Hmmm...interesting tip on buying a forclosure....

I was looking at Trulia.COM, the housing sales website when I spied a set of questions written about secrets of buying foreclosed homes.

I liked the idea of buying a foreclosure because I figure the current owner (bank or whoever) might be a bit distressed and ready to deal.

But the set of questions brought up a fact that I just hadn't totally considered....well, only sort of half considered.

I had thought about the possibility that the person who defaulted did so not because they fell into bad times, but perhaps there was something so WRONG with the house or their life situation that they just elected to DROP it.

Well, this article brought up a particular case of this that I hadn't even considered.....what if the old owner used the house to cook methamphetamine? (here is the Wiki entry on methamphetamine )

I suppose I had considered the possibility that a house might have a nasty mold problem...or any of a host of other health related issues.....but having a problem of drug residue all over wasn't something I had considered. It would be a problem much like that of having lead paint.....it could be fixed, but at what cost?

Oh well.....just another thing to consider I suppose.

Hmmm....as goes Gold, so does Oil?

I saw this BLOG today that describes what sounds like dire times for oil....but at the end of the article, I saw the graph I have included here.

It is interesting to me because it compares the price of oil (per barrel) to in units of dollars, Euros, and Ounces of Gold.

We know how Gold has gone up in recent years.....and we see the same thing with oil.

But I didn't think the price of oil and gold had tracked each other so well....almost a flat line as opposed to the dollar!

What does that mean? Do people put Oil on the same level as gold? That is, is it so needed by the world that it has become a new place to consider a "sure thing" should there be financial collapse?

I don't think so myself.....but I wonder what other think?

What I told my financial advisor this morning......

I went to see my financial advisor this moring before work and we had a long discussion about my goals and risk tolorance.,

He of course suggested I "Stay the course"....which of course makes total sense if you think you can't really time the market and believe in long term returns.

But this market feels a lot like the market in 2001.....shaky and based on a sliding economy. I don't see it as market timing to slide out right now as I don't see a solid economy under-foot.

Well, I decided to back down from my 60% equities / 40% bond position to a 30% equity / 70% bond position. I was worried that I would be locking in losses from yesterday's drop....but low and behold, the market rallied big time today and HOPEFULLY he sold towards the end of the day and I might have hit it on an up-stroke. (also slid a sliver of money into a currency trading "fund" too)

No big deal if it continues up for a couple of days.....I don't see that as a long term thing. If it is...then I suppose I screwed up....but I just don't see why the market has been going up for the last 12 months.....seems like as bubble to me. (perhaps money rushing from realestate to the market....looking for "some place" to go because let's face it.....you lose money to inflation if you just put it in your mattress)

I suppose 12 months from now i will know if I was correct, or just a big wimp..... (I could be both too)

Mom's Money Podcast.......

I discovered this Podcast while surfing the Personal Finance BLOG world, and I listened to Podcast #7 about 1/2 way through and found it kind of interesting. I think I'll at least sample the other 6 shows and perhaps subscribe to it if I continue to like it.

It seems to be a fairly common and average person who discusses personal finance questions that most people will have, but don't feel comfortable talking about. She drags those topics right out and bares her soul.

As I said, I just scratched the surface with the small segment of show I heard....but I think I liked what I heard enough to suggest that you might want to give it a listen.

The web address is:
http://momsmoney.com/blog

My mistake....feels like FREE money! (how stupid of me!)

If it were not due to my own stupidity, I would have considered myself double lucky today.

You see I have been looking at this "bill" I had in the kitchen for Spring classes at Rivier College. The bill was for $2550, and was due on June 6th, 2007.

At about that point, I was looking at my bank account level and knowing I just didn't have the money to pay that....so I was going to defer it as long as I could.

I was going to put it on a credit card, except I really only have an American Express card...my Mastercard is really a DEBIT....so that wasn't going to work.

Well, I put it off until today, when I found that I had just enough money to pay it off. I called up with my Debit card in mind and was ready to pay the late interest fee.....but guess what? I had apparently paid this bill in May!

HUH?

That's that they told me....my current balance was ZERO. I own nothing......so I instantly felt a shot of happiness travel up my spine. (forgetting about how DUMB I was to not have accounted for all that properly for the past couple of months)

Anyways.....even though it was the result of my own mistake, I feel lucky today! I feel almost as though I just won free money!

College Tuition Time of Year again

Well, it is that time of year again......no, I'm not rushing it, I'm talking about August...the time college starts again after summer break.

But right now is when the thoughts of paying the bills come to mind. I received the $17,500 (or so) bill from Pratt and it is due by August 24th. I have not yet received the bill from the University of Tennessee (UTK), but I'm sure it is "in the mail".

In the long term, Cheryl and I had prepared to pay these by saving money, and I have that fact placed solidly in my head.....but still, when that bill shows up with all those zeros......it is a bit of a sticker shock.

I just don't have a checking or savings account with that kind of bread in it......so it's always an investment transfer, which sort of puts it all into perspective. I normally slap it down on my AMEX for a month so that I can use that time to transfer the money from a mutual fund. (and get the total costs figured so that I only do the transfer once)

This year has the added complication of Kristen transfering to UTK and Kimberly moving off-campus to an apartment. All of those costs are "new" and as of this moment, not fully understood. We had the loans and monthly payment plans figured out for Hofstra, and that is all up in the air for UTK as of now.

The other problem is that it looks as thought the loans taken while at Hofstra basically "come due" 6 months after she leaves the school because the loans appear to be connected to the school and not the student. (I guess this keeps people from going on and on as "professional students" and never paying off their loans) I have no clue as to how much those loans might be...I think they were small though....like $3500 per semester.

So writing this is probably less interesting for you the reader, but it helps me get my mind around the money that I will have to be paying out in the next month or two. At least it will
cause me to go and look at my investment accounts and get a mental sense of where I will have to "dip in" to get this money.

Education is a good investment......I know that, so I'm not in the least upset. Also, Cheryl and I had planned this pretty well, so other than a few small expenses we never thought of, everything has been OK to plan so far.

How is our economy doing?

Warren Brussee wrote a book called The Next Great Depression 2007, and I reviewed it a while back in this BLOG.

I thought it was an interesting analysis of what was going on, and I wasn't sure whether it was correctly viewing the future.

You see, I think the world and US economies are very complex things. They are hardly the simple supply and demand curves we all learned about in our Macro-Economics classes. They have all sorts of active influences that are not always logical....but often emotional and irrational too.

But the two things that have struck me personally in the last few years are the lack of savings (we have become a credit culture) and the various bubbles that seem to have grown and at times burst.

The savings rate is documented in the graph in this post. It has now been negative for a couple of years.....and I don't think this can be sustained forever.

The latest bubble that is slowly deflating is the housing bubble. Over prices houses....but this is a huge problem......people rely on those increasing values to fund all kinds of things. They take out second mortgages to spend the money. The other problem is that when people get "upside-down" on a house, they can't sell it for they have no savings anywhere else to pay the loss they have.

ARM loans adjustments have been going up with the interest rates these days, and people often find their monthly payments going way past what they planned.....making them cut back in other areas.

A full 70-785 of our economic activity is based on spending.....with depressed spending levels comes dramastic decreases in economic health. So we are encouraged to spend.....new financing techniques are invented when the old one's become impossible to use.

But we are only delaying the inevidable slide....would it not be better to slide than to "fall"?

Oh well....I suggest people save. Save for a rainy day, and do so with great diversification, because if things begin to slide...or God help us FALL, we will want to make sure at least a part of our money is in a place that is not affected. (lest we lose everything...as some did in the '29 Depression)

The importance of Cash Flow....

These past two months have taught me the importance of having a reserve of money at the ready because at times it is all about cash flow.

That's right, I had a few unexpected bills pop-up last month that centered around the girls trips to school this summer. I thought I had enough money in the bank to cover it all fairly comfortably, but this month the problem came to roost.

You see I had not considered the increased costs associated with the girls coming home. My weekly food bill rose from about $40 per week to over $100. I even saw an increase in my water and electric bill. (I have only one light on at any moment...)

Anyways, the budget I have crafted has very little wiggle room in it. In fact, if I go by the expected expense levels, I am in the hole at the end of the year. (but I have not gotten to things like paying my house and vehicle insurance....things like that will be what drives the account into the red and will require the selling of a longer term asset)

But those have not come due....and the main issue was not that the expenses I came across were totally unexpected....but they were unexpected in that month....certainly all at one time.

Cash flow....the flow turned into a drip....barely enough to feed the need. Thanksfully, I have not had any emergency expenses.....nothing large anyways. I have had a few unexpected things, but that went on the credit card....which only delays the problem until 30 days from now.

I need to build up my buffer again......so I can survive the ebb and flow of money.

I am going to cut back big time where ever I can.....food is the first thing. I am going to try to go a month without buying any food.....basically eat from the cabinets and freezer.

Sound impossible.....not really. I have a number of things in the freezer, and in the cabinets. I might not be eating exactly what strikes my fancy every night....but the checking account will benefit and my fear of balancing the budget week after week will get better. (a small price to pay for lower stress)

Here is a BLOG with good ideas on cash flow. It is written for small business, but many of the concepts are valid for household finance too!

Cash flow is king.....

Money, life and retirement planning

IT HAS BEEN A WHILE:
It has been a while since I have posted even though I have been sort of storing up ideas for posts ever since.

But this weekend I was talking to a friend of mine about retirement and about retirement savings, and it struck me that there are so many different approaches. (duh...how obvious)

They were telling me how lucky their parents were to have invested in a house because it is currently their retirement nest egg.

At this point with the housing market melt-down, I am not sure that investing in a house would be the way to save right now. (it might be good after the market adjustment / collapse though)

MY RETIREMENT SAVINGS APPROACH:
We own a house....well, most of it at this point, and we have seen appreciation from the $175,000 we paid for it. (it's probably worth about $310K after all is said and done)

But the major problem is of course that I would still need to live somewhere.....so I would be trading rent for a mortgage payment.....but then I guess I would have more in savings.

But I have never considered my house to be a savings vehicle.....I always thought it as gravy on top of it all should I make a profit in the end. I was more of the slow and steady saver.....always trying to put as high a percentage of my pay away every week/month.

I knew enough NOT to put that savings under my mattress, but to try and put it into fairly safe investment vehicles. No...I never really bought individual stocks....I never bought on margin...I never bought short....I basically went into very safe mutual funds and bonds.

As the SBLI ad says: "It ain't glamorous"..... but it works so long as time is on your side.

Buy and hold....that is my life of retirement investing. This means I investigate things in the finance investment arena, I readjust any savings I have into areas I feel comfortable with...and I go to sleep for about a year and do it all again. (with money going into those investments I chose every week from my paycheck)

Boring indeed....but I never really wanted white knuckle adventure from my retirement investments, so it suites me.

RETIREMENT:
As I see the computer industry slowly being absorbed by companies overseas....I think about my future employment. First of all, I see great pay cuts in my future if I have to change fields. I also see possible re-tooling of skills....which might mean education costs too.

My daughters are still in College...with Kristen having 3 more years of her BA degree and Kim one more year. But Kristen will be going on to more school, and I would like to help with that. (and Kim too, if she decides to go on)

Right now I am amazed that our investments are brining just enough in to pay for these costs......at least with the continued money I still save from my pay. But if I lost my job, things would go upside down very quickly because I too would need to start taking from the pot.

So the next few years are important to my work life....I have to keep that in my mind and work hard to be the most valuable employee possible. (of course, even that doesn't help some times :-)

STEPS TO RETIREMENT:
The article I reference above is an interesting one as it talks about the five emotional stages we go through as we move into retirement. These steps are described as: Imagination, Anticipation, Liberation, Reorientation, Reconciliation. (with retirement day happening between Anticipation and Liberation)

I would say that I am somewhere between Imagination and Anticipation....even at my young age of 48. I probably should not be thinking so "old", but it really isn't so much a matter of what I want to happen...but what the outside influences of the job market are thrusting upon me.

I'd love to work until I was dead....and I probably will....but I might not be working in a high paid job that will make ends meet....so I have to at least have a plan to get the cash flow needed.....and I guess since I would be playing with my retirement money....I tend to think of that as "retirement".

Such is life....it never goes per plan.

Of course.....how could I forget the "Garage Sale" Option?

I have a basement (and attic) full of "stuff" that really needs to be gone through and gotten rid of...and I have been doing this for several years...a little bit at a time.

Our only point of sale for these things has been the yearly Flea Market trip. We did this because the local Londonderry Gardens Flea market has a great deal where they give you your first sale day for FREE. (so long as you stay between the hours of 9:00am and 3:00pm)

The combination of weather and poor time management has not given me the opportunity to plan my trip to the flea market.....besides, I don't have my truck any longer so getting things over there will be harder in the van. (and it will probably take more than one session to sell all the stuff I have)

It just occured to me that I could put things out and have a yard sale (or garage sale...or tag sale if you are from the DC area)

This would be a weekend that I might allocate to staying home and doing yard work....I can set everything up in the morning, put out the signs and go about my daily work waiting for people to come and buy.

I normally sell things at crazy "this thing must go" prices....because I basically want to get rid of this stuff, but still feel it has value and would be a shame to throw away.

So I think the Yard sale is it.....now I just have to figure out how to set it up and advertise it properly.

NOTE: I will of course take photos and BLOG about my experiences!

The Perfect Storm - Checking Account Style (or, it's all about cash flow!)

I suppose I have gotten a pretty good handle on my finances over the past 5 or 6 months, so my charting in spreadsheet and log form has pulled back to a less difficult rate.

Because I have tuned my IRA and stock plan contributions to pretty close to "peak" my contributions, I have to be a bit careful with my cash flow. (my budget supports the expenses, but only if they come in sort of staggered and not at the same time)

As with any budget, you have to be careful with spending since your current savings account is probably higher than you expect given some of the expenses that were "baked in" but that have yet to be realized. (like real estate taxes that hit once a year, or car insurance which is the same)

But once you get the total income / spending budget in balance, you still need to watch monthly cash flow. One of the levers you have to "fix" this is your credit card....not by pushing things off to the point of paying interest....but to decide to pay something now or defer it for a month.

But be forewarned.....you can not defer things for ever.....this is a once in a while way to push payments out.

So the way I do this is to have a mental picture of all my expenses, current and future. I then have an idea of the amount of money I have in the bank, and how money is flowing in and out. (is the total increasing or decreasing over the next couple of months)

If I see a situation cropping up where I am short some money in a month...I might choose to defer a payment by slapping thing so on the credit card. (again, only if I know I will not be creating another "bubble" a month from now when I have to pay that)

Well, everything was going along fine until I ran into an expense I forget to consider. That expense was my own school tuition.

I forgot because "most" of my tuition is picked up by the place I work. But this only happens after I submit my grades. I generally choose to have my tuition bill deferred by the school until after grades are available...as that is as easy to do as giving the school $100 and showing them that the company I work for has a tuition payment plan.

So I did that last semester (about $2600), and the bill is due June 2ND. I then received the bill for this semester, which I have decided NOT to defer....and that is for about $1300.

I had planned on paying for Kristen's field School (about $1800) and Kimberly's summer classes in Copenhagen. (about $9800) with the former being paid by check and the latter a deferred payment of my AMEX card from last month.

I screwed up.....I still have the normal payments like my mortgage and car payment coming due early next month, and now I have to go in and really sharpen my pencil and check on a day by day basis. (to see when my paychecks are going to hit the account and so forth)

In the long term, this is not an issue...my budget is a good one, it is mostly a matter of cash flow. (actually, last month I had planned on needing to take money from long-term savings/investment....but an unexpected profit sharing bonus at work made that requirement unnecessary.....so this really is just a cash flow issue)

I need to perhaps create a cash flow spreadsheet to make all of this easier to track. Cheryl used to do this by simply listing it all out on a month by month basis on paper....I sort of do it in my head now....which is obviously not good enough!

Oh well.....live and learn!

Progress against the budget

Well, I am into the third month of my budget, and I decided to see how things were going. Things look OK, but here are a couple of areas that have varied from the goal. (but the net-net is good)

1) The budget for Pennachuck Water is $75 per month, and the January bill of $124 really shocked me. But this was a bill that included all the water used by all the people who were here after the funeral. The Feb bill was down to a nice $49.93 and March came in at $43.67. It looks as though I might have over budgeted there.

2) Verizon Wireless was a similar thing. I have $115 per month on the budget, and the January bill came in at $124.77. That worried me, until the February bill came in at a reasonable $95.86. It was the combination of several things. Increased calls in January after the funeral. Then I forgot that we would be returning a phone and therefore lowering the monthly bill by $20.

3) The Vonage bill came out the opposite. I had initially thought I would junk the service and stick with the cell phone only. Well, I have kept the Vonage so far...at the $17.95 level rather than the Skype $1.55 per month cost.

4) I actually had one unanticipated house expense in repairing the hot water heater for $100. Actually, it was in the budget as I have a $50 a month of house repair.....so I suppose it was in budget.

5) Fuel for the car was a big problem for the budget. I had $117 in the budget and spend $251! Yikes, fuel did go up in price, but I am not sure what happened since last month I had spent $98.00.

Those are the big differences....I will keep the budget as it is for now. A few more months will tell.

BTW: I think I am saving heating fuel but can not tell because I am on a fixed budget. Time will tell with that.

The Rules of Money...Book Review

I went to Barns and Noble bookstore tonight and I came across this book. I flipped through it, and thought it was a very interesting book.

It isn't written like a typical chapter book as it is written as "100 Golden Behaviors" for gaining and using wealth.

The rules I flipped through seem to present a very common sense approach...yet there are so many who don't have that common sense as their base. A reference book like this might be ideal.

I am going to Amazon and ordering it as a used book. It looks interesting.

Sears Scratch and Dent in Manchester

It struck me a couple of years ago that the "scratch and dent" sales business seems to have gone away.

There used to be a place in Salem NH that would sell all kinds of appliances with minor damage at fantastic savings.

We boug several appliances there and they were great. one of them was a refrigerator that had a scratch low on the left side....well, we happen to have the refrigerator agains the cabinets to the left...so viola, no problemo!

Ditto for a washer/dryer we bought once. Since they were hidden behind a set of accorrdian doors, we didn't care much that they had a scratch.

Well, there seems to be a place like this in Manchster NH. It is the Sears parts center, and they happen to sell slightly damaged and refurbished goods. Everything from gas grills to washer/dryers...TVs, refrigerators.....lots of things.

The prices seemed pretty good to me. The only thing I am thinking of is to replace our current electric stove with a gas stove. But I am not in any sort of rush.

Anyways, this store is up on Brown Ave...just past the airport on the left as you travel north.

They don't have everything all the time...as with any scratch and dent, things are hit or miss.

Check them out.

Zenni Optical Order is in.....NICE! (I like the results!)

I wrote a BLOG entry a couple of weeks ago (3/6/2007) about my going to Zenni Optical for some new Glasses.

Well, they came in...and I am very pleased.

I actually write about this in my Live Journal, so rather than cut and paste I would rather just link you over there! (it's all about linking...right :-)

I highly recommend low-cost eyeglass purchases on the net...and I recommend Zenni Optical.

Easy Saving - Dump Picking (Think of it as recycling)

My first thought is to recoil at the thought to admitting to the average person (you all reading) that I was having issues with my kitchen computer mouse and found a replacement at the "recycling table" at the dump.

Ok...so my town doesn't really have a dump. It is actually an incinerator....so there is no climbing over piles of trash to get these treasures.

No, we have a very clean and fairly orderly operation. In fact, we have these large tables that people drop things on. I think the idea is that these things are supposed to be functional, but there seem to be a number of people who don't seem to get that. So it is hit or miss when you pick something up.

Well, I have picked up much more interesting and expensive things for use. From monitors to FAX machines to laser printers. I have also dropped quite a few things off there too.

I guess this is the 21st century version of dump picking....and you know what, this is the way we should treat a lot of our things.

So many things get discarded before their life is through. Monitors being swapped for LCDs. Computers being discarded because of newer computers. All sorts of things like this all the time, yet there are often people who could benefit from the discarded unit who will never see them.

So today I not only saved myself 5 bucks, but I saved the fuel it would have taken to go to the store and the result of the high blood pressure I would have had trying to find a space! (just kidding)

Do the world a favor....go out and use recycled products....."Dump Pick Your Next Treasure!"

Finally picked the high yield CD: 15 month @ 5.60% APY

I had some money that I needed to find a place to invest. My first thought was whether I wanted this to be risky money, or something solid.

About 2 months ago I rebalanced my portfolio from 70% stock to 50% stock....but other than some EE and I bonds, I still don't have any real safe investments.

On the other hand, this money was sort of money I did not expect to have....certainly not a huge amount, but perhaps money I could afford to take risks with. (I is not earmarked for any particular expense)

But given my shift to a more conservative portfolio, it made no sense to me to take risks.

I thought a bit about Gold because I have nothing in any sort of precious metals.....but I thought that maybe gold was a bit high and that there was as high a chance of losing as making....what's the point.

I was also considering the possibility of investing in say a savings bond of another country. This way I would not just get the interest, but get the advantage (or disadvantage) of any currency movements. (I think the dollar will continue to slide over time...but I am not any sort of expert, nor do I have any inside information...it is a hunch)

So I went with the safest bet....a 15 month certificate from my Credit Union, US Alliance. It pays 5.60% APY for a 15 month term. It has a single bump-up option, and it's in there now. (I wasted weeks trying to decide and I lost interest in those weeks!)

I actually like all the rates of my credit union. They have good CD rates, good home equity rates, and great credit card rates with a 7.99% Visa Gold card. The do most of their transactions online with only a limited number of branches. I think Branches are expensive!

As for the CD....when the 15 months are up....who knows what I will do. But for now, I am happy with the safe 5.6%....slow and steady wins the race!

Low-Cost Internet Eyewear Sales to the Rescue!

I have VSP (Vision Service Plan) at work and my eye doctor contacted me to remind me that it was time to get my eyes checked.

So I went in and it turns out my left eye has gotten a little weaker, and I am now in the range where I need bifocals (or a progressive multi-focal lens) So I sit down, pick a frame and the whole bill comes out to about $150. (including $25 co-pay for the exam, and $25 co-pay for the frames)

The next day (Friday) I get a call from a worker at the doctors office telling me that made a mistake with the date of my VSP coverage. It turns out I would not be covered for frames until January 2008, and that this would cost me another $150!

I really wasn't excited to spend that kind of money so I decided to cancel the glasses all together and wait until January.

But when I got home that night, I decided to go online and search out inexpensive eye-wear, and I found several sites that claimed to have some really great deals. They noted $9.00 and $8.95 glasses....so I took a closer look.

Well, I figured the prices were OK, and I would take a risk on the frame and lens quality. I would simply throw the glasses away if they were not that good. (besides, it is sort of exciting to take a risk...albeit a cheap, low cost no-brainer)

So I ordered a pair of single prescription $8.95 stainless steel frames, and a $51.95 set of fancier progressive len frames also in stainless.

What the heck....$65 for two pair of glasses. Less than half of what I had paid for the one on Thursday.

Why do I Blog about Personal Finance?

I have NOT been tagged, but I decided to try to answer the question: Why do I Blog?

I Blog about money and Personal Finance because it lets me focus on these topics myself. It causes me to think about it each and every day....at least to the extent that I have to in order to post.

The personal finance topic helps me think about my own spending, and my home budget.

My posts about the economy and investment allow me to think about topics that help me focus my retirement and savings money into places that better enhance the growth of these.

I'm not a day trader...in fact, I am a buy and holder, but I do follow the principle that I need to re-balance my investments every year.

The thoughts in my BLOG help me with this re-adjustment.

Now for the $69,000 question....does this extra focus help me actually make better decisions?

So far, the jury is out on that.

Great Money Discussions In The Least Expected Places

This afternoon I had to bring my van to get inspected and I brought it to a local mechanic that my family has been using here in Hudson since 1993. (When he opened)

He is a good mechanic, and honest guy, and I have had some good conversations with him in the past. (He used to be a Volvo Mechanic but opened his own shop...and I had a Volvo back then, but I now bring him anything from Jeeps to Honda Civics...but I digress)

So tonight when he sat down with me to get the inspection paperwork squared away, we started talking about the economy and I was surprised at all the ground we covered. Not that I didn't think he knew as much as he does, but in the more than 13 years I have known him, we have never talked about politics or money.

He is apparently a fairly liberal fellow, and I a conservative...and we actually agree on quite a few things. (which doesn't surprise me since some of my other liberal friends also have violent agreements with me too.)

Anyways, we started off by talking about some of our friends who were unemployed....the state of the economy, outsourcing, the housing bubble, the stock market melt-down in 2001, the current negative savings rate, medical outsourcing to India (which he had not heard of, but could see coming once I mentioned it).....

I admit to often being a "glass half-empty" person.....the Engineer in me is always looking for possible failure modes and looking for all possible recovery scenarios. He seems like a glass half-full guy, but he wasn't too positive about the trajectory our country is taking. (in his words, ever since Reagan)

Well, it is funny he picks that time-frame for his start of our countries woes, because it was about that time that our national savings rate began to take a nose dive from about 8%-10% to the current negative 1% savings rate. (he picked the date before I told him this statistic)

Anyways.....we sort of agreed that things would probably continue in the manner that they currently are.....in my words, like a frog sitting in a pan of water on the stove set at low...the water is getting so hot so slowly that the frog does not even notice that he is soon going to be dead from boiling water....the change is so slow he never sees it coming until it is too late.
(I think that this is what the world means when they talk about our having a "soft landing"....a soft crash landing)

We also agreed on two things.....those with money would probably fare better in the long run (so saving was important), and that slow and steady wins the race. The race for a fast buck puts you even more at risk should a downturn strike while you are exposed. (I have a brother in-law who can attest to that...and he owes so much I can't even fathom EVER being loaned that much....it absolutely shocked me!)