Ask HN: What kind of personal financial investment do you do?

"Default" doesn't always mean that the principal won't get paid back. In almost all cases, it means that timely interest payments won't be made. Even in the most recent bond crisis in Puerto Rico, the "risk of default" was somewhat mitigated by the threat of shutting down the government offices (i.e. put the employees on unpaid furlough) just so the Puerto Rico could make their bond payments.

IMHO, it would be political suicide for a municipality or state to let bonds default. Here's an interesting article on this subject:

http://www.publicbonds.org/public_fin/default.htm

The default in the 1975 New York case was for revenue bonds. I don't know the exact details, but they sounded like LTX bonds.

http://www.communitywestbank.com/personal/checking/GreatRate...

Since I last checked they have dropped the rates to 3%.

Currently, I plow all my money back in to my company; I mean, at the moment I seem to be in a slow spot at the moment, but we doubled from 2009 through 2010, so while it's high risk, perhaps, it's likely I'm going to get better returns than I'd get from other investments without putting as much effort into being an investor as I put into being a business guy and sysadmin.

When I was young, this was certainly the right thing to do; When I make business decisions, I think as much about the long-term effect on my reputation as I do about the more short-term consequences for the business. (I'm the only shareholder, so there's no conflict of interest here. Either way, I'm "increasing shareholder value" as it were.) And in part because of that, I'm worth more as a worker than I otherwise would be.

The only real question now is "what point should I start becoming conservative?" if ever? I mean, I think I need to focus on getting myself more of a nest egg to cover unforeseen events, but I don't really have a lot of desire to 'retire idle'

Looking at my grandparents, the happiest of them seem to have an attitude of "I'll work till I drop" - I mean, they have assets that help, but they still work. One of my grandfathers, who is pushing 80 at this point, owns some small apartment complexes out in Illinois. He mows the lawns himself; I've even seen him do plumbing and even roofing himself.

To me, that's what I want out of retirement. Still work, but do so on my own terms. I mean, I don't know if I want that work to be maintaining old buildings, but you know, something combining my skills and my capital.

When it comes down to it, I guess that's what I have now. It would be nice to make a little more money than I'm making now, though.

  For me, bigger bankroll = higher score.
  For my wife, a bigger bankroll = more shopping.

2 Roth IRAs: maxed out (Vanguard S&P500 Index. 1 more year and it'll be 70/30 split with bonds).

1 brokerage: for fun, for research, for programming. Unfunded, no continuing additions. Go big or go home.

3 checking accounts: mine, wife's, joint - the paychecks

2 MMAs: mine, wife's - excess money must go somewhere. One of which is sub-divided into: health, gifts, emergency.

2 savings accounts: tiny siphons ($300/mo) that corrupt my sense of reality. It's money-out that looks like normal transactions.

Hacks: By having a high-deducible health insurance plan, I'm able to put 3k/yr that would have been my insurance premium into a health-related emergency fund. As long as I don't get injured in an at-fault car accident twice in one year, I'm saving tons of money

Edit: formatting.

Ideally, having both accounts would give you 23K of tax-advantaged savings.