Recent activities

As a result of the recent economic news I have taken a few actions.

• The first action was to do nothing. I sold no shares within my 401K or my wife's 403b. In my last post I describe how this drop in the market could really be the sole reason as to why we hit our goal. Buying low is really the key. My wife and I have also decided to put our yearly raises into our retirement accounts. This will give us a nice boost. My wife found out that she is going to receive a 7% raise. NICE!!!! I have not found out what I am going to get but I suspect it will be between 3-5%...


• I changed our future contributions to our retirement accounts. Both my wife and I now contribute 25% to bonds or some sort of fixed income investment for our retirement accounts. I just feel more comfortable with this for the long term.


• I also started watching the first 25 minutes of "Mad Money". I believe that Jim Cramer offers the best economic and market commentary around. I don't watch the entire show but just the first 25 minutes. The later part of the show gets into the quicker stock picking recommendations that are of no value to me.


• Today I did something out of the norm. I purchased a few shares of JNJ (Johnson & Johnson) , KBR and KO (Coke) stock. These companies were to good of a deal to pass up. I have regretted not buying after the last crash after 9/11 and didn't want to sit on the side line for this one. Only a small amount of shares each. I am also watching Apple, inc. It is my opinion that many good companies have been dragged down by the market but for no other good reason. Some of these are down over 50%. That's a lot of upside potential over the next year or two. These are long term positions.