I may have skipped a post, but I have been writing A LOT.
This process of becoming myself again goes beyond being a newbie investor and learning about stocks. This newbie investor also needs to increase personal income, so more investing, and other life renewing activities, can happen!
INTERVIEWS. Last week I had two in-person job interviews, for which I always do lots of research for and put together notes to get ready for…Honestly, thought, I’m feeling as though I really am meant to go back to being my own boss.
KIDS IN COLLEGE. I helped my daughters apply to colleges, one will be a freshman and one will be transferring out of a community college to a 4-year. (There’s another daughter who is working on her B.S. before med school, but I have a little extra time on that.) That’s two full Saturdays of financial aid websites. Three kids in college; I timed that poorly.
THE BOOK. I re-wrote my query to literary agents, more WRITING. I self-taped auditions for three commercials, no writing but kinda stressful.
AND I APPLIED TO GRAD SCHOOL, and had two interviews. I buried the lead, huh? My present job pays the tuition; I have to pay tax on the value of the tuition (sort of problematic, as it’s still rather expensive). This application process involved writing about myself without exposing my shortcomings…
…Like I didn’t have to share that as a newbie investor, I’ve only seen…hold on…4% gain??? I’ve made $10.05? What happened this week, seriously, because a few days ago I was looking at about 12% gain since I started a few months ago.
It’s time to step back on the learning curve.
STOCKS. I feel like I’m missing something, like when to buy and sell. What I’ve experienced so far tells me to buy when they are on their way down, not up. And so now get what people are saying.
My Oatly (OTLY)…omg. Wow. That tanked so badly, from the $15.75 I bought for down to $9.45. (I’ve lost $12.60 on my two shares.) Thank goodness I don’t have a lot of money in this yet. I’m still waiting and watching out of curiosity. Like when is this done?
Nintendo (NTDOY). Call me naïve, call me a hopeless kid at heart, but I believe in you, Nintendo! (but I’m not willing to purchase more, since I’m still a newbie with no capital, otherwise…maybe!) My one share I bought at $59.70 is now $55.16.
My Allbirds (BIRD) IPO experiment is interesting. I’ve gained 9.24%. I still am under the impression that I cannot sell within the first 30 days, or I’ll be blackballed out of IPO-Land.
As far as my Ethereum and Dogecoin are concerned, there have been ups and downs with various news breaks. And oh yeah,
This is how much I DON’T know, and how Fear Of Missing Out could have hurt me. I fretted about missing the boat on Rivian. I missed out, not because it didn’t cross my mind, but because I didn’t want to allocate more money. Remember? I owe the IRS $12K. Oh yeah, and the state wants theirs, too…my first experience with check garnishing! (But that’s a boring story about the organization who employs me making a data entry error and not withholding tax for most of the year, after I requested to withhold more, and then I noticed their error and alerted them, but damage had been done! Didn’t even get a “sorry!”)
Moving on.
MY NEXT SELF-LED CRASH COURSE: I feel like I need to make the next few days about researching candlesticks and waterfalls, because I’d like to learn more about knowing when to sell and when to buy. It’s a little scary putting even small amounts of money in when there are bills to pay and kids to help. I view this money like it’s still there, after all, I didn’t spend it.
Wouldn’t it be nice to not crash-course as I go? The MBA program would help me learn more, but that’s not the reason I applied.
You might infer that I’ve decided staying with the present dead-end job and getting an MBA is now preferable to the job search. This is correct. I seem to have hit some kind of salary ceiling for people like me…a $45K to $49K ceiling. This is the salary range for much of what I’ve applied for. It’s far from satisfactory. I still have another in-person job interview slated, however, because I made that promise that I’d go to ALL interviews I was invited to.
I’m applying to the MBA program because it’s actually what I had originally planned to do decades ago when I was first an undergrad. I had locked myself out with the combination of my choices: working with spouse, having kids, not going to grad school back then, staying in this job for too long. Being broke begets being broke, and it’s hard to break the cycle. My youngest kid refuses to accept anything less than considering herself rich…she says it’s a mindset, and she’s already there. I don’t know how that will play out, but ok, go girl.
Starting over might mean breaking the cycle AND staying where I am if I want the MBA. Sounds like a net gain of zero at first! Like my white-collar gambling experiment, this alone will not show rapid, miraculous gains. This is a rare opportunity, and I would have to continue working for this organization, which in itself will not increase my income NOW, but what’s two years?? I have to look outside the day job for the rapid, miraculous gains.
Kate Murray 