Category — Money

This post is not about gambling at all, but about free newsletters to help us invest better. My problem with how do-it-yourself investing is going these days is that inexperienced, ill-informed average Joes walk in and walk out of the stock exchanges virtually, creating more chaos in an already chaotic arena. The newsletters should help, but Dude are gambling or investing?

A certain African proverb goes like this:

No matter how long a wall gecko runs around outside, it shall never be called a lizard

I am usually surprised how many people are keen on attempting to throw away money in the so-called, so-hyped day-trading on the various stock exchanges across the globe. With the internet and globalization, it is so easy to do it from the convenience of your living room. One of the major companies, E trade claims up to 1000 new customers a day. That is a whopping 365000 new customers a year.

If these customers are average like me, they have very likely not spent time studying the stock exchange system in school, they have most likely obtained some other college degree and they have most likely a steady source of income, or maybe!

The business of stock trading is minimally understood by the ‘experts’ themselves, the traders who go to the floors. they use other people’s money to buy stocks and sell stocks and make commissions. Because it is not a science and there is no method to the madness, there is no single company that has consistently beat the market for decades except maybe Madoff’s company. So why do innocent taxpayers allow themselves to get conned into opening accounts and trading? Duh you are gambling and you have minimal information.

I came across this post of 50 newsletters that come to you free of charge and that will help you get more informed with your investment decisions. It is the most comprehensive list that I have seen recently. The sites are in alphabetical order and my favorites include Kilpinger, MSN Money and The Motley Fool. I have not checked all of them out, but if you are managing your retirement potfolio yourself or if you are a ‘daytrader’ this is a must-read post. It was written by Linda G and she has a few other top 50 lists on the site over at Bankling.com

Enjoy and keep on investing wisely. The truth of the matter is that some people have had comprehensive training for investing and so if you have not, the odds are against you that you will one day ‘make it’ by doing this ‘pseudo-online gambling’ called stock trading.

Do we need a soothsayer  to tell us that savings are to be saved? Many people do not have savings today because they never tag their savings as savings. My message to you today is: Do not spend it, it is called savings, Duh!

Saving for a reason

Why will you save money if you do not have a reason to? When we find reasons to save, we should tag that money and name it with that. That will help us stay within the plan. If you are saving for that exotic wedding anniversary holiday,  you do not want to use the money for the impromptu trip to Las Vegas!

Tag your savings

The simple way to do this is to tag your savings. Most online savings accounts are free to open. Some people tag any money in their accounts for a specific purpose. Other accounts like ING Direct have the capability of creating multiple sub-accounts, so all you have to do is create a sub-account for your purpose. Like “Wedding Anniversary”,  “Down Payment” , “Camping Trip” or “Christmas 2012″.

Self Discipline

Having done all these, one essential thing we all have to do is self-discipline. If you are not disciplined, you may still dip into the money earmarked for that trip and use it for something else. That is a no no. Saving and actually letting what you saved stay safe is one of the key ways to enjoy life in a financially comfortable manner. That is because rather than having to squeeze money out from you paycheck for that occasional expense, you can guiltlessly access the money you have been saving for it. As is sometimes said, if we fail to plan, then we have planned to fail.

The take home message here is : Leave those savings alone!

Googlewave recently hit the web in its alpha testing form. I blogged about it in my tech blog back in October 2009. It is however surprising that many people are not taking advantage of the tool. This is a very powerful platform that will revolutionize the web in coming months. It has been refined much since I was invited to join the alpha testing.

According to the initial video, it is what email would have looked like if it was invented in this modern age of web 2-0. There is a very informative book about Googlewave by Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani. You can purchase the book for perusal on Amazon or read it on line if you are online a lot.

Since Googlewave accounts are by invitation only still, I have decided to invite some readers of this website to enjoy Googlewave and become early adopters. If you are interested in getting an invite, there are three ways to go about it:

1. Register on this site. With your email address, I will be able to invite you.

OR

2. Drop a comment at the bottom of this post and likewise I will extract your email address and invite you.

OR

3. If you have a blog and will also like your readers to enjoy this new platform too with invitations from me, blog about it and include a link to this article. Then email me and let me know.