Advice from a much wiser man that I

[kyojinkobu]

My 87 year old grandfather still says this advice... "pay yourself first"

The advice is one of those simple pearls of wisdom.  Read it any of three ways and it still is true:

"Pay yourself FIRST" : have a savings account that you fund BEFORE paying out bills so at the end of 40 or so years of toil and trouble, you will have money.  After 14 years of

Comments

Pay yourself real money first.

[imarvintpa]

Buy Gold or Silver when you save. It's still liquid, but just hard enough that you have to choose to spend it. Buy real metals from a local dealer.

IMarv

Re: Pay yourself real money first.

[kyojinkobu]

I dont have a problem with buying precious metals other than this

Have you compared the DOW vs assets?

[imarvintpa]

I wasn't trying to start a long discussion, but I can't say nothing either.

The value of the index has dropped 50% from 2000 compared to Gold, Oil, and Housing.

You'll need to find stocks that will out perform inflation or else you aren't even treading water. You need to find investments that will return at rates of at least 7% - 10% to hold their values. These numbers are after any capital gains taxes and other costs your investment choices may suffer.

The CPI the government puts out is a lie. The numbers are so manipulated, they're just barely indicative of reality. The index does not track important things such as, sugar, eggs, gasoline, and other foods and energy products. You know, the stuff consumers actually need.

IMarv

Re: Have you compared the DOW vs assets?

[kyojinkobu]

I absolutely agree about the need to have 10% or greater returns.
I also agree the CPI is not worth the paper it is printed upon.

My apple ][e cost a lot of money when it first came out. So did
my ps/2 model 70. My dell 325p was alot of money, but not near
as much, comparitively. My dell dimension 4400 was even less costly,
and a current Dell that would be near "the same order of magnitude in
processing power" would only cost $400. The CPI fails completely to
track this. I know several crops (such as corn, cotton) have enjoyed the benefit of large
scale operations, and has also gone down in true price.

I'm almost convinced that the sound investment plan is one of purchasing
only stocks that have consistently paid / yield dividends AND have
made that magical 2 digit ROI.

Re: Have you compared the DOW vs assets?

[kyojinkobu]

Also, I watched the video, and I am led to the following question:
Why not compare the value of the dollar, to the cost to calculate
bogomips? Logically, I see no reason to NOT make this comparison,
which would provide us a completely different experience. The
critical difference is this: gold supposedly has a rarity, while
bogomips are by their nature increasing easier to produce.

I think the video is completely remiss to suggest European/Chinese
markets around timestamp 7:44 in the video. Stock markets to not
magically become sounder investments by being offshore. It is
suspect to think they are not bound/tied/affect by the US dollar.
I do believe oil is fundamentally a good asset for a variety of
reasons. Mostly because of its ~30:1 ratio of energy expenditure
to energy output.

Thankyou for continuing the discussion with me. I am happy to
continue to read anything you have found.

Re: Have you compared the DOW vs assets?

[spiderfarmer]

Well...as someone who has played the market successfully since I convinced my parents to let me empty my savings account to buy Microsoft in 1982...comparing anything to 2000 is a bit disingenuous. It would be like comparing early 1986 with the crushing recession after the bubble popped

[spiderfarmer]

It's great advice. I'm really good about doing that with my husband's pay, in that I fund (in a small way) a money market account with every check, but the business thing...I tend to forget labor when I'm calculating costs, and it's come back to bite me a couple of times.