The Family Fund
We do Things a little differentArchive for December, 2009
Giving Back
I’ve been thinking a lot lately that perhaps at the end of this year, if the fund has another year of growth, that we’d start thinking of donating a portion to charity. I’ll have to convince the rest of the family, but I’m sure they would agree that it’s the right thing to do.
Anyways, if you guys have any ideas, leave your comments here and I’ll consult this post periodically throughout the year. We could always give money to our family church, but I was thinking we could do something more creative.
One idea I had was to get into doing a micro-loan for a small business in a third world country. The other thought I had was maybe sponsoring a family in the D.C. area that doesn’t have money to buy presents for their young children. Perhaps we can help a family obtain some toys for their kids.
Anyhow, those are some initial thoughts. Let me know what your ideas are.
Quattrone’s Featured in The Globe and Mail
Check out a feature that The Globe and Mail ran on our family just prior to Christmas. The story is mostly accurate except I am not the eldest child, and my profession is not Portfolio Manager of the Family Fund.
Other than that it is pretty spot on. It’s tough reading all of the comments about it. I think some people just miss the point. We’re not trying to belittle the spirit of Christmas by not exchanging gifts, we’re trying to enrich the spirtit of Christmas by doing something together, as a family.
There were many other very positive notes left on the story and we’re very grateful that a lot of people get the idea.
Merry Christmas to all!!!
The Quattrone Family Fund Report 2009
We had a great Christmas again this year. The family met at Jenny and Kateri’s condo at 9AM for Mimosa brunch, opened our Secret Santa gifts, and then jumped straight into family fund talks.
We celebrated the year we had in 2009, and talked about some of the hits and misses the fund had. Overall, we did pretty good on some risky penny stocks. That has really put us in a position to take some time as a family early on in the life of the fund, to go on a trip to Italy, which has been a collective dream of ours for a long time.
2010 looks promising once again, but there aren’t as many sure bets in our mind as there were last year. Now that we’ve cashed out SiriusXM (the riskiest stock we owned) and are taking the trip, we’re probably going to get a little less agressive, but still buy into affordable stocks.
Overall, we all seem really high on technology right now. We’ve decided to invest more heavily in Intel this year, and we’re liking Motorola below $10 with the success of the Droid product line.
The other big area that we may take a chance on is healthcare staffing and healthcare market research. We figure with the big Senate vote coming down on Christmas Eve there is going to be much need for both areas as the U.S. heads toward Healthcare reform by 2014.
We picked some other stocks as well, but we’ll leave you with these for now. I also just wanted to declare that this is just our thinking. We are in no way professional investors by trade or in our approach. We’re just out trying to have a little fun as a family.
Ho Ho Ho! The Day is Almost Here
Christmas is almost here for most denominations, and Hannukuh wrapped up last week. So that means The Family Fund is going to be buzzing with activity. Does Santa like stocks, bonds, or a little of both? We’ll have to see. I’ll have a few posts to share later in the week, and wanted to get you all ready for them.
You can expect:
- A Quattrone Family Fund 2009 Report
- A profile of the Oliverio Family Fund (My sister’s BF and his family are starting a tradition this year)
- Hopefully an excerpt from the Globe and Mail (They may be doing a piece on the Quattrone Family
I wish all of you a very happy holiday, and thank you for checking out our story and our progress.
A New Addition to the Family
This post has absolutely nothing to do with the family fund, but is topical for my family around the holiday. You see, I just got engaged last weekend to this lovely lady (She’s shy, so I’ll keep her name a secret).
I’m looking forward to many many holiday’s with her and the rest of our combined families moving forward.
Love you honey!
The Family Fund on SmartCookies.com
Readers,
The Family Fund was just recently profiled on smartcookies.com. Please take a look, these ladies are doing a tremendous job helping people out.
Joe
The Gingerbread Tradition
Ever since I was a child my mother has been baking gingerbread houses. It started as a fun way that my sister’s and I could give gifts out to fellow elementary school classmates and for some reason it has had a lot of staying power in my family.
Maybe it’s because we’ve had a lot of the same friends since we were that young, or maybe it’s because we generally like giving them out. Nevertheless, I’m a grown adult now, and I still find joy in gifting these to my co-workers.
I can honestly say that this is one of the absolute coolest things my mom does for us, and it always makes me feel like we are part of a tight-knit family.
Here’s to you mom, we love you.
Meet the Family
I just wanted to take a moment to introduce you all to the family. That’s me Joe in the center with the blue hoodie. My father Joe is to my right. That’s my mother Barbara holding our family dog Allie. My sister Jenny is the one in front of me, and little sis Kateri rounds out the group, and she’s located in the back.
We’re going for year two of the family fund. I’m hoping to give you some updates on which stocks we may pick this year, and maybe even solicit advice in upcoming posts.
As I’ve said earlier, we’re planning to cash out some stock and plan a trip to Italy soon. That’s been a lifelong dream, so we want to make sure we do something as a family before we start looking more long term.
Some of the other traditions we’ve started as well are a mimosa brunch and sharing in a Secret Santa together. We still can’t resist the idea of opening something on Christmas morning. We also love wrapping up gifts for Allie (the dog) and watch her romp through them.
Joe
What The Family Fund is all About
Hello There,
My name is Joe, and last year my family and I decided to have a non-traditional holiday to take advantage of the down economy and the fact that we kids are grown and we just don’t get hyped up for Christmas presents anymore.
We found it wasteful. Every year, you spend hundreds of dollars buying family members stuff that they’ll forget about by March.
So, we decided to take that money that we would have spent on presents and create a Family Fund. We invested $700 in the stock market. You see, last year stocks of good brands were basically on clearance.
To date, we’ve turned that first $700 into over $5,000. Pretty cool right? Well, we’re planning our family’s first ever trip to Italy in 2010.
Also, if you’re thinking that this takes all the fun out of the holiday, we still did a secret Santa. We wanted to have the joy of opening something on Christmas.
This is something that other family’s could do as well. My sister’s boyfriend and his family have decided to start-up a family fund of their own this year. The purpose of the fund isn’t necessarily for going on vacations. A nest egg is good for all kinds of things: wedding planning, retirement planning, a down-payment on a house.
I just wanted to create a place where our story could be told. We’re committed to the fund and hope to grow it every year as a family!
