Recent distractions

I haven't posted much lately because I've noticed that most of my posts are either close to or exactly repeating prior posts, or that they are all along the same themes (e.g. relationships and stupid human behavior), which, frankly, I am tiring of. Thus, I can't think of anything to write about except the banal "Today, I got up. Then I brushed my teeth. Then I got dressed..." posts.

Oh, and I'm also distracted by a few projects right now:

Organizing my finances
This one is the killer. I've decided I want to use Quicken to help me with taxes and managing/tracking my expenses. This means that I need to categorize everything. This means that I need to think of categories for everything I spend money on (how do you categorize batteries?). I actually decided I would do this last year, around this time. Only I didn't really do a good job. So now I have 1+ years of data to go through and fix.

I'm finding that I've not received several rebates also, now 6+ months after the fact. GRR. I hate rebates. They are evil.

Investing
I am determined to learn how to be an informed investor. Previously, most of my money was in "high performance" money market accounts, which made something like 1% interest. THAT'S PIDDLY. Then, I moved it into an Orange Savings account (ask me for an invite, and you will get $25 for signing up and I will get $10). A little better - 2.60%. But long term, the best returns will be in mutual/index funds and potentially stocks, especially when you start young. Seeing as I had no life in my first three years of working, I have quite a bit saved up.

So I finally set up a trading account with Freetrade. It's a subsidiary of Ameritrade and offers 20 free trades a month, then a small fee per trade after that, like $3. Much better than any other deal out there. Only catch is you have to wire money in the first time.

Anyway, now that I have some stocks, I can't help but watch the market every day - even though I know that I won't be selling since I am going for long term growth.

Oh well. Back to watching the Dow. TiVo just closed a deal with Comcast. They're up 50%. Awesome.