Finding a good investor to help guide you with your money is
such an important thing to do.
My story with investing began some time ago. It started with
me purchasing life insurance from some random company. I was single and lived a long ways from home
(1200 km away). I had this strange fear
that something could possibly happen to me, and if I died, I worried about the
expense that it would incur to my family for travel and funeral. So I went and purchased Life insurance…Not a
lot. About a year later, I got home from
work and found this check in the mail for $700.00…I was in awe. Where did this come from. I called the company and told them that they
must have made a huge mistake. I had life insurance with them, but had probably only paid about $300 into my
plan. I was told it wasn’t a mistake,
that the company had sold, and the shares were worth that amount. The money was mine and I could meet with the
new company to reinvest or do what I wanted to do with it. I still don’t
understand what happened, but I was sure excited to have won a mini lottery in
my mind. And oooops. I didn’t quite make
it back to rework a new policy. But I
also didn’t die, so I guess it was a win win situation after all.
Fast forward a few years later.
I was coming home from work after a large snow storm. The rental I was living in was on a busier
street, and as I was about to turn into the driveway, I got myself totally
stuck in the snow and was unable to even get into the driveway. I wasn’t in any danger, because of the two
lanes, cars could easily pull around me….but I was still scared silly. I did what any brave girl would do and
started to cry. Hard as I could I couldn’t get that car out of the snow bank. I got out of the car and left the motor
running, closed the door.. to see just how stuck I really was and how I could
remedy the situation. I kicked the snow
away as best I could, and then went to go back into the car to try and pull my
car out again. The only problem was, was
that the door locked. Yes…I was stuck on
the street, my car was running, and Icouldnèt get into the car. I also couldn’t get into my house, which was
right there because my keys were inside my locked running car. Hows that for a predicament.:)
Random stranger to the rescue. A man seeing the problem pulled over, and was
totally kind. We weren’t able to remedy
the situation without calling AMA, which he kindly did for me, after we waited
for 30 minutes for my roommate to get home and unlock the door, so we could use
the phone. He used his AMA card and we
were able to get into the car and get it out of the ditch. (this was all
pre-cell phone days obviously).
A year or so later, I ended up getting a phone call from the
man ), and he was now a Financial Advisor
and he was wondering if I would like to come meet with him and go over
investing etc. I thought, why not and
went and met with him. Nice man, who
took quite a bit of time with me trying to explain how investing worked and the
importance of it. He was a big believer
in Japanese stocks....had a hunch that that was where there was money to be
made. I was naive....and thought, sure,
why not.:) I invested.
Fast forward another year, and I got a call from a new
advisor who informed me that my current advisor was no longer working for the
company as it wasn’t a good fit for him), and that
they would like me to come in and review my investments....which had now lost
most of its value...ha...and the future of them did not look bright.
Oh well. Lesson learned. II may have lost money, but I did learn about the importance of saving. Take some time trying to find the right
advisor. I wish I knew how to do
it. And I plan to find out. I hope to share that with you (whoever you
might be...(since I currently only have two readers that are related to me who
are reading this blog right now.:) Truth
is, if I only help myself, my sister and my husband wind our way through this
financial maze, that will be success enough.
But if I can help some more of you, that would be great as well! Happy Monday!
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