OMG...the thought of my husband having to take care of himself! lol He still, seriously, believes checks = money. As in, "But there were checks in the checkbook." He has no idea what the bills are, how much money he makes, when the oil changes are due, what type of feed the animals eat - and he doesn't WANT to know! I get up at 2:30 and make his breakfast, pack his lunch and wake him up at 3:00. Every night is the same routine - did you take your medicine?, did you set the alarm?, did you turn it on?, put on your snorkle (C-Pap), Yes! put it on! Momma told me she has the same type of nightly routine with Daddy and if she forgets to remind him to take his meds, he will remind her that she forgot to remind him! The fact that he will be gone is bad enough but it is the timing that upset me the most. We are used to missing holidays and such, that's just a part of shift work. But those are significant events this year! We used to work opposite shifts with opposite days off so there would always be someone with the kids. If we wanted to see each other, we took a vacation day! Took a lot of work to adjust to being around each other more often without living in a war zone. Now we see our friend's marriages and worry about them. They tend to treat their spouse worse than they treat anyone else. It's almost as if signing the marriage certificate meant they no longer had to be courteous, kind, respectful and considerate. Strange mindset. Yes, PJ, I feel OLD. Older than old, like I should be turning to dust at any moment! Yesterday Elizabeth was wobbling around the house on shaky little legs and now she is (almost) legally an adult. Can't bear the thought! Never thought I'd be happy that she was held back in the third grade, but now - woohoo - she has to be home one more year to finish high school! If she were to have graduated this year, I probably would have crawled under my bed with a case of M&Ms and never come out!

I'd say that buying stock is like buying ownership of a company's booster club. Stocks go up and down based upon the changing human emotions of the investing public concerning the given company, not actual results. The shares of troubled companies can rise, and those of successful companies fall. The old cliche is that market prices are driven only by greed and fear. Dividend reinvestment plans are just like dollar cost averaging, they are non-strategy "strategies" created in the interest of financial advisers and brokers, not the investors themselves. Outside of a retirement plan, you need to come up with cash from other sources to pay tax on the dividend. How much sense does that make as a strategy? You do know that brokerage firms and advisers usually receive payments from fund advisers (or customers) based upon account balances. Why distribute a dividend to the customer, when you can retain the funds and have a bigger base for payments? Or, in the case of direct stock holdings, the dividend paying company can avoid paying out the dividend and just keep the cash. Issuing more shares is free. Oh, I have an idea, let's call doing that a Dividend Reinvestment Plan. Like it or not, that's where this "strategy" came from. Tech stocks are volatile, there's no take-away lesson to be learned from that fact. Do as you like, keep your eyes open. Good luck.

Yes I think so. You were married a long time the first time. You got used to somebody that had a set of habits and opinions. Suddenly here is somebody else with different personality, opinions, and hopefully the new one is smarter, more attractive and manages money better. Quite an adjustment. And, you got such a new husband at a time in life when they are much harder to get and keep. Less guys are around as they get older. We outnumber them more and more as each year passes. You are going to have to work a little harder to keep his attention. Hang in there, that first year is tough.

Good link, thanks for sharing it, maria. What I find attractive about "our" site is that anyone is welcome and (so far) there is no spam from dating sites...If I want to date, I know pretty much what to do...if I have questions about dating, there are people here that will give advice. If I have a bad day and don't have anyone else to tell it to, I can vent here. I consider everyone that I have rapport here, as a friend. Some are closer friends than others, but it doesn't lessen my caring about others thoughts.