Friday, January 10, 2014

Three Cents From a New Car

This is a post about stocks and how they go up and down and how we like to hope they go up a whole lot and what we plan to do with the money if that were to happen.  That is, if they went up a whole lot and we decided to sell them at that high price.  Wait, did we factor in capital gains?  That's going to take a significant chunk.  And is it really good to sell it and spend it or would it be better to just sit on it and let it grow (hopefully) over the years?

Stocks tend to cause more theoretical speculations on money than almost anything other than the lottery.  And I've done enough speculation over the years.  I have been fortunate to have both stock options and stock shares from one of my prior companies and over time, those shares have increased in value.

Or rather, they did until the economy fell down a deep, dark, dismal hill, at which point I pretended the stocks weren't there for a number of years, because looking at the net value of them only made me put on one of those sad faces and shake my head. 

But things are improving, and this company (the one I used to work for) has been pacing well with the economy.  Back some years ago, my husband and I had these "magic numbers" that, were our respective stocks to hit, we would spend money on something big.

It's been some years since we had those dreams for higher-valued stock shares.  I've been excitedly watching my old company's stock price because it has been getting closer and closer to that magic number that, for me, meant I was going to sell some and get a new car.

The other day on a Friday, it closed at just three cents below that "new car" price.  I couldn't believe it had gone that high.  On Monday, it dropped over a dollar and I was, I have to say, a bit relieved.  As much as the idea of selling stock shares to buy a car sounds fun, I'm not sure I was really ready to do so.  It hasn't gotten close since that point, but hopefully it will not only get there, but exceed that price as the months go on.

I asked my husband what his stock was doing and his stock is well over his target price.  Only we couldn't remember what, if any, he had planned when that happened.  It looks like we're just going to sit, watch and continue to speculate for now.

The Big Boy Update:  "You are very cute," I told my son as he went off to play with some toys.  "I know," he told me as he walked out of the room.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  V8.  I wanted to try something new with the children today so I offered them each a small can of V8.  Both of the children decided it tasted good, but my daughter was the one that really liked it.  I told her Gramps loved V8 and I was glad she did too.  She got overly enthusiastic at one point and it poured down her shirt and pants.  But she liked it. 

Fitness Update:  These circuit workouts we've been doing lately have been fun.  He's been pushing us on one component, the running part.  In between rounds of circuit work he'll have us do some cardio.  He puts one of us on the treadmill and has the other one do something like burpees with two pushups each.  The one on the treadmill is running at something like 6.0 pace/6.0 incline for a minute and then we swap roles.  That's not bad, but since we were doing well at that he's decided to keep pushing us.  Today he got us up to 8.0 pace/8.0 incline.  We're panting getting off the treadmill and falling into the first burpee.  I don't know that I want to know how fast and high the treadmill goes.

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