Before Unionville Hill
Investing in tough times
Investing $500 per month from August 2000 through April 2013 involves 153 monthly contributions, totaling a principal investment of $76,500. Depending on the chosen investment vehicle, the final amount varies significantly. Notably, this period includes two major market crashes: the Dot-com bubble (2000-2002) and the Global Financial Crisis (2008).
Investment Scenarios
S&P 500 (Dividends Reinvested): Your balance would have grown to approximately $112,000. Despite starting at the peak of the dot-com bubble and enduring the 2008 crash, consistent monthly contributions (Dollar Cost Averaging) allowed you to buy more shares when prices were low, leading to a total return of roughly 46% over the principal.
High-Yield Savings/CDs: Based on historical interest rates which averaged around 1.5% – 2.5% for much of the 2000s before dropping below 1% after 2009, your balance would have reached approximately $88,000 – $92,000.
Cash (No Interest): Simply saving the money without any growth would result in exactly your principal: $76,500.
Key Data & Context
Market Volatility: The S&P 500 began this period around 1,460 (August 2000) and ended near 1,590 (April 2013). While the price index only grew marginally, reinvesting dividends was critical for growth.
Inflation Impact: $1,000 in 2000 had the same purchasing power as approximately $1,352 in 2013 due to a cumulative inflation rate of 35.3%. This means your $76,500 in total contributions was worth significantly more in terms of “buying power” when you started than when you finished.
The “Lost Decade”: This specific timeframe is often cited as a difficult period for investors because the market effectively went “nowhere” for 13 years if dividends were ignored; however, monthly investing turned this stagnation into a gain.
Compared to another tougher time period
The 1970s were tougher times though due to inflation. Politicians of both parties play too carelessly with inflation, it’s by far the single most destructive thing a politician can do to a country.
Investing $50 a month from January 1968 to December 1982 (a 15-year period) into an S&P 500 index fund with dividends reinvested would have resulted in a total contribution of $9,000, growing to an estimated end balance of roughly $15,000 to $17,000 by the end of 1982.
During this 15-year window, the U.S. experienced “Great Inflation,” with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rising by approximately 177%. Because your end balance (~$16,000) was less than the inflation-adjusted value of your contributions (~$25,000), your investment actually had a negative real return. In 1982 dollars, you effectively had less “buying power” than the total money you had tucked away over those 15 years.
Investing $50 a month in a standard passbook savings account from 1968 to 1982 would have been significantly worse than the stock market, primarily due to government-imposed interest rate caps known as Regulation Q. Under Regulation Q, banks were legally prohibited from paying more than about 5% to 5.5% on savings accounts for most of this period. Even when inflation hit 13.5% in 1980, your bank was often stuck paying you only 5.25%. Because inflation was much higher than the interest rate cap, savers essentially paid a “tax” on their purchasing power. By 1979, the real return on these accounts reached a low of -5.8%.
Tomorrow at this time the sad desperate individual without a SuperDuty will be waiting for a bus to the laundromat 
Won’t be quite pitch black at 6:30 when the bus comes and I’ll have fresh wash before work. I’ll shower and have a quick breakfast and then git r done. But that’s for tomorrow.
I’ve been watching more videos on how car salesman get r dun selling cars 
, even more nervous that if I go to the dealership next Monday I’ll leave with a Honda Civic and not the Godzilla Holstein 
that I want. Truth is that I can’t worry that much, I don’t even have car insurance currently and it would take a few days for the money 
to transfer. Really what I want is to look at one of those big trucks up close, climb in the cab and maybe do a test drive to see if this is the direction I want to go. Of course the first two posts Facebook has to show me is one about how their fuel pump died in their big Ford and how bad the gas mileage truly is on the big gassers. 
I know when a step onto the auto lot, I am not forced automatically to hand over $60,000, and if I burn the bridge with that one dealer there are at least 94 other Ford dealers within 150 miles, 
still I’m nervous with all the psychological tricks salesmen get you to buy. After watching many hours of videos on real-world interactions with dealers, I’ve been studying how auto salesmen deal with customers who walk, and how they sell more cars. I’m glad though I don’t have to deal with the snow with a vehicle right now, cleaning off the snow, but can just slog through the snow to the nice warm bus stop. 
Tomorrow will be an early day on the bus, and besides riding down to laundromat, I’ll probably bus it to work as there is a hearing about yet another development in the Pine Bush 
and one on Wednesday too. Going to rain and snow on Wednesday, so I probably won’t be biking it in until Thursday and Friday, and still be f-ing Second Avenue which I guess beat riding the bus. 
I just want the snow off the rail trail. Putting in the request today for the voter files, 
and hopefully we can start processing that soon at work, 
and move forward on that. Other then that, yeah, work my way through the week. I have enough clothes 
I probably could wait a few days before catching the bus to the laudromat, and I was considering how much I could potentially carry on my bike. Wash ain’t heavy but it’s kind of bulky, but I fell like I could load enough clothes on the back of bike then avoid waiting for buses. That’s one way to do it, but it’s going to be cold tomorrow, and it’s a lot of bulk to try to load into that box on my bike.
Snowing today 
so I’m busing it but whatever the bus is warm and I’m getting to work. On snow days like today it’s nice to live in the city. Smoke alarm went off this morning, 
I was surprised, but probably it’s particularly steamy in my apartment from making rice yesterday. 
Yesterday was a pretty boring day, read 
some, rode to Walmart and got groceries, 
and explored the Schiffendecker Preserve. 
It was good to get out for a little while. Made up rice 
with shrimp 
and veggies. Had more split pea soup for lunch, breakfast was eggs and veggies. Then pretty much just hung out didn’t do much. It was a very quiet weekend, just whiling the winter away. 
I probably should have done more, but it turned to a sloppy rain by afternoon, and I wasn’t gong to ride in that crap, plus I’m really trying to learn as much as I can before I ever step into that hostile territory next week, and start working out a deal for my next truck in March. If it fails, I’ll keep looking in April, chances are I can’t get banned from working from all dealerships, there is a lot of them. Or maybe I get a Toyota if all the Ford shops now refuse to work with me. 
Do I over analyze everything, study every flaw of the Godzilla and 10R140 and every mechanical failure, while sometimes losing the forest for the individual trees? 
Sure yeah, in the end it will be a nice rig whatever I buy, and it’s not like I am under any real pressure, I’ve made it nearly two months without a vehicle and there is no reason I can’t keep doing this for the foreseeable future, though I want a good, reliable truck by the time it warms up to get back to wilderness.🛻
MADD’s Second Failure
Lately there has been a lot of talk about the successes of Mothers Against Drunk Driving or MADD. Why is MADD not a potent political factor any more?
Besides, their successes at eliminating drunk driving making their organization obsolete, their failures at preserving the National Maximum Speed Limit have been under reported.
Well, a lot their failure as an organization was their disastrous campaign to preserve the National 55 MPH speed limit. Their Save the National 55 Speed Limit campaign became their focus of the organization and it was a focus that may have felt noble to its members but it was one that was not popular with the public.
Motorists like driving fast on the expressways. MADD for years pushed for tougher penalties against speeders, they were outright rebuffed in conservative states and in liberal states, the tougher penalties still were widely ignored. Motorists ignored the law and judges for the most part rarely gave tickets beyond the mandatory minimum. Radar detectors and CB radios allowed people to rat out the bears.
So no, MADD wasn’t a success at their second campaign that went up strongly against motorists desires for faster driving, even if they’re first campaign was quite sucessful.
Another cloudy and gray day before yet another dire emergency snowstorm ☁️
In a little bit I’ll ride my mountain bike to Wally World and stock up on groceries before the hordes of people go racing in to beat the Dire Emergency Snowstorm Homeland Extreme Disaster.
Yesterday I spent most of the day at home, 🌬️ l made pea soup 🥣 and some homemade bread, emptied out the compost, did a little cleaning and a lot of reading and watching YouTube. I’ve not been great about reading, but in part because I’ve spent so much time studying dealer stragety and various pros-and-cons of trucks. Next Sunday is March, I’ll be studying the manufacturer incentives then to know what’s avaliable when they are released. 🔎 Then probably that following Monday, I’ll run over a car dealership to look at and test drive a truck before heading into work. 🤝 I don’t want it to be all day thing, I’d much rather negogate and study options over the phone with the Internet Sales Manager then in a dealership, but I want to test drive at least one truck before I lay down a deposit. I would like to close the deal out during the month of March, but if I don’t find the truck I want at the price I’m willing to pay, I can go longer – but I also do want to get a truck so I can order a cap for it relatively soon.
With that wind, I decided not to go to Walmart, but soon this morning, I will hop on my bike and ride over shortly. Just to stock up before the crowds and get some exercise in. I am not expecting much snow today, but probably tomorrow will be quite snowy. Tuesday morning before work I’ll head down to the laundromat. As bus it in, I don’t expect the snow storm will have much of an impact on my commute, maybe if it’s really bad they’ll close the office 
but whatever. If the shuttle does not run, there is always the local bus to catch. I guess if the office is closed, then I can do my laundry tomorrow afternoon once the snow let’s up. Still it’s not good for riding to work on bike trail any time soon, though I still think we will see more snow melting with March soon enough underway. Maybe walk around the Schiffenberg Preserve for a while, or maybe go out to Five Rivers later in the day. 
But I don’t have any real plans for today as of now. Maybe make some cornbread up to go with the pea soup, 
sleep and read a bit.
I had the scariest nightmare ever about Albany.
I took a bus and the walked out to a car dealership in New Jersey, out past some long abandoned factories. Big long abandoned industrial buildings and earthy and smelly, rundown farm land. It’s still winter, quite bleak and gray. I’m looking at these big pickup trucks and then it’s time to go home. Somebody suggests I take state subsidized commuter rail back to New York – it’s only a few bucks as it’s subsidized. I ride a few more stops then expected until I get to this scenic crossing over a river – scenic except you know for lots of electrical lines. I get off at the station there, and there is a scenic viewing platform, but of course the real scenic view of the river is highly blocked off with restricted area signs and chain link fence due to the electrical infrastructure. Big signs put up by State of New Jersey discuss how green the commuter rail is, being powred by the hydro dam right below my feet.
Deciding to walk the rest of the way downtown, I step into this vast underground college campus, officially it’s an affiliate of Rutgers University as I’m still in New Jersey. Vast lecture halls, all underground. I pop into a lecture hall briefly and then head back out needing to get back to the Empire Plaza and downtown. So I follow this tunnel back to the Empire Plaza, running into this long time political activist from a lifetime ago – some left wing group I used to hang out with in my college days. We talk as we walk to the Empire Plaza, the mystery level I’m completely unfamiliar with. I arrive after going what seems like miles to what appears to be the Empire Plaza but an unfamiliar level. Looks like the Concourse but this is a different, lower level. There are some signage but it’s confusing. White walls, brass, concrete I beams.
What would you know by now I need to go to the bathroom. There is a sign to the bathroom, down the stairs to an even deeper more obscure level of Plaza. At first I walk through an abandoned cafeteria, tables roped off in caution tape and a hastely posted “Posted No Tresspassing” sign like you might find on a farm. Then I find another bathroom sign that directs me through another hallway, a set of stairs to another cafeteria, this one a knock off of Pizza Hut from the 1970s, full of state workers in pin stripe shirts eating what appears to be thin microwave pizza and round plates of colored flat jello, each quarter of the plate a different brightly colored jello, red, yellow, blue and green. I am at a loss, the next bathroom signs appear to point a broom closet.
I ask one of workers and he looks up from his plate of flat colored jello and he points me down another corridor. I walk past the Office of State Purchasing from Women Owned Alpaca Farms. Who knew the state had an agency that only purchased from women owned Alpaca Farms? I guess fiber for state agency uniforms? Down another hall, set of a stairs. I see a even more state offices, the hallway narrows further, as this part of the building is very old and not accessible to people with disabilities. Apparently this part of the building was never updated to accommodate persons with wheelchairs. Past more filing cabinets and cubicles. This is a very old and dated interior, so deep in the Plaza few people ever see it. And I keep following that signs promising me the bathroom, deeper, and deeper into lower and lower levels of the Empire Plaza I never knew existed.
At this point I wake up.
