That is my premise, that if you do back up your computers and such, it is much like investing your money in the market. I know you are thinking maybe I had an odd weekend, and I have gone off my financial nut here? I may have but allow me to elaborate on this a little.
Backups for your system are great ideas and very important to do (as I mentioned a while ago), however, if you cannot restore the data from these backups it ends up being a futile procedure. Mrs. Michael James had this very issue arise, where she was told all of her data was being backed up, however, when her system failed, the I.T. group sheepishly pointed out that they couldn’t restore her data from the backup tapes that they had. You really do need to test your backups to make sure that you can use the data in the backup data archive.
Investing your money is always interesting, you diligently put your money away in Index Funds, Stocks or maybe you have money in Stock Options and many folks speak of how much money they have by quoting the value of their Stock or Investment Holdings, however, until you have that in Cash (or available to you to buy a Chocolate Bar, say) you really have nothing.
Yes I know, if your money is in an Index Fund, GICs or Bonds the chance that their value will disappear is miniscule, but how about those Stocks? Do you know how many Millionaires (on paper) that I knew at Nortel, that are still working now (and have incredibly large debt loads, or were forced to declare bankruptcy)? Far too many.
If you are quoting your “wealth” by Stock Options from your firm, you are living in a fool’s paradise. Until you cash those options in, you have nothing. Yes, many people have become rich on Stock Options, however, many folks have assumed their wealth without cashing their options, and seen their wealth evaporate like a fart in the wind.
What is the Bottom Line?
The bottom line for both is simple: ” Backups are only successful when you actually Restore the data from them and similarly Investing is only successful once you get the money out of it (and start living on it)”
Sheer poetry! : “seen their wealth evaporate like a fart in the wind.”
I find stock options hilarious as the only ones we have are “under water.” They were issued at about twice what the stock is trading for these days. I guess we could always pay the company to take our options away and bury them?
I also like people who back up their files on the exact same hard drive as the originals. Very interesting logic.