One of the things I wish to accomplish in 2007 is to get my financial life in order. I don’t expect to become completely debt free in 2007, but I at least want to have a plan to reduce my debt and start planning for retirement. I have about 30 years plus of productivity left in me before I decide to live in a mobile home and travel the world.
One of the things I have had since I was a kid was savings bonds that my dad and grandfather gave me every birthday and Christmas. They are tucked away in a safe deposit box so I rarely think about them. I have half of the original bonds since I had some financial difficulties in 1994 which forced me to cash some of them. This morning as I was looking into various online financial stuff, I decided to check the balance of them. I keep an inventory of the bonds in the house and when I looked it up, I realized the last time I checked the bonds was in 1999. Since then, four of the bonds have matured and are no longer earning interest. The rest have dropped from 6-7% interest to 4% in the last 7 years. It looks like I need to cash out those bonds and roll them into something more dynamic. What? I don’t know.
Also, I have a few thousand in an old Edmunds 401K that is not really doing anything for me other than keeping me from spending it on a new Sony Bravia TV (a good thing).
My plan is to get all these misc/other financial resources together and see what I can do about getting a much higher return for my investment. One thing I would love to get is a house. I think I could get a pretty good return in real estate, I just need to get over the hump of down payment and then figure out an affordable monthly payment.
Whatever happens, I will need to have a plan in place by October!