pan is totally correct and he didn't even bring up the national debt.

About 10 years ago my favourite aunt passed suddenly at the age of 60. She was a textbook version of exactly everything you should do with your money. She had a financial planner, low risk, long term stocks, mutual fund etc,.. a portfolio that was built for the long run.

As an executor of her will, I was beside myself when the taxman came to collect from the estate upon death. The amount of money due was ridiculous. She did everything by the book, paid taxes and still was dinged with tens of thousands of dollars. That moment changed my view of investing and I have never looked back.

I keep 70% of my money in safety deposit boxes, 20% in my home safe and 10% in my chequing account. Now everyone will say, "but you are not making any interest on your money." That's right. And I'm not paying taxes on it either.

I am so fed up with banks that the only thing they do for me is automatically pay my bills and hold my money. Besides the amount of money of mine if they had it invested, would far outdo any pittance of interest that they would pay me back in return.

In 20 years I expect to have between 750-900 thousand in cash that I am free to use at any time - no hassles, no bullshit, no taxes on it. Like I said, I'm not making anything on it, but I ain't losing anything on it either

You don't pay taxes on savings... you pay taxes on interest from savings.

What country do you live in? In the US the current estate tax doesn't kick in until after the first 2,000,000 in assets. Then anything over that is taxed at somewhere between 37-55% depending on total estate over the first 2 million. In 2009 that exemption is going to 3.5 million. And in 2010 it set to go to -0-, meaning if you left your heirs 100 billion the tax would be nothing.

Estate Tax Rate and Limits

Not to mention you could even do better planning and create trusts wherein you've eliminated all risk for taxation, because we all know they can change the laws for estate taxes.

That's true but if they can change the tax law they can also change the trust fund laws. I guess if you're absolutely against paying any kind of estate tax after you're dead, moving it off shore and in your heirs names might be the only option. Personally I'm not too concerned. My kid's pretty bright and I don't see her needing to live off me after I'm gone.

very true, but the rich folks tend to make trusts to protect assets. are endowments also trusts?

because that would screw alot of NPOs, schools, etc.

I don't know, but I think an endowment is treated like a charitable contribution.

ehh, I just have cash in a checking account...I'm more woried about Mom.

I'd love a world w/o Sting.

I missed the one day of class where they taught us stocks :( So I've never taken that financial risk and I'm glad I haven't. Been too busy, having a kid, and I feel I'm still young, concentrating on other things. But maybe in the future, when and if the economy is better and I can focus on something like this, I'd probably study it and give it a shot. But only when I really know what I'm getting into and feel comfortable about it.

My brother was working mostly overseas, and had a bunch of expense money come in. Doing things with investments remotely is a hassle, so he only had a few days a few months ago to deal with it.

He filled out the paperwork, and then went off again.

The person who provided the paperwork ended up making a mistake, and the money wasn't invested. It wasn't noticed for a while, at which point she called up my brother and said "sorry, I screwed up!"

My brother replied "sorry for what? You saved me a lot of money! Thanks for screwing up!"

Heh.

It's affected my customers significantly. I've taken a permanent position with one of my clients.

I had about $1700 dollars invested that's probably worth a lot less right now. That sucks, I guess. On the other hand, I also have all the loans I need for my BME already, so that's cool. I've heard some motherfuckers are having problems getting their schooling financed.

Ooh, wow. Agreeing somewhat with pan! A novelty.

Commodities in general are the things to be in. Gold and silver are good, but there are other, better commodities to be in... Look at what China doesn't have much of as it builds out its infrastructure, for example.

Copper has almost quadrupled in value over the last 4/5 years (taking into consideration the recent craziness in prices of everything) and with massively increasing demand around the world, that price probably isn't tanking any time soon - until the tipping point for a switch to aluminium is reached.

I just wish i had serious money to play with. :(

i'm with pan on the boomer generation..it's freaking crazy and now AARP is making it even crazier.

as for how much i've lost...well, considering i trade stocks, i've made a good bit on this fall in my trading account, but my 'set it and forget it' ira is down over 25% this year (few managed funds and a couple of stocks). I just get depressed at teh doom and gloom lately, then today's futures limit down halt was a very nice icing on the cake..