You can do much better than Treasury notes by investing in income trusts and MLPs. However, those require some research. Also, some municipal bonds yield almost as much as Treasuries now, which is good because of the tax advantage.
Just a note that tomato sauce freezes beautifully (and I think it even tastes better after it's thawed as the flavors are fully melded). I make a double batch of tomato sauce using a recipe that combines a pound of lean ground beef or turkey (both work equally well; with ground beef the flavor is a little richer), an onion, a green pepper, 3 carrots, a can of mushroom stems/pieces, a can of pumpkin (sounds weird, but adds vegetables and you never know it's in there), one cup of cheap red wine and a tablespoon of italian herb seasoning. I let it cook for at least an hour. Then I use half of it to make a big lasagne, which also freezes well cut into individual pieces. I figure that we get 5 meals from the lasagne and 4-6 meals from the remaining sauce, depending on how we use it. Instead of pasta, we often have the sauce over spaghetti squash--low calorie and very filling; not as cheap as pasta, but healthier.
Sylrayj - That is a hard decision to have to make. The best I can say is that kids are tougher than you think, especially in difficult situations. Think of all the people who have come from terrible backgrounds to achieve wonderful things. If Oprah can overcome, there's hope for all kids. I hope that can bring you a little bit of comfort when taking steps to establish guardians for your kids. Find someone to care for them, and your kids will grow into the people they were meant to be. It's smart of you to think about these things now, and hopefully, you'll never need to use these safeguards.
One of my kids has been diagnosed with a handful of things. My other child is too young yet, but it wouldn't surprise me to see she has some of the same issues too.
I want to establish suitable guardians for them, just in case - but I'm having a hard time doing so. Perhaps I'm too picky, but I don't want either of them pushed into a situation where they're not understood and valued for who they are, at a time when everything in their world has been turned upside down.
I'm really afraid that my only option is to live forever - and while I'd love to do that, it isn't entirely up to me. :P I'm completely lost here, and hope that a solution becomes available.
We've made all kinds of messy substances in the house (this recipe without the sand is fun also, we call it slime, it's a "non-newtonian" fluid and it's got some really fun properties). When my youngest was much younger her favorite thing to do was take off her clothes and rub the stuff on her body. Very messy indeed. The rule became that they could only make/play with this stuff in the bathtub (or outside in nice weather), as that is where they'd end up anyway! Clean up is MUCH easier this way!
I was hoping that someone else would have a recommendation, because I don't, really. Investing books these past 20 years or so have been overwhelmingly aimed at people saving for retirement. If they talk about income at all, it has been purely as an alternative to growth--as something you could buy when the growth stocks were overvalued because growth had been hot.
So, if somebody has an idea, we'd like to hear it.
(If there's really the gap there seems to be, maybe there's a market for a new book on income investing....)
Clearly the compounding effect of reinvesting is a huge part of eventually becoming wealthy.
But I was trying to make the point that investment income has uses besides just compounding for eventual future wealth. Even a pretty small amount of extra income can be an important cushion during a financial emergency, or a boost toward covering an expense that would otherwise have been a burden.
If you invest a few thousand dollars so that it provides an extra $10 or $20 a month in income, and then spend it--well, you're not going to make much progress. But if you start by reinvesting, then long before the income reaches levels that would allow you to retire, it can still have uses that can make a big difference in your life.
I feel your pain. I lost $3000 to a craig's list scammer. Wanna know what was even more frustrating? Dealing with the numerous law enforcement agencies that just had me jump through the paperwork hoops. FBI and Secret Service don't even give you the time of day if the amount is under $20,000. And local police can not do anything to track scammers out of the state or country, except take a report. The only recourse I was able to take was to sell my Western Union stock. They were also the only people to call me back and ask for more details, which just made me even more frustrated, since all they wanted to do was save a stockholder.
The worst part is that law enforcement knows how the scammers work but can't do anything to catch them since most are for small amounts (to them not the victims) and across state and country lines.
it is a scam, I have had cards for year having run side businesses apart from my regular job. I quit doing side work due to none payments and in December my main job laid off. I call my card companies because I carried the "Insurance" on them all. I was refused by all of them. I paid for years to be covered for involuntary unemployment and they had some excuse as to why I couldn't be covered.
I did not mean to come and gripe. If you have it or are thinking of getting it I would recommend against it. Simply plan you a budget that will allow you to servive on Unemployment and saving for 6 months at least, if you can not do this with a card payment then don't get the card.
This article really touched me deeply. Often, people will disabilities get very good at coping with their problems, so good that many around them wouldn't suspect how hard things really are for them. Despite that, though, we often don't give ourselves credit for how much we do -- and not just despite of our disabilities.
I'm glad that your situation was only temporary. And I'm so glad that you chose to write about it.
@ Leigh Ann,
I'm so glad that you haven't given up music altogether. I also play. I had to quit for a while and give up a lot of dreams. I felt awful for letting everyone down.
It's been scary returning, especially since I'm playing a lead part in a rather small band. I keep fearing that day when I won't be able to make it, but so far so good. I've had to say "no" to many other things, though, for it to work out.
Wikipedia has never been that reliable in my opinion because you never know if you are reading a page that was recently hit by vandals.
I used the scanner a few months ago to discover that both Prosper and Kiva (P2P Lending Websites) have removed criticisms about their services from Wikipedia. I know that several prosper employees visited my page on the topic. However, rather than just stop editing Wikipedia, people will likely start editing pages from home.
"Most of my investing is for retirement and dividends are automatically reinvested. However, I would not mind a few extra dollars every six months or so."
If you don't need those extra dollars from dividends, it might be a good idea to reinvest them. It has a compounding effect which makes you have more dividends at the next payout. Without putting in any new money, as long as the dividend payout of whatever you're investing in does not go lower, you're getting a higher yield on your original money.
Economically it makes perfect sense for them to charge more for the baby carrots - they're 'processed', which is a 'value added' process. You always pay more for 'value added' items.
Of course you may not agree with their 'valuation'/cost, but then, you don't have to buy them either. :)
It's kind of depressing to think of what all could go wrong, however it does pay (financially) to protect yourself through insurance products, outlining final wishes, etc.
Awhile back, I was in a car accident and without my car for almost a month. It was a real pain in the *ss since my city has terrible public transportation and I depended on the insurance company for a rental and friends.
After I got it back, I realized I would have been totally screwed if it had been totaled. So after I finished paying if off, I continued to put about half of what would have been my monthly payments into my savings account.
Now, if I lose my car, I have something to put towards a new one.
Parenting a small tribe is similar. There are days when I don't do my best... (like when I'm sick, they're sick, there's a full moon, etc.) There are also days when parenting is obviously worth doing, but that particular day isn't going down in history as a good performance. I would like to think, however, that no matter how many parenting blunders I make, I have shown respect to my family.
This is uplifting. Thanks for giving me another reason to not be so hard on myself!
Right up my alley!
Christmas Candy was 75% off last week at CVS. I bought a few bags as filler because I needed to make a $20 purchase to use a CVS coupon.
You can do much better than Treasury notes by investing in income trusts and MLPs. However, those require some research. Also, some municipal bonds yield almost as much as Treasuries now, which is good because of the tax advantage.
What if I don't have enough savings to retire on?
That's the biggie to which not enough people are paying attention.
Just a note that tomato sauce freezes beautifully (and I think it even tastes better after it's thawed as the flavors are fully melded). I make a double batch of tomato sauce using a recipe that combines a pound of lean ground beef or turkey (both work equally well; with ground beef the flavor is a little richer), an onion, a green pepper, 3 carrots, a can of mushroom stems/pieces, a can of pumpkin (sounds weird, but adds vegetables and you never know it's in there), one cup of cheap red wine and a tablespoon of italian herb seasoning. I let it cook for at least an hour. Then I use half of it to make a big lasagne, which also freezes well cut into individual pieces. I figure that we get 5 meals from the lasagne and 4-6 meals from the remaining sauce, depending on how we use it. Instead of pasta, we often have the sauce over spaghetti squash--low calorie and very filling; not as cheap as pasta, but healthier.
Would you share your pizza dough and tomato sauce recipe? I'm especially curious about the sauce/soup
transformation.
Roz
Sylrayj - That is a hard decision to have to make. The best I can say is that kids are tougher than you think, especially in difficult situations. Think of all the people who have come from terrible backgrounds to achieve wonderful things. If Oprah can overcome, there's hope for all kids. I hope that can bring you a little bit of comfort when taking steps to establish guardians for your kids. Find someone to care for them, and your kids will grow into the people they were meant to be. It's smart of you to think about these things now, and hopefully, you'll never need to use these safeguards.
One of my kids has been diagnosed with a handful of things. My other child is too young yet, but it wouldn't surprise me to see she has some of the same issues too.
I want to establish suitable guardians for them, just in case - but I'm having a hard time doing so. Perhaps I'm too picky, but I don't want either of them pushed into a situation where they're not understood and valued for who they are, at a time when everything in their world has been turned upside down.
I'm really afraid that my only option is to live forever - and while I'd love to do that, it isn't entirely up to me. :P I'm completely lost here, and hope that a solution becomes available.
We've made all kinds of messy substances in the house (this recipe without the sand is fun also, we call it slime, it's a "non-newtonian" fluid and it's got some really fun properties). When my youngest was much younger her favorite thing to do was take off her clothes and rub the stuff on her body. Very messy indeed. The rule became that they could only make/play with this stuff in the bathtub (or outside in nice weather), as that is where they'd end up anyway! Clean up is MUCH easier this way!
@db:
I was hoping that someone else would have a recommendation, because I don't, really. Investing books these past 20 years or so have been overwhelmingly aimed at people saving for retirement. If they talk about income at all, it has been purely as an alternative to growth--as something you could buy when the growth stocks were overvalued because growth had been hot.
So, if somebody has an idea, we'd like to hear it.
(If there's really the gap there seems to be, maybe there's a market for a new book on income investing....)
Clearly the compounding effect of reinvesting is a huge part of eventually becoming wealthy.
But I was trying to make the point that investment income has uses besides just compounding for eventual future wealth. Even a pretty small amount of extra income can be an important cushion during a financial emergency, or a boost toward covering an expense that would otherwise have been a burden.
If you invest a few thousand dollars so that it provides an extra $10 or $20 a month in income, and then spend it--well, you're not going to make much progress. But if you start by reinvesting, then long before the income reaches levels that would allow you to retire, it can still have uses that can make a big difference in your life.
I feel your pain. I lost $3000 to a craig's list scammer. Wanna know what was even more frustrating? Dealing with the numerous law enforcement agencies that just had me jump through the paperwork hoops. FBI and Secret Service don't even give you the time of day if the amount is under $20,000. And local police can not do anything to track scammers out of the state or country, except take a report. The only recourse I was able to take was to sell my Western Union stock. They were also the only people to call me back and ask for more details, which just made me even more frustrated, since all they wanted to do was save a stockholder.
The worst part is that law enforcement knows how the scammers work but can't do anything to catch them since most are for small amounts (to them not the victims) and across state and country lines.
Astreil - I'm glad to know it cheered you up. Use your pessimism for good!
I think your right...
We have some great looking girls on our website, but i doubt they can pull off this hussle as easily :)
http://www.dinkydrinks.co.uk
The home of the Free Drink
it is a scam, I have had cards for year having run side businesses apart from my regular job. I quit doing side work due to none payments and in December my main job laid off. I call my card companies because I carried the "Insurance" on them all. I was refused by all of them. I paid for years to be covered for involuntary unemployment and they had some excuse as to why I couldn't be covered.
I did not mean to come and gripe. If you have it or are thinking of getting it I would recommend against it. Simply plan you a budget that will allow you to servive on Unemployment and saving for 6 months at least, if you can not do this with a card payment then don't get the card.
This article really touched me deeply. Often, people will disabilities get very good at coping with their problems, so good that many around them wouldn't suspect how hard things really are for them. Despite that, though, we often don't give ourselves credit for how much we do -- and not just despite of our disabilities.
I'm glad that your situation was only temporary. And I'm so glad that you chose to write about it.
@ Leigh Ann,
I'm so glad that you haven't given up music altogether. I also play. I had to quit for a while and give up a lot of dreams. I felt awful for letting everyone down.
It's been scary returning, especially since I'm playing a lead part in a rather small band. I keep fearing that day when I won't be able to make it, but so far so good. I've had to say "no" to many other things, though, for it to work out.
Wikipedia has never been that reliable in my opinion because you never know if you are reading a page that was recently hit by vandals.
I used the scanner a few months ago to discover that both Prosper and Kiva (P2P Lending Websites) have removed criticisms about their services from Wikipedia. I know that several prosper employees visited my page on the topic. However, rather than just stop editing Wikipedia, people will likely start editing pages from home.
"Most of my investing is for retirement and dividends are automatically reinvested. However, I would not mind a few extra dollars every six months or so."
If you don't need those extra dollars from dividends, it might be a good idea to reinvest them. It has a compounding effect which makes you have more dividends at the next payout. Without putting in any new money, as long as the dividend payout of whatever you're investing in does not go lower, you're getting a higher yield on your original money.
Where's Pat Sajak when you need him?" I'd like to buy a vowel.
It feels goof to be vindicated.
Economically it makes perfect sense for them to charge more for the baby carrots - they're 'processed', which is a 'value added' process. You always pay more for 'value added' items.
Of course you may not agree with their 'valuation'/cost, but then, you don't have to buy them either. :)
Lately, I've been feeling, well, bad, about being too pessimistic. Your post really cheered me up.
It's kind of depressing to think of what all could go wrong, however it does pay (financially) to protect yourself through insurance products, outlining final wishes, etc.
Awhile back, I was in a car accident and without my car for almost a month. It was a real pain in the *ss since my city has terrible public transportation and I depended on the insurance company for a rental and friends.
After I got it back, I realized I would have been totally screwed if it had been totaled. So after I finished paying if off, I continued to put about half of what would have been my monthly payments into my savings account.
Now, if I lose my car, I have something to put towards a new one.
Parenting a small tribe is similar. There are days when I don't do my best... (like when I'm sick, they're sick, there's a full moon, etc.) There are also days when parenting is obviously worth doing, but that particular day isn't going down in history as a good performance. I would like to think, however, that no matter how many parenting blunders I make, I have shown respect to my family.
This is uplifting. Thanks for giving me another reason to not be so hard on myself!