blah blah finances blah blah

[rmd]

so, i've been pondering my finances lately.

as usual, i'm thinking that i should be saving more money. then again, i suspect that if i could retire this moment i'd still be thinking "man, i should be saving more money. what if..."

i'm thinking about talking to some kind of financial planning type, but haven't done anything about it yet.


[Poll #743154]

if you're local to me and have a financial planner you like, feel free to share the name. i have an irrational aversion to most "hey, talk to our financial planners" offers from amex et al since i pessimistically assume they're going to act in a way that maximizes their happiness in terms of "meeting boiler room quotas" and less to maximize my happiness in terms of "making me a lot of money".



thanks!

Comments

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

First, live cheaply. The more self-denial you can stand now, the more money you will have later. Always insist on good value for money. Consumer Reports (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Reports) is your friend.

Second, asset allocation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_allocation), and index mutual funds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_fund). The basic bet with wide diversification (and a cheap, low turn-over, buy-and-hold strategy) is on human progress: the winners in your portfolio/mutual fund will win bigger (i.e. more than pay for) than the losers lose. Stock pickers win in the short term, but tend to lose in the longer term. Best way to evaluate an investments manager is against market performance itself (i.e. did s/he do better than market in an up market? Did s/he lose less than the market in a down market?).