Alternately, after I got out of the hospital on 2/4/2005, I began to sell. Stock, realestate, every damned think I owned was on the market. And, just before the "tipping point" 24 months age, I was down to my home, and my sons two homes as my only non liquid assetts. The "cash" was in tax free municipals at 5%, STUPIDLY in a fund rather than a personally controled bundel. NEVER listen to your broker!!!! So I took a 10% hit, and now have everything in cash. We are planning on paying off the mortgages completely, why pay 4 1/2% int while earning 2% on the cash?
Next week, we'll get the payouts and get that out of our lives. If we need additional cash, we can reverse mort our primary residence, hell, the LOT is worth 10 times, even in this crap market, what we paid for the lot WITH the house!
And I'm thinking of BUYING SOME STOCK, YOU KNOW, like Energy Transfet Partners, El Paso Pipeline Partners, etc etc, all the guys who bring you natural gas, who get paid by the million cubic feet transported regardless. Yes, I really like that idea.....