Ed Icionsub

Stopped by the Post Office to buy some stamps and saw a big pile of boxes along the counter. They were put out to remind people that you can buy flat rate shipping rates instead of paying for shipping by the ounce or pound. Its simple. All you do is take home the box you want – there are 4 sizes to choose from. Each size box has a price you will pay for shipping and then you can stuff as much stuff into the box as will fit, without worrying about how much it weighs.

I picked up a small box and it will cost about $12 for everything I can cram into this sized box. I know that if I was paying by weight it would cost a lot more than $12. And if I took it to UP they would charge me at least $22 to ship the same box. So this is a bargain.

One of my buddy’s was talking about monetizing his web site. We were in the break room having that second cup of coffee to keep our eyes open during a day full of very boring meetings. Carl had helped his secretary set up a web site and a blog, and he was explaining the whole thing during our 15 minute break.

I had to listen to what he was talking about, as I don’t really know much about that and he was explaining how he found a cash advance affiliate program to make some extra money. In today’s economy, who isn’t interested in ways to earn some extra cash? I actually own and maintain eight different web sites, so if this idea of monetizing is easy and lucrative, I might be interested in doing it.

Carl told me to check out a company called Blue Global Media and read through the information on their web site to learn the facts. I had never heard of this company before and asked him how he found out about them. He said he was doing research on the top affiliate networks and that their program made the most sense to him.

I’m the first to admit that all of this is new to me, but Carl is a smart guy and if he says it works, then I owe it to myslef to check it out.

Once I started working and earning my own money, I learned about investing and financial planning totally on my own. My dad was no help and although he had a lot of money, he put it all into bank CD’s and real estate. He was never interested in stocks, bonds or other investment vehicles.

I worked with and talked to a lot of different financial experts over the years. I am by no means qualified to give anyone financial advice over the internet. You have to be licensed and accept a fiduciary responsibility when you do that. And professionals get paid well for doing that.

That is part of the whole point of using this Online Portfolio Manager that I found. It seems to be a better way to manage your investment than using a money manager who charges you a fee.

Once you set up the Portfolio rebalancing software for your current investments and learn how to use the program, you don’t really need a commissioned money manager to hep you. Everything you need is online. The information that I found most helpful was introducing the concept of a core portfolio dedicated strictly to your retirement goals, and then another allocation for emergency cash and the last allocation for speculative investments. You set up the parameters and then make your trades based on keeping that balance.

Do It Yourself portfolio management is obviously not for everybody, but if you have some financial savvy and want to avoid the management fees by using an easy to learn and easy to use software, now you know that you do have options.

There have been some interesting banner ads popping up on the top of my Yahoo email account that are promoting gold IRA as an attractive investment vehicle. The same ads have shown up on other sites I visit, too. That has sparked my interest and I decided to look into IRA gold for myself.

I decided to read up on gold as much as possible on the internet and dig deep into historical data and graphs as far back as possible. There is always a disclaimer that says something along the lines of, “just because this investment did extremely well in the past, that does not guarantee that it will continue to yo extremely well in the future.” Well, people, if past performance is not an indication of expected performance in the future, why do all the web sites brag so much about the past performance? Why even make charts that show what an investment has done over the years?

Frankly, it is extremely hard to find any investment that has never lost money. And if you wanted to prove your case against or for any investment, you can easily throw in variables such as adjustments for the cost of living or inflation. What it comes down to, take advice from the professionals who are licensed and regulated, not from your barber or your next door neighbor or some guy who writes a blog. And if you are thinking about a gold 401k for your retirement plan, check out the facts and make an informed decision.

It has been years since I have had to deal with the hassle of a car payment. I don’t like paying bills every month, especially when my income is so variable based on commissions. So paying cash for a car has always worked out best for me. Of course, thy are not brand new cars from a dealership – they are used cars that I find and decide to take a chance on and buy.

The problem with buying a used car is that you don’t know it’s history and you take a chance that there will be no serious repairs needed right away. After all the cars I’ve owned, I can say that none of them have been lemons but none of them have run trouble free forever, either.

Part of owning a car is deciding when the maintenance and repairs get to be too expensive to warrant keeping the car. I’m trying to make that decision right now on my Mazda. I just spent $2,000 on a rebuilt engine in January and don’t feel that I’ve gotten my money out of that yet. But now the brakes are acting up and the muffler is starting to rattle. So, I’m looking for repair estimates and trying to decide if I should get rid of the Mazda now or spend more money on it d try to make it last another year or two?