The goal of the pudgandplum.com website is to develop a fun and family interactive program that educates kids about money. There are 6 stories being written about the adventures of Pudg and Plum. Each story having a lesson dealing with a key point children need to know about how money needs to be controlled and how not to let it control them. If you don’t understand about control, check back tomorrow about how money is probably controlling you more than you control it. This will be a big eye opener for a majority of people.
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Are these your thoughts when filling up your gas tank? It’s what I think every time I have to fill up the car with gas. Last night while driving home after a meeting, I passed a gas station that had $3.59 a gallon for regular unleaded. If you read my post yesterday, I just mentioned it was $3.41 a gallon. That’s an 18 cents per gallon increase in less than 24 hours! I mentioned yesterday this might happen. OPEC, the oil producers, decided not to increase oil production (which I predicted). They based it on news that there was enough in supply currently and that they also predict US economic slowdown which will slow oil consumption. BUT, unexpected news was announced yesterday that US supplies were not where they thought, so our oil companies in the US are increasing their prices.
These are the Headlines all over the news, “Oil prices hit a record $105.10 a barrel Thursday, a day after a surprise drop in U.S. crude supplies and a decision by OPEC not to boost production.”
I drive a Honda Accord which typically takes 14 gallons to fill. My next fill-up will now cost me an extra $2.52. Ouch, this will get me over the $50 mark. That’s huge for me.
***MARKET THOUGHT OF THE DAY*** (please read disclaimer following this section): Buy into US oil companies that produce gasoline and hold on to the stock till about 10 days BEFORE they have to announce their quarterly earnings, or until you see a super huge spike in the stock driven by estimated quarterly earnings news. Move 5% of your total LONG TERM savings to purchase gold and silver. I favor buying the actual gold coin or silver bar (must be pure, no mixed stuff), but a GREAT second option is buying SLV shares and GLD shares from the stock market. Split the 5% long term savings and use 2.5% to buy silver and 2.5% to buy gold. Hold on to it for the rest of your life. This is not to keep buying and selling. This is to offset inflation and will keep 5% of your money from losing too much of it’s value. Of course I know the price of Gold and Silver could drop dramatically and it would be pretty lame to think this is 100% safe, but it is my OPINION that this is one of the best places to protect a small portion of your money when you look to diversify your retirement. I do own gold and I do own silver as a very large part of my savings portfolio and I have seen my investment double in the last 3 years. It may of not done as well as my real estate deals did with over 5 times return in 2 years, but I am not complaining and expect the gold and silver to only accelerate in gains for quite a while.
***Disclaimer: I am not a “professional” and do not have a license to give advice and could be totally wrong in all my predictions or my feelings. If you decide to take my advice without doing your own research, that is not wise, and not recommended. Trade at your own risk and know that most individual investors (something like 90% +) lose money investing in the stock market.***
I think I better look into buying a bicycle to ride to work… Or really put more effort into getting my websites up to make more income.
Growing up in Hawaii really isolated me from what was going on in most of the world. Reading an article by Robert Kiyosaki on yahoo Finance (click here to read the article) this morning really shed some light that I’ve come a long way to understanding our global economy and made me realize that most people are oblivious to what is going on around them.
There are so many things going on ALL over the world that affect our economy which in turn will affect our future. When the financial news begins, too many people decide its time to end listening, not realizing that there is so much to gain by thinking about how every bit of news will effect them. you may not be aware of this, but today will decide how high oil prices could skyrocket to in a few months. Our regular gas here where I live is at $3.41 a gallon and I expect it will shoot up to $4.00 by mid summer. President Bush is warning OPEC, the organization that is made up of oil producing countries, to increase oil output to help bring down oil prices. Bush warned that not increasing production will hurt the world’s economy. He said this because the United States’ economy affects the whole world in one way or another. OPEC leaders anticipate that they will not increase output. I don’t blame them one bit. Hopefully though, some of them may be smart enough to realize that they will weaken our US economy which in turn will weaken our dollar even more (which is what everyone buys oil with) so they will see the purchasing power of their bank accounts weaken. I honestly think they will better protect themselves by helping to keep the American dollar’s value strong since they hold so much of it.
Let’s see what happens later today!
Tags: and our weak US dollar., OPEC, World economy