downturn----the actual result would be very different. For example, the stock market lost 50% of it's value from 1973-1975. So if you got all this 9% compounding over 35 years and then planned to retire in 1975, you'd only have half of what you planned, half what you had in 1972. You'd have to leave it in and wait it out to 1987 or so to get it back. This is one reason why you get some bonds and real estate investments in the mix to hedge stock market swings, especially as you get older.


but I ramble....start learning and investing now!

 

[airportis]

lots of responses...thanks guys

i am going to definitley start an etrade savings account for the time being just to get that going while i read up and learn about the other stuff.

where can i get information on obtaining a new jersey real estate license?

morris, i will ask jack for your email

 

[The Wizard]

Whatever you do, MAKE SURE YOU DO YOUR HOMEWORK! There are PLENTY of bad investments out there....just waiting to take your hard earned $$$$

Investments that claim to bring you big bucks in short amount of time.....AVOID THEM AT ALL COSTS! There's no such thing.

 

[saint]

Seriously you don't even have to buy it just go to a library or bookstore and sit down and read bogleheads guide to investing. It will teach you the basics and gives great $$ examples to illustrate points, basically that all you need are index funds and the proper portfolio allocation...that's 90% of the ballgame right there.