Cashing in those investments

Part of buying a house means needing to have $xx,xxx downpayment and $x,xxx at the closing for lawyer fees, insurance, and so on. That’s a lot of money.

For the last 5 (?) years I’ve been saving up for this. I haven’t spent a single royalty check (they’ve all been invested) and I’ve set up automatic deductions so that I don’t see it (and won’t miss it).

It’s ironic: Now I’m cashing all these investments in and it feels like I’m doing something bad. I’ve psyched myself up to never ever ever cash in these investments... except when buying a house. However, the “never ever” sank in and even though I’m at the “except when buying a house” part it feels funny to cash these in.

It went something like this... ( Details under the cut )

The Dilbert guide to personal finance (a serious artcle)

(Snarfed from the Vanguard website)

Wouldn’t it be great if someone reduced financial planning to a few simple rules? A list that you could send to a recent college graduate, or to a friend who struggles with money?

Well someone has compiled just such a list for first-time investors called “Everything you need to know about money.” You might be surprised at how short it is—and who wrote it.

The list is the work of Scott Adams, the cartoonist famous for creating Dilbert. His deliciously cynical take on the workplace is published in more than 2,000 newspapers, in 65 countries, and 22 languages.

His pithy list on personal finance covers the basics in just 128 words: Pay off your credit cards. Save plenty of money for retirement. Write a will. Have six months’ worth of expenses saved in an emergency fund. And buy a home to live in, if you can afford it. (The complete list can be found below.)

Why did a humorist take an interest in such a serious topic as personal finance? Adams said that even as a child growing up in New York’s Catskill Mountains he had a fascination for finance. He took his bachelor’s degree in economics at Hartwick College in 1979. After college, he worked at a bank for eight years and earned an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.

“I’m the kind of guy who wears glasses and acts like I know stuff more than I actually do,” Adams said in a telephone interview. “I can’t tell you how many of my friends would call me and say ‘I don’t know what to do with my money. What should I do? How should I invest?’

“I realized there was a pretty big need for people to know how to do this stuff,” Adams added. “And so I thought maybe I’ll write a book. It will be kind of a Dilbert funny book on how to invest.

“I bought all the investment books I could. The more I read, the more I realized you couldn’t make a book out of it if you were honest. Because the only way to do it would be on one page,” Adams said. “If you’re actually trying to educate people, it turns out the formula is very simple.”

So simple, in fact, that his entire list fits on one page.

Everything you need to know about financial planning*

• Make a will.
  
• Pay off your credit cards.
  
• Get term life insurance if you have a family to support.
  
• Fund your 401(k) to the maximum.
  
• Fund your IRA to the maximum.
  
• Buy a house if you want to live in a house and you can afford it.
  
• Put six months’ expenses in a money market fund.
  
• Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker and never touch it until retirement.
  

If any of this confuses you, or you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, tax issues) hire a fee-based financial planner, not one who charges a percentage of your portfolio.

( more details here )

Moving my desk at work

We’re shuffling desks around at work because we’re run out of space, and we’ve leased another floor of the building. The space used to be used by “Seventeen” Magazine. No, it doesn’t smell of perfume.

However, an an homage to the previous tenants, the conference rooms are being named after fashion magazines: Cosmo, InStyle, GQ, Vice, People, YM, Elle, Marie Claire, Vogue, and so on.

I love this place!

Justice Long wins Senate confirmation for New Jersey Supreme Court

Justice Virginia Long was confirmed by the Senate yesterday for reappointment to the New Jersey Supreme Court until she reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70 in 2012.

Long, a usually liberal justice who consistently votes against the death penalty, was confirmed by a vote of 33-5 following a brief debate.

[...skip down a few paragraphs...] Only Cardinale spoke against Long’s reappointment, but Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R-Monmouth) issued a statement Only Cardinale spoke against Long’s reappointment, but Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R-Monmouth) issued a statement explaining his vote against her: “This court has routinely tortured and twisted the statutory enactments of the Legislative Branch,” Kyrillos said. It did so, he said, to substitute Frank Lautenberg for the embattled Robert Torricelli as the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in 2002, to halt a bear hunt in 2004 and to force the appropriation of billions of dollars for the state’s poorest schools.

So, Kyrillos is too cowardly to say this in public? Wimp!

But really, Kyrillos... of the top things that you choose to list about her the fact that she halted a bear hunt?

A BEAR HUNT?

Where is Stephen Cobert when you need him!

But the best part is (and you have to listen to the transcript of this) when KKKardinale accused her from “legislating from the bench” she replied that if Cardinale doesn’t like what the court does, maybe he should pass clear, clean, laws that don’t require so much interpretation.

Ha ha ha ha ha. Great come back!