I used to own stock, but then I had to sell it when I needed the money. I'm glad I invested, though, because I made a few thousand more than I would have if I'd put the money in a mattress or left it in a checking account. I would not recommend owning stock directly, because that makes your taxes a mess and you have to keep detailed records of what you bought and sold, which gets hairy if you want to spread your investment out over time and over many companies. I recommend the Vanguard mutual funds. I am reluctant to go back into the market unless things drop again, and in any case I will spread out my purchases to reduce market risk. Mutual funds make tax preparation easy because they do all the buying and selling, and at the end of each year you've got a capital gains number and a dividend number which are calculated by the mutual fund, so you don't have to.
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A boy and his dog can go walking
A boy and his dog sometimes talk to each other
A boy and a dog can be happy sitting down in the woods on a log
But a dog knows his boy can go wrong
18 Feb 2010, 2:08 pm
