Investments - what has served you well?

[El Serio]

Furthermore, at a minimum no kid should be able to graduate high school until they have a full understanding of the IRA accounts, the stock market, compounding interest and investments.

I remember when a Social Studies/Economics Teacher saw my interest in this kind of thing and we sat down after class and went over a bunch of ideas and he told me that he bought Boeing aircraft stock for $1.50/share. I said how many shares did you buy? He said, "Enough that I probably shouldn't be sitting here talking to you right now..." lol

Amen to educating youngsters. I have never forgotten the day that my high school math teacher asked the question "If you had $10,000 dollars right now, what would you do with it?" Someone said they would buy a truck, and he proceeded to teach us about compound interest, contrasting the ever increasing value of a compounded investment with the depreciation to zero of the truck. The lesson made a profound impact on me. I knew that my math teacher was a very wealthy man who owned many rental properties (my family once lived in one of his trailer parks), and he knew what he was talking about.

I have never been able to bring myself to take a loan for a vehicle, I hate the idea of being on the wrong side of compounding for a discretionary purchase (had to do it for a house though).

 

[mallardsx2]

I agree 100% every loan I took out in my life so far I paid off early.

The house I am currently building will be another tale to tell though. lol

 

[ColoradoV]

Property and rentals… Air b&b or long term nice to be in dc for the week and see rentals booking. Restaurant in the right area. Say what you want but bitcoin has worked out very well over the past decade..

Depending on where you are nothing beats real estate.

 

[kidoggy]

dollar slots

 

[youngbuck2]

Any of you fellow outdoorsmen familiar with ESOP? My company is transitioning to ESOP this year and while it seems to be all good, a few of us have some reservations. Mainly due to lack of knowledge on the setup and how it works. I understand that the details of each particular setup will be different, but in general whats the feedback? TIA

 

[buckbull]

Any of you fellow outdoorsmen familiar with ESOP? My company is transitioning to ESOP this year and while it seems to be all good, a few of us have some reservations. Mainly due to lack of knowledge on the setup and how it works. I understand that the details of each particular setup will be different, but in general whats the feedback? TIA

I work for a privately owned company of about 50 employees. The owner of our company is approximately 56 years old. He has talked about perhaps doing an ESOP as his succession plan in years past. He married a gal (total smoke show) about 20 years younger, had 3 kids with her and then she cleaned him out in the divorce so like me he'll end up working until he dies for his mistake. The ESOP talk has went quiet. Not much help I guess, just a story.

 

[mallardsx2]

I would stay away from an ESOP.

I fell victim to that once upon a time. Never again. I lost a pile of money on that adventure.

 

[Colorado Cowboy]

I would say (as far as ESOP's are concerned), it depends on the company. I worked for a very large aerospace company (100,000+ employees) and it had several plans for employees to receive stock & stock options. Management bonus's were in stock options and I did quite well with them. They also had an esop where you could set aside up to 15% of you salary in an investment plan. The company matched 50% up to a certain percentage and on a sliding scale up to 12%. After that, there was no company match. The companies contribution was company stock. This plan was a tax set aside, so you paid no tax on any of it until you withdrew any of it. Once I retired my taxable income was a lot less than when I was working, I starting withdrawing the money and stock. It's been over 20 years and I have liquidated all the funs and stock and converted them to bank CD's and tax free muny bonds. Less risk, but also less return on the money.

 

[mallardsx2]

To elaborate on my situation:

The company that I worked for several years back, basically lied on their financial backlog report to inflate the stock and then several large projects got cancelled.......They got caught in their lie, and it basically bankrupted the company and forced them to sell.

Overnight my stock went from being worth $6.00 a share to $.47 a share. I don't even want to tell you how much money I lost but it was a lot and the worst part about it was nobody was ever held accountable for the error. Ironically the VP's at the company had moved all of their stock in the weeks leading up to the financial report. People should have went to jail over this. Nothing to my knowledge was ever done about it.....

Be careful going this route...

 

[Colorado Cowboy]

Like I said......depends on the company!

 

[Rich M]

While this makes alot of sense, be careful, i did this for my brothers kid. the oldest one has no intention of going to school, this ended up being the same as flushing the money down the toilet.

they can/will get the money, it is not college at abc school or nothing.

 

[youngbuck2]

I would say (as far as ESOP's are concerned), it depends on the company. I worked for a very large aerospace company (100,000+ employees) and it had several plans for employees to receive stock & stock options. Management bonus's were in stock options and I did quite well with them. They also had an esop where you could set aside up to 15% of you salary in an investment plan. The company matched 50% up to a certain percentage and on a sliding scale up to 12%. After that, there was no company match. The companies contribution was company stock. This plan was a tax set aside, so you paid no tax on any of it until you withdrew any of it. Once I retired my taxable income was a lot less than when I was working, I starting withdrawing the money and stock. It's been over 20 years and I have liquidated all the funs and stock and converted them to bank CD's and tax free muny bonds. Less risk, but also less return on the money.

These are all details and questions that are yet to be ironed out. Causing some questions for concern as well. Like Malllardsx2, this is also the sellout/retirement plan of our owner. Generally, it appears that if our retirement stay the same and separate it should be a safe option for supplemental income at retirement time. I still have a good 30 years of working ahead of me so, god willing the evs and flows will work out.

 

[Shane13]

Find out if the ESOP allows you to sell the company stock and reinvest the proceeds into other investments within the retirement plan. If it doesn't, you could end up with too much money in one stock. If things ever go bad for the company, that could be a significant hit.

If you can get a match for investing in the ESOP, that can be attractive. Just make sure you can sell some to diversify whenever you want to. Don't end up with too many eggs in one basket.

 

[youngbuck2]

Thanks for the feedback, very much appreciated.

 

[ScottR]

How are all of you feeling about the markets?

 

[go_deep]

How are all of you feeling about the markets?

Just fine, but I'm not retired. Only thing I'm not buying right at the moment is single company stocks, but I'm not selling any either. Have monthly contributions set for 401k, 401k roth, roth Ira, won't be stopping those.

 

[Shane13]

You don't get to buy low when the news all sounds wonderful. When the news sounds good, prices are high. You only get to buy low when it sounds like the world is coming to an end and things will never get better.

Then, it gets better eventually. Everything (markets, the economy, politics, weather, fashion trends, etc.....) is cyclical.

As Warren Buffett said, be fearful when everyone else is greedy and be greedy when everyone else is fearful.

 

[mallardsx2]

Funny part about being heavily invested in the S&P 500 is that when a person looks at the summary of funds available to them in their 401K plan, the S&P is beating most if not all of the target retirement fund plans available with a MUCH lower expense ratio.

Not only does the S&P produce more of a historical return, it also appears at face value to be more tolerant of fluctuations in the market. Interesting times. Even if things are down ~15% and more.

I don't want to FFWD the hands of time but I cant wait for November 2022 and then I cant wait for 2024.

 

[ScottR]

Real estate is great for low-risk, long-term investments. I have a couple of rentals, and they are doing well even now when the market is unstable. At first, I wanted to invest money into stock trading but then decided I wasn’t ready to risk losing my savings and bought something more grounded. And I have never regretted my decision.

I'm getting there on the real estate front. Debating how/what to do in this market.

 

[kidoggy]

sell now. buy it back next year for half the price. hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the housing market prices dropped 75%. in the next year or two. I certainly don't see any reason they wouldn't