Hmm.

Please Read This First

Disclaimer: This is not in any way financial advice or a replacement for financial advice. Or like, anything like that whatsoever. I'm not a professional; I did terribly at economics in college and I took two semesters of it. I'm an amateur in every sense of the word. My retirement account is handled professionally through a state contractor who takes my money and gives me a very short list of mutual funds to choose from. I only do this with my entertainment budget and because at that point in my life when I started, I was fairly desperate and it was disaster or disaster + entertainment value and to be honest, I was very bored. At this point in my life, it's the only way I can keep a working savings account, because believe it or not, if money is entertaining me, I don't have to spend it to entertain myself.

Now This

That said: is anyone interested in me writing a tutorial about how I use Sharebuilder for stock trading? This is not in any way to encourage anyone to do so or to like, leap into it--if you need to see why, check my finances tag in LJ, my adventures are all there--but use of the website Sharebuilder itself only will be offered, basically an entry detailing how I tutored my mother and my sister and Madelyn through it. Please, please keep in mind that it's very volatile right now and has been the last two years, and it's only after two years that I'm getting what volatile really means. And a lot of how it worked for me was a.) blind luck and b.) volatility meant I could make some unusual choices that I'm not sure work for everyone. I also read a lot--and I do mean a lot--both online and in actual books. I mean, I read a lot while I was doing it and I still read up and I keep a very detailed spreadsheet. I don't trade on margin and I'm obsessive about keeping notes on what I do and don't do and why.

Literally, I can walk you through the site and what it does and does not do and how it's used, but only if you were already interested in doing that. There are also some great sites out there for this already, if you would like a better one. There are also tons of other self-service brokerage firms that you can work with if you're going that direction anyway.

I can't emphasize enough--since this is money and it's a recession--my experiences are unique to me and let's face it, I'm not exactly the postergirl for cautious financial responsibility.

Market Roulette - Paper Version

If anyone wants to play market roulette just on paper (or a spreadsheet), leave a comment and I think it would be fun to play. There are at least a couple of sites that do simulations (if you happen to know where one is, tell me, I lost my bookmarks), but I think we could do it with excel if enough people are interested in playing paper-only, no money involved whatsoever. If you have never invested or did anything markety, this is for you! There will be a complete explanation, but honestly, with paper only, it'll be very easy to do.

If so, I can set up a basic rulesheet and a model spreadsheet for it and January first we can start a year of adventure. If enough people want to play, I'll set up a comm just for this. The paper version will be a lot easier than the real version, but will require you to consult your financial website of choice to get prices, and I'll list some places you can look to get stock quotes and how to read them, it'll be like, yahoo and cnn and google. And we'll do check-ins and FAQs and oh, this sounds really fun!

Again, the paper-only will be paper-only, no money exchanged whatsoever, though if I'm running it, I could do a prize at the end of the year? Oh, I like that. Though in that case, I'll excuse myself from eligibility, of course, but then I get to pick a prize! Maybe several if enough people play. *thoughtful*

Yeah, you can actually see me bouncing, can't you?

ETA: Okay, fine, I just finished putting the individual spreadsheet together. HOWEVER, during this--if we do this--I will keep a separate spreadsheet myself for each person plus a master for comparison, so if the idea of having to depend on your own spreadsheet is the problem, don't worry! You'll be able to access the one I'm keeping for each player that will be used for all totals. This is going to be fun, not stressful. Well, no more so than the market makes us, that is.

Actually, this is a test of crossposting. But I will add content, because finally I can read my LJ Flist.

Complete disclosure: work has weird issues with some websites at random times, and DW and several other sites (like, say, CNN) go out on me for no reason I can work out other than pure technological spite. So crossposting might be spotty when posting from work.

Part A

I have five spare DW codes. Comment and you are welcome to one of them.

Part B

The great debt clearing of 2010 is almost over. I did a more extensive flocked post on this, but I spent the last year overpaying to my 457 and playing with my honest to God ridiculous stock account and managed to save enough to pull one third of my stock profits and borrow heavily against my 457 to do a mass payoff of what will end up being a total of four credit cards, my Dell account, and a personal loan I got forever ago. This year was very--not bad, but let's say it will be nice to be contributing a normal amount of my check toward my 457 (plus loan payback) and have like, normal disposable income.

Before anyone looks at the stock thing and goes, really? I will be honest with you. This should not have worked. I spreadsheeted worst and best case scenario. I did better than my most realistic best case scenario and this proves the stock market is evil and very possibly controlled by the spirit of Loki, and I need to repeat this--I don't know how this happened.

However, this is not to say anyone shouldn't or couldn't do it. I'll be honest--even if I'd done not so great, it is fun. I started a second custodial account for Child, and while I'm a lot more conservative with him than I was--or I am--with myself, it's still something I think now I'm comfortable doing. So there you go.

Part C

I celebrated my somewhat-freedom with netbooks for my sisters and my personal gift to myself is a new Netgear N Router, which has the highest ratings for a dual-band and will help with the immense amount of internet traffic in a house where the number of computers outnumber the number of people who live here. I'm staring thoughtfully at Road Runner national mobile, which will supplement my phone in assuring I will never suffer the deprivation of not being online at any given second. My major city of visiting is Chicago, where svmadelyn lives, where there is access to it through G3/G4, so it seems like a good idea , along with some other cities that are out there and I could end up in at some point.

(I should get her ten year plan for if she intends to move so I can check those cities for access. Or maybe just give her a list of acceptable cities to move to? What do you think?)

Part D

Gakked from everysecondtuesday here: the community formerly known as fanspastic changed its name to fangasmic, moderators' post and counterpost on the subject.

I apologize to those that were offended or upset by the name--I didn't recognize it as ableist language when I posted the link in my LJ until ratcreature pointed it out and another person confirmed it soon after. I hadn't ever heard it used as a medical term (though I know it's connected to cerebal palsy, I'd only read that and weirdly, that didn't translate to my verbal vocabulary), but that doesn't excuse my ignorance of it being used derogatorily. As an aside, is this where the term 'spaz' comes from? I checked slang entymology on google and I'm pretty sure it does (and even if it doesn't, it's close enough that I really don't feel the niche it has in my vocabulary is so important I need to keep it around), but I just wanted to check.

Part E

I cannot believe how much dw specific html I forgot. Gah.

I'm still torn on the import function for DW, so I haven't made a point to import my entire LJ here, though I'm still archiving it, and I'm seriously leaning toward it if LJ's servers keep up this. For me, ti's been doing the slow-service thing for a couple of weeks now and it's getting both irritating and worrying.

This week in adventures in gambling!

First:

This is purely a question of opinion, for those on my flist that are financial professionals. What is the tipping point where I should consider getting a professional financial manager for my stock account? Is there a particular amount I have invested at which time I need to stop treating this like a particularly expensive hobby and at least start seeking professional advice?

( nonspecific details )

( to what I've learned this week! )

Child

The locally owned and operated reptile and rabbit store has showed interest in Child volunteering there, which is--I mean, great, but also, um. They have five of the hugest snakes I have ever seen. And a ton of tiny rabbits. I did not buy a rabbit. I think everyone who has been here two years or more just breathed a sigh of relief. Mostly because it still hurts and I own my issues on that score, so you know. There were also ferrets, and this thing that was furry and expensive and hid in its bed, so we coulnd't figure out what it was (not a chinchilla). Adorable.

So today I saw a ball python (flashbacks to that woman who was strangled recently by one), blood python, something else that scared me, something else that scared me, something else...well, a lot. A lot of snakes. And bearded dragons, chameleons, anoles, and for display purposes only, a caiman lizard that looked a bit like a crocodile's runt baby that never grew up.

So I am calling the manager tomorrow of all the stores to find out what I need to do to get him into reptile heaven. Frankly, dragging him out today was hard, but they had a jacuzzi set up with turtles and fish and a huge iguana and it was literally the coolest thing ever. If you live on Austin, it's on Burnet just past Black Eyed Pea, and seriously, this place is cool. It's bigger than their original location, and with better lighting and more space. I mean--there's a freaking jacuzzi of turtles. That cannot be anything but awesome. And that iguana!

Right. Back to your lives. I'm working on editing a fic, so maybe up tonight or tomorrow? I'm going to ask you to keep your expectations very low right off the bat. It'll just be easier on us all if you do not do anything crazy like expect a plot or something. The working title is "The Slutty One" that will be renamed about five seconds before I post. So you know, that should tell you what you are getting here.

After a long weekend of writing, and you know, that freaking Academy alien nipple thing, and before that I was sick, and there was a lot of Merlin porn, I decided to see what the economy was up to these days, because you know, my current hobby is watching the stock market and marveling at the insanity.

Context: Adventures in Gambling, or How I Discovered the Dark Lure of Stock Trading

So, there have been some changes.

( bank of america and how it corrupted me )

I spent part of the week reading backward through the economic turmoil since September, since me and my brand new, totally amateur, deeply fun portfolio are still getting to know each other.

Continued from: Adventures in Gambling, The One Week Mark, or, how I thought hey, the stock market is doing really bad! I should be doing this too!

( there's something deeply and profoundly educational in reading THE WORLD IS ENDING redux on the automobile industry )

Quicken Online

I'm testing Quicken online, which is a great deal like Quicken except both easier and more frustrating. On one hand, if someone wants to use Quicken, this is a great way to learn the basics fast, since it kind of does everything for you and there's really not a lot of mistakes you can make (in case anyone remembers my adventures with Quicken 2008). On the other, if your bank/institution/card isn't listed, there aren't any manual options for adding in transactions from those, or anything from them. It's very, very frustrating. It also doesn't have the option of adding the entirety of every check including all its pretax deductions and so forth, which isn't precisely necessary, but I like having complete information.

The second is more tricky and more psychological.

On the front page is this huge Money In - Money Out = Saved boxes, which are just freaking *irritating* as hell. This has to do with categorization for the most part; using transfer-in or tranfer-out is surprisingly important, so I finally worked out the only way to work with it is treat anything transferred between my checking, my savings, and my line of credit with the credit union as a transfer in/transfer out or the amounts are off. Plus, for my credit cards, the payment recieved by them is set to transfer in. I'll check it again once all my bills are paid and see if its accurate now. It'll be easier to be sure by the eighth or ten, when pretty much all my monthly bills are paid and have been received and processed to give me an idea of how much I'm actually spending. Seeing October itemized taught me the valuable lesson of how many Egg McMuffins I eat a month. As in, a lot.

(Also, those boxes are depressing as hell. However, pie charts! Yay!)

I'm testing this for a week and getting comfy, then trying Quicken again, which I loved except for all the ways it was really weird to use sometimes. Then, then I shall have incredibly fun spending a weekend configuring it. It satisfies some part of me that needs to be really crazy and overly detailed oriented in a way that doesn't mean I'll find solace and meaning trying to track the ratio of short stories to novels posted in a fandom over the course of six months. Which there is every possibility I might do in a fit of weirdness.

Link: Quicken Online

( financials, part 2: this can only end in hilarious disaster )