In my case, my parents are definitely post depression era. They came of age in the boom times of the late 50s and 60s, so they've got no excuse other than maybe being from a poor rural area where it was traditional to have yards full of junk. But their siblings aren't hoarders, so there's something else going on besides their life experience.

It's really unfortunate. They live in about 250 square feet in their house because there are piles of things everywhere, most of which has no value, and they spend money on places to store other stuff that has no real value. Their lives would be so much better if we could take a month and haul it all off, but they're adamantly protective of it.
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I started buying stocks on 3-11 and since then I've bought into about 30 different holdings. I'm up 30% on those investments. I want these to be long term investments so I feel good about it. If things go well by the time Trump gets re-elected the Dow 30 will hit 30,000. and I'll be up at least 50% overall on my investments. I still have lots of dry powder too so the options are limitless. I hate to follow the herd so I don't own FB or AMZN although I do own some APPL. I wish I had bought some FB and AMZN. I still might because they will most likely just keep going up.
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I guess in a pinch you could live in that farm equipment.
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That's good timing to start buying.

I'd be a very happy man if the Dow hits 30,000 this year.
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Ya. I have seen people who have a great deal of clutter because they cant throw away anything that "still works" versus acute psychological issues where you cant even see the floor of a house because every square inch is holding stacks of trash, newspapers, boxes of pure junk. The latter have some serious issues.
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Just starts buying stocks and thinks those gains are standard.

Lulz
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WTF are you talking about?
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That's basically what it is here, but it's compounded by Agricultural issues.

The depression era scarred the hell out of them as kids and then the '80s ag issues drove a dagger in the next generation. I remember the sheriff knocking on the door to serve papers and the repossessions when I was just a kid. It really seems like each generation has had to live off dirt and whatever they could cobble together at least once in their life in order for the next generation to experience going broke and digging there way out of it again. Those things scar the hell out of people.

On my mom's side they don't have the Ag issues to compound it, but my grandmother still has little toys for my nieces and nephew to play with from the and 70s that my mom and her brothers played with. She grew up dirt poor and then raised her base traveling navy brat kids thinking ketchup sandwiches and hotdog spaghetti was a normal thing. My uncle still eats the damn things. :-) Her hoarding is cash money and keeping every single thing she does pay money for. She's going to go to her grave very simple and fairly wealthy because of her own life experiences.

I'm sure there have been some studies done on how all of this affects my generation and our willingness to save and invest, or not.
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I think you know way more about investing then I do but you kind of shot off your mouth. I've owned stocks before and I've had a 401 K for decades. I sold my stocks back when the market was so volatile that I wasn't comfortable with it and then they just kept going up so it was a big mistake on my part to sell. This years circumstances gave me a good entry point to get back in so I did. It's making up for my previous bad decision making.

LULZ-Derp!
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“Started buying stocks” was pretty vague on your part. My apologies.

If you were in cash and then bought at the beginning of March, your timing was pretty awesome.

Congrats.
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I probably should have termed it as "I got back in". It's all good though so peace and prosperity to you.
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Well that’s killer timing.

Honestly with the Fed propping up the market, I see a return to 30k by August.

After that and post election, the bottom may fall out.
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Only if Biden wins. If Trump wins we we largely pick up where we left off. IF Biden wins and the Dems get the Senate and keep the House then shit is just gonna get sold blindly and I will be a part of that. At least until you know what they are going to do. They start raising taxes or as they say "rolling back tax cuts" then yeah, shit's gonna be bad for a while.
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SPX nearly back to 3000. Large cap growth has nearly completely recovered. Fortunately I've been mostly large growth for years. Only down 5 percent from the peak. Meanwhile old economy value and small caps still 15 to 20 percent below their highs. They should continue to lead on the up days now (financials, energy, industrials, transports, materials). Good time to reallocate toward value and mid and small. Also taking the opportunity to take off some overall stock risk and buy corp bonds where credit spreads are still wide. Feel like I dodged a bullet.
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The Fed will come off the gas pedal regardless of who wins the election.
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