Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All

I’ve lost some great posts lately.

I’ve lost them because my mind writes them when I’m walking the dog. During other times, I try to have pen and paper with me. Then, I can jot down an idea or even do some writing as time permits.

But on a dog walk, I just can’t carry any more stuff. And since I can’t do anything else for the duration, my mind uses the quiet time to think.

I always fool myself into thinking that I’ll remember the composition later. It’s too great to forget right? Wrong.

So perhaps they aren’t that great in the first place, but I’m starting to feel like I’d really like to find out. I think I’ll feel pretty stupid talking into a voice recorder as I go though.

In the meantime, you’ll just have to trust me on this. This blog should have so many more awesome articles. But the dog’s walk ate them.

Tags: Life by Ms. SP
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Tonight, I’m going to the Opening Night Gala of the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival. The boyfriend has a short that will be playing next Saturday morning at 9:30 AM. To find out more information about that session, go to this schedule page, scroll down to November 1, and click on Magic and Make-believe.

His short is called Lullaby. They even used a capture from it as the promo image. How cool is that?!

I usually try to avoid anything with the word “gala” in its name but seeing as how he’s now eligible for an Academy Award nomination, I’m pretty excited to go.

Added 12/9/08: I see that people have been coming to this article through searches for “Lullaby.” If you are interested in getting in touch with the creator or if you would like your own copy of the short, please click on the link in the right side column (under Links) to visit his website.

Tags: Chicago, Life by Ms. SP
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Today, October 13, the stock market went on its largest one-day rebound since The Great Depression. My total holdings went up over 10%. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but I’m glad I’m not smart/stupid enough to try to time the market.

After all that we’ve been through, it sure feels nice to see only one red item on the screen today.

But as I’ve learned from Ms. Suzy Orman, the actual dollar amounts are misleading. You’ll always have to gain back more than you’ve lost. For example, if a portfolio valued at $10,000 drops 10%, that portfolio loses $1,000. Now that portfolio is worth $9,000.

To gain back that original $1,000, the portfolio must rise by at least 11%. It’s always harder getting back to zero.

Now that I have this one-day surge in my back pocket, I thought I’d take a look and see how I’ve faired in this topsy-turvy economic whirlwind. (so far)

I’ll set my portfolio value in May as the starting point. Let’s see now … [pulls out statements] … if May is … then [calculate, calculate] … ok, numbers …

Alright, here we go. By July, it dropped 6.5%. Acceptable. By September, it fell 12.9% from that May total.

But October is where it really hurt. As of today, even with the market bounce, I’m 29.1% down. To gain it all back, my portfolio is going to have to increase by 41%.

Wow. This is the first time I’ve actually crunched my numbers. This news is very depressing.

I’m so glad I’m still relatively young and have been practicing good money techniques for a while now. If I didn’t try to diversify, have a healthy emergency fund, live debt free, and get a mortgage I could afford, I’m sure I would be panicking way more than I am now.

Do you have any blood-curdling pre-Halloween financial tales to tell?

Tags: Life, Money by Ms. SP
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