Monthly Update: September 2008(-$82,498.53, -$16,032.55)
After watching the recent week long plunge of the Dow, it appears that people are very fearful which means if you are a buy and hold investor, now might be the time to get greedy.
The problem in our family is that we don’t have much cash left to get greedy with.
Here are the results for our family ending 10/10/08:
The $16,000+ fall in Net Worth is by far our families largest monthly decline in net worth.
The good news is that this was mostly a paper loss and did not affect the day to day solvency of our family. With years to go till retirement, I am confident we will more than recover from these losses.
We also managed to pay off the rest of our 0% balance transfer offers
I may have been lucky to squeeze a couple hundred dollars out of all the juggling when it is all said and done. I was really hurt in June by missing the expiration date of my largest balance transfer, One month’s interest charges at 30% wiped out a years worth of interest at 3.5%.
The recent events in the markets only underscores to me the risks associated with leverage and greed.
It is very, very difficult to separate our wants and need and this holds true even in investing. Although we all want 30% annual returns, most of us don’t NEED annual returns of 30% if we have been planning carefully. When those 30% returns come with occasional 50% declines, steady growth is difficult to achieve. Every 50% decline will need a 100% return just to get back to even.
Our time in recent months has been spent looking for jobs starting next July. I have contacted various groups of physicians and hospitals in areas of the country that my wife and I would consider living as we finalize where we want to spend the next phase of our lives.
It is very exciting to be 9 months away from the end of 13 years of education. This excitement has helped buffer the recent financial turmoil for us.
thanks for following along.
