Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Finance Fridays for Beginners

Let's be honest here shall we? I barely survived finance in college. The class didn't interest me and I had no money to invest. Skip forward 5 years to the present day. I have a little bit of money riding in an IRA from my previous job and a little more in my current job's retirement system. We have some money floating around in savings accounts accumulating approximately 1% interest. My husband does not have a 401k because none of his jobs have offered it. Bear does not have a college fund because we are too lazy to set one up.

Now I have always been good about managing the little money I did have. I am militant about paying off debt but I just haven't really had the money to invest. We saved up 20% to put down on a house, paid off my engagement ring, paid for tile flooring, furniture, medical bills and 2 cars in the 5 years we have been together. Now that we are no longer saving for a downpayment or paying off any existing major bills it seems like a good time to start investing the money we do save. But where to begin? I am CLUELESS you guys.

So I enlisted the help of a trusted friend who pointed me in the direction of some web sites that can help me get started. Then I had the idea that perhaps I am not the only one in the blogosphere with absolutely no freaking clue where to begin and I thought why not share my journey with you guys? I have done some web searching and found some other blogs doing Finance Fridays. They are over my head for the most part so I thought I would do my own little version called Finance Fridays for Beginners starting this Friday.

Perhaps just the idea of posting every week on the internet will shame me into doing something. Seriously, 1% interest you guys. I've GOT to do something. I will share my journey into the world of investing with you guys and shamelessly solict advice and tips. All while you flippantly speed dial your Edward Jones advisor so you can snicker together at my ignorance. I'm going to give it a go on my own and see where it takes me. Just keep the snorting a snickering to a minimum. And please excuse the lack of FREAKING SPELL CHECK!!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love finance stuff.

I read "Smart Women Finish Rich" by David Bach in college for fun. And if I ever get out of debt (2 year plan for that) I will invest using his philosophy - but I'm always interested in hearing what other people think about it.

Anonymous said...

I am so bad with investing, saving, etc. Although this last month has taught me a lot.

Thankfully Mike is a stock broker. He's begun planning for our future which is awesome, considering right now the only emergency we're prepared for is running out of gas.

KG said...

Good for you!

There was an idea I heard about on one of those morning news shows . . . basically, a bunch of women who are friends get together and pool their resources of a thousand dollars each or whatever and then vote on how to invest it. They split the profits . . . I think they formed some sort of business in order to do it. They basically get together monthly and go over their money over margaritas. Love that!