Is anyone else out there scared about the economy?

and yet another year without raises at my company ...

 

i keep telling myself i'm lucky to have a job. repeating it like a mantra. otherwise i would go apeshit on the bosses here. it is so frustrating to see all the unnecessary spending that goes on here while we can't even get raises.

 

so what do i do? i steal from them in the form of "time" in order to make up for it LOL (time IS money, after all) ... look how much time i spend on BDW during the workday! LMAO

 

the bosses have money, and are therefore out-of-touch with the reality of the little guy's financial hurting.

 

just an example: we are having a baby shower for a coworker here, and the girl planning it said she wanted to do it during a pay week (we get paid every two weeks) to make it easier for people to contribute to the shower gift ... our boss actually said, "oh ... huh? what's a 'pay week?'" HAH! must be nice to not live paycheck to paycheck!

OMG, I think I could have written that exact thing!!

i'm starting to feel a little sick.

 

i started investing about 3-4 years ago. most of what I've put in has been in the last 1-2 years. so that was when the Dow was near 14,000. it's below 11,000 now so I have lost a lot.

 

I try not to watch the ups & downs because the money i have in is retirement money & a long term investment. and it's well diversified. so i don't feel like i should pull out. i just want to ignore the trouble & keep putting money in monthly. hopefully our economy recovers eventually.

i've always felt like an a**hole for never getting in on the company's 401K before, but these days all i hear is about how much money everyone's losing.

that said, you are still doing the right thing. diversifying your investments is key. besides, these things are cyclical, and eventually things will make a turn for the better (right?). in the meantime, it's important that young people start saving for retirement, especially since social security will probably be non-existant by the time we're ready to collect!

This is the news article that scared the shit out of me this morning:

 

Break the Buck

 

Basically, this is the second time in history that a money market account has lost money for the investor! And not only that--- they are "freezing" the fund so no one can bail out on it...

Ughhh, this is so like my fiance's work. The boss, and owner, have no idea that these people he has working for them have families and things to pay for. Over the summer, he cut out all overtime and slashed many people's commison. The guys who work under my fiance (he doesn't treat them as such, he feels really bad for them) are struggling to pay the mortgage and upport their families on hardly any money... and now one of the guy's found a better job, and is leaving and FI is very happy for him. But, now they want to not hire someone to replace him and just try to get all of the work done on their own (which was a stretch even with him there). I told him, just be happy you have a job... be grateful which he is... but COME ON! The boss complains about no money and the company losing money and then all of a sudden has a bunch of brand new toys.... I just feel bad for people who really work really hard and get the short end of the stick...

well, if you put money in 4-5 years ago, you'd just be back to where you started. the bad thing for me is that most of the money I put in was while the market was high.

but, if you look at the big crashes, they were followed by large growth. so the best time to put money in is while things are bad. ofcourse you can't predict when we've hit bottom.

still, i'm in for the long haul, so i try to just ignore the day-to-day stuff.

if you just track a number like the dow every few months its a lot less scary than following the news. also, the market went up high very fast, so a lot of the dropping wasn't really that big. I'm not saying things are bad, but i still feel confident our economy will recover.



here are the last 5 years. so you can see how we are back to where we were mid-way through 2006. not so tragic when you see it that way. there were some huge drops to report after july 2007, but you can see how fast we had climbed.

Looking at the big picture makes me feel even more secure.


here is the nasdaq


if you bought a bunch of tech stocks in 1999 or financial stocks in 2007, you could really lose. but if you are very diversified & willing to leave them money in long-term until the markets recover, things should be fine.

The big picture one might have something to do with inflation though right?

 

But yeah, over-all, if you're in things for the long run, no need to panic. Morgan your post made me feel a bit better

if you adjusted for inflation the slope wouldn't be as high. but historically, the stock market beats inflation.

i think it's just nice to see the big tragic years as blimps in the long term. also, you can see how bad times can be opportunity for growth.

the other thing I noticed was how the media reported every big loss, but not the small gains that brought us back to where we were. then we'd lose the same 200 points in a day & it would be reported. then we slowly climb back up...

yes, the market is very turbulent, but we mostly hear the worst.

so i try to remove myself from the daily activity and keep doing what i've planned. emotions can really get in the way of a good financial plan.

I couldn't agree more Most of us are young enough that we can wait all of these dips out. The key really is starting young and keeping it in there for the long haul.