20k a year

[Uuaww]

If you had 20k saved up, what would you do with it? I've been working for a bit over a year now and saved that much up and should probably do something. I don't have debt. My hobbies include going to the beach, rum, bitching on the NDL, cooking. It's not that I don't spend money, it's just that I grew up living off of peanut butter and jelly and Monster energy drinks in college and well... those are both still delicious and cheap as rum and the beach are as well. Would you invest money? just keep saving it? buy some property?

[shel311]

Invest in coconut trees.

[Uuaww]

Invest in coconut trees.

While I do enjoy your humor, I am completely bewildered on this topic and am looking for advice.

[Cunit879]

I'm sorry to deviate from the topic again but what do you do for a living?

In terms of advice on what to do with it, i am in college and cant offer much advice on what to do with your savings because i dont have any.

[Seeitsaveit13]

Step 1: Call Riccio.
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit.

[trendon]

And Riccio will tell you to, at this moment, put it in a shoebox. No kidding.

[Uuaww]

I'm sorry to deviate from the topic again but what do you do for a living?

In terms of advice on what to do with it, i am in college and cant offer much advice on what to do with your savings because i dont have any.

Short answer- I inspect plants for the government.

Longer answer- studied botany in college but have a very good knowledge of most areas of biology. I work for the Dept. of Homeland Security as an Agriculture Specialist. Most of my time is spent inspecting cargo for prohibited items (fruits/vegetables, plants, meat, animal products etc.) I also spend a fair amount of my time in a lab identifying bugs and diseases (this is where my major comes in handy and why the government hired me. I am very good at identifying plant diseases by looking at spores, where it is in the life cycle, etc.). Sometimes I get easy days which is just sitting at the airport and inspection passenger baggage 10-15 times a day when I am called out of the lab. The pay is good, the benefits are great, and they sent me to the Caribbean to become knowledgable of Caribbean plants and diseases.

[shel311]

I also spend a fair amount of my time in a lab identifying bugs

[Uuaww]

And the reason my job pays well and is hard to fill is that it requires a botany degree and be able to secure a secret level security clearance and continually pass drug tests.

sooooooo. botany+no drugs in the past+no drugs now...

[Nole4real]

Step 1: Call Riccio.
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit.

lol, agreed

actually, trendon is prolly right though

i'd ask him anyway but maybe double that 1st..then maybe..just maybe

personally though, if you have ANY payments where you have interest, i'd knock those out while you're young

[Cnasty]

Blow and whores.

In that order

[Nole4real]

lol, which reminds me of a new suggestion for you

take that money. come to ndl vegas next october, put $5000 on black with one spin

use the other 15k for what corey said

[brett11253]

any biology field is the shit. I live for that shit

[sixpackdan101]

If you had 20k saved up, what would you do?

2 chicks at the same time.

[trendon]

Step 1: Call Riccio.
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit.

lol, agreed

actually, trendon is prolly right though

i'd ask him anyway but maybe double that 1st..then maybe..just maybe

personally though, if you have ANY payments where you have interest, i'd knock those out while you're young

No, seriously, Riccio will tell you to put it in a shoe box, literally and figuratively. He told me that. I didn't listen. I basically have a Scotrade account just for the sake of paying them transaction fees.

[DRiccio21]

i dont know about in a shoebox...

i'm just not a believer in telling people to buy/sell individual stocks. the worst thing that can happen is you make money at the beginning... you get to thinking its easy, then ultimately you lose. i know i know, it wont happen to you... blah blah ... it happens to everyone ... back in the late 90's everyone made money cause the mkt was A JOKE. everyone and everything made money ... shitty stocks were up 10% a day. it was just a matter of which shitty stock you wanted to buy that day... its just not like that anymore... the market is flat the last 10 years (basically). not saying you 'can't' make money in stocks, you certainly can... but you need to know what you're doing... and 99.9% of what you think you know about stocks means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the stocks going up or down.

i'd tell you to get yourself into a diversified asset management type of account (basically an account that has stocks, bonds, currencies, cash equiv., emerging market shit, commodities, etc) that rebalances itself and just keep adding to it when you can .... basically the goal of this account is to slightly beat the markets averages but by diversifying you should be able to cut your risk in half.... unless you have years like 2008 when nothing works

now what do i do for myself? i buy crazy individual stocks cause i'm a junky

[trendon]

I am losing money, Dave. It is your fault. 12% my ass. Loser!

[brwnbear]

It depend on the level of follow through you want to commit. I wouldnt necessarily rush to put the money in the market at this time. There are concerns over sovereign debt will contineu throughout the next 6 months if not longer. Add O'Bama's accidental war on the stock market (not meant to be a political post just saying his proposals would hurt big business) and you have a lot of uncertaintly in the next few months.

Now the reality is that you make most of your money in the market during the uncertainty but unless you really know what your are very discipline, you can quickly lose a lot of money fast.

One strategy that seems to be working is looking at Real Estate as rental properties / vacation homes. If income tax is a big concern, you may want to look at the possiblity of investing in depressed markets like Florida that still draw plenty of vacation travelors. People from Japan, Australia, and Europe see Florida as a very attractive location due to the falling dollar. You can get condos on a golf course for under $100k that used to be selling for $250k. There are plenty of rental companies that work inside the condo association that can do all the work for you. Below are some of the benefits;

- "potential" income stream, with "potential" internal rates of return around 7%.
- Tax deduction on all expenses so long as you occupy it for personal use thge greater of 14 or 10% of all rented days.
- Potential vacation spot
- Long Term retirement spot

There are several drawbacks you need to check on;

- Make sure there is a system set-up to rent the unit or prior renters exist.
- Be able to carry the mortgage during low rental periods.
- Pick a good location.
- Put some of the income aside for repairs.

One last note. I heard that the game has changed where now cash offers are only being accepted for these properties. Something you would need to check out.

[trendon]

If I had $20,000, I'd buy a hot dog truck and that isn't a joke.

[BillRoy]

If I had $20,000, I'd buy a hot dog truck and that isn't a joke.

why doesnt that surprise me?