Plant a money tree!

This entry was orig­i­nally posted with a lot more detail. Then Tiffany read it, and sug­gested I might want to be fuzzier about who, what, when and where with regards to my employer. Read about my thoughts on this here. On to the post.

Tiffany and I have a lot of money in invest­ments. We were pretty ded­i­cated investors before we had Aidan (well, before we got preg­nant, in any case) and we hope to get back to it, but the very least we alsways made sure we did was fully fund our employer con­tri­bu­tion retire­ment funds. We put in $x per month, and our employ­ers put in $2x, or $1.8x or some­thing. I mean really, it’s free, before-tax money. Like plant­ing a money tree.

Today I heard some­one, in all seri­ous­ness, sug­gest that because her brother lost all his money by putting it in stock options at the com­pany he worked for (which tanked), “this is like, no bet­ter than play­ing the slots, right?” She was seri­ous, and I don’t think she’s chang­ing her mind. To her, invest­ing means tak­ing a huge gam­ble with all your money. If that’s the only expe­ri­ence she has, of course she’s going to sock it all away under the mattress.

I am seri­ously wor­ried about my gen­er­a­tion when we get to retire­ment age. I know I’ll be fine, but I think the vast major­ity of peo­ple my age will be S.O.L. Which doesn’t mean Sure Of Liquidity.