My blog is back up! (and other miscellany)
My site, it was down.
Sorry about that yesterday, guys. Apparently there was an issue with something rebooting and then not starting back up and it took a little while to get things going again.
Luckily, my hosting company identified the root problem and fixed it for me, so we should be good to go now.
On a related note, someone suggested to me once that I could save a lot of money by doing my own web hosting, and while it's true that that could save me money, I am 10000000% sure that I will always want to pay someone to do it for me.
I love writing posts and chatting with you guys but I totally do not love any of the technical parts of blogging. It's money well-spent to have someone else do that all for me!
Me: Dear hosting company. Please accept my dollars and save me from the techy things.
I cancelled Amazon Fresh.
I gave it a try last week with the $30/$100 purchase coupon (read about my experience here), but it's definitely not for me long-term.
ALDI FOREVER.
So I cancelled in plenty of time to beat the end of my 30 day free trial period.
I paid for a dishwasher fix.
I have a pretty old Kitchen-Aid dishwasher. Actually, it's a good 14 years old by now!
Anyway, the soap door lost its tab and wouldn't shut anymore. Luckily, my repair guy was able to order a new soap dish/door, and I am really glad I hired him to put it in.
The whole door had to be taken apart, and it was rather solidly stuck together after being left for 14 years!
I can fix some things on my dishwasher, but this was definitely one I was glad to outsource.
I suppose eventually we'll have to replace this machine, but for now, it still has been cost-effective to repair it.
(By the way, if your soap door malfunctions, you can start the dishwasher, wait 8-10 minutes for the rinse cycle to end, then open the door and add the soap. That way the soap is in there for the wash cycle, not the rinse cycle. That's how we limped through until the door parts came in!)
I gave up on an investing book.
You know how I've been trying to become less clueless about investing?
Well, I picked this book up from the library.
I got about halfway through it and just gave up. I found the writing style to be annoying, and my goodness, I kept feeling more and more overwhelmed at the idea of investing the longer I read it.
Danielle Town and her dad buy individual stocks, which does seem to get you farther faster than investing in, say, a Vanguard fund.
But that the process is so daunting to me, I know I would never even get started.
So for me, at this point in my life, I need to remember that done is better than perfect and something is better than nothing.
Which means that something like Ellevest or Vanguard is a better fit for me than investing in individual stocks.
_________________
And that's all I've got for you today, friends! I'll be back tomorrow with a menu/grocery post, and hopefully my blog will stay up and running smoothly.
I use Robinhood for my individual stock picks and I go by Greenblatt's book and his "magic" formula which is form of value investing. But there's nothing wrong with index funds, it's important to keep it simple. My Robinhood is just a form of experimental money.
(I didn't notice your site was down, I was browsing yesterday and everything was fine I thought! Welcome back?!! I hate the techy side too.)
Dave Ramsey never believes you should purchase individual stocks as your funds need to be spread over a variety of investments. That said I inherited a number of individual stocks from my mother whose portfolio would have been larger but GM & Armstrong went belly up & reorganized leaving their investors holding an empty bag. That said I will never by a GM/Chevy vehicle again. We have a wonderful financial advisor whom we trust and I just don't think about the market going up & down.
I strongly advise against individual stocks. Index funds perform better almost always and always in the long term. If you want to read a book on investing, I recommend "The Simple Path to Wealth" by Jim Collins.
I would also suggest checking out the Stock Series on his blog, which is the foundation of his book. http://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/
He is great about answering comments if you have questions about his approach.
As an IT guy, yeah leave it to the cloud. You don't need that headache.
I don't buy individual stocks. I'm risk averse anyway but it's just too risky. I hope you didn't own Facebook shares today, for example.
Good luck on keeping the dishwasher around. I have a GE which isn't so much of a nice one (dial start and only okay at cleaning) and at 15 years old I know its time is short. It came with the house and outside of our second-hand toaster and hand mixer, it's the oldest appliance in the house. My wife and I have actually discussed replacing it now and selling the old one on Craigslist but we just bought a car and a couple garage doors so money is a bit tight again at the moment. so it will have to wait until next year or if it does finally kick the bucket.
“Done is better than perfect.” That is one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned through reading your blog the last several years. As a perfectionist, it’s exhausting to get the result I want from a lot of things. But if I remember that “done is better than perfect,” I don’t get nearly as discouraged.
I feel ya on the investing pain. I like reading David Bach and Bogleheads for my investing knowledge-seeking.
Endorse! Bogleheads advice is research-based (the book is—the forum may not be but they have good advice in general)
So, I should look for a Bogleheads book at the library?
Yes — The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle.
Omg, I'm listening to that on an audiobook right now, and I felt exactly the same. The writing is awful and the author always seems exasperated every step of the way. I don't think the investment strategy is that bad (it's certainly nice to know alternatives to picking index funds), but she makes learning the process really insufferable.
Oh man, it's nice to know I'm not the only one who wasn't a good fit for her writing style! I'm sure it appeals to a particular group of people out there, which is fine, but I am definitely not the target audience.
AIEE!!! I’m an economist and buying low cost broad-based index funds IS BETTER than buying single stocks. On average people who pick stocks do worse! That’s worse than picking randomly.
Investing isn’t actually hard—but a lot of people are invested in making you think it is.
That's what I've heard from multiple sources, but then this book seemed highly recommended and I thought, well, I'll give it a try.
It's lovely that a thing that feels too overwhelming to me is also not very effective. Yay! Now I don't even have to feel guilty about not individually picking stocks. Phew.
We are on dishwasher #3 here...had two Whirlpools and both went belly up. The most recent one is by Bosch and I LOVE it. 24 years and four kids did a number on several of our appliances...As for investing, my employer uses Transamerica and their website is very user friendly. Plus, the reps come to our work site fairly often, but you can also schedule an appt. with them.
Both Bosch and Miele (German brands) come highly recommended. I will probably go with one of them when I get a new dishwasher.
I'm glad your blog is back up. I just couldn't see anything yesterday >_<
I haven't read any investment books because I know I won't finish them. I find personal finance podcasts about investing to be much more digestable. I just listened to Bigger Pockets Money Show with Mad Fientist today. He said index funds is the way to go, and I think a lot of personal finance bloggers would agree with that.
We use Vanguard. It isn't flashy or impressive but it is very practical. Neither of us is interested in researching stocks or monitoring our portfolio closely, so a "set it and forget it" method makes the most sense for us. It has done very well since last January but we expect over time to see it fluctuate so we have an automatic deposit set up and we only look at it every 3 months to keep from fretting about it. So far, so good.
I'm going to echo Carla a few posts above: Jim Collins stock series, available for free on his blog (but some "current" references are dated as he started writing it a while back) and he had it edited and published as a book "The Simple Path To Wealth" you can buy in actual book form, or get a a free audio or Kindle read if you do the free trial.
http://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/
I am one of the poster children for going from zero knowledge to confident enough to give others advice and even manage my extended family's portfolio now. I love his writing style, he has some fun anecdotes and overall it was a very entertaining read, and you come out of it actually understanding how the market works and the why of index investing/Bogleheads approach works so darn well while being so simple.
He advocates self managing, simple Bogleheads style investing, so 2-3 funds held, index funds all the way.
And if you want a really quick, easy and FREE read that might help immensely: https://www.etf.com/docs/IfYouCan.pdf
^it's only 16 pages!! So much knowledge in so little words!!
You've already got the frugal living and mindful spending down pat. But the great part is that you can also have your teen kids, friends, family or anyone that shows interest in frugality/investing read through these two books - and they all should be able to get it easily.
I figured out the site was down and was glad I'm not the one who has to figure out things like why they go down. I would do like you do, pay someone to handle that headache.
Re: the dishwasher. My former boss told me when his dispenser lid broke off, the repairman told him the only way to repair his model was to replace the entire door, for over $400! He called around and got the same answer elsewhere, so my ex-boss bought a new dishwasher instead. When you said the door broke off your dispenser, my first thought was uh-oh....
Holy moly! $400?? That's crazy. I'm lucky that it was possible to just replace the soap unit!
I've read a few personal finance books (the only title that I remember is The Gone Fishing Portfolio), and they all agree that index funds are the way to go. That is also what most of the finance bloggers seem to do and it works for risk-averse me. One source I read (the early retirement extreme blog) was all about stock picking and optimizing return on investment, but it was pretty clear that it would require more time investment than I was willing to give. I just want to not lose money to inflation mostly, I don't want to make investing a hobby.
What eventually got me started from having all my savings sitting in savings accounts to moving some of it over into index funds, was YNAB's investing course, which is a 2-week email course going through the baby steps of buying index funds (after you have an emergency fund, obviously). The course is free.
My sister is a financial advisor who operates according to the fiduciary standard (best interest of the client). She says that for most people, Vanguard index funds are the way to go, but so many people don't know this. It's always good to understand investing, but it seems like that as a practical matter, you're doing really well! There are always differences among funds and what not, but your personal savings rate is the most important thing.
Here is the investing advice
My brother gave me: buy what you know and only invest in single stocks if they are categorized as “dividend dynamos”. Meaning they have not decreased their dividends in ten or more years. So, I bought Coke, ADP (the company that did my payroll services), Proctor and Gamble. They’ve all done pretty well. My husband refused to buy individual stocks and only buys funds. Good luck.
There are also pretty low fee funds out there that consist of high dividend paying stocks. So even if you want dividends you don’t have to go the individual stock route.
Just fixed my washer 2 weeks ago. For some reason the control board lasts about three years. I still felt like, even though this is the third one (at $200 a pop), it's cheaper than a new one and getting a washer in and out of my basement is no small feat. The advantage this time was that 1) I knew what was wrong with it, 2) I ordered the part online cheaper than the repairman did, 3) I saved the service fee. And even though it was a no brainer to fix, I still felt a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment and it didn't "require a mustache."
You go, girl! Woo!
Facebook! Need I say more. Buying index funds is the way to go. You will not hit a home run but you will not strike out. I think you're doing the right thing with your investments.
I started out with a fund suggested to me by my parents' bank guy. I started reading on investing, mostly what was in our newspaper. I decided Vanguard and especially index funds were the way to go. When you buy Vanguard funds, you are a shareholder in the company. That means instead of paying profits to someone else, they give them to you in the form of lower expenses. Their loyalty is to you. Also, index funds outperform 75% of all managed funds. If you buy individual funds, you need to investigate and continually check in them. If index funds outperform 75% of managed funds run by investment professionals, how do you think the average person will do with individual stocks? I have done well with index funds and Vanguard. I have watched my costs go down since I started with them. Their website has a lot of information on investing as well.