So it's been quite a long time since I last wrote an entry in this journal. Since then, I have been hospitalized, was unemployed for about 3 1/2 months and filed for bankruptcy after an unfortunate series of events, my wife left me and took the kids, and my home is being foreclosed on. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I am working again, which puts me back on track toward my financial goals. My wife and I are going through marriage counseling together, and we're planning to move back in together. I've been afraid to write in this for a while because of the sleepless nights and fire that it put inside of me. However, I do feel that eventually some good may just come out of it.
Last night, I went to a financial planning seminar at a fabulous restaurant where you sit and listen to a presentation and they give you a free meal (I looked at the real menu afterward and it was about a $50 meal). The presentation was very informative for most of the people that attended and quite a few of them learned about a new product they have never heard of, fixed index annuities, which offer some of the potential gains with the stock market, but none of the risk for losing money. I will probably never invest in this product for several reasons, but the main one I want to bring up here is that tying up money in this particular asset can only make me money if the stock market goes up. That's only 1 out of 3 ways that markets move. But I did get a nice dinner out of the deal.
