Investing

Susan and I have been on the phone with each other for the past hour or so talking about investing. What kicked it off was a question she had about justifying paying off the mortgage instead of investing the money. From what I can tell, since we are paying off the house so fast, we are saving just about the same amount of money in interest than we would if we would have invested that money instead. And, in fact, I don't really care about that. I care more about knowing that the house we are living in is ours!!!! It really is more of a security thing than anything else. If someone could show me where we could make 20,000 dollars more if we invested the extra money instead of paying off the house now, I would have to tell them that isn't really worth it. It really is worth 20K to me knowing that I own my house and the mortgage company can't come simply take it away.

Then we started talking about the different funds and how they work. We really are looking at doing index funds and trying to figure out exactly what the numbers mean. Like when it says the fund has made 8% over the past 10 years, does that mean it has made 8% ever year over 10 years or that it has made a total of 8% in 10 years. Very confusing. I'm really thinking its the average of 8% for 10 years, but I really need to do more research. I think they really do a lot of the same things the computer industry does, make it so alien to everyone else, that you really do have to have an expert to make this stuff make any sense. Maybe we really do need to go sit down with a financial adviser...I don't know....