On Mar 28, 4:45 pm, "Elle" <honda.lion...[at]nospam.earthlink.net> wrote:
- quote -

We are only spending as much as our lodging and flights to the west
coast from the east. Her father has come to our rescue. So, at least
we are in the clear there with that matter.

-Will

How much we spending on the wedding? <wink, nudge
I saw an article in the NY Times sometime in the last few
years that talked about couples going into (further?) debt
to pay for a wedding, leading to more strain, leading to a
mighty short period of wedded bliss...

Gotta talk about these things sooner rather than later.

My 1.5 cents or less. :-)

"Will" <wrhull[at]gmail.com> wrote
- quote -

- quote -

Thank you. She really is choosing not to focus on financial matters
before the wedding because she is on another forum gaining information
from others regarding good wedding ideas. I am out to get ideas at
this point.

Will

On Mar 26, 9:03 am, "Will" <wrh...[at]gmail.com> wrote:
- quote -

"Your Intended" means your fiance.

To all:

You are the best. Thank you for the continued discussion and I hope
that this goes further. I will definitely look into those "...for
dummies" books. JoeTaxPayer, thanks for reviewing the book and seeing
what I see while I am in the middle of reading it (currently I am
around page 145). I see a sensible approach to understanding how to
view the fundamentals/approach to looking at a stock vs. looking at
something you buy and saying "hmm...I like the product, I use it, I'll
invest in it" I would rather understand how market time-frame can
affect certain stocks, what the P/E ratio is and how to compare it to
other stocks in the same sector. For someone who has barely skimmed
the surface of this issue, it is worth it for me to at least be
exposed to the issue to understand why some stocks do better than
others.

Paul Brown, thanks for giving me perspective into this somewhat
"idealistic" idea I have of working on the Hill. I think I am going
to work on being realistic and perhaps I can find another way to
impact society in a great way.

Elle, please clarify what you meant by "Do keep lurking here. I want
to start seeing your intended posting here, too!" I am having trouble
understanding what you mean by my "intended posting."

Thanks and keep the communication coming.

-Will

Will <wrhull[at]gmail.com> wrote:

- quote -

Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. Have you discovered that you
can eat free at the receptions? (Make friends with whoever opens the mail
to learn about the best ones.) The legendary Senate Bean Soup in the
Dirksen cafeteria is good, and they throw in the crackers for nothing!

Seriously though, the problem is that *so* many people want to work on the
hill that virtually all of the positions pay VERY poorly. Granted, you
might work your way up to a more substantive job, maybe even a slot on
committee staff. But that's a long shot; the political equivalent of
making the big leagues. And even if lightning strikes, you'll always be a
civil servant living in a city where the cost of living (especially real
estate) is well and truly insane. Unless your fiance is an associate at a
law firm, it's going to be a penurious existence.

If the hill job is a means to an end, like a lucrative private sector
position in government relations, lobbying etc. that's fine. But working
there for more than about 36 months is not a smart financial move, no
matter how much fun it may be.

- quote -

Time for a reality check here.

You have $12K in debt with ZERO income and you propose to borrow more (at
nearly 15 pcercent!) so you can continue to work FOR FREE in the *hope*
that you *might* get a job on the hill. If you were a third year law
student with an offer from Big, Bigger & Ginormous living off your credit
cards for a few months while you study for the bar might make sense. But
even if this hill thing works out, you're going to be a legislative
correspondent answering mail for $25K per annum. Granted, that's more
interesting than working at Thrifty Rent A Car (and you don't have to wear
a nametag). But you gotta ask yourself if you (and your fiance) can afford
to do this. Unless she's hauling down some major scratch, I just don't
see how you two are going to get by in D.C. -- let alone save any money
for retirement, a home, or to start a family.

- quote -

If you find a job on the hill, you'll be eligible to contribute to the
Thrift Savings Plan - which is the defined contribution plan that covers
federal employees. I would recommend putting five percent of your salary
into the TSP. This will take full advantage of the match, whichwill be an
additional five percent. As for how to invest that money, I recommend one
of the Lifecycle funds. Your other priority should be PAYING DOWN DEBT. If
you get monetary wedding gifts, pay down the loans. If you can return the
excess toaster ovens for cash, pay down the loans. RESIST the temptation
to start married life with major expenditures. As others have noted,
piling up debt is a sure fire way cause trouble.

Once you're debt-free, start saving for your house. This money should go
to a boring savings account at your bank or credit union. When you think
you have enough for a 20 percent down payment, surf over to
www.bestbuyersagent.com and get in touch with Dave Kolakowski, who just
happens to be the greatest buyer's agent in the D.C. area. (No connection,
just a satisfied former client.)

- quote -

I applaud your idealism. We need more young people who want to make a
difference. But don't ruin your financial future in the process.

Paul Michael Brown
(Who moved to Capitol Hill in 1981 with everything he owned in his Datsun 510.)

"Will" <wrhull[at]gmail.com> wrote
snip pithy, sincere confession of debt accumulation problems
in the past.
- quote -

The first step is admission. It seems to me this counts for
a lot as far as ensuring you and your future wife live
within your means and so have total happiness. :-)

Do keep lurking here. I want to start seeing your intended
posting here, too! ;-)

I first want to say that the level of advice I am receiving from each
of you has been astounding.

To Elle, I am sorry to say that the wedding plans are already in the
works and the financial debt that both my fiance and I have is a goal
that each of us are working to pay off as quickly as we can and to let
that hold us back from getting married isn't something that we are
willing to sacrifice. I understand the fact that many divorces are
caused by financial problems. I have first hand experience with this
as my parents divorced over this issue. However, with todays costs of
going to college and cost of living, as well for my fiance, trying to
keep up with the Jones' is something that got us where we are today
with the debt we have. I saw college as a worthwhile investment.
Trying to keep up with the Jones', not so much a worthy investment,
but something I am trying to break as a habit. But $100 trips to
Target is something that she is slowly changing and I almost have her
cured of that emotional need. For me, the weakness is Best Buy and I
used to have to go there once a weekend, but now I can go months
without going there. Progress is being made by both of us. We see
ourselves as a team and when one is settled with their debt (most
likely me, since I have less than she does) we will focus on hers. I
have faith in that department.

Thanks to Bill for the insider advice on the Washington, DC housing
market.

Also, thanks to the other Will for letting me know how he got started
in investing in stocks.

-Will

On Mar 12, 2:53 pm, "Will" <wrh...[at]gmail.com> wrote:

Will

Please see my email (darkness39 at yahoo dot com) regarding Robert
Kiyosaki.

Smartmoney did a very interesting and revealing investigation of him
and his business affairs, a few years back.

His stock investment strategy (penny stocks, hot IPOs) is as far from
a sensible investment strategy as I can possibly imagine.

D.

"Will" <wrhull[at]gmail.com> writes:

- quote -

Don't be insulted by this - the title's a bit much, but it's
a great book - I've given copies away to several people:
Personal Finance for Dummies by Eric Tyson.

It's the basics. It's solid. It's about the big picture,
it's actually pretty easy and entertaining reading. By
"the basics" I mean the bare basics - not "how to evaluate
a stock" but "should I open a 401k and what is a 401k,
anyway?" As well as "do I need disability insurance?" and
"how can I save more money?"

He's got a couple of other titles (Mutual Funds, Investments,
etc) but that one's the big picture one and probably the
very first place to start.

- quote -

We've talked about Kiyosaki's columns here a few times.
Read the archives of this newsgroup. Search groups.google
for some of the discussion.

- quote -

Pretty much. Especially for a beginner, individual stocks
(and especially, active trading!) should probably be held off
until you've accumulated a bit of a nest egg, preferably in
an IRA or 401k, in some solid, basic diversified funds.
(Once you get some more knowledge and experience, individual
stocks may make sense as core holdings, but until you know
what you are doing - and have enough money to diversify -
it probably makes sense to let funds take care of most of
it for you).



--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
No HTML in E-Mail! -- http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
Are you posting responses that are easy for others to follow?
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting

"joetaxpayer" <joetaxpayer[at]nospam.com> wrote
- quote -

Tiny little nitpick: Shiller said a few years ago (c. 2004
IIRC) that given a choice between all stocks or all TIPs, he
would advise all TIPs. Given a third choice such as "some of
each," he might choose it.

Nice digging on this Cramer pundit. I like your point: "The
real question is this - have I learned something from this
book I will use?" Sort of like the exchanges here: Maybe
lots of dreck comes up, but was there a crystal or two as
well?

W. Wells wrote:

- quote -

I'm always curious about advice taken out of context or authors who are
recommended or dissed. The posted who commented on Zvi Bodie's strategy
for going exclusively with TIPs/iBonds had me read his book to see if
there was more. (on a side note, Elle had quoted Robert Shiller as
having offered the same advice) Neither gentlemen are slouches, and
their advice was sound at the time, especially Shiller calling the
internet bubble as he saw it, and coining the phrase "irrational
exuberance".

That said, I borrowed Cramer's latest, "Mad Money, Watch TV, Get Rich"
and at 198 pages, finished it pretty quickly.
First, his booked persona is far more level headed than he appears on
TV. Say what you will about the mad man on CNBC, but the author has an
intelligent story to tell. He does not recommend individual stock
picking for one's investment portfolio's bulk. He starts by suggesting
that one have the rest of their finances in order and start with
individual stocks only after they are on the path to a properly funded
retirement, IRA, 401(k), etc. And then, with the $10,000 minimum "extra
money" diversify so the five chosen stocks are in different sectors.
He also advises that one needs an hour's worth of homework per week for
each stock one owns. That seems like a conservative, not cowboy,
approach. It also limits how many stocks someone with a day job should own.
The book also contain a stock worksheet which contains question one
should answer before choosing a stock. It's listed here, along with his
25 rules of investing;
http://www.wanderings.net/notebook/M...StockWorksheet


If you put aside your notion of the TV pitchman (and he's self
deprecating about that persona in the book) he comes off as level
headed, rational, and worth the few hours it takes to get through the
book. The real question is this - have I learned something from this
book I will use? Maybe. My stock picks are minimal, I'm mostly in index
funds and ETF depending on the account. My last individual stock pick
was MO (Philip Morris before the name change) and the misses vetoed the
purchase.
JOE

On Mar 16, 6:23 pm, "Elle" <honda.lion...[at]nospam.earthlink.net> wrote:
- quote -

Yeah, I'm always being told by romantics that true love overcomes all.
The media also spits out the message incessantly. The trouble is that
it cannot honestly sustain it for many decades.

"Man cannot live by bread alone" as it says in that old black book,
but you need the damn bread to begin with! If you can get two people
who are willing to work hard in the literal sense, the likelihood of
them becoming a genuine team is more likely as they will be going
through the same experiences. Money can be used as a motivator for
such relationships, not as a distraction from them.


======================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT:
Please trim the post to which you are responding. "Trim" means that except for a FEW lines to add context, the previous post is deleted.

On Mar 13, 10:00 am, "Will" <wrh...[at]gmail.com> wrote:
- quote -

I remember reading a few articles where an analysis was done showing
that the percentage of a person's annual income that they saved every
year had a much bigger impact on their net worth at retirement than
the rate of return they got on their investments.

In other words, figure out how to regularly put significant amounts of
money into savings as your first priority, and only when you have
substantial sums to invest should you consider "playing the market."

Andy

On Mar 13, 1:00 pm, "Will" <wrh...[at]gmail.com> wrote:
- quote -

What about your 401k? 401k's offer limited investment choices, but
maybe that's a good way for you to get your toes wet. You can also
direct the investments in your Roth.

- quote -

Check your math. That's a 10% increase. I only mention this because
it's another good lesson. You can't evaluate your returns in a
vacuum. It's important to bear in mind what the market, as a whole,
is doing. For example, from 3/1/2006 to 3/1/2007, the S&P 500 was
also up 10%. So really, you just got the market average.

- quote -

I believe there's a lot of money to be made in real estate. But, as
with any investment, the risk is proportional to the reward. In
addition, you need a lot of money to get started in real estate. It's
also a lot of work.

- quote -

Good luck with that. I live in Fairfax, so I know exactly where
you're coming from. There's some regentrification going on in SE,
including Anacostia and, of course, the area around the new baseball
stadium. It might be too late to get in on that at a reasonable
price. But it could be a good place to look.

- quote -

Like I said before, I think you'll be hard pressed to find a lender
offering more than 95% financing. That issue aside, I think the 2-
mortgage approach (80/10/10 or 80/15/5) is superior to paying PMI
because the interest on the 2nd mortgage is tax deductible. However,
like Jim said, there have been rumblings about PMI being tax
deductible, as well. How long that deduction will stay around... is
another matter.

--Bill

Will wrote:

- quote -

As Other Will stated, if there's any match on the 401(k) contribute just
to get the match. Then pay off, highest rates first.

- quote -

For what it's worth, "the Intelligent Investor" is quite readable, 300
pages or so, "Security Analysis" on the other hand is a 600 page deep
dive which any serious stock picker needs to read to become successful.
Warren Buffet was a student of Ben Graham, and Mr Buffet is acknowledged
to be a living legend when it comes to picking companies. You may want
to read up on him as well.
These comments answer your desire to pick individual stocks. Given the
rest of your situation, I'd advise against it. Between the pending
marriage and job outlook, you likely won't have the time to do this the
right way. I've heard it said that one needs to devote an hour per week
for each individual stock they own. This would mean either having a
small portion of one's portfolio in individual stocks (my situation) or
to invest through funds and/or ETFs.

- quote -

It is a good group, you will find it reaches an intelligent consensus on
most issues, but in any case provides great insight into financial matters.

JOE

"Will" <wrhull[at]gmail.com> wrote
- quote -


- quote -

You are right to have this feeling.

Forget about investing in stocks.

Put all your extra cash into paying off the two credit
cards. Do NOT use the line of credit. Do whatever it takes
to live within your means, now and after you pay off the
debt. When you have only the student loan as debt, post
back.

- quote -

Will, god willing you will take the following very
seriously: Do not get married with this debt. Financial
problems are a leading cause of divorce. How on earth can
you ethically ask this woman to marry you when you are not
only penniless, but actually owe money? Money isn't
everything. But it's like 50% of everything. Ya gotta eat
and have decent shelter, etc. and not be working so hard you
can't enjoy life.

Will wrote:

- quote -

To the already good list of books that have been mentioned by others, I
would add Personal Finance for Dummies and/or Investing for Dummies.
These are great plain language places to start.

To me, paying down your credit cards should be your first priority, then
start investing (but you should snag any match to your 401(k), although
it doesn't sound like you'll have a match for much longer?).

I started learning about investing in individual stocks by reading
everything I could get my hands on, and paper-trading various strategies
to see how they worked without the benefit of hindsight. In other
words, I kept a pretend portfolio on a spreadsheet and "bought and sold"
individual stocks as I saw fit. As I started to get an idea of what
worked and what didn't, I started real trading of individual stocks with
$2000 in an IRA, while also buying mutual funds in a 401(k). As others
may point out, $2000 is not enough to minimize trading costs or to
diversify properly, but it's enough to get you learning the hard lessons
that only real money can instill in you, and it's not enough to kill you
if you lose it all.

Good luck,
-The Other Will

Thanks to woessner[at]gmail.com, joetaxpayer, Ron, Justin, Jim and Elle

Elle most of all, thanks for giving me background into how you began.
It really is something I have been trying to get out of the
contributors here, because that is the hardest part of all of this.

Currently I have 3K in my IRA, I haven't been able to contribute to it
since I created it as a roll over because my goal has been to pay down
my debt first. I am currently in an internship at the US Senate and
not making anything while looking for work on Capitol Hill, so
analyzing my income can be a problem currently. (Italics here The
things you do to start out when chasing your dream...(end italics)

When I was working recently (January), I made about a net of $2K take
home each month I spent $630 on debt. I have about $5900 on a 7.99%
fixed credit card with its max at $7000, $5700 in student loan debt
(originally around 11K) around 4% or so, and $800 on my 14.99% fixed
credit card (with a max line of $2500 knocked down from $9000 because
I opened a $20,000 line of credit at 14.99% fixed with the same credit
company) and I have targeted this one the most, when I was making
money, on the higher interest rate with the intent after paying that
one off to go to the next credit card with as much as I can and then
the minimum payment on the student loan ($139/mo) since it's tax
deductible. I learned this tactic from Suze Orman, to pay down the
highest interest rate first.

What I am worried about is having to take out of my new line of credit
to survive this internship at the Senate to get a job on Capitol
Hill. I may do so, but that interest rate is at 14.99% fixed. I can
live off of about $1400 per month and each month I usually have about
$20 left in my checking account. I am down to the wire. (I think this
contributes to my stuck-in-the-mud feeling about money). Elle, I
don't think I can contribute much to my IRA or 401(k) until I get a
comfortable feeling about my debt. Is this the way it should be,
tackling this first before I throw money towards retirement? Or
should I attack both simultaneously, and hike less towards the debt
each month? I just want to know what to do once I have the option of
putting money away, once the political world finally pays something
that I have worked hard to earn.

I really like JoeTaxPayer's web page. It is really something I want
to explore further. Thank you very much. I will also give a look at
smartmoney magazine. I think, also, my next book will be by Mr.
Graham based on your advice. I have never heard of it, but if you
think it is good I will take a look.

You guys are the best and I thank you for your thoughts. Being young
(25 years old) and getting married in July, I don't want to have to
learn the hard way, I would rather work the smart way before I jump in
and attempt the market.

-Will

W. Wells wrote:

- quote -

I'm curious why you say that. Have you read any and disagree with his
advice, or have you seen the show and made a decision from there that
he'd likely not have anything worth reading? I've not read it yet, just
looking to hear your thoughts.
JOE