Welcome to my Weekly Recap January 19th Edition where I discuss some of the key events of the past week and provide an update on what I’m doing with my finances. This week it’s all about Stocks, Debt and some exciting news about the Torex coin auction.
Stock Market Rally
What can I say, this market is crazy! After a few months of nosediving and after coming off the worst December since the Great Depression, stocks are rising again! The rally was fueled by a combination of decent earnings, a pause in interest rate hikes and the possibility of a thaw in the US-China trade spat.
Do you guys remember last week when I said that I’ll buy stocks while they’re on sale and enjoy the eventual rebound??? Well I for sure didn’t expect it to come so soon. But I’m not gonna lie to you. I’m definitely enjoying this rebound!
Emotions and Investing
We all like to say that stock corrections are normal and don’t panic – and that’s true – but the fact is, no one and I mean NO ONE likes to see their investments tank. I don’t care if you got 1$ invested or $10 million!
The key thing is to control our emotions and think and act rationally. We all experience a certain element of fear and doubt – especially when things aren’t working out for us the way we had hoped – but if you want to build wealth over the long term then you need to keep that in check, stay focused and stay invested.
Financial Moves
After spending the past few months stubbornly buying banks stocks only to see them continue to go lower, I feel vindicated! In the past week and a half they’ve rallied nearly 10%. Moves like this are exactly what I was talking about while I was buying up stocks in the midst of all the doom and gloom in December. Stocks may fall fast, but at a certain point they can turn and rally at a nice clip as well. If this rally keeps going, my February Net Worth report should be pretty good.
The only thing that I’m regretting is not moving enough shares from my taxable account with transfer agents into my TFSA and RRSP. I managed to move a lot of my shares in my Questrade account into my TFSA. But I was in the middle of transferring other shares when this rally took hold. Oh well, I’m sure we’ll see another dip in the future and I’ll be ready to make some more moves.
Torex Coin Auction
Yes it’s that time of year again when one of the biggest coin auctions happens. The February Torex coin auction has tons of quality rare coins for all you collectors out there. I’ve already browsed the catalogue and made a few bids on some tough to find coins for my collection. I won’t say which coins on here just yet…I don’t need all the bidding competition! Anyway, I’m hoping to at least pick up 1 or 2 key date rarities to finish off one of my collections.
Related Top 10 Rare Canadian Coins
I’ve said this a million times, if you are going to collect coins try to buy the rarest coins of the highest quality that you can afford. Those are the only coins that will appreciate in value. The Torex auction happens over 2 days on February 23 and 24 so I’ll let you guys know how it works out.
Click here to view the February Torex Coin Auction Catalogue
Tackling Debt and Earning Extra Money
We’ve all been in debt at one time or another so I don’t need to tell you how much it really sucks trying to pay it off. Now I’m not gonna go all Dave Ramsey on you guys and say that I’m snowballing the shit out of my debt. Progress has been slow (because I’m not following Ramsey’s approach) – to say the least – but we’re headed in the right direction. I will say that debt is a great motivator for me to do things like watch my spending more closely and make sure that I don’t have any idle cash sitting around.
Related: Get Your Free Credit Score with Borrowell
If anything, this debt has been a great motivator for me to work harder, earn more and think up more ways to earn extra cash. We’ve been working as much as we can to earn more money. I managed to pick up a few extra shifts and I’ve been working on some side hustles to bring in some extra cash. I’m at my best when I’m under pressure so I’ve been super busy trying to figure out how to pay it off.
But make no mistake about it, investing is and probably always will be priority number one. That’s what the whole “pay yourself first” thing is all about. Debt repayment comes second. That’s why I chose to push all my extra cash into the stock market when it tanked in spite of having some debt hanging over my head.
In personal finance there’s always been this tug of war between paying off all your debt and investing your money to build assets. In practice it seems tough to do both consistently. I find it way too tempting to invest my money when the stock market is down than to put it toward paying down debt.
To be sure paying off debt is always the safest, most guaranteed return etc. But long term I think that quality dividend paying stocks in a tax-free account will yield far greater returns. And just in case you’re wondering…No, I would never ever sell investments to pay off debt. I’d be more likely to scrub toilets at McDonalds to pay off the debt than to do that!
Thanks for reading my Weekly Recap January 19th Edition, have a great week everyone!