Off we go...

I keep hearing that these are the times that the seeds of millionaires are planted. I believe that to be true with every ounce of my being. Opportunities like those we are seeing today are truly once in a lifetime. Major investment vehicles available to Americans are currently marked down at below "Clearance Sale" prices.

Real estate prices are at rock bottom and there is some serious money to be made there. For people who have enough money to "buy and hold" or for those who want to become landlords, now is definitely the time to get the deals. My husband I recently used these market conditions to buy our dream house, a 1920s historical home in a small Texas town. The renovations and improvements that we are doing on our house will take us (translation, us = my husband) the next five years to complete, so getting into real estate investing at this point is just not in the cards right now. We have all the real estate we can handle.

As I have watched the roller coaster stock market charts in the last six months, I keep remembering my crazy Day Trader friends back in the 1980s who always preached about the wiggle room within normal stock market fluctuations. As I watched them back then, I thought about how stressed out they always seemed - constantly checking the market, consumed with its every minuscule turn or dip or bounce - and I decided that sort of thing was not for me. I did not have the stomach or the time to do what they did.

Fast forward 20-something years:

Something happens when a woman hits 40. She magically loses all of the insecurities of her twenties and the "I must achieve superwoman-hood" fantasies of her thirties. At forty, she is a happy, confident, inspired woman who doesn't really care about what other people think. This is where I have arrived. What a joyous place!

So, when I start thinking about how much I love my life and my family, I inevitably wind up thinking that I would like to retire sooner than later so that I can just enjoy them. This always takes me back to my stock market wiggle room thoughts. It is like this nagging feeling that I have missed out on what could be an important piece of my future.