Our dreadful December/November gas/electric combo came today, and it ain't purty. matter of fact, it's $437 ugly.
I am NOT happy and am sitting with a blanket wrapped around me as I type.

Other bad news includes the IRA statement from American century and the fact that it's still the first week in January. Lots of heating, and probably lots of stock market losses on the horizon still.

Happier news includes the start of a new class last night and my unnatural avoidance of the vending machines there, despite the 4 1/2 hour long class.

Pleased to hear anyone else's good news...

I've decided that all this economic news is too depressing for me. Yesterday's arrival of the quarterly retirement account statements was just too ugly. So I'm ignoring it for a bit and getting on with the rest of the goodness that life can offer. I'm not going to change my investments and will keep to the 403b and IRAs, but I need to take some of the stress of the market devastation out of the forefront of my brain.

So la la la la....

Ok, I'm unreasonably happy about this, but since retirement savings is one of my anxiety issues, I'm pleased to announce that I've fully funded (finally!) my 2007 Roth.

I invest plenty in my 403b, but my Roth has never gotten the attention it deserves, poor little thing!

I'm thinking of it as a valentine's gift to myself, and probably better for me and a lot more long lasting than chocolates or flowers. Too bad the mutual fund folks won't throw in a card or some chocolate-covered strawberries.

I'm still busy rooting around on the shelves and in the freezer for dinners. Except for perishables and a few treats, I'm sure I can make it through another few weeks without buying much.

It was indeed a NS day, although I had to order books for next term's classes. Although the university is SUPPOSED to get me desk copies, they never get around to it until it's too late to use them for class planning, so I got them used on Amazon. I had Christmas credit left over, so didn't spend anything there.

I also spent some time moving funds around, and plopping more into my Roth for 2007. But man, it's ugly when I compare my year-end totals to those a mere month later. I keep telling myself it's the share totals in the mutual funds that count, and that I can buy more shares not that they're cheaper, but ouch. I avert my eyes.

The other day I decided to get serious about how much we'd actually need to have in retirement. I'm a worrier, so I've been generally following Dave Ramsey's 15% solution as a way to keep it simple.

But I decided to go to the Fidelity website, and plug some numbers in to figure out what we should be saving for DH's retirement plan, which is miles behind mine.

Let's say that for the sake of an example, they say we needed to save $1000/month from a $4000 net monthly income to get us to have their desired 85% of current income in retirement. Does that 85% they figure reflect the 25% of current income also? So unless I still wanted to invest roughly 25% of the 85% they say I'd need, wouldn't I actually need considerably less? Because I wouldn't need then to fund the retirement, right?

They're funding gross income, right? Not gross income with the retirement savings taken out?


My other rant for the day is commission-baxed investment advisors. If anyone thinks the average person "needs" a stock broker, they ought to look at how the professionals like Merrill Lynch have bene doing managing their portfolios.