thoughtfulI call the name of this game "How low can it go?" and the basic premise is seeing if my net worth in stocks will eventually drop below $10,000. Gee, at one point, just a couple years ago, I was worth over $130,000 - on paper. Just like my father said he was worth around a cool million on paper before the Crash of '29. By 1932, he was literally spending his last nickle on the streetcar to get to the bread line. Stories like this give a perverse comfort in times of financial loss.
I guess it hurts a bit because it's been a real money loss for a while. While my Lucent stock (currently hovering around $1) may not have been purchased when it was up at $70 a share, it was still bought at $24. Don't talk to me about stocks bought at $82 that are now at $4. I should have blown it all on good food and rare books. Eating and reading are positive virtues, and I now feel very good about every delicious meal and 19th century book. I'm starting to understand my father, and how he figured you should spend it as you go, and die with less that $30,000 in net worth (outside of real estate).
Live for the moment, for the stock market may crash tomorrow. Put not your faith or your self in things monitary. If they say it takes around a million to retire, I figure I'll be working until I'm 200. But then, my father was working until the day he died--at 91, and found he *hated* doing otherwise. "What am I supposed to do, be one of these old fogies playing shuffleboard? That's no way to LIVE!"
There's a lesson there.
