I remember in high school playing mock market in one of our classes. It was probably science or social studies of some sort…….. Anyway, we got to set up accounts and play the stock market as a part of a class project.

I honestly don’t remember now what the heck I did, traded, or made in profits or losses. It was probably Wally World since they were actually pretty new back then, but it might have been a product brand too. Who knows? But I do know that if I decided to try my hand at any of the markets now, I would need a commodities broker.

I would hope that a broker would be able to help me understand (in layperson’s terms) what was happening with my money and the stock or commodities that I had chosen to trade. See, I think maybe I’m combining two different things into one now.

Are commodities a product and stock a piece of a company? Man, it is beyond me!

It seems that no matter what you do, I find myself bombarded with many different investment opportunities.  Let’s face it - there are many different ways to make money.

The problem lies in the fact that not all of them are the best ways to make money, and I would like to make the highest return possible so I don’t have to work all of my life.  Originally, I was told to invest in shares to make my riches, but now I am not so sure.

Even though I could reduce debt with my savings, a friend of mine suggested that the true way to wealth is through property investing.  I decided to look at the facts and figures online, and as it turns out, he was right.

So, now I think that I am going to take the time to learn how real estate investing works, and I’ll take that knowledge and apply it.

Every morning as we sit to breakfast I asked my husband what his stock pick of the day is.  We have been doing this for years and it has become so much a part of our routine that I would be completely lost without it.  It would be like a morning without toast and jam.

One of our hobbies that we like to do together is to research stock.  We have been doing this a long time before we’re married.  We had probably been only dating for a very few short months when we decided to start doing this.  It started just for fun and has since become a very serious part of who we are as a couple.

We are usually in pretty good agreement when it comes to our stock research and it is something that we decided very early on that we would never fight over.  I think it has made us stronger as a couple because I know I love him so much more for caring about our future and investing wisely.

My brother and I were just chilling the other night, listening to music on our satellite radio when we got into a deep discussion about saving for our futures. We were not discussing the immediate future, but for one day when we retire. My brother is very passionate about this and I am sure that he is Michael Dinich’s biggest fan.

I really never understood why saving for retirement pertained to me, as I was young and just out of high school. Then my brother showed me a daily article that said we should be saving for retirement from the moment we start working at a paying job. We would then never even miss the money because it would just be another deduction that was always there.

It made sense to me, even though my biggest worry money wise was whether my paycheck would be big enough for all of the clothes that I wanted that week. My brother taught me that your money matters, even if you don’t have financial responsibilities. I am glad that he cares enough to show me what is important and I am glad to know that when I do retire, I will be just fine, because of the wise words of Michael Dinich.

I am taking a commerce class at the local college on investing. I have been investing, myself, for a few years now, but I wanted a more in depth education on the subject. I have enjoyed investing since the day that I started and this got me to thinking that maybe this was a career path that I needed to be considering.

I did a lot of stock picks research for a term paper that I was writing and I learned so much through the research that I did. It was a great learning experience for me and I was so happy that I had chosen that particular subject to write on. My professor was equally impressed and actually urged me to continue with my education, as I could help a lot of people who did not understand the stock market.

He said that I was a natural and it would be a shame to waste that gift. It was easy for me to understand this language that most people felt was foreign to them. It got me to thinking that I really ought to give more thought to this as a career choice. I am still thinking about it, as going to school full time is a big commitment and I want to make sure that I am ready to do this.

I just came out of a meeting with my financial advisor.  You see, I have a little nest egg kicking around and it is not making enough interest in the bank - so I thought I should check out what would be good options for my money.

There were a few questions and questionnaires to answer before my financial advisor would give me any advice.  He needed to know what my investment knowledge was as well as my risk tolerance.

Once that was out of the way, he told me that Index Funds would be a good choice for me.  Not only would they give me exposure to a broad market, but they wouldn’t put me at the same risk as an ETF (exchange traded funds).

I asked whether or not they had any funds that would be considered to be socially responsible investing options.  Unfortunately, their firm didn’t deal with those types of funds.

I told him that I would have to think on it, and give him an answer on what I decided after the weekend.  I sure have a lot to think about.

I was down at the office yesterday going over some of the new deals that we will be looking at this week.  You see, we have been looking at a retail store chain in our area that has had a number of fires in their stores lately and they are looking to sell.

Now, you might wonder why anyone would want a company that is burning to the ground, so to speak.  Well, according to the store reviews, the return on most of their stores is good.  I mean really good.  A good return on investment is essential in this transaction and according to these numbers that we have, the stores are good performers.

You probably still don’t have the fires off your mind, do you?  Well, let me address that.  According to the insurance reviews that we have, there is an ongoing investigation into the management of the company for insurance fraud as all the fires were arsons.

The benefit for us is that in this time of turmoil, the company can be bought at a deep discount.  So, we are going to be deciding in the first few days of this week whether or not the company will be buying it - but I bet we will.  We just want to show our new online business academy graduate how we make our decision - it will be part of his training.

I got a letter in the mail today all about my investments over the past year and how they were doing. I was quite surprised to see that I was losing money in a fair number of them and have decided that I am going to keep a much closer eye on what my money is doing or not doing for me.

I was hoping to gain some real profits from my investments this year, but sadly, I was wrong. I never took control of my finances myself; I just always listened to what others told me to do. Up to this point, it had always worked.

I made up my mind to learn the different profit systems, and learn what my investments were doing. I was not even sure where half of my money was invested. I know this is not a good financial decision.

I am starting to keep up on business reviews so that I, myself, can decide which businesses I need to invest my money with. I am hoping that when my letter comes next year, I won’t be surprised. I hope I know exactly what it will say.

I was out for lunch yesterday with my best friend, who is an investment advisor.  We have been friends for over fifteen years (yes I don’t remember how long - I am a boy after all) and I trust what he tells me.  He has been an invaluable sound board for my investing ideas and keeps me grounded in reality.

Well, the reason we went out for lunch was to discuss one of the latest investment programs I was considering.  I had found out about it while looking for ways to make money online - and I needed to know if it was a good idea or not.

You may be familiar with what I found, but it was a high yield investment program (HYIP).  They promised that I could make at least half a percent return on my money per day - that works out to 15% per month.  Some alarms went off in my head since my mutual funds only made 10% for the whole year last year.

So I had brought my laptop and showed David the site.  He looked through it, and gave me his honest advice.  He told me that the one I came across was not as good of a deal as I thought, but he showed me another HYIP that he was invested in that has been paying out for a couple of years. 

Taking his advice, I have put just $100 into the program.  When I see how it does, I may put more in there, but I will do what he says: I won’t put all my money in an HYIP, because that would be crazy (did you notice it rhymes?).

Saturday is one of the best days to read the paper.  Our paper has a larger business section on Saturday and I love it.  From the moment I start reading till the moment I put it down, I learn valuable information.

Take today’s paper for example.  The headline on the business page read "Top Franchise Opportunities" - that got me hooked.  I spent the next half hour looking at some of the fastest growing franchises on the planet.  There was information on why you would want to invest in a franchise and what to look for.

I also learned that all Starbucks were not Starbucks franchises.  In fact, Starbucks is one of the few companies that doesn’t franchise their stores - so for those of you that had dreams of owning one someday, that is not a possibility.

As I read the last words on the page, I felt good.  It is always good to read something stimulating in the paper - instead of reading all those boring articles about nothing important (for example what color Christmas lights to put on our city bridges).