If you are new to WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com, every Friday I run a post called “A Lap Of The Blogs” which provides links to articles I found interesting and think that others may want to read for themselves. I also include some commentary on what’s going on in my personal life and a weekly “racing video” since my former life was in the auto-racing industry. The name “Lap of the Blogs” is in reference to “A Lap Of The Gods” which is an old video series which chronicled on-board footage of the world’s greatest F1 drivers lapping various racetracks from around the world.
1. Don’t forget to enter the contest (free to enter) to win a Money Movie DVD of either Casino or the original Ocean’s Eleven. Click here for details.
2. If you like a good laugh, I threw my hat in the ring to be an expert host for the Women’s Network. You can click here for more details and if you are feeling generous you can vote for me and leave a comment.
From Around The Blogosphere
Million Dollar Journey links to and summarizes Warren Buffett’s recent article in thy NY Times in which he discusses why he is buying stocks right now and why others should too. One of the keys to his success is to “be greedy when others are fearful, and fearful when others are greedy”. Sir John Templeton also remarked that the time to buy is when blood is running in the streets, and I think now qualifies. Personally I can tell you that this sell-off is welcomed by me as I’m 31 and have many decades until I will need my retirement savings, this recent route will only serve to accelerate my retirement date.
While many investors are running for the hills, others are wringing their hands figuring out what to invest in with cash on hand. But whether or not you fall into either of these two groups or even if you have no cash with which to invest, Thicken My Wallet reminds us that you can always invest in yourself. He discusses some frugal ways of doing just that. Your most important asset is your personal human capital!
The Canadian Capitalist is celebrating a few major milestones: 1,000 posts and 1,000,000 visitors. And as if that wasn’t enough, he’s running a contest where you can win a $50 gift certificate to any major retailer of YOUR CHOICE. Hurry though, contest closes SOON.
Want a chance to win MORE free stuff? Tim over at Canadian Dream: Free at 45 is also celebrating a milestone with his 500th and is giving away $50 in books of your choice. All you have to do to enter is leave a brief comment with the best advice you have for retiring early. Here’s my advice, enter his contest and have a chance to win $50 worth of personal finance books! :)
Michael James on Money tells us a story about a friend with a problem: what he thought he was paying for was not what he was getting with respect to his life insurance. If you read through the comments as well you will see that there is a lot to be said for getting private life insurance versus participating in group benefit provided life insurance which may not cover you as well as you think. In the end, if you pay for coverage you don’t have – what’s the point?
Quest For Four Pillars explains a recent problem with sending some cheques via mail – i.e. they didn’t get there. This is what happens when Cliff Claven delivers your mail. But seriously, does anyone have any suggestions? Perhaps Canada Post can hire a Mailer Daemon like the one that occasionally contacts me when an email goes undelivered…
Jonathan Chevreau discusses something that I’ve been curious about myself lately. Normally when markets go to hell in a handbasket money flows into gold and gold prices tend to go up. Not so this round. Gold was $1,000/oz in the summer and is around $700/oz now – a 30% drop, flying in the face of conventional thinking. Truth be told, I’ve never invested in gold and have never counselled anyone to do so either, but nonetheless found this interesting.
This Week’s Racing Video
With the recent market volatility, and repeated triple digit swings watching the market is like watching a car crash – you can’t help but watch. It might feel like this next video looks – we know it’s treacherous and we keep getting more of the same… Enjoy the weekend everyone!
Hey Preet, what type of racing were you previously involved with? Were you an amateur or did you get to semi-pro or pro level?
Thanks for the link. That was quite the racing video. Just when it seemed that there couldn’t possibly be another crash, there was another crash. As you say, it’s not unlike the stock markets lately.
These gold bugs are hilarious. For them the market is always wrong when it doesn’t agree with them (i.e. whenever gold isn’t going up). They’ll complain about central bank conspiracies, the evils of fiat currencies etc. and fail to see that gold is a terrible long-term investment.
Oh, and thanks for the link!
@Jordan – Formula 2000 – I will post some pics. I hung up the helmet at age 24 on a professional career. It was just too expensive. The series I would have been aiming to compete in at that time would have been US Formula 2000 (at the time, probably Star Mazda in today’s timeframe) and to get a decent ride you would need to bring around $200,000 to the table I believe. Atlantics are probably in the $1 million/season range, and then ChampCar/IndyCar would be, I don’t know, $2 million to start and then hope to get a paid drive after a season? Insanely expensive sport.
@ CC – Agreed, gold as a long term investment doesn’t make sense to me. As a trading vehicle, sure it’s as valid as any other because it seems to be so volatile, but I think we all know the perils of timing and how easy it is for people to assume that if someone has timed the market previously it was due to skill when more often than not it was just luck.
Thanks for the link!
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Sharon