I have been very busy lately with work so I havent been updating this blog. Well, I had two possible real estate deals, one of them was a result of this whole housing/credit debacle. In both of the possible deals the sellers werent as motivated as they seemed. After these deals didnt go through, I started to feel negative about the whole real estate thing. I put in alot of time and energy calculating and going back and forth with the sellers then nothing.

Also around this time I refinanced my private student loans in order to get my cosigner off of the loan. I was verbally assured that if my credit is good my interest rate would be less than the current 8.5%. However after it went through my loan was 9,5%. damn. So since I was dispondent on REI and I had this new high rate student loan I decided to use the money that I have been saving for a downpayment on my student loans. So I paid off $8000 of the $25000 private student loan. Then I took another $10,000 from my money market account and split it evenly between two stocks. Bank of America and blackstone. Both stocks had a good dividend and in my opinion were way over sold. I got into BAC at about $43 and bx at $22.

I know what they say about diversification and me buying these stocks is throwing off my diversification. But at my age and with the amount of money I have I dont think diversification is as important. Even if in the worse case scenario I loose all $5000 I can make that back in 3 to 4 months of work.

Anyways, Im starting to feel positive about REI again so for the next few months I will be working on my cash position.