Life of an Investor » 2008

Archive for July, 2008

Diversification - Precious Metals - Silver

Thursday, July 31st, 2008

Obviously, your portfolio should be diversified. Especially with the current economic insecurity, this is doubly important. Now, I’m an optimist and fully believe that the economy will make a recovery and that most of this is due to “bad feelings”. If you’re still surving, then your neighbor probably is too.

With that being said, there is always the possibility of a serious recession or even a depression before the turnaround. This morning, I met with some friends over coffee and bagels and one of them mentioned that they have been buying silver recently. Not funds that invest in silver, but actual, physical silver bars. He told us that he is purchasing these from http://www.bulliondirect.com. He said that the first order was a leap of faith, but so far, he has been pleased. This got me thinking a bit. What would happen if the economy took a nosedive tomorrow and your bank accounts and cash on hand were essentially worthless? How long could you survive. If you’re well stocked at home, you may make it for a month or two, but most of us would probably be lucky to get through two weeks. One thing I can almost guarantee though is that there will be people willing to sell you necessities if you have silver or gold coins to offer.

There are a few pros and cons to owning precious metals.

Pros

More secure than any country’s currency
You can physically hold your investment in the palm of your hand, or in a safe place.
Silver and Gold have never been worthless.
You can buy in small denominations (1 oz coins) for use in bartering in case of doomsday scenarios.
Historically have risen in value.
Great items to pass on to children or give as gifts.
Government and other organizations won’t have easily accessible records about your assets.

Cons

Your investment does not earn interest.
Can be easily stolen/lost if you keep in your home.
Harder to purchase/sell when dealing with physical items.
Fairly expensive to get into. Silver is affordable at under $20 for a one ounce coin, but gold is around $900 for a 1 ounce coin. That’s one coin that you don’t want to accidently roll down the sewer grate.
I can’t think of any more right now.

So I visited the website listed above, picked out some silver coins and small silver bars (10 oz.). If for no other reason, it will just be cool to have these to show the kids and possible pass on to them at some point. As a kid, I always thought that when I grew up I wanted to buy a gold bar like you always see in pictures of Fort Knox; they had to be several pounds. Little did I know that a ten ounce bar (just over half a pound) would be in the $9,000 price range. I guess silver will have to do for now.

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How to budget your workday - Investing Time

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

So, like many other blogs I have started over the years, this one almost stagnated. As you may notice, I haven’t posted for almost two weeks now. It’s not because I haven’t had the time or desire, but investing has kind of taken a back seat for the last month or so. I’ve been busy in my personal life and have not had time to pursue any real estate. Instead I will post more of a “Getting Things Done” or time efficiency post. This is just a tip for a system that I have developed to help me keep moving and getting things done at work.

Previously I have downloaded time tracking systems from the internet, but they never seemed to do exactly what I was looking for. Some tracked programs even when I wasn’t actually using them, so looking at the reports, apparently I spent 8 hours reading e-mail in Outlook. Some cost money. The first requirement is that it be free. I’m cheap like that. The main issue I see with these programs is that they only report the time you spent and don’t really help guide you while you are spending the time. I can look at a report at the end of the day and see how I spent my time, but by tomorrow I will have easily forgotten or I can just plain ignore the results.

The last few days, I have transitioned to a pen and paper method that sits on my desk next to my mouse so that I see it all day long. Basically I break up my 8 hour day into 15 minute increments for a total of 32 increments. No, I don’t schedule each time block, such as 8:00 to 8:15 — get coffee. That would be too hard to manage. I actually write down a list or all the things that I want to accomplish that day, including reading technical magazines, reading from my blog reader, breaks, actual work on specific projects, etc. I also always create a separate category for extra time blocks left over. I find that every day I need these “extras”. Then next to each category, I put tick marks for however many 15-minute blocks I want to allocate to that activity. For example, if I want to spend 2 hours during the day on a project, I place 8 marks next to it. I even have one tick mark for writing this post. Yes, it only took me 15 minutes to write this…sad, isn’t it?

One of the main benefits of this method is that I don’t have to work on the project for 2 hours straight. I can work on it for 30 minutes now, and 1 hour later, etc. I just mark off a tick every 15 minutes. This really does not affect my work and greatly increases my productivity. There is no lost time. If I run over on one project, I just mark off one of the extra ticks or have to cut back somewhere else. Hmmm…sounds a lot like budgeting money. I generally have about 3-4 marks in the extra category and it works out pretty well.

In the comments, let me know what you think. Also, if you have any methods that you use to budget your time, please post them as well.

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