Thursday, November 20, 2008

Damn you Wall Street!

I am so freaked out (something I am usually not) about the future and my retirement plans.

Today the Dow sank to its lowest level since 1997. In 1997, I was a sophomore in college. That basically means that all the money I have put away since college, 10-15% of my salary, was a bad investment, since I have effectively earned nothing and actually lost some of the money I have invested. That is crazy; everything that was drilled into my head in college about investing for the future has basically been thrown in the toilet over the last month. All the graphs that show how your retirement values will be exponentially larger if you invest in your twenties rather than your thirties have been tossed out the window. I know that now is a great time to buy, but seriously the growth over the last 8 years I’ve been in the work force pretty much means nothing at this point. I mistakenly looked at my investment balances 2 days ago….before the market dropped about 800 points…. and my values were down 40% since January……40 percent! I have actually lost money by investing it. Holy Shit this is crazy.

I wrote a little Haiku to express my feelings…..

Money in the bank
Saved for years, instead of beers
Gone in 30 days


Uplifting huh?

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