Earlier I posted about signing up for a DiscoverU.org class about investing for $25 a month, and cockily predicted the content of the course, and remarked how I was only taking the course to get a good look at the instructors: Bobbie and Eric Christensen.

Hoo boy, did I have a deprogramming. The mind had to be sufficiently open for the deprogramming, but it happened. I won't share the course content, because you owe it to yourself to take the course if/when they come to a community education venue near you. Believe me, you learn more than just Direct Reinvestment Plans (DRPs) and Direct Purchase Plans (DPPs) with those two.

I'm grateful I paid for the experience, and for their book about the 50 best investments, and that they zeroed in on my "but wait! I've been doing this and feeling smart about it! But! But! But! Non-contributory rollover IRA! Unsafe?!" I'm also glad most of my mind chatter never made it out of my mouth -- everyone else paid what I paid for the course. Many of them are lucky to have never invested before -- they won't have made mistakes. I made mistakes, and now I know where I went wrong, and I console myself with the fact that I have at least another twenty-five years, and an open mind, and that many people, like 95% of the investors out there, will continue to make their mistakes and persist in their patterns.

It's eye-opening to learn that the ten years of programming I've had from the mainstream media, personal finance books (I send a wail in Andrew Tobias's direction) and websites (I shake a fist at the Motley Fool) was indeed programming. My shadow self was beneath a table, curled in the fetal position, sucking a thumb. What was the point in reading up on profit margins, operating margins, inventory, earnings and revenue growth patterns and debt ratios? (Truth is, as dead clever as I thought I was in the late 1990s, I didn't realize until 2001-2002 that companies could LIE to analysts, and that analysts in turn could LIE to investors. I didn't realize that was AMERICAN BUSINESS AT WORK. Boy was I naive. "Gee, the numbers look good! Must be a great company!" 30 months later, class action suit notices show up in the mail.)

There were three men in the class. Many women attending the class were older than me, but maybe a third or two-fifths were younger.

I went to tea with my family and my aunt/godmother at Queen Mary Tea Room, presumably to celebrate belatedly our birthdays. She was adamant about paying. So was I.

"At least let us pay half," I protested.

I didn't know she was going to be like that: I had the spouse take out $140 to use on the tea. "I paid off my credit card!" she said triumphantly. I warmly congratulated her, shared in her moment of freedom and triumph, told her I know of the giddy anticipation that comes from being one pay period away from being fully free from the card.

"So you're insisting on paying because you're thrilled to be debt-free?" I asked.
Believe me I did fight for the bill.

"Yes!" her teeth gleamed.

"Well, under those conditions I can let you pay. Thank you."

This year has been such an exercise in dispelling illusions and shattering commonly held beliefs for me. All I can say now is that it's scary and freeing to be bucking the crowd sometimes.

Put $125 extra toward the mortgage.