Friday, October 10, 2008

Things That Make Me Go "HUH?!" and Things That Make Me Cry

Things that make me go "huh?!":
And things that make me cry: we've been saving money for our kids' college educations for 20 years and in the past year we transferred all the funds for all the kids into 529 plans. ALL four kids are in college now. All four 529 accounts are based in the stock market and have taken huge hits.

I just don't know how to break it to them...

Stumble Upon Toolbar

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have more than 1/2 of my retirement account in stocks so I feel your pain.

But despite what's happening now, I'm optimistic that stocks will rally in the next 18 months or sooner.

Hopefully you can hold onto the stock funds that have done the worst and just use the ones that have the smallest losses to pay for the current college bills.

I just can't allow myself to lock in these huge losses. Just have to ride it out I think. I've been reading a lot about Warren Buffett to encourage myself to be patient.

jennifer said...

Thanks for the positive comment Lilly! I am absolutely panicked over the stock market freefall (the equivalent of the last 5 years' worth of contributions to my 401k are GONE), but I too have to force myself to be patient. My husband seems to be talking me off the ledge every day when the Dow closes.

Anonymous said...

I had to stop watching the news and reading the paper. My retirement accounts have all but disappeared. Since they are part of my monthly income, there is some serious cutting back going on in our household. All those years of hard work down the drain. I told hubby yesterday "I guess I grew up poor, I can die poor". Galgenhumor, as they say in German.

Jen said...

I'm with Lilly on this. The trick will be to arrange things until things rally a bit.

Margaret said...

Much of my retirement is in the stock market, but my kids' college money is in 0 coupon bonds,which I'm hoping are safe. Is anything??

Anonymous said...

You're much braver than I am. I'm too full of dread to peer at our statements.

Goofball said...

I guess you just broke the news to them this way

Related Posts with Thumbnails