I am just so tired. I just keep trying to do the right things and folks keep telling me bad things about myself and questioning me like I done something wrong. Which I dont see how I can have. To say I would trivialize (had to look that up) Jesus by not taking his gift, I don’t know if there is a way to say how that is like a knife in my side. It is just believing of Jesus, but then there is tithing which some say I should pay and others dont, and study and prayer and council to get close to God but then again it is just faith. What you write is confusing to me. You say things to make out like I am buying my way in or trying to act my way in, or trying to not appreciate things but then you say nice things about my salvation.

Jesus is right out here on my land and with me and the kids and I am done with asking for advice. Again though I think it was polite of you to take time to write. I am also done going to places where the first word out of their mouth is about how much I need to give to them. I am also done asking for advice when no one actually answers the questions I have asked. Finally, I am done with the whole questions I got on tithing. I am going to give in where I see and feel the good will be done. The other day I bought out the grocery bill of the lady in front of me at the store because she was just short on her bill. It gave me a happiness I don’t can compare to anything else. Certainly better than when I gave $60,000 to the church and the preacher went and bought a car he wont even keep washed and then complained was bad on gas.

Seems to me so far the best part of finding Christ is the feelings I have of love and peace. The worst part is all the other folks who found him too trying to tell me what Christ is supposed to be like and what he wants.

If your land is really worth $2 million, you must have a lot more than 200 acres, or its value is not as farmland but as land that is ripe for development. Farmland seems to top out at $10,000 per acre, except maybe in the Napa Valley or a place like it.

Are you being taken advantage of by your community? Some of what you say leads me to wonder whether that might be the case.

thanks

Regarding your example of flipping a coin twice and concluding that it was fixed, I’ll disagree a little and point out that if you flip a coin twice and it came up heads both times, it wouldn’t necessarily be INVALID to assert that the coin was fixed. It could very well have been a two-headed coin that you flipped and if you flipped it hundreds of more times, it would still come up heads.

I think the question is really a matter of how CONFIDENT you are in the outcome. If you flip it twice and it comes up head both times, it’s not enough data points to be very confident. If you flipped it 10 times in a row, you can be more confident, and 200 times in a row and you’re probably pretty sure.

So, the track record of someone like Warren Buffet might be due to luck or skill. I think your point is that you can’t really say for sure, since he could just be the equivalent of the guy who flipped 10 heads in a row. However, it should be pointed out that just because we don’t have enough data points to be “statistically significant” doesn’t necessarily mean that the evidence doesn’t suggest he has skill. It just means there’s not enough data to meet some arbitrary level of statistical significance.

So, what I do is I put money in BOTH. I contribute to my 401(k) to the extent that I max out my employer’s matching contribution (It’s stupid to pass up a 50% immediate return!) AND I contribute to a Roth.

Elsewhere in this blog, you will learn about market risk, interest rate risk, etc. Inherent in the retirement planning process is tax risk. Putting your money in both places (i.e. diversification) is a way to hedge against tax risk.

I appreciate this information. I too am a diehard Quicken user although I don’t use it to follow my investments – only budgeting which is great esp now that I can download everything. I would love the web-based platform to save me the back up time and have my info off my laptop but I just got Quicken fully-trained. I am not sure I can take the plunge to switch yet. But, do keep us posted on how Yodlee advances from beta.

Kathryn P