Only a few days in and after reading a number of articles on the current state of the economy and the bailout plan, I find my fingers itching to quickly type in the address to my portfolios and check how my investments are doing. I have a general idea of where things are, just based on the market and the unavoidable reference to the current state of TSP (the government 401(k) plan) investments. But other than that, I’ve managed to keep away. I don’t know that it’s really helping with the stress of it all.
I was out of town all weekend and am still catching up on the bailout, and am excited to see what my fellow PF bloggers have to say about the plan that was finally passed. I, for one, was happy to see that the FDIC insurance limit was raised to $250,000 until the end of 2009 (at which point I have a feeling it will be extended). Not that I have more than the current limit in any one account right now, but I think this will benefit a lot of people, especially older savers who prefer to keep all their money in one place. Plus, I’m sure this is great for the high yield accounts at ING and HSBC, among others. People who were keeping money in lower rate accounts simply because they have more than $100,000 are probably quickly flocking to dump money into the high yield accounts – or into the high yield CDs. Not a bad deal at all.
What’s your opinion on the final bailout? At this point, I’m not sure what to think. But I do find it frustrating that the government bails out all these huge businesses, but if the little guys fail, there’s no bailout for them. I suppose time will tell whether or not this was a good idea.
Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:
In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.
While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.
Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.
So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.
I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.
Way to go! I just started investing this month, so it’s fun to look. But I have so little in there it’s sad, haha. 🙂