Stupid Fun with Investable Assets

[GravitySucks]

So anyone do small stupid stuff for fun with their investments?
I have two:

1. Keep a small stash of ex-employee stock. Shares actually in my file cabinet. Paper dividend checks mailed to house. They made my life difficult sometimes, now it's my turn. Really no or very low cost to me. Dividend checks cover the difference between PBR and craft IPA.

2. I always have a few thousand in Goldman Sachs CDs or bonds. Just so whenever a Goldman guy is on tv (there's lots of them in the goverment, so it happens often.) I can say "That guy owes me money!" Goes over hilariously at the barbershop and neighborhood tavern. Probably cost me a buck a year in opportunity cost.


May change my screen name to ' EasilyAmused '

 

[GravitySucks]

Dang autocorrect.
Title was suppose to be Fun with Investable Assets

 

[MichaelB]

Dang autocorrect.
Title was suppose to be Fun with Investable Assets

Fixed

 

[REWahoo]

Fixed

Look again...

 

[MichaelB]

Look again...

I assumed GravitySucks wanted teh word "stupid" in the title. If not, happy to make the change.

 

[GravitySucks]

I assumed GravitySucks wanted teh word "stupid" in the title. If not, happy to make the change.

Yes. Fixed thank you.

 

[bloom2708]

Nope. No fun. Broad market index funds. Boring.

I get my fun outside of investing. The new Lee Child, Jack Reacher book arrived on my Kindle Monday. Now that is stupid fun.

 

[Bruceski44]

In 1994, my then-employer offered us an incentive: take a 10% paycut for 3 months and get rewarded with stock afterwards. Long story - my wife ended up with 1 share, which we kept in her name (not street name). Then the stock split, so now she had 2. We sold all the other stock, but kept the two shares. So the company had to mail her the annual reports, voting proxies, the whole nine yards for years after we left until they went under. That was not her fault

 

[kgtest]

I like to challenge the CSRs from VG Shwab etc from time to time. Most surprisingly know the basics. Otherwise, the most I have is watching my 10% APPL driven portfolio and the ridiculous analysts out wit eachother, no its up, no its down, its a bear, no its a bull. Okay which is it!

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

Nothing quite as "fun" as that, but when I had about a $30K inherited IRA, I figured why not use that to play the market a bit? So I thought about what industries and companies I knew well and followed the trade news for, and bought Google at $327 and Apple at $71. Mostly I liked their R&D, their expansion into different sectors, like Apple TV, Apple watches, AndroidOS, Google's self-driving cars, etc. That did really well, so then I got cocky and I bought Tesla at $174, because they were also in solar panels and full-home backup batteries (Powerwall), and that did OK, so I got even cockier and bought some cryptocurrencies. I put a little money in a bunch of smaller ones, just in case one was the next Bitcoin, but while I was up for a while, right now I am down a few thousand on that. So that last one definitely counts as stupid fun, and a good reminder to me to keep it simple with index and bond funds.

 

[chrisaukcam]

I was let go by my previous employer in 2008. Rolled over the 401k into my own retirement account. Somehow there must have been a late dividend or something. Because the company 401k remained open for years with a balance of like 38 cents. It actually gained in value overtime, but was never over $1. I let it ride for years. They mailed out statements and I laughed every time I opened one up - knowing the postage alone was worth more than the value of the account. They finally stopped sending statements 3-4 years ago, I guess I will never know what happened to the balance.

So that was one type of 'fun'. Now I invest about 90% in ETF's and mutual funds, but play around with the other 10%.

 

[happy2bretired]

My mother was a telephone operator before she married. She had a few shares of stock from the phone company that I inherited. The company has been bought out several times and split several times. It’s not worth much but I used to get a nice dividend before it split again the last time. I just hold on to it and watch it for entertainment and nostalgia.

 

[jazz4cash]

So anyone do small stupid stuff for fun with their investments?
I have two:

1. Keep a small stash of ex-employee stock. Shares actually in my file cabinet. Paper dividend checks mailed to house. They made my life difficult sometimes, now it's my turn. Really no or very low cost to me. Dividend checks cover the difference between PBR and craft IPA.

2. I always have a few thousand in Goldman Sachs CDs or bonds. Just so whenever a Goldman guy is on tv (there's lots of them in the goverment, so it happens often.) I can say "That guy owes me money!" Goes over hilariously at the barbershop and neighborhood tavern. Probably cost me a buck a year in opportunity cost.


May change my screen name to ' EasilyAmused '

Love that!

 

[COcheesehead]

Maybe I have a different sense of humor, but I am trying to simplify my life, not have another entity have my SS number or deal with the taxes from something easily overlooked for the sake of a few laughs

 

[audreyh1]

I do believe investing should be boring and very low maintenance. Don’t dabble in fun money here - got other things to do with my brain power and time.

 

[racy]

Well, I thought it'd be fun to make some big money with PeerStreet (private real estate loans paying 7 - 12% interest). So, I invested a few bucks. As of today I have 17 loans 3 of which are 'late 30 days' on payments and 1 'late 90+ days'.
So, I'd call this stupid fun...I guess.

 

[CaptTom]

I had some fun with the IRS once.

They found a minor error on a past tax form. Of course, they waited the full three years the law allowed before sending me the bill. It was a trivial amount, and even with large penalties, not all that painful.

I paid in full shortly before the due date, and thought I was done.

But no. Next I got a bill for the additional few dollars in penalties which had accrued between when they sent the notice, and the payment due date.

It probably cost the IRS more to send me that second bill than it was worth.

Feeling a little cocky, I immediately sent off a check for the amount due... minus one penny.

I did the math. According to the published penalty rates they'd sent me, That penny would grow to be almost a dollar by the time I was something like 100 years old.

I'm still waiting for the bill.

 

[GravitySucks]

I had some fun with the IRS once.

They found a minor error on a past tax form. Of course, they waited the full three years the law allowed before sending me the bill. It was a trivial amount, and even with large penalties, not all that painful.

I paid in full shortly before the due date, and thought I was done.

But no. Next I got a bill for the additional few dollars in penalties which had accrued between when they sent the notice, and the payment due date.

It probably cost the IRS more to send me that second bill than it was worth.

Feeling a little cocky, I immediately sent off a check for the amount due... minus one penny.

I did the math. According to the published penalty rates they'd sent me, That penny would grow to be almost a dollar by the time I was something like 100 years old.

I'm still waiting for the bill.

There is nothing fun about dealing with the IRS.
Must say I admire the cohones on you for messing with them at all though !!!

 

[COcheesehead]

I had some fun with the IRS once.

They found a minor error on a past tax form. Of course, they waited the full three years the law allowed before sending me the bill. It was a trivial amount, and even with large penalties, not all that painful.

I paid in full shortly before the due date, and thought I was done.

But no. Next I got a bill for the additional few dollars in penalties which had accrued between when they sent the notice, and the payment due date.

It probably cost the IRS more to send me that second bill than it was worth.

Feeling a little cocky, I immediately sent off a check for the amount due... minus one penny.

I did the math. According to the published penalty rates they'd sent me, That penny would grow to be almost a dollar by the time I was something like 100 years old.

I'm still waiting for the bill.

I think that entitles them to now go back an additional 3 years. I wouldn't mess with the folks that could crush your dreams. What's the line from the old song...you don't pull on Superman's cape.

 

[CaptTom]

I was young and foolish, and had very little to lose back then.

I can tell you I've always been scrupulously honest on my returns since.

But it still warms my heart to know that somewhere in the bowels of an IRS computer, something didn't balance out correctly because of my $0.01.

 

[aja8888]

I was young and foolish, and had very little to lose back then.

I can tell you I've always been scrupulously honest on my returns since.

But it still warms my heart to know that somewhere in the bowels of an IRS computer, something didn't balance out correctly because of my $0.01.

They just round it off. Nearest dollar anymore.

 

[RobbieB]

I'm going to have some fun with some dough. Like pocket jingle and a bill or 2.

I've been playing with this 2 part clear epoxy finish for a while and it pretty cool stuff. Takes a long time to set up so it self levels and hardens glass smooth.

So, build a small table with a 1/8" depression and glue some bills and quarters, dimes, etc down and cover with the clear epoxy. Like you left some dough on the table forever!

 

[MRG]

Sometimes I will talk with certain financial services companies. When I w*rked I was responsible for an application they use to coordinate business functions; had the misfortune to help integrate it into the daily business practices.

In long conversations I get easily bored and feel a need to amuse myself. During a long conversation I'll sometimes ask the rep if they just did X function in application Y? Drives them crazy! They know I've passed security and appear to know what they just did on their desktop! I must be a hacker.

I've had to explain and reauthorize myself a couple occasions.