Comments on: GOOD Decisions I’ve Made On My Investing Journey

By: Warren

Warren — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:00:33 +0000

Glad you made a good one. I have been having some wrong choices and can't wait for a good one. .-= Warren´s last blog ..Home Mortgage Refinancing With A Bad Credit Score =-.

By: steve swanson

steve swanson — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:28:50 +0000

I like to trade actively with a portion of my portfolio. I do well, but always add winnings to my longer term holdings.

The key to my longer term holdings is to make sure I don’t “hold” during declines. Even the great companies got beat up badly in the 2007-2008 bear.

One thing most people don’t consider if they have a 401K and other retirement accounts, is managing it. Don’t let the money just ride and hope someone else is really paying attention to your money. The average fund never beats the market, and loses worse in a bear market.

Something as simple as a 100 day moving average on the broad markets – which most institutional traders use too, would have dictated an exit when markets began to trend downward in late 2007.

That 100 day average (you can use a 50 day as well but it triggers too many trades) began rising in May of 2009, and signaled a re-entry into growth funds or good stocks.

It’s not perfect, but that approach doesn’t take a lot of time to monitor, and it would have saved so many investors the pain of serious losses during the great decline.

Best of all it allowed the investor to buy with A LOT MORE money after the March lows.

Not being in when a fund is losing big, is just as important as how well a fund performs in a bull trend.

That’s been a simple way I keep compounding!!

By: Anja

Anja — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:35:47 +0000

“Marrying my wife. No, this isn’t just a sentimental number”
Its about your wife? Love is sentimental.

By: Financial Samurai

Financial Samurai — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:29:11 +0000

What a great list! I agree with marriage and keeping track of your finances with this blog. It certainly has kept me honest.

BTW, is there a marriage tax penalty btw? I did a survey of coworkers, and they have all paid 5-20k more a year in taxes.

By: Zengirl

Zengirl — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 05:34:20 +0000

My 2 kids were born on Jan and Feb, so I missed out on tax savings previous years. Getting married and having kids have simplified our life so much though, much cheaper, something or high though, like kids health and education related expenses.

By: Aaron Stroud

Aaron Stroud — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 18:30:22 +0000

It’s always nice to hear about good decisions once in a while. It feels like most of the personal finance blogs are written from the perspective:

I screwed up > I recognized I screwed up > I’m going to figure out how to get out of this mess > and then I’m going to work towards retiring early!

Hank, that tax break is nice (at least until it expires), but having your kids at the tail end of the year makes using your flexible spending account mighty difficult!

By: Free From Broke

Free From Broke — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:19:14 +0000

I hear you on #3. Try as we may we couldn’t get our little guy to come out a month early (he was born in January)! All kidding aside, #2, my wife, is probably one of my best financial decisions. Not that it was a financial decision. But she is great at budgeting and keeps me honest when I want to buy gadgets.