Funny story…well only if you’re not me!

Soooo in the early 2000’s I left my executive position in manufacturing firm to raise a family.

I had this 401(k) money to rollover. I did some research and I asked my husband for some advice. I decide to invest some of the money in mutual funds and I picked a few stocks that I thought were interesting…this was 2004…and I picked Starbucks and Google.

At the time I had a fair amount to invest. I wasn’t planning to invest all of the money in one stock, but I planned on investing about $5,000 in one of these stocks.

My husband said “this Google seems very risky, Starbucks seems to more reliable”.

I bought $5,000 worth of Starbucks shares. It was under $20 per share and is valued today at $113 per share.

Starbucks did okay. The stock split. The earnings were good. Solid. Reliable. My husband was right about that.

Now let’s just pretend I put the money in Google. In 2004 it was valued at $85 a a share. The stock had just gone public. Google is currently valued at around $3k per share, then there are stock splits and incremental gains to consider. But just doing basic math, I would have purchased about 59 shares. Those shares would be worth around $177K today.

I guess the moral of this post is…listen to your gut! If there is one thing that has always been true and has never steered me wrong it is this.

Now maybe being wealthy is simply not my fate. I’ve had many a ‘brush’ with wealth and fame only to land smack on the other side broke and without recognition. So I think this is true. It simply was not in the cards for me.

But Google has brought me some karmic gifts. I write these wine posts and miraculously Google loves my top ten wine posts!

Google Buttery Chardonnay under $20 and my post from 2014 is still well ranked.

In the Google search “Buttery Chardonnay under $15” the same post pops up!

My new post “Buttery Chardonnay for under $10” is making Google headway.

In these Google searches my ‘top ten’ wine posts are often top ten in the search engine so that’s something isn’t it? Who needs $180K, right???

Finally, I was getting ready to update my wine bottle photos from the 2014 Buttery Chardonnay under $20 post because the current photo quality with the new phones is far superior, but Google images searches show these photos are ranking so now I don’t dare!

How do you measure success? This remains the eternal question. Whatsoever your definition, I hope you find it!