We grew up in world in which the news about the failure of Social Security is almost as constant as the news about the failure HMOs. We all know that it is unlikely that many people who are currently contributing to social security will ever see the money we’ve invested into the program. At least these funds are probably not coming back to darken our doors. This means we need to find alternatives and end our reliance on the government for a comfortable retirement that doesn’t appear to be in the woodworks.

For this reason we are seeing more and more people in the twenty and thirty something generation taking matters into their own hands and investing not only for their retirements and the days when we can no longer work but also for those days when things happen and we need to fix broken houses, buy new cars, or pay hefty insurance deductibles for medical care. There are many reasons we choose to invest and very few that would ever be considered the wrong reason. The question remains, because there are so many out there who are not yet investing, with so many reasons to invest, are you ready to invest?

Here are a few situations in which if you don’t think you are ready to invest you may need to revisit your opinions and decide that ready or not, you need to invest.

If you have children and a job that doesn’t offer a pension plan or matching retirement fund then it is probably a good idea to invest on your own. Even if you don’t have corporate provisions for contributions you have alternatives such as Roth IRAs that will give you a tax break for investing some of your money and helping to plan for your own retirement.

If you have children that will some day need dental work, medical services, and/or college educations it is about time that you began those savings plans. Yet again there are tax deferred and tax fee options that are available and having this money invested ahead of time can save you so much money later on that it is worth making a few sacrifices along the way to secure the future of your children.

If you want to give your daughter the wedding of her dreams then you absolutely need to begin preparing, saving, planning, and investing about 10 years before she’s born. Weddings are expensive and if you are going to go the dream wedding route you need to be saving some serious money in order to give her that fairy tale.

Finally, if you want your retirement to be a nice comfortable existence and not to be spent in your future daughter-in-law’s broom closet you need to be ready today to begin investing in your future retirement. Time is short, life expectancies are longer than ever, and the costs of living are continuing to rise at alarming rates. If you’re not ready to invest you need to figure out why and fix the problem so that you can be ready to invest and soon.

Investing in your financial future is the greatest gift you can give yourself by far. If you aren’t sure where to begin or how, perhaps it’s time to seek the services of a qualified financial advisor. His advice may prove invaluable and may give you a much more comfortable future than you would have ever imagined left to your own devices.

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Die Hard movies are a great piece of film history. That is probably where they need to stay, though, instead of having updated versions coming out years after what was thought of as the last one in the series. It is probably time for John McClain to be retired. Let Bruce Willis keep doing action movies, but this franchise has already seen its glory days.

The first of the movies has John going against a charmingly evil Alan Rickman in a building in downtown LA. He tries to get help the whole time, and it is easy to see that he is just a man who doesn’t really want to be where he is and is trying to get someone else to come over and help him out the whole time. Eventually he just has to do it himself, but he tries to get help. And that is important to his character.

The second movie gets more outlandish. It takes place in an airport and once again our hero is thrown into something just because he happened to be in the right place at the right time. The premise works, and he is able to save the day, but there are a few more elements of the completely far-fetched that start to pop up. Still, the movie isn’t outside the realm of possibility by too much.

The third movie takes place in New York. All of New York. The movies have expanded with each one, and now he is in the middle of a cunning plan to steal a lot of gold. He isn’t looking for help as much this time, but that is largely because there isn’t anyone around that can help, save for a sassy Samuel Jackson.

The fourth movie takes on most of the nation. John goes from being a cop on a certain beat to having to try to be everywhere and stop a national crises. He also has seemed to gain super powers, going from a guy who is hard to kill to a guy that can take out a helicopter by speeding through a tunnel. Of course he gets up and walks away after doing that, and the movie starts to lose some of its mystic.

These types of movies work better when they are done on a bit smaller scale. They need to be done smaller. This isn’t a super hero we are dealing with, this is an aging cop. John can’t do everything, and the audience should know this. Regardless of how much people want to root for him, it is hard when he has become some sort of superman instead of just being a tough New York cop.

Ultimately it is just a difference in the styles of the time. A couple of decades ago it was okay to show an average guy in an unusually situation. Now, with the advent of super-hero movies and an ability to do more with special effects, every action movie is made with an eye to massive explosions and not to making a good underdog story.

The Die Hard movies are all pretty solid action movies. They are meant to be taken as escapism and that is what they are. The new movie isn’t awful, but it is just proof that those movies can’t be made the same way that they used to be. Let John McClain go into retirement and bring Bruce Willis back as a badass cop in a new movie series.

Pianos, like some pets, are bought and loved, then slowly forgotten. I Go To Download Movies For It’s also a good source for movies that are out of print. Indeed, online recording services could very well be the shape of things to come in how music is produced.

I was busy baking cookies and washing up dishes when the phone rang. As I juggled dish towels, phone cord and running kids, the voice on the other end told me that she was a client from more than a year ago and promptly started updating me on the financial status of their family.

l was congratulating her and her husband for their diligence and hard work when we got to the reason for her call. They had just found out about a ‘Wonderful’ investment opportunity and they wanted my opinion of the company and the situation. Usually, I totally revolt at informing individuals what to do with THEIR money. Firstly, I am not a trained financial professional and always defer to such people in these sorts of situations. Secondly, I do not know all the hopes, dreams and goals you have as a person for your money, so why should I provide you direction on what to do with YOUR money?

Nevertheless, considering that I had taught this family before, I listened pleasantly as she breathlessly told me of this amazing financial opportunity and how they were seriously considering taking the $5,000 they had worked to save for over a year and invest it with this one company. I therefore smoothly questioned, “Okay, but have you and your husband maxed out your IRA contributions for this year?” There was a pregnant pause on the other end before she meekly said, “Um. No.” “Well, before I would spend dime one on any investment, I would make certain that I had made use of the maximum allowable contributions to all the tax advantaged accounts the federal government gives us.”

This is the point, my frugal friend. I know it isn’t sexy and bold and exciting, but the accounts which are IRAs, 401k’s and 403b’s are a wonderful and steady approach to invest in your future. Before you go for riskier investments, proceed with what works very first! Go with the Obvious! Are you performing the obvious? Are you investing with accounts which are tax advantaged for you? If you don’t even have a retirement account open, then make your first investment goal that you open one this year.

Mr. Schwab answered, “Buy index funds and ETFs. That may not seem like enough action for a 25-year old, but it’s the wisest thing to complete. Put most of your energy into your work and learn to communicate. I believe the individuals who become truly successful are those who sense what others are feeling and how to make them at ease.”

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