Back in October I posted about my hot stock dilemma and trying to figure out when and how to plan my stock sales (since I'm more of a buy and hold gal). In particular I had a stock that was up 500% since I purchased it and I was trying to figure out if I should sell it or not.
I ended up selling the stock and making $4300 in profit (tax free since I hold my stock in my Roth IRA) but I did have regrets, what if the stock kept going up and up? So I decided to calendar a two month follow up (which is today) to check and see the status of the stock I sold. I sold the stock at $32, it has hit $34, but today it is at $28.
So, how do I feel. I feel pleased, right now it looks like I made a good decision. I sold close to the peak based on expert research telling me to sell and that research seems to have been correct. We shall see, I will check again next year.
Showing posts with label Society Circle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Society Circle. Show all posts
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Drinking and Shopping Don't Mix
I enjoyed this fun Atlantic Wire post on shopping under the influence.
I have been to enough Palm Beach charity events over the years to understand the silent auction (and live auction) bidding dollars go way up the more people drink.
As such, I would add a section to the article that one should generally get a pass for shopping/bidding at charity auctions, since its for charity.
Otherwise, I thought the suggestions in this guide were great. Definitely leave the credit cards at home if you are shopping after drinking and have a friend there to talk you out of bad ideas.
I often find myself in trouble when it comes to art, because (1) I love original art, (2) I'll spend good money for art, and (3) I'm often admiring art while holding a glass of wine. So I stick to my rules and anything over a $100 requires a cooling off period. I'll take a photo of the art with my iPhone, I'll take a business card, but I generally don't buy art on a first viewing.
I have been to enough Palm Beach charity events over the years to understand the silent auction (and live auction) bidding dollars go way up the more people drink.
As such, I would add a section to the article that one should generally get a pass for shopping/bidding at charity auctions, since its for charity.
Otherwise, I thought the suggestions in this guide were great. Definitely leave the credit cards at home if you are shopping after drinking and have a friend there to talk you out of bad ideas.
I often find myself in trouble when it comes to art, because (1) I love original art, (2) I'll spend good money for art, and (3) I'm often admiring art while holding a glass of wine. So I stick to my rules and anything over a $100 requires a cooling off period. I'll take a photo of the art with my iPhone, I'll take a business card, but I generally don't buy art on a first viewing.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
eBay Errors
Now, five years later I have discovered that since my china has been around for so long, I can find it on eBay for prices that are much more favorable. So, what do I do, I get excited and start bidding on my china. Three soup bowls for $30, that sounds like a bargain, bid away. $10 for an egg cup, deal!
Guess what, I am not an eBay expert and I've realized that I've skipped over a very important part of eBay bidding process . . . and that is actually reading the item description. Because, as you may have guessed, I now have three soup bowls, but all three have chips on the rim. And my egg cup has a crack. Luckily, I've only spent $40 on this experiment. But, its certainly a wasted $40 because really, I can't do much with chipped and cracked fine china.
So, what have I learned. I need to make sure I click through and actually read the description, because based on my two purchases, both sellers fully disclosed that the items I was purchasing had flaws. But, since I had bid before I read, that information wasn't particularly helpful. Additionally, a very low price likely indicates a flaw. How did I win the auction for three soup bowls at $30, no one else wanted them because of the rim chips.
At present, I am watching six dinner plates (no flaws) and the auction price is up to $305. I don't expect to bid on the plates since it outside my budget but six perfect plates would be a deal since at retail cost they would run $900.
How about you, have you had success on eBay?
Sunday, July 8, 2012
The Perils of Keeping Up
Mr. Sam and I live in an eclectic historic small city. Our 1920s era home is large for the era, 2200 square feet, plus we have a detached two car garage/carriage house which provides additional space. For our neighborhood, our home is on the larger end of the scale and, on our street, our home is probably the second largest (by square footage). Moreover, our home is quite nice, it has renovated baths (2) and kitchen. Mr. Sam also does a great job with the yard and landscaping. But, our house is not "perfect", we still have storage projects to undertake (adding clothing and storage closets), we plan to add plantation shutters and we plan to add a bar at some point. We also have less sexy projects in mind, like a new A/C system.
We live in what would probably be described by an outsider as an up and coming hipster type area. We are close to the beach and within walking distance to parks, the library, and a downtown area with shops and bars. The socio-economic mix of our neighborhood is varied, we have lots of retired folks, young families, some snow-birds/seasonal, several gay couples, and some professional families. Overall, in our neighborhood, except for our friends living directly on the water, I suspect that we are on the higher end of the income distributions (two working professionals).
This past weekend, I was with a good friend at her house warming party. This friend, let's call her Jane, and her husband both work in the same profession as me. They are a hard working, dual income, professional couple with three small children. I assume they are both pulling in strong incomes. They recently took advantage of the down real estate market in South Florida and bought a home (built in 2000) that is close to 8000 square feet, with an acre of land, pool, etc.
The home cost them $700,000+ and they have a $600,000+ mortgage on the home. The house is beautiful, but even so they spent 6 weeks renovating the home, painting, installing hard wood floors upstairs, landscaping, minor renovations in the kitchen, minor renovations to downstairs bath and laundry. They spent in the low 5 figures on the renovations.
Six months after they moved in, the house looks show room ready, meaning matching and appropriately nice furniture in each room, large flat screen TVs in several rooms, perfect window treatment, art hung on each wall, etc. You would never know that they just moved into their home.
Jane is a good enough friend that she mentioned, when we were on the house tour, several tid-bits regarding the cost to furnish the home, to paint the home, the increase cost for the lawn service (since they have an acre of land), the increase cost for their house cleaning service (since the home is double the size of their old home), the cost of the pool service, the increase energy costs, etc.
I'm very happy for Jane and her family, they got a great deal on a great house that has the space they think they need as their children grow up. But, I find that these check ins with my peers just reinforces my desire to live small. First, I would hate to live 40 minutes west of the ocean. Second, I would hate to live in a McMansionville community. I like the variety of people that I interact with in my community and neighborhood. I also think I would find myself trying to keep up with the perfect furniture, the house keeper, the fancy, leased cars, etc. that my neighbors all would have. In my neighborhood, we are generally at the top of the expenditure cascade so I don't often find myself keeping up with my neighbors. Our home, while nice still has an empty room, mis-matched furniture and plastic blinds in several rooms (we are saving for plantation shutters as we speak). Third, Jane's level of debt scares me. Yes, we have $570,000+ in mortgage debt ourselves, but $310,000 of that debt is investment properties and the mortgages are being paid by our tenants. Fourth, Jane and her husband have just engaged in major lifestyle inflation, they have increased their monthly costs (putting aside the mortgage) for utilities, taxes, insurance, up-keep, etc.
We live in what would probably be described by an outsider as an up and coming hipster type area. We are close to the beach and within walking distance to parks, the library, and a downtown area with shops and bars. The socio-economic mix of our neighborhood is varied, we have lots of retired folks, young families, some snow-birds/seasonal, several gay couples, and some professional families. Overall, in our neighborhood, except for our friends living directly on the water, I suspect that we are on the higher end of the income distributions (two working professionals).
This past weekend, I was with a good friend at her house warming party. This friend, let's call her Jane, and her husband both work in the same profession as me. They are a hard working, dual income, professional couple with three small children. I assume they are both pulling in strong incomes. They recently took advantage of the down real estate market in South Florida and bought a home (built in 2000) that is close to 8000 square feet, with an acre of land, pool, etc.
The home cost them $700,000+ and they have a $600,000+ mortgage on the home. The house is beautiful, but even so they spent 6 weeks renovating the home, painting, installing hard wood floors upstairs, landscaping, minor renovations in the kitchen, minor renovations to downstairs bath and laundry. They spent in the low 5 figures on the renovations.
Six months after they moved in, the house looks show room ready, meaning matching and appropriately nice furniture in each room, large flat screen TVs in several rooms, perfect window treatment, art hung on each wall, etc. You would never know that they just moved into their home.
Jane is a good enough friend that she mentioned, when we were on the house tour, several tid-bits regarding the cost to furnish the home, to paint the home, the increase cost for the lawn service (since they have an acre of land), the increase cost for their house cleaning service (since the home is double the size of their old home), the cost of the pool service, the increase energy costs, etc.
I'm very happy for Jane and her family, they got a great deal on a great house that has the space they think they need as their children grow up. But, I find that these check ins with my peers just reinforces my desire to live small. First, I would hate to live 40 minutes west of the ocean. Second, I would hate to live in a McMansionville community. I like the variety of people that I interact with in my community and neighborhood. I also think I would find myself trying to keep up with the perfect furniture, the house keeper, the fancy, leased cars, etc. that my neighbors all would have. In my neighborhood, we are generally at the top of the expenditure cascade so I don't often find myself keeping up with my neighbors. Our home, while nice still has an empty room, mis-matched furniture and plastic blinds in several rooms (we are saving for plantation shutters as we speak). Third, Jane's level of debt scares me. Yes, we have $570,000+ in mortgage debt ourselves, but $310,000 of that debt is investment properties and the mortgages are being paid by our tenants. Fourth, Jane and her husband have just engaged in major lifestyle inflation, they have increased their monthly costs (putting aside the mortgage) for utilities, taxes, insurance, up-keep, etc.
Monday, January 9, 2012
A January Spending Fast
After balancing our checking accounts last week, I was shocked at how much money we spent in December. Between holiday, charitable, party and vacation/travel spending during December we blew through quite a chunk of change. The vast majority of that spending was thoughtfully planned and also saved for, in advance, in our holiday and travel/vacation ING savings accounts. But some of our December 2011 spending was just spending . . .
I don't do well with temptations and if I'm out buying gifts at Target for the Angel family we sponsored for the holidays I might just pick up an item or two for myself (which happened). Or if I am at a charitable function with the "ladies who lunch" I might just find myself caught up in their spending cascade (which happened).
As a result, I have decided that I am on a 30 day spending fast starting today January 9, 2012. What that means for me is that I will avoid the malls, the shops, the catalogs (they will go directly into the recycling bin), the emails from my favorite retailers touting their post holiday sales (delete, delete, delete), I will refrain from downloading E-books, iTunes, iPhone apps, etc.
To the extent I think of something that I need or want in the next 30 days I will write it down and revisit it in a month. I will calendar the two rebate coupons that I'm carrying around ($15 at J. Crew and $125 at Pottery Barn) so I will not worry about forgetting them but also will not use them in the next 30 days so as not to be tempted into spending above and beyond the rebate amount.
Please consider joining me in my 30 day spending fast. If 30 days feels too long, consider a weekend or a work-week spending fast to jump start your habits in the new year.
I don't do well with temptations and if I'm out buying gifts at Target for the Angel family we sponsored for the holidays I might just pick up an item or two for myself (which happened). Or if I am at a charitable function with the "ladies who lunch" I might just find myself caught up in their spending cascade (which happened).
As a result, I have decided that I am on a 30 day spending fast starting today January 9, 2012. What that means for me is that I will avoid the malls, the shops, the catalogs (they will go directly into the recycling bin), the emails from my favorite retailers touting their post holiday sales (delete, delete, delete), I will refrain from downloading E-books, iTunes, iPhone apps, etc.
To the extent I think of something that I need or want in the next 30 days I will write it down and revisit it in a month. I will calendar the two rebate coupons that I'm carrying around ($15 at J. Crew and $125 at Pottery Barn) so I will not worry about forgetting them but also will not use them in the next 30 days so as not to be tempted into spending above and beyond the rebate amount.
Please consider joining me in my 30 day spending fast. If 30 days feels too long, consider a weekend or a work-week spending fast to jump start your habits in the new year.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
All Spending is Local
Talk about an expenditure cascade, I'm living across the bridge (we call it a moat) from the richest zipcode in the nation.
Expenditure Cascade
I came across the term "expenditure cascade" in this Slate article.
The author defines the expenditure cascade process as starting with the fact that those at the top are spending a lot more money.
Such spending then changes the norm in a particular circle, neighborhood, or community "since all spending is local" and those on the edge of that circle spend more and "shift the frame of reference" for the next group down and so on. So, you are not just keeping up with the Joneses, but keeping up with your peers, friends and other circles you may move in and out of.
I feel like I normally do a good job at ignoring the Joneses, but I recently altered my normal behavior based on context. I was at a charity, holiday luncheon on Palm Beach with a very large group of women who are affectionately known as "ladies who lunch." These women range in age, but the majority are super rich or very rich, they do not work and rather their "job" is to attend social lunches, support wonderful causes and be seen in the society pages. Before the luncheon there was shopping opportunities, think high end jewelry, fancy purses, etc. Normally, I would never shop at this type of event because Palm Beach is not known for bargains. But, being with this group, normal shifted for me and I bought two items (paying too much for both, but 20% went to charity). Looking back, I was taking my cues from both the environment and the group that I was with.
The author defines the expenditure cascade process as starting with the fact that those at the top are spending a lot more money.
The process begins with the completely unremarkable fact that top earners have been spending at a substantially higher rate than before. They’ve been building bigger mansions, staging more elaborate weddings and coming-of-age parties for their kids, buying more and better of everything.
Such spending then changes the norm in a particular circle, neighborhood, or community "since all spending is local" and those on the edge of that circle spend more and "shift the frame of reference" for the next group down and so on. So, you are not just keeping up with the Joneses, but keeping up with your peers, friends and other circles you may move in and out of.
I feel like I normally do a good job at ignoring the Joneses, but I recently altered my normal behavior based on context. I was at a charity, holiday luncheon on Palm Beach with a very large group of women who are affectionately known as "ladies who lunch." These women range in age, but the majority are super rich or very rich, they do not work and rather their "job" is to attend social lunches, support wonderful causes and be seen in the society pages. Before the luncheon there was shopping opportunities, think high end jewelry, fancy purses, etc. Normally, I would never shop at this type of event because Palm Beach is not known for bargains. But, being with this group, normal shifted for me and I bought two items (paying too much for both, but 20% went to charity). Looking back, I was taking my cues from both the environment and the group that I was with.
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