Your best & worst financial move in 2010?

Most things I did were just the same old, normal stuff. Lots of small things. I suppose best might have been loading up on LOW, CHK, AXL and F during the summer when nobody wanted them. Worst? Uh, maybe continuing to work for my current employer under the assumption that they would treat employees fairly.
 
For me? Just trying to simplify my life.

I retired in early 2007. Since that time, I have moved from selling funds for current income (no pension, and pre-SS) once a year, to multiple times a year based upon the "2008 flux" (e.g. I took my "profits" to re-stock my cash bucket as soon as they were available).

This meant a lot of constant record keeping, updating just to capture a very small "profit window".

This year I moved to just have all distributions (earnings & gains) go directly to my (tax deferred) cash bucket. No more short-term selling to cover a bit of my retirement expenses.

Funny that within the (3.5 years) term of my retirement, I've changed my/our AA (took less risk - we found we were fine with less exposures to equity funds) and changed a bit in our method of "harvesting".

Who says you can't change in retirement, as you age? :LOL::LOL::LOL:
 
I'd say my worst financial move was selling off a bunch of Apple stock early in the year, when it was hovering around the $200 mark. Naturally, soon after I sold, it shot up. :mad:

I hopped back on, around the $255-260 mark, and it's now hovering around $320-325 per share.

As for a best financial move? I dunno that I really did anything that would be noteworthy. I did start paying down my HELOC, though. It was hovering around $174,000 at the beginning of the year. Once I make the next payment in a couple days, it'll be down to just under $150K. Right now the rate is at 3.5%. I know it won't stay there forever, so I'm going to try and get it paid down before it shoots back up.
 
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Best: Paid off the mortgage on the house I bought in 1996.

Worst: Bought a pop-up camper and 1993 f150 to tow it. The camper is great, and I look forward to lots of fun memories with it and the family. OTOH, the truck problems will culminate in a new clutch and rebuilt motor. When all is said and done I will have spent about $5k over the course of the last year to repair a $3k truck. Dammit!:mad:

What's that, you want to hear my best stock market moves?

Best: Learning about asset allocation. Specifically, reading The Bogleheads Guide to Investing and The Four Pillars of Investing (still working on that one).

Worst: None. I've simply stayed the course. Investing as able, and watching things fluctuate.
 
Best: retiring in July

I was afraid if I gave much notice I'd get a bunch of ugly projects dumped on me to finish before I left - so I gave 2 weeks notice - to the minute (5 pm Friday email).

Other best was moving money out of the company 401K and into my self-directed IRA. My IRA grew a lot because I made the decisions and not in mutual funds.

I don't have a worst MOVE - I've had a lot of stress but nothing I did that I regret terribly, this year. Amazing, when I think about it. :cool:
 
Best move: Finding this forum and bogleheads.org. Pretty sure this eclipses any $ gains made this year.

Worst move: Has me worried as I can't name it... not sure if this is one of the known unknowns or a true unknown unknowns but a bit scary nonetheless.
 
Best move....moving my high ER annuity to psst...Wellesley.

Worst move...holding on to the high ER annuity for most of the year.
 
Best move - Paid off everything so that DH's retirement could start with us debt-free. That leaves us with a nice hunk of breathing room in our monthly income vs. monthly expenses.

2nd best move - Our replacement windows. We needed new windows when we bought the house in 1983. Since then there was always something with a higher priority - kids, car repairs, save for college, etc. Hard to tell what the impact will be on our utilities but I'm guesstimating at 20-30% reduction.

Worst move - I'm too risk averse to make any blatantly bad moves and that's probably cost me somewhere.
 
Best move... Selling my old house after one year on the market (and we were not supposed to be affected like the coasts)... (I found out that having a house paid for does not mean it does not cost a lot of money to hold... insurance is higher, taxes, utilities, upkeep... so glad to get rid of them)


Worst move.... Thinking that the house would sell easily and putting in $10K to fix it up... and then reducing the price by about $15K to get it sold...



I will add a second 'worse move'.... because I have been thinking about it for a month or two... keeping my 401(k) at my old mega... I have a good chunck of change in company stock... and had thought that I would take it out as stock and only pay tax on the purchase price (a strange tax law indeed)... but this year the stock did not do well... I am not sure it will do well in the next 15 years or so when I would take the stock... I am thinking that if I moved the funds and invested well, I would have more after tax money than if I used the stock loophole.... still working on this one to see if it really is a bad move or not...
 
Best (top 2): 1. Staying the course. Continued investing monthly. Rebalanced once at just the right time. 2. Found a new job. Haven't started yet, but it is looking to be better than the current one in most respects (financial and quality of life particularly).

Worst - Nothing too bad really. I guess buying some VXX (volatility index) with some spare change in my brokerage account when it "couldn't go any lower". And it subsequently went (and remains) a lot lower. Luckily it was only 0.07% of my whole portfolio. I guess I could justify this by saying it was a hedge against market declines/volatility.
 
Texas Proud said:
Best move... Selling my old house after one year on the market (and we were not supposed to be affected like the coasts)... (I found out that having a house paid for does not mean it does not cost a lot of money to hold... insurance is higher, taxes, utilities, upkeep... so glad to get rid of them)


Worst move.... Thinking that the house would sell easily and putting in $10K to fix it up... and then reducing the price by about $15K to get it sold...
Click to expand...

(emphasis mine)

Don't feel bad - - I think you did just fine selling your house given the housing market. If you hadn't put in $10K to fix it up, and then reduced the price by about $15K, it might still be on the market, right? And you would still be paying for insurance, taxes, utilities, and upkeep. So this was all a good move, it seems to me. :)
 
Best move: Did nothing! No buys, no sells, just collected dividends and interest.
Worst move: Did nothing! No buys, no sells, just collected dividends and interest. :D
 
Worst Moves - Financed a used car purchase, Lost 100% of investment in a speculative stock (SPNG) thankfully it was not a large amount of money.

Best Moves - Rented out our Atlanta Home while we are in Florida, After a long drawn out refi process, decided not to refi after all. Instead, we are definitely(subject to change) placing the Atlanta house on the market in 2011.
 
W2R said:
(emphasis mine)

Don't feel bad - - I think you did just fine selling your house given the housing market. If you hadn't put in $10K to fix it up, and then reduced the price by about $15K, it might still be on the market, right? And you would still be paying for insurance, taxes, utilities, and upkeep. So this was all a good move, it seems to me. :)
Click to expand...


I am not sure if the $10K made a big difference or not... I know the house was 'better', but there were so few buyers out there....


I guess I should add... (but this was last year so it does not count)... I bought our new house for $30K less than they wanted... which was $15K to high to begin with... by the time they had decided to reduce their price, it was to late... most people just ignored it... my RE agent (who was theirs also) told me to just make an offer... they accepted my lowball offer...

So in the end... I am very happy with all the plusses and minuses... so if you look at my 'house' portfolio I am WAY ahead....
 
Best move: DW retired!!

Worst move: thinking I had "inside info" from my years as a division CFO for a global corporation plus more years working for several large hi tech firms (traveling/working globally) that somehow I would be able to put all this info to use and successfully trade eur/usd futures contracts.....OH MY that was a very painful and humbling experience
 
Moscyn said:
Worst: bought 2 China bank stocks which took a slight plunge after hike in interest rate announced. But I am going to hold these long term and think they will come up again next year.
Click to expand...

FWIW, my expectations are similar. CCB is one of my top 5 individual stock positions.
 
Worst Move - In March I rebalanced my portfolio while drinking beer in Key West, using a hotel notepad and computer.
Best Move - Didn't do anything else. I was lucky to straighten out most of it in late May and early June when the market dipped a little. I still carry the notepaper in my wallet as a reminder.
 
IRA Stuff

I discovered a way to solve the problem that I created years ago when I stated mixing pre-tax and post-tax contributions to my traditional IRA. Turns out that I could separate the pre and post tax monies by transferring the pre-tax portion to my TSP account and the post tax dollars to my Roth. A special exception in the tax code allows the two contibution types to be separated (not prorated). My finances were greatly simplified.
 
Best move: Forward contracted 2010 corn for January 2011 delivery.

Worst move: Forward contracted 2010 soy beans for January 2011 delivery.
 
NW-Bound said:
They say you cannot take it with you. And if you could, it would burn anyway.
Click to expand...
:ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:

My best move is yet to come, tomorrow hopefully...(no, not retiring).
 
I'm surprised so many of these are "bought ABC stock" or "sold XYZ fund"...my best move was not messing around with my existing asset allocation and continuing to invest through payroll 401k contributions.
 
I can't answer for others, but I hold a lot of individual stocks and trade even less frequently than Wellesley which many people here have (Wellesley's portfolio turn-over is about 30% a year).

I trade about 5 to 10% by timing the market and various sectors for fun, while the rest usually stays untouched. A guy needs something to brag about, ya know?

PS. I had higher portfolio turnover in 2008-2009, but most of the trades were in before-tax accounts, hence required no record keeping for tax purposes.
 
Best move: researched (but did not buy) a new car.

Worst move: lost a $10 bill out of a jacket pocket.

It was a dull year, financially!
 
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