Well, I did it. I reallocated my 401k. I was really nervous about it, and I’m still a little sick to my stomach, but I know in the long run that it will be much better because now I am more diversified. What really scared me was that almost 30% of my entire 401k was in company stock and if (God forbid) the company went under, well there goes 30% of my 401k money. I’d be stupid to leave that much in there. Enron anyone?

At first, I was worried about all the money that I lost by selling my company stock. After all, last year it was around $38 a share, and of course I was gifted shares and perhaps bought some too at that price. Now the stock is around $5 a share. That’s a lot of money to lose! However, I am looking at it like this: I didn’t technically pay for it, so I really haven’t lost any of my own money. Next time the company matches my 401k contribution, I’ll sell the stock they give me. I am not too worried about the company failing, but after all, it is a bank, and we all saw what happened with Indy Mac.

I feel good about my decision. Now I can sleep at night without worrying about having so much in company stock. It’s never good to have too many eggs in one basket.

Yesterday I wrote about my bargains I got at our local Goodwill. Today I decided that instead of holding onto junk in our basement and shed for the yard sale it looks like we’ll never have, I would take the items to Goodwill so I can get a tax write off and make a donation and hopefully help someone in need. After all, what goes around comes around. I want good karma!

I have been holding onto these items and it was a hard decision to just drop them off. I keep picturing the boxes and bags with big dollar signs on them, like I just did a very unfrugal thing by donating the items instead of trying to sell them. This was my thinking: I’ve been waiting all summer to have a yard sale, I haven’t had time, the stuff is taking up space driving me crazy, and most of the items I donated ranged from 10 cents to a dollar. Am I really going to miss that? Probably not.  The money that I would have made would probably not be worth my time sitting outside, haggling prices with people.

Many of the larger dollar items I kept: a dehumidifier, pictures, tables, etc.  I figure I can always list those on craigslist and make some money off those items because those are actually worth selling.  The other things probably wouldn’t sell on craigslist.  When we get back from vacation I’ll need to list those as soon as possible.

Do you think I made a good decision?