Elizabeth Culmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
edenfalling) wrote2016-01-13 08:19 pm
edenfalling) wrote2016-01-13 08:19 pm
Entry tags:
wherein Liz thinks about money
I got my end-of-year statement from Vanguard in the mail today.
I tend to forget that I own stocks and an annuity, because I never do anything with them. My parents set up three accounts when I was a very tiny child, because they had some seed money from my grandparents and they believe in long-term financial planning. When I took control, I sold one (which made my taxes interesting that year) and adjusted another so its capital gains continue to reinvest but the dividends come to me via check twice a year. And aside from those checks (and always using the dividends and capital gains worksheet rather than the tax tables to figure my income tax), the whole thing has no impact whatsoever on my life.
Except, you know, I do own those two accounts. So I am technically not even remotely close to being insolvent, even though I've been unemployed and/or underemployed for a year and a half now. It's just that most of my money is tied up in relatively illiquid* forms. (This is even more true if you add my IRA into the mix.)
I'd really like that money to continue being illiquid and out of mind, because as far as I'm concerned the main point of investments is to leave them the fuck alone until either you retire or the sky falls, and I am not (yet) at a sky-is-falling stage of financial uncertainty. But it's nice to be reminded that the option of selling some shares is there if -- fingers crossed and knock wood -- I should come to need it.
*Yes, I know stocks are highly liquid as investments go. But you can't pay your rent or credit card bills with them, not to mention I'd have to go through a short song-and-dance with Vanguard to turn them into cash, and that is illiquid enough in everyday terms.
I tend to forget that I own stocks and an annuity, because I never do anything with them. My parents set up three accounts when I was a very tiny child, because they had some seed money from my grandparents and they believe in long-term financial planning. When I took control, I sold one (which made my taxes interesting that year) and adjusted another so its capital gains continue to reinvest but the dividends come to me via check twice a year. And aside from those checks (and always using the dividends and capital gains worksheet rather than the tax tables to figure my income tax), the whole thing has no impact whatsoever on my life.
Except, you know, I do own those two accounts. So I am technically not even remotely close to being insolvent, even though I've been unemployed and/or underemployed for a year and a half now. It's just that most of my money is tied up in relatively illiquid* forms. (This is even more true if you add my IRA into the mix.)
I'd really like that money to continue being illiquid and out of mind, because as far as I'm concerned the main point of investments is to leave them the fuck alone until either you retire or the sky falls, and I am not (yet) at a sky-is-falling stage of financial uncertainty. But it's nice to be reminded that the option of selling some shares is there if -- fingers crossed and knock wood -- I should come to need it.
*Yes, I know stocks are highly liquid as investments go. But you can't pay your rent or credit card bills with them, not to mention I'd have to go through a short song-and-dance with Vanguard to turn them into cash, and that is illiquid enough in everyday terms.
no subject
Used to work for a place where they had an employee stock scheme. There was a tax incentive involved in this at the time. When I left, part of the weird tax rules around buying the shares meant that I had to sell them immediately upon departure unless I'd had them for a certain period of time. Sold the stuff I was supposed to, but there's still a few left behind that either fell into that not forced to sell category or that chunk couldn't be sold at the time or whatever. I probably should sell them off completely, but it involves effort. So, I still have a handful of shares and they earn me dividends of around $5 twice a year. Oh, the excitement.
Yours sound far more exciting (well, as exciting as shares ever get) than mine do.
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