If you invest $1.00 at 5% and let it run for 50 years, it would have grown to $11.00+, without allowing for the erosion of your income, whether annually or after a period of years, several times, by income tax, or the ongoing erosion in value of your asset by inflation. If, however, you could invest it at 10%, after that same 50 year period it would have grown to $117.00+. Your investment could lose 3/4 of its value and still come out ahead of having invested it at 5%. Actually, more than that - for it's the value after taxes and inflation that really counts. Do you expect that companies like Exxon, Gillette, Coca Cola, and such, or other major petroleum, pipeline companies, etc. may go out of business? Or even suffer serious losses. A person who invests a major portion of his (probably less likely "her", cause women generally are more risk-averse and less likely to plunge; [some would say, "smarter"]) total invested asset into highly speculative issues seems to me to have cheese for brains. The stock markets as a whole have average growth of 7 - 8% or so, over the long term. Few mutual fund managers' holdings have grown faster. And they charge fees for their expertise - somewhere between 1 - 2% in the U.S. for equity (i.e. stock market based) funds, most of them over 2% annually in Canada. If they match the long-term average growth of the market ... they're reaping about a fifth to a quarter of the growth, a larger proportion in Canada. Unfortunately, if there is no growth - they still get their percentage. Many persons calling themselves financial planners/advisors are actually mutual fund sales people: that's all the equity-related financial issues that they're licensed to sell. They don't want to talk to you about individual stocks, for they can't sell them and it's illegal for them to recommend them unless they've taken the courses that stockbrokers take (which few have - their courses are much less complex). There are a few who sell no financial products, but many of them stop doing that because often their income levels are much lower, despite many people who want to invest saying that they'd really love independent advice. One should investigate what kind of training a prospective personal financial advisor has taken and whether s/he has advanced courses above the minimum requirements. Also what kind and length of experience the prospective advisor has. Also what lifestle experience the prospect has: some have seen a great deal more of life than others - and have learned much more per year than many who have lived as many years. Finally - you need a person whose personality and ideas are compatible with yours. You will trust that person with a very important part of your life. Some years ago, when I had a display at a county fall fair, someone asked me what right I had to call myself a financial planner. I said that we could get rid of unemployment tomorrow - we need only have every unemployed person put out a shingle on his front lawn calling himself a financial planner, as it was unregulated - any darn fool could do it. Stock brokers were regulated, as were mutual fund salespeople, but in our area at that time financial planners were not, as there were few of them operating outside of stockbrokerage and mutual fund sales agencies. That's not the case now - but it would be a good idea to ask several of them what kind of regulations there are governing them. I took the course that stockbrokers take, over 20 years ago and worked for a mutual fund sales brokerage (i.e. they could offer mutual funds managed by a large number of managers, rather than only funds managed by their own company). I didn't produce enough sales to suit them, so was there for only one year. I'm more tuned into the idea of helping people set their financial goals, look at some concepts that they might not have thought of, and work toward achieving them. I am totally devoted to helping my clients decide what they want to achieve and start out on a plan of how to achieve that/those goals. They don't have to be concerned that my advice or recommendations may be slanted toward various financial products that I just happen to sell, for I don't sell any. One local person that I met a few years ago said that he'd done well in business and managing his investments, so some friends asked him to manage some money for them. He asked for a minimum investment of $10,000., asked the client to sign a power of attorney for that account only, and when he made decisions about investments, a copy of the confirmation went to the client and one to him. He charged 10% of the growth (exclusive of dividends, if I remember correctly). Rather a good idea, for if he doesn't produce, he doesn't get paid. There is a fairly major proviso, though - that he might choose some fairly risky investments where there could well be a possibility of major gain. He being a person of integrity, I think that he was quite strongly guided by the level of risk that his clients were willing to tolerate. When I asked what happened if there were no gain - he said that there hadn't been a year yet that he hadn't been able to send a request for payment to every client. I'm not sure how many years the concept had been in operation. This has been rather off topic - sorry about that. As for many people lacking time to manage their investments ... ... many people spend more time on consideration of where they'll go for a two week vacation than they do on an investment system that may well be in place for forty years (or more). Good wishes for making your money work well for you - rather than better for someone else. joyful guy

Lynn we are in a very similar place about our house - it's too big for us at this stage of our lives. We use most of the square footage in some way - because it's there - but could easily manage with half ! Our youngest will be graduating from college next May and HOPEFULLY will be employed and able to support himself but who knows? Our older son works for the forest service but those gov't jobs are shakey, to say the least, so we always want to have a place where they can land if needed. So.... we keep the big old house - for now. Stuff? I reached a saturation point many years ago and continually work to pare down. But it's back to that big house thing again - I'm not going to live in empty rooms so there's still far more STUFF than I actually need. When my mom died and I helped my dad move into an apartment, tons of family stuff came my way. Eleven years later when my dad died, the rest of it came to me. We've all talked about this before - the pull of family items and how hard it is to get rid of some things. But it has to be done so over the years I've pared down to the things that have the most meaning and passed the rest on in one way or another. I have dreams (nightmares?) about moving into a small home and having boxes and furniture stacked everywhere because I didn't sort and get rid of enough before moving!! Gifts? I could write a book. Christmas at my in-laws used to make me physically ill with the insane buying and giving of cr@p. It doesn't matter to me a bit how much time is put into the shopping and wrapping, or what the item is. When someone (namely my MIL) is purchasing *stuff* because of a date on a calendar and is obsessed with getting the same # of packages for each person, because that's "just what you do for Xmas" I want no part of it. We'd been married only a short time when I told my DH that I was opting out. He was totally on board. It was a sore spot with everyone in his family for many years but we held firm. We just stopped buying. Our kids would get everything they needed and some of what they wanted all through the year at a time when it made sense to get the item, not an enormous pile o' stuff, all on one day, much of it to be returned, exchanged or donated. And that returning/exchanging all fell to me, of course. A few years of that and we started just donating everything, in the boxes, tags still on. Give me a quiet day, with my family cooking together, laughing and going for a long walk...... THAT'S the gift I want.

My soon to be 5 yr. old granddaughter was over last week for the day. When I was her age I had to ask to be excused from the table. So good manners are ingrained in me. Unfortunately they aren't being taught at her home. :( I keep a few toys here for the kids to play with, and I bought two little girl dolls about 5" high to go with DGD's My Pretty Ponies. Brand new. She was on the floor playing with the ponies and I brought the new dolls over which she had already looked at when she got here. She took them and THREW them across the room, and said, "No!" DGD is usually well behaved but that threw me for a loop. All day I had to teach her to say, "No thank you." When it came to lunch or snacks, if she didn't want what I was offering she'd say "No!" By the end of the day, she would smile and say "No thank you." lol I've hinted to my DS and DIL that manners need to be taught. In fact, when DGS was born and he was about 3, I bought my DIL a really cute book on how to teach children manners. She thought it was a good book too. I don't think she read it. Before anybody says anything, this was before I noticed manners weren't being taught that much. DIL had a ton of books on child rearing so I thought this would be a good one to add to her collection. But when I'm at their house and one of the kids don't say Please or Thank you, I say something to them immediately in front of their parents hoping they catch a clue. Saying that, they are well behaved but they do lack in manners. Actually, it's the GD that lacks manners, not the GS.

I know this is long, Heidi, but I've got personal experience with your situation. To be brief, I'm confident that this tree is not even close to death's door, and would be much better served by fixing the causes of its decline now so it can green up and be much healthier to deal with the stress of repotting next summer. In particular, your ficus was thriving until three months ago, and we know that the decline was caused by low light and poor watering, which means that fixing the root congestion and soil aren't an emergency. To be clear, gardengal is probably right that you could repot now without killing the tree, but because it would be easy to get it green again by correcting the biggest problems now, you would be best off waiting until summer to do major root work and put it in a great growing medium. Then you will be rewarded with a burst of new growth, and you'll soon be pinching growing tips and pruning to control its enthusiastic growth and tell it to fill in all those gaps left by dropped leaves. My experience: I have two smaller roughly five year old ficuses that were completely rootbound and were stuck in a dim corner. I often forgot about watering until leaves started yellowing and dropping, and the I'd fill their tall plastic 'saucers' and left the water there until they stopped soaking it up. In other words, I drowned the roots every time I watered, and maximized the amount of deadly mineral deposits in the soil. Aside from feeble attempts to maintain a few leaves, they had almost stopped growing entirely because their depleted energy reserves made them more vulnerable to attack and only allowed them to put our a few leaves at a time, and most of the buds and leaves that appeared were killed by spider mites. But these are tough plants, so they clung to life for about three years before I finally cared enough to search for answers and found these forums. I immediately started treating the mite infestation, thoroughly flushed the pots (I swear I could hear them sigh with relief), fertilized with a weak solution of Foliage Pro, which has a great ratio of basic nutrients plus all the micronutrients plants need, moved it in front of my best window, which only provides mediocre light, and added bright white (not soft white) 5000k 100W led and cfl bulbs in clamp-on fixtures. Two months later, each branch has about half a dozen new leaves, including some emerging near the stem (a sign that the tree is getting better). It's wonderful to see them getting so green, and I'm already reading up on how to prune them when they get growing again. So Heidi, if I were in your place, I'd start by checking the leaves for spider mites with a bright light and a magnifying glass (they're tiny red dots on the leaves, and you may see little bits of webs on the leaves our branches). Ask about treatment if you find any. Then I'd flush the pot (details below), fertilize with a 3:1:2 ratio fertilizer (miracle gro general purpose granules are easy to find and the right ratio), move it to the best window I had, and put two 100 or brighter led or cfl bulbs in it for 12 hours a day, using a timer. From then on, check soil moisture by pushing a sharpened 3/8" dowel all the way through to the bottom of the pot, and DO NOT WATER until the dowel comes out completely clean and dry (at that point there's still a lot of water inside the soil particles). When that happens, water until about 15% of the water exits the drain holes, let it drain, and then either tilt the pot at 45 degrees for 15-30 minutes after watering to remove excess water, or insert a wick into a drain hole and raise the pot up so the wick won't come in contact with the drained water. You can wait until the surface of the soil is dry to start checking the soil moisture, but after that you should check daily until you have a feel for how long it takes for the poor to dry up. About flushing: flush with lukewarm water, using about ten times the pot's capacity, then give it a weak solution of fertilizer. Use R/O (reverse osmosis) water if possible; water from supermarket water machines are usually $.39 per gallon, and that little pot will maybe need two or three gallons to do the job. My water is hard, so I used R/O water to flush, and because my tap water is hard I use water from my cheap faucet-mounted filter for regular watering. And the reason midsummer is the best time to do something stressful is that 1) ample summer sunlight generates much more energy from the leaves than even a lot of winter sunlight can provide, and 2) the plant is programmed to put energy into new growth in summer, whereas in winter it wants to store it for use in the spring. From several people's experience, including Al (talks), who knows whereof he speaks, if you take two healthy plants and repot one now and one next June, the second will be in better shape next fall than the one you repotted a year earlier. Sorry for my rambling post, and I hope it helps at least a little.