Small Business Boomers

You probably think I am nuts.  You just lost a bunch of money by having your 401(k)/IRA invested in the stock market.  But now is the best time to keep investing.  For some of us, who are on the verge of retirement, it may be too late, because you are done investing, or need the money as income.  For the rest, take advantage of this opportunity:  It’s called “dollar cost averaging.”
Your contributions to your 401(k)/IRA will buy you more shares of mutual funds or stocks/bonds now.  In part, it’s the principle of “buy low/sell high.” I know we all missed …read more

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Now that I have heard over and over how we Baby Boomers caused the financial collapse by our profligate spending and our financial irresponsibility, maybe we should just take over and fix the whole mess.
Miranda Marquit (from Yielding Wealth) and other “ordinary” Americans were asked their opinions on how to fix the economy.  Miranda has a sound bite of these interviews from NPR.
What do you think of these ideas?  Got any of your own?  If we all got together, all 70+ million of us, and we actually did something, we could rule the world.
Well, maybe it’s better not to get …read more

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Like other baby boomers, I donate to my favorite college.  Many boomers give to their alma mater, either for the sports program they love or to fund specific capital giving.  But the economic situation has all that giving in jeopardy. 
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FoxBusiness reports that alumni giving is not much affected by changes in economic situations, because alumni figure that giving back is part of their “dues” for what the school gave them. I’m not sure I agree with that.  Given the choice between re-funding my IRAs and giving to my undergrad institution, I think I’d choose the …read more

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It’s a Friday and it’s October.  And the market seems to be following historical precedent:
I just heard that foreign trading seems to be in a panic mode, and Dow Futures (pre-opening trading) on the NYSE was so low it was halted to stop the slide.  It’s called “limit down.” Remember what I said about “FALL.”
We have nothing to do but hang on.  I am NOT looking at our 401(k) portfolio today.  No matter what.  It’s only a paper loss, we don’t desperately need the money right now, so we will wait until things improve.  And they always do.
If the weather …read more

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We Baby Boomers just received a rude wake-up call, with a $2 TRILLION lost in our retirement funds in the recent stock market debacle. Unlike our parents, who were savers, we have been spenders, but no more.
When we moved my mother out of her home about 10 years ago, we found box after box of aluminum foil. When we moved my mother-in-law a few years later, we found boxes of unopened cereal and cans of evaporated milk. These ladies, children of the Depression, were savers.
Our baby boomer generation, on …read more

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