Oct 25 2008
Preparing- 1, Investing- 0
Like many Americans living in the cold climate, preparing for winter is one of the necessary tasks that we face each fall. In my case, I’m in the middle of remodeling, and have no insulation in the kitchen cieling, so I am rushing to put in batting. It keeps the heat in, but lets it be accessible when my husband comes home and wants to change around some wiring before we sheetrock. Hence, no blog yesterday, but today, very sore shoulders. And legs, and muscles I didn’t know I have.
This activity is metaphorical for what is going on in the investment world right now. We are preparing for a change in climate. The market, which is going through a huge downturn, is still showing too much weakness to invest. And real estate is shut down due to lending factors, unless you have cash. Bonds have gone down, and gold has been correcting.
In response to all of that, Americans have been taking advantage of the “no place to put your money” by doing upgrades on their house. Others have been buying treasuries, paying down debt, and picking up a few bargain houses for rentals. Still others have entered into the tricky world of peer to peer lending and maybe even some folks are buying viaticals, something I would advise against. Whatever the case may be, saavy investors are trying to protect their money as best as possible.
I just spoke to my husband today as he is trying to noodle through the upcoming market changes, to understand my frantic preparations. We have to do the following: put aside investment capital to buy gold and silver, and at the same time, pay down some debt that we acquired when one of us was ill. If we can, we’ll buy the rest of the needed things for our house while they are down in price. If not, we’ll have to get more clever about money in the future.
He spent time trying to understand my explainations, and I found that my readers might want to understand, too. So for the next few articles, we’ll put some of these upcoming events into som perspective for you.
But for now we are preparing, getting ready for the changes that will come just as sure as the sun will shine tomorrow. And just as gardeners knows they must plant the seeds for a harvest, so must we plant our seeds now as investors.
