Our dog poops in the basement. We can’t get him to stop. Tonight we were gone for less than an hour, but when we came home - a nice present on the floor. He knows where he’s supposed to go, and normally he does a good job. But more often than should be, he doesn’t wait to go out.
pee
Our dog pees on me whenever I come home. He really misses us, so whenever we return from being gone he goes nuts, jumping, barking, licking, running around. Which is all good. But when he gets to me, for some reason his pee-pee muscle just relaxes. Never fails. Every time. But only for me, not for the rest of the family.
barking
Our dog barks uncontrollably whenever anybody who isn’t a member of our immediate family comes over. This includes good friends of ours, frequent visitors, and especially the meter reader. We can’t get him to stop. For a while our daughter’s friends were afraid to come over because of the dog. And God forbid another animal walk by the window.
shedding
Our dog is losing his hair. Or so it seems. We have dog hair on the floor, on the couch, on our coats, on the table. You don’t have to find too many of these hairs in your food before you start to wonder how sanitary it all is.
bolting
Our dog likes to bolt. If we leave the door open a split second too long, he’s gone. And he doesn’t want to come back. We can call his name, offer treats, offer car rides. No luck. The neighbors have a horse and the dog likes to get in the horse’s pen and yap his head off. The horse is starting to get annoyed. I fully expected the dog to get a horse shoe to the head one of these days.
expensive
Our dog costs a lot of money. We have to feed him, groom him, provide bed and bedding, get his shots, and buy him chew toys. We were thinking of fencing the back yard, mainly to help with the bolting problem, but that was going to cost a couple thousand dollars. I was going along with the plan for a while, then one day I woke up and said, “That much money for a stupid little dog?!”
Face it, dogs don’t bring that much value to our lives. Sheep dogs? Sure. Guard dogs? Sure. Lap dogs? Are you out of your freakin’ mind? I know I was.
As paychecks go, I’ve had bigger. But it’s actually kind of fun to look at. I’m staring at it right now wondering if I should frame it or take the family out for pizza.
I’m a little late to this party, but I’d like to throw in my 2¢ regarding Apple’s newest release of the Safari browser. I heard from Chris Pirillo that it was awesome, several leaps beyond Firefox.
I beg to disagree.
Before I even learned of Chris’ Safari fanaticism, Apple tried to push Safari on me with their Apple Software Update application. Apple has become insidious in this way, just like Microsoft. I didn’t know Apple Software Update was installed, so I uninstalled it. I’ve also uninstalled iTunes, since WinAmp can manage iPods now. (And yes, I have Windows Automatic Updates turned off. I, and I alone, will decide when software is added or updated on my computer.)
Firefox was several leaps beyond Internet Explorer, and I’ve become quite accustomed to Firefox functionality. One thing Firefox can do that Safari cannot is set links that want to open new windows, to open new tabs instead. When I click a link, and an entire new Safari window is opened, I’m annoyed.
Unlike Chris, I ran into many, many pages that did not render correctly in Safari. I don’t know if this is the fault of the web developers, or the fault of the browser developers, but I really don’t care. When I use Safari, web pages look screwed up.
Another sweet thing Firefox can do is open several websites, all in different tabs, when I click the home button. Safari would do well to incorporate similar functionality.
Safari is difficult to see. The black text blends into the dark gray background and I can’t quickly tell what it says, especially from far away. Is there a way to change colors or themes? This would make it a lot more usable.
Google Spreadsheets don’t work as well in Safari. I can’t use the arrow keys to navigate between cells, and switching back and forth between keyboard and mouse gets cumbersome quickly.
If I am incorrect about any of these things, especially confusion about the functionality, please let me know. If there are quick fixes to any of these issues I will happily look at Safari again.
Do parents really need to be certified to teach their children? What would a parent need to do to get certified? Show mastery of educational history? Understand classroom management techniques? Attend seminars designed to show teachers how to teach homosexuality?
I’m not a certified teacher, but I can read, which means I don’t have any trouble following any of the thousands of pre-planned lessons available to anyone who wants them. I also love my children, which means I care enough to make sure they know how to be respectful, how to be honest, and how to stand up for what is right, in addition to the 3 Rs.
The California case involves a couple who allegedly abused their children. If true, that is a shame. There are laws against child abuse, and when abuse occurs the children ought to be helped and the parents dealt with. But remind me what this has to do with homeschooling?
There is no cause and effect relationship between school and child abuse. Any parent, regardless of the educational status of their children, can abuse their children. Using the logic of the California court, we could just as easily pull all abused children out of public school, because, who knows, maybe the school is causing the parents to abuse the children? And let us not forget, many, many children are abused by their public school teachers. Why don’t we require those children to be removed from the schools?
Like the writer of the WSJ editorial, I would like to know where the presidential candidates stand on homeschooling. Specifically, do they believe parents need to be certified in order to teach their children? The answer to that one question would go a long way toward helping me make up my mind in November.
I am of two minds regarding the Elliot Spitzer news.
Spitzer was like a super-hero, capable of single-handedly bringing powerful, multi-national investment companies to their knees. This guy brought a lot of change to Wall Street. Hearing of his downfall is a little like hearing that Luke Skywalker has turned to the dark side. I just want to scream, “Why?” How could he let this happen?
The other side of me is a little giddy. Finally, this dork that caused all this trouble on Wall Street is shut up. He has caused investment companies no end of new hoops to jump through, i’s to dot, t’s to cross. Whatever he does for the rest of his life, he will no longer strike fear in people’s hearts. Good riddance.
That Carrie Underwood song that was all over the radio a couple years back really grated on me. I know it’s a little late, but here is a response from Tim Hawkins that had me rolling on the floor. Be sure to catch Cletus’ solo near the end. Hysterical!
This week’s column is already posted there. If you go there and subscribe to the feed, you’ll be able to read the column every week, for free, without ever visiting the blog or the newspaper’s website again.
This blog (http://weiszguy.wordpress.com/) will remain as a bucket for my brain puking. I’ll probably talk about a whole gamut of topics: personal finance, productivity, homeschooling, things that strike me as really odd or really interesting. You will never find lolcats on this blog. I have some dignity.
Invest or prepay your mortgage? If you have a little extra money, would it be better to invest that money or make extra payments on your mortgage? It is an age-old question, one that has been asked by people for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. But in all that time nobody has been able to come up with the answer. The reason this is such a difficult question is because the answer depends on so much more than math.
If we considered only the math, we would be tempted to invest all our money and hold onto the mortgage as long as possible. If you have a mortgage at 6%, you would effectively earn 6% if you made extra payments. But consider that the stock market has returned an average of 10% per year for the past seventy years. Clearly, making 10% is better than making 6%.
But maybe it’s not so clear. Do you know how much the stock market will return this year? Will it be 10%? Probably not. It could be anywhere from -20% to 20%, which is an awful big swing. Your mortgage, on the other hand, is guaranteed to return 6%, if that’s your rate. Which one causes you to sleep better? You also need to consider your gut. Which would make you feel better: owning a big pile of money, or NOT owning a big pile of debt?
If you are like me, having a big pile of money may be too much temptation to bear. If you have a big pile of money, and you spend it, your return wasn’t so great after all. But a mortgage locks up any extra money you send in. The only way to get that money back out is with a messy and expensive second mortgage. And the only people with second mortgages are those who have forgotten how painful the first one was!
In the end, it’s a deeply personal decision. Your situation is very different from your neighbor’s, and your decision needs to be tailored for your situation. But if you consider the math and your gut, and be disciplined with whatever decision you make, it will be hard to go wrong in the end.
This column originally appeared in the February 6, 2008, edition of the Greenhorn Valley View.
I went on an archaeological dig recently - through my wallet. I got out my toothbrush and dental pick and began sifting through the hardened layers of sediment. I discovered things I haven’t see in a very long time. And I discovered a little about myself.
Apparently, I like to stuff things into my wallet. I must be hoping they’ll magically - what? What am I hoping they’ll magically do? Disappear? File themselves into folders for easy searching? Find a mate and multiply? Whatever I was hoping would happen with all that stuff, it hasn’t. Well, maybe the multiply part. Where does all this junk come from anyway?
I have credit cards, debit cards, grocery store rewards cards, a book store rewards card, library cards, and gas station cards. I have six frequent diner cards - for restaurants I haven’t been to in years. I have pictures of my kids - from when they were babies. I’ve got receipts from McDonald’s from before Christmas; a receipt for a bottle of soda; a receipt for a handful of screws from the hardware store.
I didn’t find any pictures of dead presidents in my wallet. I’d like the presidents to take up permanent residency there, yet all the receipts seem to imply the presidents are wandering nomads, looking for a place to call home, but not content to dwell long in my back pocket. It’s too bad, too. With a little spring cleaning and a fresh coat of paint, my wallet would make a lovely home. They could have parties, invite their friends, maybe some of them could stay a while. Maybe big brother Ben would stop in and say hi.
But no, there’s too much crud. Too much dust, parched paper, and other archaeological detritus for men of their caliber. I guess I’ll have to be content digging through the evidence of the past.
This post originally appeared in the January 27, 2008, edition of the Greenhorn Valley View.
Haven’t you heard? There’s a recession going on. Well, technically, it’s still a little early to call it a recession. To officially be called a recession, our Gross Domestic Product must decline for two successive quarters. But that’s not much comfort to the people today who are worried about job loss, declining sales, or even business failure. If recession is on your radar, what can you do prepare? How do you plan to withstand it’s impact?
Obviously, if you are worried about your income being reduced for any reason, you should immediately put yourself on a financial diet. Spend as little as you possibly can. Try to build up a short term cache of cash you can use to even out dips in your income stream. With any luck, the recession will be over before your cache runs dry.
You should also dust off your networking skills. What industries seem to be unaffected by the present downturn? Who do you know in those industries? Give ‘em a buzz. The worst that can happen is you’ll get reacquainted with an old friend. And don’t forget to be on the lookout for other people who are affected by the recession. If there is any way you can help somebody else, their gratitude may be invaluable down the road.
Is there any way to take advantage of a recession? If you aren’t worried about any sort of income loss, you might be in a position to make a little money. You’ve heard the saying, “Buy low, sell high,” right? Stock markets around the globe suffered huge losses this week, with drops as high as 10% in just a few days. If you believe, as I do, that the markets are fundamentally sound, then this may be a great time to buy. If you do buy in now, just be prepared for further declines before the climb back up.
So stow the sails, batten the hatches, and keep your eyes on the horizon. I’ll see you on the other side.
This article originally appeared in the January 23, 2008, edition of the Greenhorn Valley View.
I know something about you. I know you don’t have enough money left at the end of the month. There are things you wish you could do, but you don’t have the funds to do them. If you had just a bit more money, everything would be fine. This is true whoever you are, whatever your income.
Think about it. No matter how much money you make, it isn’t enough. If you make $20,000 a year, don’t you wish you made $30,000? If you make $200,000 a year, don’t you wish you made $300,000? This is a near-universal experience. But rather than whine and moan about it, I wonder if there’s a way we can use this to our advantage?
Let’s say you’d like to be saving 10% of your income, but you haven’t started yet because you don’t know how you’d get by without that money. Things are so tight right now - there’s no possible way you could survive on less. But we just established that ALL income levels feel inadequate. If you earned 10% less than you earned right now, would that really feel any different than what you make now? Yes, your checkbook would notice, but would you feel any different? My guess is you’d only notice the difference for a week or two.
Try this experiment. The next time you get a paycheck, put 10% away somewhere - anywhere, under the mattress if you want - it doesn’t matter. Then try to make the rest last until your next paycheck. If you’re like me, just the thought of 10% less scares you to death, but I bet you’ll make it to the next check without much difficulty. If you’re successful, you’ll be living on less, AND you’ll be saving up for a rainy day. And you’re doing it EVEN THOUGH you don’t have enough!
This post originally appeared in the January 16, 2008, edition of the Greenhorn Valley View.
Who in the public school system is teaching that government should be less involved in the lives of it’s citizens? Which teacher is teaching that schools should be less well-funded and smaller? What student is being taught that capitalism is a superior form of government than socialism?
These are all valid points of view, but you will not find them taught - or even mentioned - in public schools. If you have any form of political, religious, or social views that are outside the current norm, you have no hope of having those views taught to your kids in public schools.
Schools receive their funding from the government. You will not find opposing viewpoints taught there. That would be like a Coca-Cola executive saying people should drink less Coke. It doesn’t happen, it doesn’t make sense that it should happen, we should not expect it to ever happen.
All of which are good arguments for homeschooling.
There are certain character traits that are extremely important in life. Traits like a strong work ethic, understanding the value of a dollar, and the importance of generosity and hospitality, for instance. These qualities are far more important than skills like the ability to understand math or the ability to start a new business. People who are nearing the end of their lives don’t want to pass on the knowledge of starting businesses, they want to pass on the knowledge of being a better human. Skills are important, of course. They are the tools that can help us reach our goals. It’s just that our goals should be more others-oriented than self-oriented. The goal should be to make the world a better place, not to start a business, but starting a business may be a valid method of achieving the goal.
I just read The Ultimate Gift, by Jim Stovall. In it, a wealthy cattle-baron has just passed away and in his will he lays out a plan of action for developing strong character qualities in his grand-nephew. The nephew isn’t excited about the plan, but as the book progresses he becomes a better person as he submits himself to his uncle’s plan. The uncle has the nephew perform twelve month-long tasks, each task teaching him a new, and highly valuable, quality. The nephew learns lessons about work, money, friends, and the thirst for knowledge, to name a few. By the end of the year, the nephew has become a new person, having been transformed by the hard lessons he has learned. Because he has learned all these lessons, he earns the ultimate gift, control of a $1 billion charitable trust.
Here’s the thing, I don’t have a $1 billion trust to leave my progeny. And even if I did, I’m a long way from leaving it to them in a will. But I desperately desire my offspring to understand and internalize all these lessons just like the nephew in the book. How do I instill a strong work ethic in my children? How do I get them to crave spending time with people and giving themselves away? How do I instill any of these desirable character traits?
NewsGator is well-known as one of the best RSS readers in the business. They’ve announced recently that they have made their software free.
If you’ve never gotten into the realm of RSS, now would be a great time. NewsGator’s Windows, Mac, Mobile, Outlook, and Online versions are completely free, and it doesn’t look like a limited-time-only offer. It’s just free. Get it here.
There are thousands of publicly traded companies. If you want to get into stock market investing, or if you’re looking to improve your performance in the stock market, how do you know which stocks to buy? Any one stock has dozens of indicators that each tell you a little piece of how that company is doing. Over the decades many theories of investing have been put forward in an attempt to make sense of all the stock market data that is available. One particular theory that makes a lot of sense to me is value investing, which looks for stocks that are currently trading for less than the value they should have.
The Little Book that Beats the Market, by Joel Greenblatt, attempts to make value investing extremely easy by turning certain measures of a stock’s performance into a formula. The book lays out the formula by which any investor can find good companies that are priced low. In order to find good companies, we look at the stock’s earnings. The formula lists all stocks in order of earnings, assigning a numerical rank to each one. In order to find companies that are priced low, we look at a stock’s price-to-earnings ratio. A lower ratio indicates a better bargain. The formula again lists all stocks in order of price-to-earnings ratio, assigning a numerical rank to each one. The formula then adds the two rankings of all the stocks and lists them in a master ranking. Those with the lowest ranking are the best companies at the lowest price.
There are of course, many, many other measures of a stock’s performance. And companies with star power, like Microsoft or Coca-Cola, won’t be found on this list. But sometimes having too many things to look at prevents us from taking any action at all, and narrowing our field down to earnings and price-to-earnings ratio can help to focus on the things that really matter.
This article originally appeared in the December 26, 2007 edition of the Greenhorn Valley View.
EverNote is a shareware note-taking application. If you act quickly, you can get a free copy of the portable version of this software. GiveAwayOfTheDay is giving it away today only. Check out http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/evernote-portable/ for more details
If you haven’t yet discovered the beauty of note-taking applications, now is a great time to start.
A while back prosper.com had forums with some pretty wild discussions in them. Prosper decided they didn’t like some of the things being said on there. They kicked some users out, changed some words in some posts so they didn’t say what the author intended to say, and made various other restrictive changes.
As you might imagine, this ticked off quite a few users.
Some users decided to start their own forums at www.prospers.org This site is completely unaffiliated with prosper.com, and is completely unmoderated. There is a lot of negativity on www.prospers.org. You need a strong stomach, but if you can filter the large amounts of dross, you’ll find large amounts of gold, too.
This year we had an unexpected debt come up: $2600. Other than mortgage debt, we don’t have any other debt, so this is a large amount for us. We paid it off in seven months, which is good. Really good, in fact. I’m pretty proud of the way we pulled our money together to get this debt paid off quickly and with as little interest charges as possible.
Nevertheless, a couple of questions are haunting me.
What were we going to do with that money if we hadn’t incurred the debt? I’m sad to say, probably nothing. We probably would have lost that money through the cracks. Cracks like extra meals out, more expensive meals in, extra do-dads and trinkets for the kids or ourselves. None of which would have any meaning or purpose. (Contrary to what you might think if you observed my dining habits, I don’t really think eating out enhances our lives.)
If we hadn’t incurred the debt, and we didn’t lose the money through the cracks either, what could we have done with the money? I think we could have done a lot. We could have taken a fairly nice vacation in the mountains, saved for the kids’ educations, made some repairs to the house or car we’ve been meaning to get to, or done something meaningful for charity. I think the possible meaningful uses for that kind of money are legion.
Here’s the million dollar question. How many $2600 blocks of cash do we regularly throw away? And by extension, how many great and meaningful things are we not doing because we throw that money away? As our experience paying off the debt shows, it really isn’t that hard to come up with that kind of money. We weren’t hurting because of the debt. But I think we may be hurting ourselves by not being more deliberate with our money. This year, I’m going to look for another $2600 in our spending, and redirect it to something I can be proud of.
This post originally appeared in the December 19, 2007, edition of the Greenhorn Valley View.
I got a call from a friend yesterday. His daughter was stuck in a ditch full of snow. He was a long way away, could I possibly get up there and help her out? Of course.
As I was driving up her road, I could see her car in the middle of the road, not in the ditch. She was standing there to explain she dug herself out and to thank me for at least trying to help. I started to pull away and went sideways right into the same ditch she just came out of.
The irony was not lost on me. Getting stuck in the snow while trying to help somebody else out is pretty funny. I have a van and she has a really tiny car so I knew she wouldn’t be able to pull me out.
I called a friend with a 4-wheel drive diesel dually, the only person I could think of who would be able to pull me out. He arrived and pulled in front of me to pull me out. But while I was bent over hooking up the rope, another car started coming down the road toward us. My friend with the truck tried to pull over - and went straight into the ditch in front of me.
How could this possibly get any worse? The oncoming car that my friend pulled over for was driven by a guy who - how shall I say it - would give Ebenezer Scrooge a run for his money. He just laughed at us! and kept on driving!
To make a long story short, my friend’s big truck got us both out of the ditch, and everybody’s fine. But what an ironic string of events. That’s the kind of comedy of errors they put in movies.
A question came to me while shaving today (questions have a way of doing that). To what extent should we depend on others, to what extent should we be self-sufficient, and to what extent should we be helping others?
Depending on others for help is a virtue. It teaches you not to place your hope in your own strength. It teaches you that we are all connected and we all share one destiny (in this life, anyway). But there’s also something unsatisfying and unsettling about leeching other people’s resources. If they weren’t using that money for you, they could use it for something else.
Providing for yourself and your family is a virtue. A primal urge for a lot of teenagers (and 20 somethings, and 30 somethings) is to cut the apron strings that tie them to their parents. They want to be independent, to provide for themselves. Society sees independence as a good thing, because then somebody else won’t have to provide for you. The danger with self-sufficiency is forgetfulness. It will be very easy for you to forget where you came from and that there are others who have not yet come as far as you have.
Helping out others in need is a virtue. If you want to feel warmer this winter without turning up the thermostat, just give away a bunch of stuff to somebody who needs it. They will be grateful, perhaps being able to do things they wouldn’t have done without your help, and you will get that feeling of nobility that comes from doing good without the hope of reward. The downside of helping out others is arrogance. You, in your beneficent magnificence, have condescended to provide assistance to those poor saps who are too stupid to do it for themselves. This perspective is perhaps the most insidious of them all, so watch out for it.
Where are you on the spectrum? Do you like where you are, or do you wish you were somewhere else? Where is the best place to be, and how can you get there?
This post originally appeared in the December 12, 2007, edition of the Greenhorn Valley View.
What would you do if someone handed you cash in an envelope? Would you laugh? Would you stare, dumbfounded, in disbelief? Would you ask for a little of what they’ve been drinking?
What would you do if they told you you had to use that money to help somebody else? Would you keep the money for yourself? Would you give it to someone in need? Would you try to grow the money so you had more to help people with?
A church in the Greenhorn Valley pulled a stunt like this last Sunday. Table Mountain Church gave each family an envelope with cash in it, and that cash is to be used to bless somebody else. That’s it. Those are the only instructions. The possibilities are endless, of course. Some might buy hats and mittens for children without any. Some might pre-pay the next ten customers down at the coffee shop. Some might bring meals to those too sick to cook for themselves.
I’ve heard talk of paying someone else’s utilities, of taking a neighbor out to eat, of buying footballs and Barbies.
You might be wondering, as I was at first, if the church has lost its marbles. Giving money away! Are they crazy? They’ll never see that money again. Money that could be used for “ministry” expenses is gone, out the door. Then, of course, some church-goers may be less than ethical and just keep the money for themselves. Now who is blessed? Not the church, and not a needy neighbor, either.
It turns out Table Mountain Church doesn’t want that money back. Their goal is two-fold: to be a blessing to the community by giving themselves away, and to teach people the joy of giving, so that they might continue to give. So be on the lookout for random acts of kindness in the community this week. Please send me any stories you hear of, I’d love to collect a big pile of these stories, and maybe publish a few.
This article originally appeared in the December 5, 2007, edition of the Greenhorn Valley View.
freerice.com’s twin goals are the same as anybody’s, they want to improve your vocabulary and feed the hungry. What a fun idea! My high score is 43. Post your scores in the comments.
Sorry I’m a little late with this! This is my most recent column, which was in last week’s paper.
Diversification is a method of spreading out your investment risk. Most people understand the concept of diversification, even if they’re unfamiliar with the word. Diversification means not putting all your eggs in one basket.
Let’s say you’ve found a company whose stock you’d like to buy. You load up on as much stock as you can, but in spite of your thorough research, the price of a share sinks dramatically, and you lose most of your investment. The risk of loss is one of the greatest risks in investing, but diversification allows us to limit our exposure to loss. Now let’s assume you have found ten companies you would like to buy. You buy as many shares as you can, but this time you buy an equal amount of the ten different companies. If one of those companies goes bad, you’ve only lost that one small slice of your investment pie. And if your other shares have gone up, they may make up for any loss.
There are many ways to diversify. You can diversify across asset classes. This would mean buying shares of large companies and small companies; buying shares of companies that pay a dividend and companies that don’t; buying shares of companies in different industries; and even buying shares of companies in different countries.
You can also diversify across security type. Most investors have some amount of stocks and some amount of bonds, for example. Others invest in real estate and precious metals. Some even include more exotic investments, like art, old cars, or foreign currencies. If any one of these investments should lose money, it’s likely that another investment is making money.
While diversification doesn’t guarantee positive investment results, it does lower the risk of loss. In short, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Diversify.
This article originally appeared in the November 28, 2007, edition of the Greenhorn Valley View.
Before we can decide if we want to invest in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, we need to know what they are. Stock is simply ownership of a company. A company might divide its ownership up into one million little pieces, or shares, and then trade those shares on the open market. If you own one of these shares, you own a little piece of that company, and are entitled to your share of the privileges of ownership. When the company announces higher-than-expected earnings, it may divide up those earnings among its owners. And because you own a share of the company, you’ll get a share of the profits. When the company announces a new product, the price of your share may go up. You could sell your share and make a little profit, or you could hold on to it and hope it goes up ever more. Of course, it could go down, too, and this is the danger with stock market investing.
While stocks represent the ownership in the company, bonds represent the debt of the company. When a company wants to borrow money, it might issue a bond, which is simply a promise to borrow money and repay it at a later date, with small interest payments along the way. If you own a bond, you’ve loaned the company some money, and they will make payments to you - the same way you make payments on your loans. One danger with bonds is that the company could default on its debt and leave you holding the bag.
Since there are so many different companies offering their stocks and bonds to the public, and since there are dangers inherent in this kind of investing, how do you know which specific stocks and bonds you should invest in? Wouldn’t it be better to own a basket full of different stocks and bonds, so that if something bad happened to one company, you’d still have a pretty full basket? That’s the idea behind mutual funds. A mutual fund is a giant basket containing dozens or even hundreds of different stocks and bonds. Owning a share of a mutual fund is much like owning a share of a company, when the stocks and bonds in that fund do well, you get a share of the profits. By yourself, you might never be able to invest in so many different companies, but when you pool your money with thousands of other investors, you can own great positions in many companies.
This post originally appeared in the November 21, 2007, edition of the Greenhorn Valley View.
My sister’s family has put up a blog for their extended family. Several people throughout the family have posted; topics include: all about jenna’s boyfriend, a forum for waxing theological, and 50 things you didn’t know about heather. What a great way for a geographically dispersed family to stay up-to-date on each others activities!
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J.K. Rowling The BFG, by Roald Dahl The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster A Benjamin Franklin Reader, by Walter Issacson One Up on Wall Street, by Peter Lynch Learn to Earn, by Peter Lynch You're Broke Because You Want to Be, by Larry Winget The Brethren, by John Grisham The Irrational Atheist, by Vox Day The Partner, by John Grisham
