Old Timer Reads on Investing to Plan for His Future

Harold Proxmire, 78, of Falls City, is spending time at his assisted living facility reading up on investing. He has had little else to do since Muriel passed away two years ago. They used to go to some daytime activities, but Muriel was the one that drove the car. Harold has not driven his car since the funeral, and it is in fact sitting without plates on it at his nephew Steve's suburban house. Well, it's almost rural, it has a gravel drive way.

It was impossible to sell it last time Steve and Harold talked about it, and Harold is convinced it will be worth more two years from now. "They don't make Oldsmobiles like they used to."

Meanwhile, Harold is taking the shuttle to the shopping center weekly to go to the Barnes and Noble store to look at business books. He has looked at books on hard line capitalism and read one.

Most of the books he comes home with are stock market tip books. He does not have a computer, so he has to follow the news in the paper and minimize his investing transactions. Steve does some on line trading for Harold, and Harold calls Steve almost every day to get an account balance. At times he wants Steve to buy some stock in Boeing or Monsanto, or to sell the same stock, the week the two Boeing jets crashed. Steve tells him that he will do it "later." One time he missed the trade, and had to set it up to sell Monday when the stock market opens and that time they lost quite a bit.

If Harold has nothing new to read, he re-reads an old favorite.

Sometimes he is worried about his children's future. They do not get in touch much, both are in Missouri where the jobs are. Harold is staying in Iowa for now. But in any case, he tried to do slightly honest and sort of "green" investing. Being in Iowa, he has a few thousand invested in a company that makes wind turbines.

Other investment ideas can take him in many directions. 

Harold sometimes takes a walk on Sunday mornings to McDonalds. He no longer goes to the church they used to go to with Muriel. He spends Sunday morning reading Warren Buffet.

Steve tries to help his uncle make sensible decisions and has held him back from some obviously crazy schemes. In fact, the less Harold buys and sells, the better. It would really make sense to buy nursing home insurance instead. Harold already has a pacemaker and walks with a cane. But he may still have a good ten years to make 12% yearly. It has not come close to that ever, but he did make some 5% one year. That was the year he left all the money in a plain old mutual funds account.