Buying Stuff? Ugh.
Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2015 5:39 am
Hi, guys, I need someone to slap me, please.
So my kids (ages 20 and 16) have Vanguard investment accounts. These accounts have basically been funded with grandparent birthday and Christmas checks over the years. They're super small accounts (something like $2,500 per kid) and over the years I've sort of done a rough PP thing with them, albeit I've:
- Always been limited to very small purchases (grandparents tend to give $50 or so to each kid at a pop), and
- I've never rebalanced because what a freaking headache and these accounts are tiny and I kind of like the idea of letting winners run anyway.
So here I am, staring at the kids' Vanguard accounts, wondering what to do with grandparent Christmas checks. And it's pretty much the story of my life in my own Vanguard accounts, as well (lots more money than my kids have, so a much bigger worry). And that is: bonds have been on a tear, stocks have been on a tear, gold is the only thing on sale, but I need to make a move in not just my kids' accounts by my own as well and I should buy more than gold, which makes me want to barf, but stocks and bonds make me want to barf, as well. They all make me want to barf. I feel like the second I invest in anything it's all going to crash.
Here's the crux of the problem.
I set up the beginnings of a PP in the fall of 2012 and the whole thing went super negative right after I invested until a few months ago and just for the first time I'm starting to see it make money and now I'm trying to steel myself for the idea that if I invest more money it will just go negative for 2 years. Since the fall/winter of 2012 I haven't pulled the trigger on buying anything because I sort of have it in my mind that investing in the PP means that for the first 2 years the whole thing goes super negative on you. I never sold or even thought of selling between 2012 and now because I'm not a selling-when-things-get-bad kind of girl, but setting up a PP in the fall of 2012 and just recently seeing it all pull itself out of the negatives has made me investment-shy. I'm even more investment-shy because, to me, both stocks and bonds have been going great guns recently and I'm scared that the minute I try to buy something it will all come crashing down on me like it did for quite a long while there.
So I'm staring at my own Vanguard account which is super heavy in cash (because I lost the will to invest when things were going so south and I was kind of DCAing into the PP initially and then I stopped) and I know I need to do something with it and my kids' Christmas checks which are tiny little smidgins of money but... still. I can't bring myself to buy because fall of 2012 through summer of 2014 (when my prior PP investments started finally making money) scared the crap out of me.
Help?
So my kids (ages 20 and 16) have Vanguard investment accounts. These accounts have basically been funded with grandparent birthday and Christmas checks over the years. They're super small accounts (something like $2,500 per kid) and over the years I've sort of done a rough PP thing with them, albeit I've:
- Always been limited to very small purchases (grandparents tend to give $50 or so to each kid at a pop), and
- I've never rebalanced because what a freaking headache and these accounts are tiny and I kind of like the idea of letting winners run anyway.
So here I am, staring at the kids' Vanguard accounts, wondering what to do with grandparent Christmas checks. And it's pretty much the story of my life in my own Vanguard accounts, as well (lots more money than my kids have, so a much bigger worry). And that is: bonds have been on a tear, stocks have been on a tear, gold is the only thing on sale, but I need to make a move in not just my kids' accounts by my own as well and I should buy more than gold, which makes me want to barf, but stocks and bonds make me want to barf, as well. They all make me want to barf. I feel like the second I invest in anything it's all going to crash.
Here's the crux of the problem.
I set up the beginnings of a PP in the fall of 2012 and the whole thing went super negative right after I invested until a few months ago and just for the first time I'm starting to see it make money and now I'm trying to steel myself for the idea that if I invest more money it will just go negative for 2 years. Since the fall/winter of 2012 I haven't pulled the trigger on buying anything because I sort of have it in my mind that investing in the PP means that for the first 2 years the whole thing goes super negative on you. I never sold or even thought of selling between 2012 and now because I'm not a selling-when-things-get-bad kind of girl, but setting up a PP in the fall of 2012 and just recently seeing it all pull itself out of the negatives has made me investment-shy. I'm even more investment-shy because, to me, both stocks and bonds have been going great guns recently and I'm scared that the minute I try to buy something it will all come crashing down on me like it did for quite a long while there.
So I'm staring at my own Vanguard account which is super heavy in cash (because I lost the will to invest when things were going so south and I was kind of DCAing into the PP initially and then I stopped) and I know I need to do something with it and my kids' Christmas checks which are tiny little smidgins of money but... still. I can't bring myself to buy because fall of 2012 through summer of 2014 (when my prior PP investments started finally making money) scared the crap out of me.
Help?