July 2nd, 2005 yoshers
- Have some emergency money in a liquid account (3 months of expenses is about right)
- Prepare for major expenses if you can; for example, save some money on a monthly basis for your annual property tax payment
- Take some time and estimate what your tax contribution will be for the year and adjust your tax withheld numbers accordingly
- Save a set amount monthly (before it hits your bank account) for retirement (in an account that is beneficial for you tax dollars) or perhaps a down payment for a home (or both!)
- Learn how to manage your personal finance by spending some time (not too much, an hour a week perhaps?) every week to check out new information and ideas
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July 2nd, 2005 yoshers
OK, so I still have not managed to stop looking at housing bubble sites, but I have stopped reading most of the housing bubble blog/comment posts as most of it is just rehashing stuff that I have already read. Fortunately (or unfortunately, considering the amount of time that I am spending), there are yet more to read about as far as how the US economy will influence and be influenced by the current real estate situation. And although I have not been able to settle myself down and find a really good way to learn about economics formally, I have learned more about the different dynamics of the economy.
Still, economics are very much influenced by people…and we know trying to figure out what people will or will not do is hardly something that one can measure scientifically. People basically profit off of other people (see stock market bubble of the late nineties variety) and for some reason, it feels like the current market conditions are basically influenced by two things 1) oil price and 2) whatever comes out of the Federal Reserve Board. Seems like a very narrowly focused set of things to determine the whole US economy…sure, other factors are still involved, but the real conundrum is that the study of economics is basically the study of how people (whether individually or as a large group) will behave towards certain commodities. But the fact that the Fed Board can say, “everything looks great” and the economy will stay healthy (and conversely, if they say, “the sky is falling”, you can bet that people will be hiding their assets under their pillows) makes my question the sanity in following any economy.
So now that I have spat out my less than fully educated view of the US economy, I shall once again resist the urge to do something hasty in anticipation of the imminent demise of real estate. Their will be no selling of my house in anticipation of real estate prices dropping. I mean, renting really does suck on so many levels.
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