> Any thoughts on solid, short-term investment
> vehicles, with the lousy state of the market
> these days?

Woof! "Lousy" doesn't quite cover things, does it? And even shorting stocks is more unpredictable than ever.

I'm trying to be able to retire so I can move on to the other professions I want to pursue (writing, art, photography, sculpture). Trouble is, I started way too late putting aside funds for a 401K (we had to bail my husband's mother out of a bankruptcy and had a house fire that left us about $70,000 in debt) and the amount there right now is just pitiful.

Worse, my 401K was in mutual funds. Aieeeeeeee.... (whimper whimper whimper)

> But I know that my current approach of just
> putting the funds in a money market account
> is hardly a high leverage activity (shame on
> me! :).

Hey, that's what I did with my 401K. I got tired of putting in money each month and seeing the value of the mutual funds portfolio end up lower than it was at the beginning of the month. At least with money market, it's going up, y'know?

(g) I'm interested to see what he suggests, too. Meanwhile, I'm going to lurk and buy Microsoft when it hits near $59 and AOL when it hits near $40. And I'm going to check out MCI. Couldn't hurt, y'know?