So.....what should we do with our money?

[CoffeeCat]

What have people done in response to the current economic and financial turmoil
that is swirling around this country like an F5 torna-dee?

Have you gotten out of the stock market?

Have you purchased gold?

Opted for foreign investments?

Does anyone plan on pulling money out of the banks?

Any advice? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

:scared:

[MADem]

1. Heh, money? Who the hell has money? NT

[cliffordu]

2. I'm too broke to do anything, but I was wondering the same thing.

Soup lines for me and mine.

K and R

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. Check the Obama policy website. Apparently he has all the answers.

[lonestarnot]

5. What in the hell was that?

[cliffordu]

6. A fart, maybe....

:rofl:

[lonestarnot]

8. Sounded like it.

:rofl:

[CoffeeCat]

12. Drive-by blogging?

...and I'm pretty sure he was driving a Yugo.

[lonestarnot]

14. or a broom.

[CoffeeCat]

20. or one of these...

[lonestarnot]

22. Over on that squirrelly McCain gona win thread now is my guess.

[lonestarnot]

4. If I had any, I'd take it out of the fucking bank in the morning just because I'm pissed!

[eShirl]

7. I bought a 20 lb bag of rice

and a 5 lb bag of dried beans

[babylonsister]

9. We're staying where we are and weathering it, and NOT pulling

money out, but ours is in credit unions. We aren't getting out of the stock market or 401K either.

And I did get a gold bracelet for X-mas, bought with Thai baht. I bet it's not affordable for us now.

Good questions.

[better tomorrow]

15. is there a difference in 14K gold bracelets/rings and gold?

My son in law says there is and that they aren't worth the gold price being bantied about. What say all of you?

[babylonsister]

17. Oh yes.

14K is gold-plated, not solid gold I don't think. The 'yellower' or more goldish color it is, the better for physical characteristics, and the 22-24K gold is real yellow/gold and a lot more expensive because it's purer.

[TheWraith]

21. 14k doesn't mean gold plated.

14 karat measures the purity of the gold used. 14 karat means 14 parts gold to 10 parts alloy. 24 karat means pure gold.

Of course, something can still be plated in 14 karat gold, but just the 14k description doesn't mean it's necessarily gold plated.

[babylonsister]

23. Good. Thank you for elaborating. All I know is it's not 100% pure,

but didn't know why.

[better tomorrow]

24. but. does that mean it is going up in value, too somewhat?

for instance, I bought a ring in 1988 and paid 350 for it. It also has a diamond chip in it. What would it be worth today?

What about copper? Are pennies up?

What about silver certificate dollar bills? Are they worth silver? And old silver quarters pre 1944.

Are silver trays and silverware worth anything?

Thanks for the Dummies for Precious Metals help....

[babylonsister]

27. My husband likes coins. Anything made of 100% of anything is

valuable right now, that applies to gold, silver, and platinum. And probably stuff I don't know about.

[better tomorrow]

29. cool....my mother left me a bunch of coins that

her brother (my uncle) brought back from foreign countries during WWII. And, I have some silver dollars from 1888 and 1900. And, there are some other old ones from here. One that intrigues me the most is one that I think is a gold dollar or something. I better dig them out of the shoebox and put them in my safe, huh?

My husband said that the guy he works with at school who is in charge of computer maintenance is taking out the gold in the computers that are being thrown away. I guess there is some gold in them somewhere in a circuit or something. Probably not many people know that yet....

[babylonsister]

32. PM me and if you have a specific question, I will ask my husband.

Some people have stuff that is more valuable than they know.

As for gold in 'puters, I doubt it. What would be the reason?

[TheWraith]

A gold dollar could be worth something.

Even an ordinary 1.6 gram gold dollar coin would probably be worth $45-$50 in gold.

The guy at school is probably digging for gold-plating on contacts. It's sometimes used for longer effective life. There's a bunch of copper in there, too.

[better tomorrow]

34. yeah, I think that is what hubby said....of course, the guy has

access to a lot of computers (they are a private school and EVERYONE donates their old computers to them so they take anything they can get). But, again, you never know what you are throwing away sometimes, huh? I'm sure he is taking the copper out, too....

Thanks, again, for everyone's help.

[TheWraith]

36. Hope it's worth his time.

Like I said, copper is around $4.40 a pound. Even if you got a half pound of copper out of a computer, which might be possible, if you spend 30 minutes doing it then you're making less than minimum wage.

[better tomorrow]

37. yeah, but remember....

he is doing it on work time so he is supplementing his over minimum wage anyway and all those computer are free. Tearing computers apart is his job other than making sure MySpace is blocked on the Library and classroom computers. Like Ben Franklin said, "A penny saved is a penny earned."

[Art_from_Ark]

43. The collector value of a gold dollar is more than that

Unless it's damaged, heavily worn, or fake, a gold dollar should be worth at least $100 to a coin collector.

[TheWraith]

28. It depends on the stuff.

For starters, pennies aren't made of copper. They in fact only have 2.5% copper in them these days, so the value is negligible. A quarter actually is 90% copper, but the value is still so low as to be less than the coin itself. For instance, a pound of copper is worth about $4.50, while a pound of quarters is worth $20.

Silver certificate bills are no longer redeemable for silver. They've now the same as regular bills, though a collector might be interested in older ones.

As for silver quarters, if you can find them, they're probably worth about $3 in silver. Likewise, "real" silver trays and silverware are worth something, and it's more than they used to be, but you're better off selling the finished items rather than offering them for the silver content. Value added, and all that. Same goes for that ring, but you'd do best to get it appraised by somebody who deals in that sort of thing.

[better tomorrow]

31. wow, thanks.....now

most of the coins are pre WWII. Some are pre 1900. I have a bunch of Joe Barr dollars, too, but last time I looked they were not worth anything either.

I am not in a need to sell but do want to know what I have. I do know my Barbie doll is worth 75.00, though. She is from 1963. But, what good would a collector be if they can't afford to buy, either, right?

Now, what do you say about annuities? THANKS.

[Art_from_Ark]

42. The copper in a quarter is worth far less than a quarter

but the copper in a nickel is closer to its face value-- 121 nickels = 1 pound of copper.

[mrbill]

44. us cents were 95% copper until 1982

Based on $3.8538/lb, the Friday closing price of copper, each pre-1982 cent would be worth $.0255095.

Cents made in 1982 are either 95% copper or 97% zinc clad with copper.

To tell the difference - The copper cents weigh 3.11 grams and the clad ones weigh 2.5 grams, or drop them on the table for different sounds.

Currently melting copper cents or exporting for melting is not legal.

[Art_from_Ark]

41. In response to your questions

1) Your ring probably doesn't have enough gold to be worth $350 today-- even with $1000/ounce gold. That would require 11 grams of pure gold, or nearly 16 grams of 18K or about 20 grams of 14K. The diamond chip probably wouldn't make much difference in the price a dealer would offer you.

2) Copper is up, and the copper in a penny made before 1982 is close to being worth 2 cents. 1982 was a transitional year when the penny's alloy was switched from 95% copper to the current 97% zinc.

3) The last time silver certificates could be redeemed for silver was in 1968. But in 1968, you had to take them to a Federal Reserve Bank and they would pay you in silver granules.

4) Silver trays/silverware are worth something if they are solid sterling silver. If they are silver plate (like William Rogers stuff) they have no silver value.

[Art_from_Ark]

40. If it says 14K, it's supposed to be 58.3% gold by weight

at least, if it is sold in the US. The cheap stuff will say "gold plate", or "gold filled" (which is just heavy plate). But if you bought your gold in a 3rd world country, then all bets are off.

[NuttyFluffers]

39. middle east and south asian jewelry habitually works on 22-24K gold, FYI

and yes, someone already explained the difference between Carat and plating. 14K gold-plating is just that, plating. solid 14K gold *snort* is just that, solid alloy.

there's also white, yellow, and red gold, and they also go up to 18K gold as well (they might go higher but i've never seen it at stores. but i won't say they don't exist because i just don't know 100%. the white and red gold highlights i've seen in S. Asian jewelry were often 18K.). these are developed by the respective mix by the other metal in the alloy.

oh, why listen to me, here, this is an easy explanative site:

http://gilletts.com.au/information.php?info_id=39

there you go! have fun! i'm rather partial to 20+K myself, the lowest i'll willingly go for jewelry/investment would be 18K. and some ingots make pretty pendants, depending on the seal. around 10K or less and that's just play jewelry; it's value s what emotional attachments i imbue it. at that point have fun with semi-precious collecting.

speaking of which, if people cannot afford metals speculation or "emergency investment" jewelry (and i sure as hell cannot at this time) semi-precious stones make a nice secondary emergency source of portable capital. silver and turquoise make a nice start, as does lapis, garnets, and pearls. aquamarines are nice, but so expensive you're better off going into metals -- easier transfer into liquidity.

oh why oh why did i not go into jewels and precious metals market that i wanted to as a kid...?

[Captain Angry]

10. Something to consider...

If people are jumping now, they may be jumping at a point near the low. I believe a lot of people are selling low, and buying high (gold, oil, other commodities) hence the run up in those prices.

If you're to the point of panic, and don't believe that your local bank will remain open, think about why that is. Does your bank have financial problems, or are you just projecting failures in one sector to potential failures in another?

We haven't seen anything bad yet. Prices have increased. But the vast vast majority of the country is still able to find employment. The vast vast majority can still go 2 miles in any direction and find 20 stores that are full of goods for sale.

Don't panic. Use the time more constructively. Do you have emergency savings? (if you don't trust the bank, pull it in cash). Do you have debt obligations that you don't need to have? Is the pantry stocked? Are you keeping an ear our for friends and neighbors that might be needing help?


The snippet below is from the first site I found when I searched on "10 best days stock market". I've heard the story over and over again of how people panicked and got out, only to miss the gains. Those who stayed in were able to ride the rally back.

--- snip ---

As you can see, missing out on the biggest days has a huge impact on your investment performance. What makes this is all the more sinister is when the biggest days happened. Looking solely at the top 10 days in terms of percentage return, 3 of the 10 best days overall occurred in the 10 days following Black Monday in 1987, whereas 4 more occurred during the tumultuous bursting of the dot com bubble, including 2 right as the marketing was bottoming and starting to head back up.

In other words, if you lost your nerve in the wake of Black Monday, you would’ve missed out on a major rebound that included daily gains of 9.3%, 5.3%, and 4.9%. By the time you realized the world wasn’t about to end, you would’ve missed out on a big portion of the recovery. In other words, you would’ve truly sold low and then, once you got your nerve back, bought high.

--- snip ---

From: http://www.fivecentnickel.com/2007/08/24/how-to-make-money-in-the-stock-market-revisited/

[Amonester]

11. I use the bank to make check deposits...

Then I withdraw everything except the (small) fees.
The cash stays "on me" since a couple of years already.

[better tomorrow]

13. mine is in an annuity.....

with a chemical company and scheduled to start paying out August 1.

Hubby works in a school in maintenance so job is secure. I'm a retired teacher on SS and so far, so good. Kids are grown and through college and married. Mortgage is on the correct side (own more than owe) and both cars are paid and still under 100K miles and we bought a mini scooter just in case. Just have those darn credit cards so no I'm not any better than the rest of you. But, I am planting a garden this summer, just in case.

Good luck to all of you.

[lligrd]

16. Cheney Put His In Foreign Money A While Ago

I advised gold when Bush got selected but hard to advise that now at current prices. I'd stick with necessary commodities or save the money to use as a fire starter.

[Blue_In_AK]

18. My husband took his IRA out of stocks

and put it in something else, money market or something. I know nothing about this stuff, except that what we're doing now is making about 1% interest rather than losing thousands of dollars a week. He is much more relaxed, although still tense. I just go with the flow with these things. I've been broke before and survived, so if I have to do it again, so be it.

[girl gone mad]

45. Be very careful with money markets.

We pulled most of our money out of stocks last August during the first wave of the liquidity crisis and moved into treasury funds.

Most money market accounts are not FDIC insured. Also, most of them are holding some amount of the mortgage-backed securities which are at the heart of the recent insolvencies.

That money market return is not guaranteed and you could even realize a loss. It might be worth a lower interest rate to have the FDIC guarantee of a CD or ordinary savings account or the assurance of funds backed by the treasury.

[TheWraith]

19. Buy groceries instead.

Unless you're heavily invested in the housing/banking/finance sector, you're pretty safe. This isn't an economic collapse, it's the continued implosion of the housing bubble.

[better tomorrow]

25. wraith, you seem knowledgable so....

maybe you can answer my question. How safe are annuities? I've been trying to find out in various threads on here for a couple of days now.

[TheWraith]

30. Financial contracts aren't my forte.

I know that annuities are supposed to be guaranteed even if the insurance company goes under, but that they're NOT backed by the government, rather by another private group. That makes them semi-safe, but not in a fully-FDIC-insured type of way. If you're really concerned about safety, I'd probably lean more towards something that involves backing in either real assets or government guarantees. But please seek out the opinion of a professional for any major decisions. I'm just a well informed amateur.

[better tomorrow]

33. thanks. we have to wait for the company to

send us the actual figures (they are in the mail) and then we decide what to do with them. The company isn't an insurance company...it is a chemical company. Yes, I guess I need professional advice. Thanks for staying with me on these questions, though. You are way more knowledgeable than I. And, in the long run, being backed by the government doesn't seem like such a good thing anymore, anyway.....heh heh.

[wundermaus]

26. That's the really cool thing about being broke...

There are no options.
We just get to sit back and watch everyone else go nuts.
Funny isn't it?
I used to worry about my retirement...
Now I worry about survival.

[TML]

35. Money?

I have enough money to pay my bills on time, but not enough to save and invest. That's what the Bush job market will do for you.

[better tomorrow]

38. here, this should cheer you up....

Some thoughts before viewing it....

1) It is on the BBC and not our own NBC or CBS...

2) There but for the grace of God go I.

3) I wasn't moved by the people in it until I saw the kid on the bike go by. Then, my heart sank.

Anyway, this was on the Political Videos thread but thought it was worth bringing to this thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnnOOo6tRs8


**************