That Was Stupid....

Did you ever do something, where even as the idea formulated in your brain, you instinctively knew it was a bad idea? But yet despite the warning bells going off in your head, you did it anyway.

Yeah, well. I looked at my 401K yesterday. Holy........Shit.

I knew it would be bad, but I couldn't buy a bottle of cheap whiskey and a cheaper whore with what's left! (I guess like the rest of America, I'll be making some tough decisions in the future...)

Now here's what pisses me off. When the Market was booming in the late 1990's, I worked at a restaurant. When I got a check, which was rare, I contributed $15.00 a week. The company didn't match. I had no idea what fund out of the three we had to choose from to use, so I just did whatever. Every quarter, no matter which lousy fund I had my money it, it grew at like 20%. That money actually became my down payment for my first house. And I was sold on the concept of investing.

Now I work in a real job, with a better pay check. I believe (d?) in the 401-K concept so I put at least 10% of my salary away. I study the funds. I re-balance. I diversify. One year ago today, after being employed for almost 8 years, I ran the numbers and thought that by the end of 2010, at the latest, I would have 6 figures stashed away. And I felt great! I was delusional.

The closest thing I'm getting to six figures now would be the Star Wars guys in my son's toy room.

The market rallies one day and plummets the next. There's no real rhyme or reason to it. Everyone says its going to get worse, and I tend to believe them. Through every high, and more frequently every low, I keep telling myself that I am buying at a value price. The Market, I reason, is undervalued. I resist the urge to slash my contribution or move what's left into a safer sector. First of all, is there one? Second of all, I move that money and I realize all those losses and basically give up on getting it back. I can't do that yet.

When you get into a 401K, you hear a lot about maximizing matching funds, give yourself a raise first, research etc. But my favorite is: Invest in the Long Term! The reason being even though the market fluctuates, the average gain is 8% over time. Even in periods of retraction, the market typically wins back its losses in less than two years.

You financial bastards better be right. I'm a Maker's Mark kinda guy, and this Kentucky Tavern stuff is killing me!