Investment Strategies–Planning for your Future

Here I’m chewing a small, flavored bone. These are for your immediate satisfaction. They lack longterm value for your investment portfolio.

If you have toys and bones, you own assets. How you invest your assets can have a significant impact on how you fare in your later years. I have a few tips to offer.

Let’s start with toys. For most dogs, toys have their greatest value in your early years, when you’re bouncy and want to chew on things. As you get older, you may still enjoy your toys at times, but they probably aren’t the center of your universe anymore. That role may have shifted to your meals and treats. (Unless you’re a Lab. I’ve heard many Labs cherish their tennis balls above all else well into their senior years. I try not to judge.)

Toys are interesting, but if you really want to invest in your future, you need to look at the bone market. I like to follow T. Boone Pickens. I understand T-bones and I get pickin’–that makes him a winner in my book. Pickens says that you should diversify your portfolio, and I’m on board with that. For example, when I am given a small flavored rawhide bone, I know I can consume it right away because its value doesn’t increase over time. However, if I am given a “real” bone from Gerrard’s Market, I know those have great value even after I’ve eaten the yummy fleshy parts. Quite frankly, the bones I value the most are the ones I’ve liberated from the front yards of the neighborhood dogs. They’re only made out of rawhide, but my sheer doggy cunning and skill makes them valued treasures, even if I do leave them in the middle of the floor where they are easily stepped on by my owner.

No doubt you’re wondering how your bones should be invested for long-term gains. You can consult a complicated mathematical formula involving trig functions, imaginary numbers, and natural logs–all rolled up into a fraction that serves as the exponent to a larger equation–but the very thought sends both me and my owner into fits. I have a much better system.

Bones with average value should be buried inside your house, or in your yard in a shallow hole. Ideas for inside the house include the slip covers on your furniture and any bedding that can be adjusted to hide your treasure.

Bones with high value (like the ones from Gerrard’s) should be buried fairly deep in your backyard. It takes discipline to set aside these yummy options for a later day, but I assure you they gain scent–I mean value–from being underground for long periods.

I’m sure you’re wondering how often you should move your assets from one investment property to another. I move my average-value bones every day. For example, I might place a bone under a pillow in the guest bedroom. If that doesn’t feel right, I’ll put it under the comforter in the master. But then I may decide it’s better off buried in a hole in the backyard. Then again, it might be safest in the deep folds of the living room chair, dirt included. Meanwhile, you should leave your high-value bones buried as long as possible, and feel free to enjoy the small flavored bones whenever you receive them.

If you have a great investment portfolio, please comment here, or share it with me on twitter at Scruffy_H. Wishing you a “bull” market.

Woof,

Scruffy