Poll Results

The survey for January was: What Are Your Plans For Your Money In 2009? The results were all about paying down debt. Now, given there were about five participants, that doesn't mean much, but it is interesting.

There's a concept called 'expensive money', and it's based on how much you have to pay to borrow money - i.e. interest rates. If interest rates are high, you have to pay more to borrow money, and if they're low, you pay less. Talking to long-term investors, the break-point is around double digits. If you can pay less than 10% on borrowed money, it's pretty cheap. If interest rates are higher, it's expensive.

In What Is an Investor, I put forth that an investor is a person who understands ROI, implying that they'll be on the winning side of that comparison. So as an interesting aside - if under 10% interest is considered 'cheap', then that implies a professional investor is confident that they can make over 10% on their investments. Otherwise 'cheap' would have a different level.

Now, most people out there can get interest rates under 7%, and many can get under 6%. This means that money is quite cheap. And yet people are still looking to pay down debt... So this survey tells me two things:

1. That fear makes cheap money still look risky.
   
2. That those surveyed are not professional investors, or have too much debt already.

Poll Results

My first poll is over. The question was: "What are your New Year's Resolutions about?" And the results are... 2 for Financial, nothing for anything else. Two key points here:

1. People are concerned about money and the economy. (duh!)
2. I need more readers...

Hopefully, my new poll will be more telling. Please vote for it, so we can discuss at the end of the month!