Money Blue Book

What has four letters, starts with the letter “F”, and always gets people’s attention? No, not that one, the other one…..the answer is the beautiful word of FREE!

I’m disappointed there haven’t been any new free magazine offers lately. When I hear about any I’ll be sure to post them. I know many people love food samples, but I just can’t get enough of free magazine subscriptions.

As always, the items listed below are available as of the date of this posting, but keep in mind that some may not last too long once people get a wind of them. So get them while they’re still there! Please let me know if and when they are no longer available. Here they are:

1. FREE Bee Pollen Sample – I think it’s supposed to “Bee” good for you (*corny joke*).
2. FREE Glow Sticks – Get 3 of them for free! It’s for a psychological disorder website so you might get some interesting junk mail. What can you do with glow sticks…hmmm… go raving?
3. FREE Kingston 1 GB SD Memory Card – Add to cart, then click on Google Checkout. If you already have an account, then make a new Gmail account so you can get the $10 off. The $10 off will show up in your Google Checkout page and you can select free shipping as well
4. FREE Living Foods Green Tea – Antioxidants are good for you!
5. FREE Murad Skin Care Samples
6. FREE Naturals Purina Cat Chow 6 Oz. - Your cat will love you more if you feed her something new.
7. FREE Nivea For Men Hydro Gel
8. FREE Reynold’s Parchment Paper
9. FREE Slimfast Protein Chews
10. FREE STS Sports Supplements – For athletes of course.

Remember to check out past Freebies if you haven’t done so. Hopefully the offers haven’t expired yet.

For the past week, my stock investment portfolio has been taking a massive beating. Many of my Asian emerging market funds that were previously delivering great returns have suffered greatly, along with the rest of the world financial markets. But am I worried? Nope, not the least bit. When I see all the red numbers on CNBC, I just smile. It’s a healthy market correction that needs to happen from time to time.

My Funds Have Tanked Before and I’ve Always Recovered Plus More

In February, my portfolio plummeted almost 10 percent. I was ecstatic. Why? Because when the market dips that much, it signals a very attractive buying opportunity. I know with a long enough investment horizon, historically, the market has always cumulatively trended upwards. I am confident in my belief that every cent I invest now will very likely pay off in spades in the distant future. I see dips as the efficient market at work so I always try to take advantage of every attractive buying opportunity.

In turbulent times, it’s best not to mess with your investment portfolio. Some are whispering about the possibility of recession and suggesting that the housing and mortgage-linked credit crisis will drag down the American economy, and in turn pull the rest of the world financial markets down with it. But I urge everyone not to be too hasty or emotionally driven in their financial decisions. Try to stay cool as a cucumber.

Come Out Ahead Of the Market By Continuing to Invest

The single most important thing you can do now is to stick with your original investment strategy. If you have a 401k, or Roth IRA account, continue investing regularly and resist the urge to sell and sit on your hands on the sideline. In fact, because I stayed the course and continued to invest regularly when the market tanked in February and later in July of this year, I am now better off than if the market had remained flat or even remained at a steady upward trend during this entire time.

Take a look at the example demonstrated by the graphic from CNN Money on the left. Because the fund price fluctuates, the amount of shares that can be bought with each fixed contribution changes. At the end, although the fund only gained 0.8%, your total overall gain would be 3.0%. Despite prices dips, you still come out ahead overall.

The Reason For This Is Due To Dollar Cost Averaging

So long as you continue to invest regularly, even during periods of sell off in the stock market, you will be able to regularly buy in at lower prices. By consistently buying the price dips, this lowers your overall cost since more shares are being bought when prices are low than when prices are high. As long as you have a long enough investment horizon, your portfolio will be much higher in the long run due to your continued purchases at regular intervals and captures of these dips.

Of course this assumes that you have a steady outside income that is generating the extra money for you to invest on a regular basis. It also assumes that there is no prolonged bear market that will exceed your investment horizon. But if you need the money before the bear market turns into a booming bull market, you will likely be at a loss either way.

This might be sort of corny, but I’ve been told that I can be rather charming. When I talk to people I like to get to know them. It doesn’t matter who the person is – they could be a janitor or receptionist, I still like to make some light hearted chit chat and humor them with some of my random jokes. I guess some people find it endearing but I just see it as being pleasant.

It is true that people tend to gravitate towards those who are friendly and optimistic. Because positive association is such an appealing quality, people are much more inclined to perform favors for those with sunny dispositions.

Just a few examples will demonstrate to you know what I mean. Most of the time, these situations happen in the most routine, mundane places, but it really comes in handy.

Getting My Bigger Scoop At Sbarro’s Pizza

Today at work for lunch, I went to my usual underground eatery and chose to eat at Sbarro’s. When it was my turn to order, I turned to the young sales lady and told her what I wanted – spaghetti with meatballs. Now as you know, many of these places tend to give standard portion sizes for both men and women. Now I’m not that big, but I can eat. So as she was filling up the bowl with the standard portion, I flashed a smile and asked politely if she could do me a nice favor and give me a little bit extra. I guess I gave a very friendly and perhaps even hungry enough impression because she smiled back and immediately scooped me a massive bowl of spaghetti – it was a lot! Even the woman next to me in line was impressed and jokingly hoped that I won’t fall asleep after eating all that. When I got my wonderfully filled bowl I thanked her and joking quipped, “Next time I’m coming back to you!”

Hotel Discounts

Here’s another one. I was on one of my usual road trips a few weeks ago and had to stay at a hotel. I did not have reservations so I walked up to the Comfort Inn desk and inquired about room vacancy. Price was $110 a night the woman replied. I asked politely if there were any discounts or promotions she could apply to lower the price. She responded that AAA discount was the only one available and asked if I was a AAA member – I was not. But I didn’t give up. I chatted with her nicely for a bit about the area and about where I was headed and about my experiences at other hotels. After we had talked for a while and as she was typing my information into the computer, she turned to me and suggested that perhaps she could offer me a discount after all – and she chuckled to herself and gave me the senior citizen rate (which is kind of funny since I’m only in my late 20’s).

I’m telling you, you really can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar – the flies being freebies and honey being pleasantry. And no, it wasn’t just because these two happened to be women. It also works with other guys too. Of course I do it differently – usually we just quickly bond by talking about sports or something like that.

To my fellow stock market investors, heed my warning as someone who has foolishly traded before on things he read about in an online discussion board. I regrettably did this when I was an investing novice back in college and got hammered big time. If you are a new investor, you should absolutely stay away from stock related discussion boards like the ones you find on Yahoo or Google Finance. Google Finance is not as bad as Yahoo, but both should be avoided like the plague.

It Is All Too Easy To Get Influenced, Especially If You Are a New Investor

If you are a newbie to the stock market, you will likely be more prone to investment temptation and more easily influenced by what you read on these finance discussion boards. But diving deeper into the substance, you will find nothing of redeeming value in these unregulated forums. All you will find are misleading, self motivated comments made by individuals who have a hidden and vested interest to influence the gullible.

On these boards you will find that the vast majority of posters are what the investing community commonly refer to as pumpers and dumpers. Pumpers are people who own shares in the stock being discussed in a particular message board. Their deceptive mission is to spread rumors and fill your head with greed-driven motivation to buy shares in the company to help drive up prices. The more people that fall prey and buy shares, the more long volume there is to force share prices upwards, thereby benefiting the stock portfolios of those who spread the rumors initially. The increase in share price will often be short lived, and you may ultimately find yourself on the losing end.

Oftentimes, the news and commentary posted by the pumpers will sound very real and plausible. Trust your own judgment and don’t fall for it. Just a quick glance at the Yahoo Finance message board of an interesting speculative stock that I’ve been tracking for a long time reveals tabloid trashy subject titles like:

• “Deal with China imminent, Buy more before it doubles next week!”
• “My broker at Charles Schwab told me to buy and hold before positive earnings report comes out Monday!”
• “$20/share coming soon CNNfn analysts say!”

None of these statements were made by professional financial analysts and all of the provided information was fabricated and made up by pumpers. They were all made by unknown individuals in the shadows who post misleading financial information in complete anonymity to spur on irrational buy orders by naive investors.

On the flip side are the dumpers, who are usually short sellers who stand to profit greatly when prices go down. They are the opposite of the pumpers and their mission is to spread falsehood and incorrect facts and speculation to drive up selling pressure. They will post things like:

• “Analysts say recession will drive the company to the ground!”
• “Level 2 stock quotes indicate heavy short selling volume – prices to plummet 30% by the end of trading!”
• “Chinese government to reject certification – company will go bankrupt!”

I guarantee you, even if you are a seasoned investor, reading information like this will likely influence you, even if it’s only by a little bit. It will place irrational and greedy thoughts into your head that you don’t need. You should stay away from the finance message boards altogether. Stick to reputable and transparent financial sites that offer objective information with a traceable track record. Always remember to conduct your own research and due diligence before acting.