So, Flint, Mi?

Man, I actually looked up crime maps in that area when Sarah posted those ridiculously priced $500 and $600 homes. There is no way in hell, even for those prices I would invest in Flint, MI. House would turn into a crack den.

I hate banks and financial institutions too. I don't put up with shit and I take my money elsewhere immediately. Case in point. Today I deposited a large check that I received from closing out my Bank Direct account early in the week. I've had all my savings in Bank Direct earning 100 American Airline miles on every 1k, per month. I've had the account about a year, trying to get enough miles to take my now ex-girlfriend and I to Paris and back round-trip on miles. I have 140,000 miles (almost enough for three round-trips to Tokyo) and more miles than I know what to do with now that Paris is off. Anyway, Bank Direct sent me a notice saying they will start charging $12/month come January for any amount you have in your account. I said fuck that and immediately called and cancelled my account. They didn't even try to keep me on as a customer. Prior to Bank Direct I had my money in an Arkansas bank account, and prior to that Emigrant Direct. When the interest rate got too low I moved the money elsewhere.

I was at Bank of America depositing the check and of course the teller was like wow this is a big amount with a regular checking account, we can set you up with something that earns you more interest. Come in and talk to us about our Money Market or higher-interest checking accounts. Blah blah. I told them I am only using them as a placeholder, so I can then transfer it back to my Arkansas checking account, which I will be earning 3.03% APY on. I told the teller there's no way they could touch 3.03% but he said well you should talk to one of our specialists, blah blah. I made an appointment for Saturday so I can laugh in their face when they give me some paltry interest rate or an OK rate but the money wouldn't be liquid.

Huh huh huh huh. He's a nerd.

I can get 6.1X apy if i dont make any withdrawals.

of course, i would need money to do that.

I heard about this financial whiz who can give me some crazy percentage on my money. Bernie something. As soon as I have enough saved up I'm totally gonna invest with that guy.

I'll point out that my Bernie is a bank and all banks here are offering over 4% and most at least one option over 5%.

and the money i would need is at least 1 cent.

Wow, that's a nice rape...rate.

Bernie..

Well, here the economy hasnt fallen off a cliff, so official interest rates are around 4.75%. Banks charge about 6.5% for a mortgage, and if you shop around you can get 6.11% in a web saver acount. Most TD's are around 5%-5.5%, personal loans (secured) are about 10%, and of course CC's are anywhere north of 20%.

Again, its about what you do with your money. Over-extend, and the first macro economic sneeze will be black plague for you. I'm just about in a position to clear all my debt (about $200K), so that'll see my net worth sky rocket.

Any one want to send me some money for me to bank for you?

I have one credit card with a 9.99% rate and a gas card with something like 20%.  Of course, I don't pay any interest on them regardless of the rate because I pay the full balance on the statement monthly.  My car is paid off, so I only have student loans.  I'm hoping to be able to pay cash from my next car - banking the old payment, so as long as there aren't any major repairs I should be able to pull it off.

I've just got to convince my fiance that it's better to buy a house that needs a little work and spend a few weekends painting, and redoing the bathrooms and kitchen in a few years rather than shelling out too much up front.  That'll keep the debt load fairly low.

I need to get moving on some of the supplemental income streams, so I can get rid of my student loans a little faster and pay the mortgage down faster.

I have no credit cards, no car loans, no student loans, no debt of any kind except a defaulted mortgage. My friend who works for the state's attorney in Annapolis says not to worry about it, they are basically telling the banks to go fuck themselves. So I got that going for me...

>>My friend who works for the state's attorney in Annapolis says not to worry about it, they are basically telling the banks to go fuck themselves. So I got that going for me...<<

Yeah, I hope that works out for you.
Need any raccoon pelts for that new yurt? 

No I'm thinking of going vegan again. Send me all your hemp.

I been eating hemp seed for the last few months, mix it with some cereal, works a treat.

They are tasty.

My goals for 2012 are:

• To pay off my credit card debt by Valentine's Day. I have $3,700 to pay off. - done 2/11/12

• To add another 1% of my salary to my 401k. That means 11% going into my retirement for 2012. I started at 25, in 2006 at 5% and have added 1% since then. done 1/1/12

• To have my car paid off by the 2 year mark of owning it. That is by Memorial Day, 5/30/2012. I have $5,500 to pay off.

Once the debts are paid, I can move onto other things.

While paying down my debts, I have also decided that I am too diversified in my stock holdings. I owned stock in 10 companies, with about half of those being purely speculative (Silicon Image Inc, Sprint, Bank of America, Take Two, Zipcar and Zynga) and half of them being good companies, with strong balance sheets, strong or steady growth, and good fundamentals. (Apple, GE, McDonald's, Visa). Zynga has made me ~$2k since I bought it right after it's IPO. Last week I put a whole lot of money (80% of my savings account) into another company, with huge growth potential. So now those 10 stocks I had before make up 50% of my total investments, and this single other stock I bought makes up the other 50%. The company I've made a Hail Mary in is Zagg. Research it if you feel so inclined. Just to put in perspective how much I put in, I either make or lose $18.50 per 1 cent movement of the stock price.

It's a little scary, but I have decided that I am willing to put more risk in for the potential for more reward. If all goes well, I believe I can potentially hit $200k net worth by the end of the year.

Damn, way to go ...
... now I need to look into this/these companies

I've been looking at it's 5yr history, as well as it's recent history; why are you so confident in it?

I'll toss a little bit in and see where it grows/falls ...
I never put in money I'm not comfortable with losing;
... same as when I go to a casino

Or the strippers...

... ESPECIALLY the strippers!

Dave, did you end up putting anything in to Zagg? Just curious because today they posted earnings and they did wonderfully the last quarter, as expected with Apple's blow-out quarter. More people buying devices = more people buying protective cases, accessories and screen protectors. Zagg is up a little over 12% today between normal trading hours and the after-hours spike. I would expect Zagg to continue to go higher as the HUGE percentage of investors short on the stock (~50%) start having to cover their short sales. The thing could slingshot up tomorrow. Who knows.

Hope you got in for the ride, my man!!

I'm going to now ...
Thanks for the update ...

I know nothing about stocks. Kyle can you pick some for me?

I do know something about property. Ian, it's time I looped you into these kiwi reno projects I think.

I'm about to jump into Kyle's suggestion ....

Be careful, the shorts still have control of the stock. The fundamentals are there for a great growth stock story, but the percentage of short sellers in Zagg is ridiculous.

Apple is still a buy in my opinion, but the shares are expensive (you can buy an iPad for less than 1 share of Apple's stock!), so you may not be able to get many shares and it might not be worth the trouble. I own 10 shares of Apple, which is all I could afford at $92.50/share in 2009. I've made ~490% in those 3 and a half years.

I think McDonald's has come pretty far but I probably wouldn't buy anymore unless there is a pullback. I bought McDonald's at $60.67 and I am up 64% on it, in a couple of years. BUT I have been looking into the largest franchisee of McDonald's restaurants in the world as a potential buy. The company is Arcos Dorados (Ticker: ARCO). It is the exclusive operator and franchisor of McDonald's restaurants in 19 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean. (Including big boys, Brazil, Mexcio, Argentina). There is potential for large growth there, but this stock would be a long-term one that you aren't going to see big money being made for a couple or few years. They currently own ~1,800 franchised restaurants. The company actually posts earnings on Monday, so it should be an interesting day for Arcos Dorados AND for McDonald's.

Another one I would look into is Visa, or Mastercard. Who the fuck uses cash anymore? Or checks? The world is going paperless and Visa and Mastercard are on the forefront. (I've owned Visa since the day it IPOed and am up a little over 95%). I believe there is still some room for the stock to grow. Mastercard is a good buy as well, but you may not be able to get many shares considering the price.

Another area that many people seem to be watching carefully is the whole "social media and internet-related" area. LinkedIn, Groupon, Yelp (IPOed on Friday and had a 60% pop), Zynga (I bought this a couple days after the IPO as a speculative play, held two months and sold for a 37% gain - but since then it has gone on to make more huge gains) and of course Facebook which could probably IPO in the next few months. I believe this is the new "bubble" and is why I got out of Zynga so quickly. Be careful with these stocks, but the potential to make big gains are there, if you are also very willing to make big losses. Don't get greedy with these, if you end up buying. Make a goal of "I want to make/willing to lose x%" and when it hits that, get out. Facebook is the only one of the bunch that I could see holding on to for long-term.

Microsoft would be a buy if it has a pullback. I had it on my watch list about a month ago, when it was at ~$26/share (it's traded in a pretty tight range for nearly a decade), and last week it hit over $32/share just purely on the excitement of Windows 8 and the Windows Phone 7 Nokias coming out. Who knows if it will be a hit, but if it is, expect MSFT to finally make some moves that it hasn't been able to make in a decade. (Already seeing it.)

I have $6K sitting in my brokerage account doing absolutely nothing for me right now that I have been looking around trying to find where to invest, but nothing has jumped at me yet. I have invested, speculated and traded, and prefer investing of the 3 because investing has made me the most. I never short stocks, and I don't like the idea of betting against companies. I NEVER buy on margin. I set my LIMIT high on stocks (like ZAGG) that short sellers are heavily in, so that my shares won't be loaned out to those fucking slimy sharks. I've researched and read some on options trading, but haven't actually made any puts/calls yet.

Others you might want to check out that I also have on my watch list:

Zipcar
Broadcom
Qualcomm

Qualcomm?
I haven't hear shit from them in YEARS as being "profitable" with any major gain ...

Yeah, people don't understand that Qualcomm is heavy into mobile nowadays. They make chips for the iPhone 4s, Samsung phones, and a variety of others. Two recent articles (I constantly scour news sites nightly.). I have so much free time now without a girlfriend haha.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/briancaulfield/2012/03/05/as-apple-fights-samsung-qualcomm-wins-rim-htc-lose/ - Last night
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/3/5c8f7380-67bc-11e1-978e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1oPLEwJpK - Just posted a few hours ago.

Today was a nice pullback for the market. Biggest down day this year and first triple digit loss for the Dow. About time people start taking some profits, and let a little of this bullish steam out. It would have been a good day to buy. Apple dipped all the way down to 516!! (It's high was just last week at 548). By the end of today it was back up to 530. That was about a 3% gain. If somehow you snagged it at the low at 516 and it gets back to 548 next week, it would be over a 6% gain. I enjoy watching Apple's stock on product introduction days. Tomorrow will be the iPad 3/iPad HD/whatever they're going to call it. Usually the stock sells off on product introduction days and for the next day or two after. It's the old adage "buy the rumor, sell the news." 

Stock futures are already in the green for tomorrow. Futures don't always predict what the day will be like but they are a good indication.
http://money.cnn.com/data/premarket/

Hey Kyle, any info on NB Power, Canada? I may have a chance to help develop a training station for nuclear power plant operators this summer. Heard there is some controversy about them though. Wondering what the stock values are saying, or if that is even applicable.

My IBM stock is up nicely since I started working for them, some $30 a share. Just sayin'.

The rest of my portfolio hasnt moved much of anywhere in years, sittng on a smallish loss overall. I need to get into foreign markets, ASX is too small.