What I learned from scratchers…

Investing in the stock market feels a lot like when I played scratchers when I was 19.
The first time I got a $5 scratcher I won $50…so I got about 10 more scratchers…and sometimes I would get $2 back and other times I'd lose.

When I opened my Roth IRA, I purchased an auto-pilot fund that went up about 15%.
Well, since then I opened a separate brokerage account, and my investments have gone down a lot…like everyone else's.

So, I've been rethinking some things…
My natural reaction is to cease investing, but that's driven by emotion. I think if I look at things with the bigger picture in mind, this is what happens…this is part of the pattern to overall growth. I have some things that I know I should do. I should probably stick to a discount broker and purchase at least $1000 worth of stock each time. If I make a market order, it will typically cost about $20 to buy or to sell. So, if I buy some stock at $20 and then sell it…it will really cost me $40…which is what most people earn in savings interest for the year.

I've been building up a CD ladder for the past quarter…and this month I sent in my check. I forgot to transfer money from my savings to checking before the check went through. I think I had thought that the CD would be drawn from my savings directly. So, I got an insufficient funds fee of $30. That totally blows…stupid things like this piss me off. Why didn't I transfer that cash right away?!

Also, one last thing…no matter how much time and effort you spend ito analyze and understand the market, cds, savings, retirement programs, in the end, the best return you get is from your career. I've talked about this with boy a lot…and he feels strongly about investing in one's career. I can see his point; I've paid attention to the market closely over the past half year…haven't made much return…I sure have learned a lot and saved a lot of cash, but what makes more money is my two hours of Photoshop lessons that I give to the sculptor. Also, I've picked up work from our freelance creative director and one of our flash designers…so spending a few hours on that gives me much more than I can from buying and selling stocks. Maybe if I had more dough the return would be greater, but right now…I think I can allocate only up to 15% of excess income to investments. The rest would be split between my long-term savings/cds & retirement.