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CoronitaParticipant[quote=scaredyclassic]I feel the biggest gains come from just not spending money and investing that. How much have I saved over 20 years by not having a cleaning person. It’s staggering! 100k? No dry cleaning shirts ever, iron myself, hmm, 30k? Eating just cabbage and oats for a month? Cheapest vodka? I think one can get almost rich just being ridiculously frugal.
I did just break down and hire a cleaning person recently because my poor wife can’t take it anymore. Man, the place looks clean…but is it better to have money in the account or dust on the shelves?[/quote]
$1000/month invested every month for 20 years with 4% average rate of return is roughly $368,997.
$1000/month invested every month for 20 years with 5% average rate of return is roughly $413,746.
$1000/month invested every month for 20 years with 6% average rate of return is roughly $465,351.
Plenty of calculators to do this…
https://smartasset.com/investing/investment-calculator
I mean, speculative trading is fun and like going to Vegas, but seriously building a financial nest for kid or spouse, I wouldn’t count on speculative trading for that purpose. One-shot one hit wonders rarely work for the majority of the people out there…
DRIP is exactly how I built my kid’s 529 college savings account and her UMTA custodian account. It doesn’t all have to be domestic stock. There’s international stock and bonds and fixed income too. And for that safety net, I split things into 4 baskets to spread the risk, domestic, international stock, bonds, and short term cash. When she was younger, larger percentage was allocated to domestic and international stocks, but as we are getting closer to college, that allocation went less stock and more bond-ish, short term cash, and when she start to use it, it will be mostly short term cash to factor out risk of a decline while the money is needed….She’ll have more money for good use than most adults in this country and it was effortless do to this.
If I put her on payroll for a small business, she would have earned income and could start contributing to a Roth IRA every year starting now….A Roth IRA from when she’s 16 to when she’s 56, making regular contributions…$6000/annual Roth IRA contributions 4% average return over 40 years= $622k
And my kid’s 529 plan is roughly 15 years old and the account value is pretty consistent with what the calculators said they would be.
It doesn’t take coming from a really uber rich family to setup your kid for success. It just takes small contributions (that you will barely notice) every month over a long period of time in a tax advantage account and let compounding work for you.
Besides my own 401k, I put most of wage income into after tax accounts, of varying risk. I barely have any debt now, and don’t spend a lot on myself personally, mainly my kid’s education and maybe her school, that’s it.
People are making this way more complicated than it is imho….
CoronitaParticipant[quote=deadzone]Back to the original Ops question, no the market is not down due to Russia. The downward trajectory started back in November and is due to the Fed announcing they are raising interest rates and possibly the end of their implied “Put”. So if you believe the Fed, now is not a good time to be dropping money in the stock market.[/quote]
You didn’t answer my question. Why are you speculating trading via short selling and thinking that is less risky than a DRIP investment strategy over 15-20+ years?
CoronitaParticipant[quote=deadzone][quote=Coronita]Gold is pretty. I like the bling bling.
I might melt mine to make jewelry… :)[/quote]If you want gold jewelry I’m your guy. Will offer you the piggington discount (wholesale price)[/quote]
I like 1 kilo gold bars. If only there was a way to easily tell if they were real or fake and not filled in the center with tungsten…
Most gold jewelry these days are worthless and only 14k gold… Years ago, 18k gold was more acceptable for jewelry…Gold jewelry from the far east (before the communist overran china) use to close to 24k. But 24k jewelry can’t really be worn. It’s too soft, easily damaged because it’s too soft. That was one of the reasons why 18k because popular for jewelry. You won’t find much left in 24k these days. Not interested in today’s 14k gold jewelry.
Come to think about it, I don’t wear any accessories. No, rings, no necklace, no watch. Nothing.
I think a gold plated gun would be cool.. Like one from Face Off.

CoronitaParticipant[quote=deadzone][quote=Coronita]
But you haven’t made significant money on the downside….that’s the problem. Others have because they weren’t timing the exact bottom.But it seems like some folks here that tend to think in terms of absolutes do seem to consistently miss great opportunities a few times now, both in the stock and real estate markets.[/quote]
Well I made significant money in 07-08 on the downside. But you have to have balls of steel which I no longer have as a family man. Another obvious “opportunity of a lifetime” was to short the Covid stocks such as Zoom, Peloton, Pfizer/Moderna, Zillow, etc. It was beyond obvious that those would crash and burn when Covid ended, and they have. But you have to time it right. I bought some Puts on Zoom in 2020 betting on Covid being short lived, they expired worthless.[/quote]
um… Shorting a stock is a lot riskier than any sort of long term DRIP investment strategy, and it by definition is speculative short term speculation, not investing.
DRIP is an investment strategy.
Shorting for the short term is not an investment strategy, it’s speculation. Huge difference. I’m surprised we even need to discuss this here.
Unless you in the top 10% day trader, you can’t beat the markets in the long term with that alone. And if you can, you wouldn’t be posting here. You’d be working for Goldman Sachs or the likes using their money and collecting insane bonuses.
This is what I find really interesting. You mention about risk and investment for the long term, but everything you have mentioned about what you do appears to be short term speculation, no different than what most of the people on Instagram boasting about how much money they made on short term trades made…except you are on the opposite side of the trade….And this is the exact opposite of what the OP was seeking…
Also, most of these short term speculators love to talk about the kills they made, but gloss over the 9 other transactions that blew up in their face…That I’m pretty sure about….That or the money into those positions aren’t significant enough if they do blow up, that it would make a material impact in their finances (which the opposite is also true, if the stock fell to $0, it probably wouldn’t make a material impact too). It’s easy to speculate on a small hand because the possible losses are small. But if you’re doing this on a large pot of money, for example in a 401k (which I don’t think you can BTW in a 401k plan), then you’re 100x braver than me because I would never do something like this to my long term accounts. It’s just asking for trouble. and frankly, I don’t need quick speculative wins to get ahead.
So from a risk perspective, actually you’re speculation strategy is far more “risky” than what I am doing, fwiw. You essentially are one unexpected FED fiscal policy can kicking action away from getting house cleaned IF that were to happen and your short positions on individual stocks blow up if you still in them. I would never short a stock. I’ve learned my lessons decades ago. All my growth in my accounts where over 15-20 years+. I do do speculative trades in my schwab account, but to be honest over the same long period of time, I’ve underperformed the indexes… Part of me wonders why I still do speculative trades.. But I guess for me it’s more fun than going to Vegas….I’m serious……. my speculative account makes makes up less than 20% of my total net worth, so it does not make a material impact up or down..neither does my gold and precious metal such as platinum, which has been a dog…
CoronitaParticipantGold is pretty. I like the bling bling.
I might melt mine to make jewelry… 🙂
CoronitaParticipant[quote=deadzone][quote=Coronita][quote=deadzone]Opportunity of a Lifetime? Really?
Buying qualcomm stock in 1995 opportunity of a lifetime.
Bitcoin anytime before 2018 opportunity of a lifetime.
I missed those too. Oh woes me.[/quote]In san diego, yes qualcomm was a pretty big miss. But that wasn’t my point. My point is that people that try to look for the absolutely bottom will end up missing the bottom. Those people would probably be better off if they just adopted a auto-pilot auto-invest option over 15-20 years….Looking back 20 years if one didn’t do that, it’s very likely they missed the boat. And chances are, it’s not just one type of opportunity, it’s pretty much any opportunity…
It reminds me of this commercial. Not that I believe in crypto. But, the Don’t Be Like Larry is so true in many cases…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH5-rSxilxo%5B/quote%5D
Well there are a lot of opportunities to make money on the downside too. I don’t have the risk appetite anymore to put serious money on the short side. But in the last crash I killed it shorting Subprime lenders. Especially New Century and Accredited Lending, both went bankrupt and I gained over 1000% on my deep out of the money puts. One could say that shorting subprime was the “opportunity of a lifetime”. But opportunities can and will continue to present themselves so no reason to kick yourself if you miss one.[/quote]
But you haven’t made significant money on the downside….that’s the problem. Others have because they weren’t timing the exact bottom.But it seems like some folks here that tend to think in terms of absolutes do seem to consistently miss great opportunities a few times now, both in the stock and real estate markets.
CoronitaParticipantDZ, don’t be like Larry 🙂
CoronitaParticipant[quote=deadzone]Opportunity of a Lifetime? Really?
Buying qualcomm stock in 1995 opportunity of a lifetime.
Bitcoin anytime before 2018 opportunity of a lifetime.
I missed those too. Oh woes me.[/quote]In san diego, yes qualcomm was a pretty big miss. But that wasn’t my point. My point is that people that try to look for the absolutely bottom will end up missing the bottom. Those people would probably be better off if they just adopted a auto-pilot auto-invest option over 15-20 years….Looking back 20 years if one didn’t do that, it’s very likely they missed the boat. And chances are, it’s not just one type of opportunity, it’s pretty much any opportunity…
It reminds me of this commercial. Not that I believe in crypto. But, the Don’t Be Like Larry is so true in many cases…
CoronitaParticipant[quote=deadzone]yes gold is not a convenient investment and really is more of an insurance policy in case the Fed goes totally rogue. That’s in fact why I loaded up on it at that point, because Fed was going rogue in 2009 with QE, bailouts, etc. Well it turns out Fed got away with parabolic money printing for about 12 years. Their run of luck does appear to be running out. You knew it couldn’t last forever.[/quote]
But gold has not performed well. Gold didn’t perform well up to and and until the Ukraine/Russia war, which was not predictable. In fact, when the fed announced raising interest rates, gold did not really move that much on that news. Gold moved a lot recently based on the Ukraine/Russia war.
So I guess where gold makes sense is when we have more wars???
CoronitaParticipant[quote=deadzone]Gold was under $1000 in 2009. And it was a good investment. In hindsight sure RE would have been better investment. But hindsight is 20/20. And frankly I am not and never was interested in being a landlord so it is a moot point and under no circumstances would I have been interested in living in a suburban NC housing tract.
Anyway, the point now is to address the current situation and possible bubble popping. My personal investment decisions 10+ years ago are completely irrelevant to the current situation. Not sure why you insist on bringing that up other than to deflect from your fear of the prospect of a market crash? I really don’t understand why the idea of it bothers you so much.[/quote]
It’s really convenient you picked Gold price in 2009 because that doesn’t tell the entire story of gold. Gold was $1000 in the beginning of 2008, dipped as low as $750 and ended 2008 around $800ish. In 2009, it bounced around $1000/ounce throughout 2/3 of 2009 and towards the end of 2009 there was a lot of gold speculation by folks that we running for cover to safety that pushed gold prices at the end of 2009 to $1200/ouce before settling somewhere around $1150…Gold hit peak prices in middle of 2011 around $1900/ounce… But since hitting that peak middle of 2011, gold went into a decline from 2011 to 2016 when it hit $1050/ounce.
Between 2016-2019, gold didn’t do shit. It moved between $1100-$1400/ounce back and forth.
It reached another peak in the middle of 2020, around $2100/ounce before falling back and now hovers around $2000….
You only made sizable gains on gold if you market timed and sold close to the peaks, but holding long term, it hasn’t really done that well relative to everything else…
[img_assist|nid=27533|title=gold|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=500]
It’s not really that great of an investment. It’s “safe”, but falls well short of what the stock market and real estate markets did…no doubt about that…. For example, here’s a subset of what prices of 1 ounce bullion was. It’s not that great of an appreciation.
[img_assist|nid=27534|title=gld|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=500]
Also, I don’t know about you. But unless you spend money to store your physical gold in an escrow account, it’s a pain in the ass to store it at home….
Also, oil is only good because of the war. It was in decline. You’re market timing…versus people like my parents my parents who had CVX since the time Texaco filed for bankruptcy in 1985 and keep them for the good dividends. Which is a great thing..
CoronitaParticipant[quote=deadzone]But seriously there are many signs that the stock market may be on the verge of a major crash. So if you insist on buying equities today, recommend you stick with high value (low PE) stock funds at least, not tech heavy or high PE stuff.[/quote]
The problem though is that if one is to fixated on trying to call the exact bottom before making any financial decision one often misses an opportunity of a lifetime just like in real estate at least for stocks you can always put a little in regularly so that you will never miss out the bottom unlike real estate in which for most people it’s impossible
CoronitaParticipantWe don’t know what will happen . But instead of taking the guesswork. I’d recommend just doing a regular $300-500/month drop investment into a simple domestic index fund , simply international index fund, and maybe a bond index fund. And later if you feel more comfortable bump that up to $1000/month or more.
In the long run, 15-20 years, you won’t care. The only thing you will care is if you never started.
my kids Vanguard 529k I started when she was born, just dripped 300-500, month and then it was $1000 month into indexes..And the same thing with a UMTA custodian account with indexes. Combined , both sits at $320k and it was effortless. Deposit and forget, up and down… who cares…
Disclaimer, Since we have 3 years to go, I’ve been reallocating things to a more short term cash focused allocation starting last year… only because we will need to start using it soon and it would be better to reduce some risk….otherwise I would have left it indexes longer.
In case you’re wondering the reason for doing a 529 and a umta custodial account was because the 529 can grow tax-free but is limited to college and private school use only whereas the umta is a custodian account that has no tax advantage but the money belongs to your kid and can be used for any purpose so the split for us was two to one
CoronitaParticipantI just did my monthly index investments today…
CoronitaParticipant[quote=deadzone][quote=an]sdr, exactly! There are many things we can’t change and don’t agree with. That doesn’t mean we can’t take advantage of the situation. Prop 13 and the environmentalists are the reasons I will keep on buying and not sell. At this point, I’m just hoping dz is right, so I can buy more if we see another crash. So, bring it! I’m ready![/quote]
That’s the spirit!
A crash/correction will be a good thing for the country. I don’t understand why it hurts SDR and some others so much to think about it. If his financial ducks were in a row, he would be able to get behind a crash too! But I’m just pointing out the obvious signals are flashing RED right now.[/quote]Lol, just because we don’t agree with you that RE is going to crash for the reasons you say they will, doesn’t mean we are afraid of it crashing. Like I said, we don’t *need* real estate crash in order to have the opportunity to buy.
Bring it.
But since you previously talked about “selfishness”, it’s mightly selfish to wish others would have a financial turmoil just so you would personally benefit from it, after missing out the previous opportunity, right?
But *if* the economy crashes, it would interesting to see who can buy, if everyone ends up jobless..Hypothetically, if the economy crashes, and you end up unemployed DZ, would you have the financial means to buy a home? Because… For the finance turmoil you are hoping for, you are kidding yourself if you think you would magically not be affected…There’s always a financial ladder pecking order. It’s a question of who falls off the ladder first and how long people can hold on before things get better . Just like the real estate meltdown in 2008-9….Those that were properly capitalized then were able to buy then…Not everyone was able to though…Those that were able to hold on, are doing fine now….So…Be careful what you wish for…
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