re: OT - You've got $15-18,000 sitting. What would you do with it?

Some people think 2x-3x. By Feb. With how crazy Crypto is, it wouldn't shock me. OSW on the money talk board thinks it'll be $200 by EOY. We shall see.

Bit Coin

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I'm looking for investment options that would give a good return, but wouldn't tie the money up for too long

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Nice boring preferred stock with a 6% to 8% return.

May get some capital appreciation at the end of 2 years but don't expect much as the dividend is what you are really after. Better than a bond with little risk.

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ask a message board full of strangers

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Why not? As long as you can separate your Montegs from your AmericusDawgs, I think it's not a terrible idea. I mean, your other options are strangers on the street which is worse (not to mention, awkward?) or financial advisers who can have ulterior motives for steering you one way or another. I'm not jumping in because someone on a message board said to. But the information presented is worth investigating.

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Funny how they will crow when they do well but never offer to reduce or repay their fees when their advice puts you in the loss column.

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Advisors don’t up their fee after a kick arse year either. It comes out in the wash.

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It comes out in the wash.

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Not really

90% or more of money managers fail to beat the market averages which is to say that an individual with a little effort (coupled with research and discipline) is better than the person who is supposed to be advising you and getting paid for it.

If inflation runs at 3% and an adviser chargers 1% then they are getting 25% of the base number at which your money needs to grow to just keep pace with what things actually cost. The 3% inflation is a bit misleading as most of the past 150 years interest rates have been around 3% and the usury laws that were on the books heading into the first oil shock in the 70's capped it at 6%. Viewed in todays world imagine if predatory lenders such as check cashing and title loan businesses were capped at 6% per year on what they could charge the consumer.

While 3% inflation / cost of living is often quoted to us, think of how high something like your groceries have gone up in the past decade or so. Historically individuals could invest in the companies they worked for and others they did not on Wall Street so that when retirement arrived they had a nice nest egg paying them enough in dividends to actually live on in their post working years.

In the 80's the "Greed is Good" mantra overtook large corporations who no longer paid dividends once they had moved from growth company to cash cow and puts lots of cash into the US economy all over the country via her citizens. Now that money gets diverted to the boards and upper management who spend that money in fewer and fewer communities in the US.

Someone like Apple now hoards cash far in excess of their needs instead of releasing that excess in the form of dividends to the folks who forwent current consumption for future value. While the folks at Apple are riding high now, so were they in their early days only to watch their stock drop to about a dollar. On the Wall Street side they are sucking community wealth into massive pools that 30 year old investment bankers can blow on high risk as they have none of their own skin (money) in the game.

In theory an investment should grow at around 7% per year. If they are a growth company then that will generally all be in the form of capital appreciation. If it has matured into a cash cow than about half should be in capital appreciation and half in dividends paid to the investor. If this is not happening then the system is flawed and needs to be corrected. If it helps this is a handy crib sheet on where to put your money.

Stocks - preferably ones with strong dividend history and a track record of rewarding shareholders over upper management.

Bonds - When paying 7% or more but certainly not in the current market. With interest rates at historic lows todays bonds will have to be "discounted" to match higher yields of newer bonds. Nothin like buying something for 1,000 today and getting 800 for it in a few years when rates rise.

Real Estate - generally the long game as it may have costs associated while you are building equity and paying off the bank. Generally in 30 years this is your future income stream when what you used to pay to the bank now gets paid to you. Just remember that real estate needs constant maintenance and if you put 100% of what you get from the IRS for depreciation in your pocket instead of back into your property you will have less in the future.

Personally, I am not a fan of......
Jewels or metals - no dividends and too high a transfer fee when buying or selling

Mutual Funds - between fees and deworsification you can do better on your own for less money

ETF's - I like having the individual asset than a "pool" that is "recalibrated" by Wall Street after the markets have closed to the public.

Currency - not for the average investor

Commodities - not for the average investor

Fake money (bitcoin types) - Another form of the Dutch Tulip that will catch most who can afford to lose the least when it collapses.

Fee-only adivsors are one thing.

The run of the mill money managers are another. Most people are paying 1% a year (or more) to a portfolio manager in a mutual fund they picked on their shitty 401k checklist.

1% on total value of the portfolio.


In ten years, you've given 10% of your money away, and forfeited the gains you would have made on that 10% during that time.

In 20 years, 20%.

In 40 years, literally 40% of your shite has been taken by money managers.

Now, if those money managers were beating the market averages by, say 2% every single year, maybe splitting the difference is worth it.

But as Cheese Grits said, the last few decades have shown that the majority of mutual funds are at or below the market averages.

1% doesn't sound like alot.

For the manager, 1% is chump change... but when you realize you are making 1% on someone else's money, and you have 100,000 clients.... you realize 1% is alot.

And for the customer, 1% this year, next year, next year, next year, next year.... adds up to tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars you've been fleeced for.

On another note, my wife and I drove by a nice piece of property today and she said "Wouldn't it be nice if we won the lottery and could buy a big piece of land like this" and I said "yeah, we could start a rattlesnake farm" and she said "sure."


I've got the go-ahead.

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In ten years, you've given 10% of your money away, and forfeited the gains you would have made on that 10% during that time.

In 20 years, 20%.

In 40 years, literally 40% of your shite has been taken by money managers.

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That’s not even close to how the math works.

Over the last 50 years, the market has averaged 9.8% a year gain.

And the advisor doesn’t “take” it. There’s a lot of work involved with it and they don’t do it for free.