Leaders of the Free World

I couldn’t help but read Dena’s guest post from yesterday and not want to put in my own two cents!

This past year has seen me discover that 6 years of study, work and all that jazz has amounted to me not particularly wanting to pursue my set career path (or a career path at all), income stream experiments, starting a company to launch a software product (coming very soon!) and also starting to write.

I’d like to look back on 2009 and say ‘that was the year that the penny dropped’ and the ball got set into motion.

We’re all leaders of the free world, but our own free world. You might enjoy your job, but each and every one of us ARE self employed, whether you like it or not you’re always going to have to look out for number one.

In taking your own baby steps into the free world you’re definitely doing the right thing! What have you got to lose? If you try and fail you’ll just be right back here, having been to yet another end of year work Christmas party, talking to the same people, about the same things. Alternatively you could be in an insane Christmas rush to get your latest product that you’ve created out the door to fill all of your Christmas orders, freelancing your arse off to meet your client’s deadlines or travelling around managing your own affairs? If your free world experiments don’t work you will always have the safety net of returning to work in early January to start it all again..

Focus is the Key

Focus is the derivative, having a goal or a purpose is the backbone. What do you want? What do you want to do? Travel? Run your own business? Get stinking rich? Why do you want to be rich? Keep asking yourself questions on your questions to find what you really want and strive for it. Focus on exactly what you want. In experimenting with new income streams and trial & error in general there are two theories out there: focus on each one individually, one at a time and give each experiment your full attention, or go hell for leather at everything all at once, see what you excel at and then target towards that. This year I’ve found that I’m the former: I’ve got a hundred ideas but a short attention span meaning I’m easily side-tracked, I’m adopting a more focused approach to one thing at a time.

Your Purpose

I’ve made a point of reading whatever I could on the work life balance, running your own show and escaping the 9-5. The one point that has stuck with me was by Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind, paraphrased: “Are you waking up and eating your three meals a day, not achieving anything in particular, floating through life?” and a follow up of “Finding your purpose & defining your goals is easy, what can’t you not do?” These two points infuriated me, they stuck with me and won’t go away, I can’t get rid of them or get them out of my head. When I’ve had a lazy week I do think “Well, time to get dinner ready, the third meal of the day…”

So what are you waking up for each & everyday?

Patience

I recently found out that most of America’s self made millionaires hit the ‘big time’ at the ripe old age of 57. 57 years old? The book I was reading went on to say that during the 20’s a person is busy experimenting (guilty) and switching from job to job, in the 30’s there’s the obligation to settle down and focus on a career, the 40’s is where the real ‘work experience’ kicks in and it’s not until the late forties and early 50’s that you have a break through that can provide real value. The point the author was trying to make was that you need life experience before you can add any real value to people’s day to day lives.

With this in mind I am going to take my foot of the pedal (only a bit!) in the coming year, keep reading & researching and be a bit more patient, here’s hoping my idea is just around the corner.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

I read Dena’s guest post and it struck a chord with me. It also reminded me that yesterday I found myself on a phone call with an Engineering Manager to follow up a job interview! We all want to lead our own Free World but I’ve learnt this year that it’s a process, until your lotto numbers come up you’re going to have to work, whether it’s for someone else or yourself, tickets to the Free World aren’t easy!

Baby Steps into the Free World: How to Put Yourself First & Succeed

Hello readers of Leaders of the Free World!  I’m Dena and I’m a big fan of this blog and of Andrew’s mission to free us all from the trenches of corporate slavery!  I first fell in love with Andrew’s writing when I read his guest post, Corporate Fluff a few months back.  As a former cubicle monkey and a current 9 to 5 monkey myself, I could relate to everything that he was saying.  Bring down the man!  Follow your passion! Focus on providing the maximum value to the end user and cut out the middle men!  It all made perfect sense to me.  I was leaping out of my chair.  I was fired up and ready to make moves… and then the reality hit me.

I am tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, and I am not ready to make that leap.

Call it cowardly, call it what you will, but I’m just not ready.  I am determined to pay down this debt.  I am making enormous sacrifices, working hard, and even practicing the fine art of frugality.  And one day soon, I will be ready to join the ranks of The Free World!  But for now, I’m still doing the 9 to 5; but here’s the key, I’m doing it my way, having a decent time of it, and learning a hell of a lot along the way.

In this post, I will teach you how you can take baby steps into The Free World by putting yourself first, no matter what your circumstances.  Follow these five steps and you will be on the quick path to the Free World.

1.  Focus on the Positive

Focusing on the positive is the key to life. Seriously, if you can manage to shift your thought to focus on the positive things around you, you will succeed every single time. It’s really simple — focus on the negative and be miserable, depressed, and unsuccessful or — focus on the positive and be happy, fulfilled, and successful. Which one will you choose?

“A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.” —Mohandas Gandhi

No matter what your job is, there are good points about it. Whether you like it or not, the economy sucks right now. Approximately 195 million people around the world are unemployed and that statistic was taken before the economy took its recent nosedive. Whatever your job is, you are making money. Maybe you can afford to put food in your child’s mouth, maybe you can afford to put a shirt on your own back, maybe you can afford a lot of things and every time you start to complain, think about all of the people who can’t do those things. Think about the mother who can’t put food in her baby’s mouth or the man on the street, in the snow, who doesn’t have a shirt on his back. It’s harsh, but it’s true.

Aside from a paycheck, I know that there are a lot of other really good things about your job. Maybe it’s the view from the window on the second floor or the smile on the janitor’s face in the afternoon or maybe you are the janitor and it’s the steaming hot cup of coffee that you enjoy each morning at the start of your shift. Whatever it is, it’s there. You have to find it.

There are lots of little things to be grateful for, focus on those. …Or focus on the negatives and be miserable. You decide.

2.  Never Accept Less Than You Deserve

My attitude toward life goes something like this: I am going to shine at every single thing that I do. I am going to work my ass off until I see positive results. When I fall, I am going to get back up—every, single, time.  If you can honestly say that you take that approach in your own life, then you’d better be looking out for yourself along the way.

You’ve got to look out for yourself, because if you don’t do it, no one will.  Some people will perceive your kindness and hard work ethic as a weakness.  They will try to take advantage of you. The fact is that there are people who refuse to adopt a positive or fair attitude and they will remain miserable.  They will try everything to drag you down with them. The key is to never let those people get to you.  When they pop up, you keep moving. Pity them, show them kindness, but don’t ever stop on your path. Just keep going.

Take the steps to make sure that you are never taken advantage of.  Keep track of your accomplishments, prove yourself, and excel at each task that you tackle.  If you are working hard and giving it your all, make sure that you are being compensated & appreciated accordingly. If you are consistently giving 110% but never see the pay off, let it be known.

I recently went to my boss and asked for a substantial raise. I made sure that what I was asking for was legitimate, did my homework, and presented my case. I was scared as hell! But you can not imagine how gratifying it was to stand up for myself — even before I got a positive answer, I felt like a million bucks.

You’ve got to see the good in people but you’ve also got to be realistic.  Make sure that you get what you deserve, nothing less.

3.  Keep Your Eye on the Prize

Like I said above, I want to enter The Free World and I am getting closer everyday.  I am experimenting with all sorts of liberating things lately — blogging, passive income, options trading, freelancing, etc.  There are hundreds of paths to take in order to get where you want to be; but you’ve got to remember your goals.

Right now one of my main priorities is to pay down my student loan debt.  Sometimes that means sacrifice.  If I score a small freelance gig that generates some extra cash, I do not head to the shopping mall and I buy myself a new purse.  I take that money and I apply it toward my debt!

The principle is simple.   If you are doing something that is taking you further away from your goal — stop now!  Every single thing that you do should take you one step closer to reaching your goal.

4.  Know When to Take a Break

Whether you are close to the end of your journey to the Free World or just at the beginning, there’s something you’ve always got to remember: You Come First.  You need to take time out of every single day for you.  Whether that means a cup of coffee in the morning or an hour of yoga after work, you must take time to clear & focus your mind at least once a day, preferably more.

What makes you happy — Long, quiet walks?  Blasting out your ear drums with your Ipod?  Writing in a journal? Taking your kids to the park?  Whatever it is, embrace it!  Work is hard work.  Life is hard work.  We are all just trying to get by and if we forget to take the time out to do what we love, what centers & focuses us, then we stand no chance to accomplish our goals.

Whether your ambition is to be a globe-trotting blogger or the CEO of a Fortune 500, you must remember that You Come First.  Too many people climb their way to the top only to suffer a massive heart attack at age 50, or to look back and discover that there was never an ounce of passion or love.

At the end of the day, there is a lot more to life than money, fortune, and fame.  Practice living with intention and you will find the balance between a life of fulfillment and a life of success.

5.  Don’t Ever Give Up

It is not going to be easy, but anything that is worth it in the end rarely is.

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never.” —Sir Winston Churchill

You’ve got to keep a positive outlook, fight for yourself, stay focused, and know when to take a break.  If you can keep those things at the front of your mind, then you will be on a sure path to success and your way to The Free World in no time at all.  You are going to fall down, I can promise you that, but you are also going to get back up—every, single, time.

Remember that I am right here beside you, cheering you on!

~~~

Dena is an aspiring full-time blogger from Northern New Jersey, USA.  Her passion/purpose in life is to infuse light & joy into the hearts of as many people as possible.  She carries out this mission at her blog, Evolution.  You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.

So I started the Twelve Days of Christmas by questioning the whole commercialisation, religious factor and the massive amount of consumerism that engulfs the holiday.

Nine days later, a guest post from a fellow cynic about how it was the silly season and the festivities should be embraced; I’ve ticked off the shopping list, wrapped the presents and sent the cards off. So who would have thought, even I’ve started to warm to the idea of Christmas this year!

We should forget altogether about religion, consumerism, buying too much junk and over indulging.

Saying You’ve Been Good All Year = Presents

I’ve been shown this week (by a five year old) that Christmas is about a few things;

• Continuously reminding everyone how many sleeps there are until Christmas
• Knowing the fridge is FULL of chocolate
• Very sneakily peeling off the sticky tape of one end of the wrapped present, having a peak, folding the wrapping back over and positioning that present under the tree so that people will be none the wiser
• Eating ALL of the days in the chocolate advent calendar in one sitting
• Sitting on Santa’s lap at every shopping centre to tell him how good you’ve been and to tell him how many horses you want

Asking If They’ve Been Good All Year = Obedience

Children aside, Christmas isn’t purely about religion or consumerism; I’ve found it’s handy for;

• Being able to bribe children into being good, or else…
• Being able to unload some of your un-opened junk from last year (hello re-gifting)
• Realising that you’re the undisputed champion of present wrapping
• Getting some cool* new stuff that you had no idea about (*to be confirmed)
• STILL receiving Christmas presents from your family pets

And let’s face it, you can probably vouch for everything in the first list too…

Wish you were still young enough to REALLY enjoy Christmas? Let me know if there’s anything I missed from either lists!

Related Articles

• The Fourth Day of Christmas – Who’s In Control?
• The Fifth Day of Christmas – Stocking Fillers & Re-Gifting
• The Sixth Day of Christmas – Research & Development
• The Seventh Day of Christmas – A Festive Guest Post
• The Eighth Day of Christmas – US Options Trading Part 2

On the the Third Day of Christmas I gave you a very quick and brief introduction to options trading, if there were any gaps or anything you didn’t understand feel free to chime in with a comment. Part 1 was an attempt to spark your interest; this post is to show you the mechanics of how it works. Again, there’ll be plenty of screenshots that enlarge when you click them, so this article is best viewed online.

Before we dive into the details, a small disclaimer: If option trading isn’t your thing or the details get a bit heavy, feel free to read the previous 7 days of Christmas! Now on to the practical, I’ll show you a process from start to finish, what you can expect if you use an online broker, a comparison between options and shares and a couple of case studies: one of a successful options trade, and one that wasn’t so successful! (Losses are referred to as ‘learning experiences’ or ‘donations to the market’)

In the last week of trading I’ve said goodbye to a trade that I had stuck with through thick and thin (it was like saying goodbye to an old friend!). The next day I had the joy of the $1,200 windfall and I was briefly acquainted with ‘ENER’ (Energy Conversion Devices Inc.) before it dropped, hit my pre-determined stop loss and my trade was cancelled.

The US Market

So let’s start from the start, obviously. I trade the US market as there are more stocks, and more importantly more stocks with options attached to them. (Options aren’t available on all stocks) Also, the US market has more participants (buyers and sellers) so there are more stocks that are liquid.

Finding a Profitable Stock/Company/Option

All publicly listed companies put out an earnings report every quarter, this data is made available online (and to you and me) via several online stock screeners. Some of the more popular ones are yahoo, MSN Money and more recently I’ve been experimenting with Finviz. Plenty of information is available on combinations of financial criteria to use in your choice of screener, it’s a whole other article to explain the definitions of each criteria I use but the image below is an example of a screen that I use.

There are plenty of other ways to identify a profitable opportunity: listen to the news, keep your eyes and ears open, a technical analysis of charts & data (too complicated to explain right now!) or any of the following websites;

Reviewing Profitable Opportunities

The selection criteria I use identify profitable companies that are under valued or have taken a down turn in the last 12 months. From the screener I’ll look into each company, see if there’s any relevant news, upcoming announcements or see if they have taken a drastic dive and a due to slowly return to their previous 52-week high.

Options versus Shares

As an example, today Google is trading at $596 a share. Now remember from the Third Day of Christmas that an option has three components, the strike price, expiry and premium. If you wanted to have the ‘option’ to buy Google for $600 up until June next year, you’d pay $44.20 for this option. For less than 10% of the cost of the share you have the right to buy Google at $600 up until June 2010. If Google went up to $1,000 you’d have the right to buy it for $600, realising $355.80 profit ($1000 – $600 – $43.50 = $355.80) Check out the options chain below to compare strike prices and premiums for yourself.

Winners are Grinners

I’ll use a profitable trades as an example. Once I’ve done my screen, confirmed the company is profitable, investigated the news or its past performance, any outstanding factors etc. I’ll select my combination of expiry month, premium and strike price. Upon placing an order and having it confirmed, I’ll then place 3 more contingent orders. One as a stop loss to sell all of my option contracts if the stock moves down (or the opposite direction I’ve anticipated), a break even price that gets my initial investment off the table & sells 1/3 of my contracts, a profit target that sells another 1/3 of my contracts and credits me with some profit and then finally 1/3 of my contracts are still ‘live’ and have the capacity to increase in value.

The image on the left is of ‘Astoria Financial’ (AF). When AF was trading at $9.40 I bought an option on AF to buy at $10 (strike price), this cost me a premium of $0.99 and lasts until April 2010 (expiry). Since then AF is trading at $11.86, the premium I purchased is worth $2.10. Let me repeat this, it’s important – the stock went up to $11.86 from $9.40 (26%), the option premium increased from 99 cents to $2.10 (111%). Ok so the stock went up by about ten percent, but by using the leverage of options, I doubled my money.

An Expensive Lesson

I’ve been playing with options for the past few months and virtual traded for a few months prior to that, so I’m still in a teething process myself and developing my own rules to trading, with the main goal to preserve my capital and manage risk.

As I mentioned before, I put a contingent order on a stock as a stop loss, if the stock/option goes belly up, I’ll be stopped out of the trade, take a small loss and move onto another stock. The leverage I’ve outlined above (26% versus 111%) also applies to a loss! I put one of my first stop losses on the stock, so while the stock didn’t reach my stop loss of 10% the option premium plummeted to nearly zero! I held onto this stock and luckily the price moved right back up, at this point I could place a new contingent stop on the option premium.

One day after this stop bounced back up to the tune of $850, the next day it dropped back down! As I had a stop loss on the premium I took only a small loss and exited the trade.

Try It Yourself

Now this post has been a bit heavy in detail but don’t let that scare you! The leverage of options and the opportunities out there are too many to ignore. Start small, get onto an online broker and start a virtual account for free and start experimenting. Obviously there’s a lot more to trading options that I’ve been able to fit in two posts on the site. Any questions, suggestions or any successful trades you’ve had? Leave a comment.

Related Articles

• The Third Day of Christmas – US Options Trading Part 1
• The Fourth Day of Christmas – Who’s In Control?
• The Fifth Day of Christmas – Stocking Fillers & Re-Gifting
• The Sixth Day of Christmas – Research & Development
• The Seventh Day of Christmas – A Festive Guest Post

When Andrew asked me if I fancied writing a festive guest post for his ‘12 days of Christmas’ (or is it ‘Crispness’?) series, I went back and re-read the first entry, to try and get down with the spirit of the thing. You know, extrapolate ideas, see if there was anything I could copy, make sure I didn’t re-use his jokes, that sort of thing.

I came away thinking a couple of deep thoughts. Firstly, “Why is that lettuce wearing a woolly hat? Didn’t he steal that from me?” Second, “I think Christmas probably gets a bit too much crap for being aggressively consumerist, doesn’t it?”

Don’t get me wrong, shopkeepers have far too towering an erection for festivity. If I wanted to buy Christmas lights in July, I’d expect society to section me, not encourage it. And I dread to think about the carbon footprint of some houses’ decorations. I hope they had the decency to assemble their own power station in the back garden.

Having said that: It’s nice, isn’t it? It’s happy in a really over the top way. It might be garish, but this is a garish season. The people who use only the most tasteful of wrapping paper and discrete fairy lights are few and far between. And even if you are those people, it’s hardly fair to deny others their Christmas. No-one is forcing you to look at it. (Unless you live across the road, I suppose.)

It’s easy to get down on the festive season for being tacky and somehow undeserving of time, when we think that time is better spent on side projects and escaping to Glorious Freedom. But if we don’t go out and have some fun occasionally, we will be boring, tired and just plain obsessed. Christmas is a gleeful combination of tacky entertainment and deeper meaning, why not embrace it for a few days a year?

I should probably be less enthusiastic about the bright-red, fur-trimmed dark side of Christmas, as I have my very own achingly cool cynic’s lifestyle blog and I can feel my credibility leaking away.

But to hell with it. It’s Christmas time, and that means time off questing for the almighty higher goal, for at least a few days. The New Year will be here soon enough, bringing hours to reflect upon the year gone by, plan for the future and get thoroughly drunk. But for now, let’s embrace buying stuff.

Remember: They would not sell life-size reindeer replicas made of elastic bands if there was not an audience for them. This is what the people want. We will not change the nature of Christmas celebrations by moaning about it.

Nick Bryan of Feeding the Black Dog and Behatted fame is a writer of all things humourous, snarky, educational and amusing. A frequent guest of the Free World, this is the second time he’s been kind enough to write an article for the site. I’d recommend you head over to Nick’s blog for a daily dose of the real world.

Related Articles

• The Second Day of Christmas – Facebook Privacy
• The Third Day of Christmas – US Options Trading Part 1
• The Fourth Day of Christmas – Who’s In Control?
• The Fifth Day of Christmas – Stocking Fillers & Re-Gifting
• The Sixth Day of Christmas – Research & Development

You haven’t forgotten that you’re your own little company have you? How’s your Research and Development department ticking along? Have you managed a break through this year? Why not?

There’s been plenty written lately about the past year, reflecting on personal events, milestones and goals achieved. Soon enough we’ll be into New Years resolutions. You can pick from your standard range: get fit, quit smoking, save more money, be nicer to people etc. Why not resolve to do something that can benefit you in the long term and open up your eyes to a world of possibility?

I’m talking about learning something new: experimenting with additional income streams, setting yourself up as a small business, anything that’ll help you get out of the rat race!

You’ve spent more time figuring out which bank would give you 3.75% pa on your $5,000 term deposit than you have even thinking about getting out of the rat race! (By the by, making your money work for you this way would net you a whopping $187 profit for the year before tax)

I’ll cut to the chase, you can get your tax rate down to the low 10 – 15%, increase your net worth & asset base, get involved in the stock market, have a look at an eBay store… the list goes on!

If you went to college or university you’ve spent anywhere from $20,000 upwards on a qualification that’s going to tie you to a job until you retire, but you might turn your nose up at a stock market seminar that’s charging $1,000? Think about it.

The Sixth Day of Christmas is going to be short and sweet; if you haven’t already you should kick your Research and Development department into gear in ‘10.

Make your New Year’s resolution count for 2010, maybe turn off your TV and learn about drop shipping a product online? (Turning your TV off will give you an extra week and a half of time to lead your own free world)

What’s your resolution? Leave a comment below, follow me on twitter, sign-up for the RSS feed or join the facebook group? If you’ve got something to say that’ll help us all lead our own free world contribute and write an article for the site!

Related Articles

• The Twelve Days of Crispness
• The Second Day of Christmas – Facebook Privacy
• The Third Day of Christmas – US Options Trading Part 1
• The Fourth Day of Christmas – Who’s In Control?
• The Fifth Day of Christmas – Stocking Fillers & Re-Gifting

On the Fifth Day of Christmas, My True Love Gave to Me, A Present That I’m Pretty Sure That I Got You Last Year?

Did you get another BBQ set for Christmas? Perhaps the latest mundane crappy autobiography from your supposedly favourite sports star? ANOTHER salad bowl & tongs?

Let’s all give a warm welcome to the concept of re-gifting.

Now whether you’re for or against re-gifting will probably be determined by whether you’ve been on the receiving end of a suspect gift or have been able to save a few dollars by grabbing last years unused present out of the closet, dusting it off and having a small giggle while you gift wrap it.

We should probably have a look at the broad definition of re-gifting, passing one of your unwanted presents onto someone else, putting that stocking filler your Mum got you straight onto eBay the following week, giving someone your Christmas present for their birthday or just trying to get an outright refund for your unwanted item of Christmas cheer?

The Life Cycle of a Pocket Sized Sport Towel

Each and every Christmas you might receive a few ‘stocking fillers’. Things that someone has no doubt walked past in the shop and thought “Ah, <your name here> would love that!” And that’s why on Christmas morning, you opened a small Christmas cracker shaped present and found a small white chamois that was about the size of a flannel but claimed to dry your whole body. Thanks for the sports towel Mum.

A year or two passed and a family friend had a stall at a swap meet (flea market/car boot sale), call it what you will, but it’s a bargain hunters paradise where people wake-up at a disgusting hour in the morning to walk laps around a car park and ogle other people’s junk.

That’s when the circle of life was complete, a middle aged stout mother wandered up to the stall, had a quick glance all over, honed in on the small white sports towel still in its packaging, asked how much, and then proclaimed “this’ll make a great stocking filler”.

And for a grand total of $2 the pocket sized sports towel was out of my life forever.

Lead Your Own Free World

Christmas morning is great, opening presents, watching people open what you got them, the whole thing has a nice vibe to it, it’s exciting and something to look forward to.

However in a push for leading a minimalist, de-cluttered and possibly location independent lifestyle think twice before you load up on stocking fillers! I’m sure eBay does a roaring trade every Boxing Day with all of the re-gifts people list, we can put a stop to this!

Are you a re-gifter? Have you been on the receiving end and think that you’re a re-giftee? Leave a comment below the post!

Related Articles

• The Twelve Days of Crispness
• The Second Day of Christmas – Facebook Privacy
• The Third Day of Christmas – US Options Trading Part 1
• The Fourth Day of Christmas – Who’s In Control?

Did you sit there as a kid watching Dan Aykroyd & Bill Murray catch ghosts and wonder how much their annual salary was, what their 401k (superannuation) fund was like or how many hours per day they worked? Me neither. I wanted to be a ghost buster because it looked like fun, plain and simple.

Where did it all go wrong? At what point did you go from wanting to be a fireman, a life guard, a deep sea diver or a pro surfer into giving in to being a corporate mule?

Focus

I recently read a great article by Ash at The Middle Finger Project that touched on the subject of working at McDonalds in your teens. Working at the Big M isn’t a bad thing, you’re focused and work equals money. You don’t work there because you have a passion for the Big Mac Secret Sauce* or that you really admire the hamburglar. Our first jobs are often the most care free, you go to work to make money to enjoy your spare time, seems quite simple but as we’ve moved on we’ve forgotten what money is ACTUALLY for. Now it’s for paying off our new plasma television, the new car we didn’t need or our credit cards.

Life moves on from being completely carefree and slowly but surely you acquire responsibility. With this responsibility of supporting yourself brings the need for an income, with the income comes the overtime and spending on life’s little luxuries. Before you know it, you and everyone other man and his dog are running along in the same never ending race.

Who’s in Control?

What would happen if we all quit work tomorrow? I love a good ‘conspiracy’ at any time of day, and one of my favourites that I’m always involved in is the whole ‘working, paying taxes and being in the governments ‘rat race’.

It goes like this: you go to school and you’re told to get a well paying job, you then head to university to get a qualification for said well paying job, you start work, pay tax, get a house, suffer the wrath of interest rate fluctuations, watch TV and soak up the media and are easily influenced and under control. Is there a way to step outside of the rat race? To run your own race? Maybe to not even run in the race at all?

What if you didn’t have to pay tax? Or if you could minimise your  tax and build some wealth & assets? Maybe start up a few alternate income streams? Or you knew how money worked, how to acquire it and make it work for you? That’d be brilliant!

If only we were taught things like this? Say for example, in a…. school? Who benefits from our tax dollars, controls the school syllabus and has the final say on what we’re taught? It shouldn’t be too hard for you to figure out!

So luckily we know all there is to know about plate tectonics, we learnt an obscure language that we’ll never need and we can calculate the circumference of the world. But we don’t know anything about how to handle our money, reduce our tax or stand on our own two feet?

Let’s forget money & control and reminisce about a simpler time: playing basketball all day, poking your tongue out, shaving your head bald, wishing you were black and insisting your were going to be Michael Jordan when you grew up.

P.S. *Big Mac Not-So-Secret Sauce = Mircale whip, sweet relish, french dressing, sugar, pepper & powdered onion (in case you were wondering)

Related Articles

• The Twelve Days of Crispness
• The Second Day of Christmas – Facebook Privacy
• The Third Day of Christmas – US Options Trading Part 1

On the Third Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me, $1,200 Credited Into My Bank Account Last Night!

I’m very excited to be able to write about this today! I initially had ‘US Stock Options Trading’ as the 6th Day of Christmas to keep you in suspense, but last night’s windfall was too much to contain!

One of my Free World income stream experiments is US Options Trading. It’s one of the online streams of income that doesn’t involve blogging, building a reputation, getting subscribers or trying to sell anything. The results are based on you and you alone and is one of the primary ‘location independent’ revenue opportunities.

So this isn’t going to be a get-rich-quick scheme, there’s nothing to sell you at the end, but the idea is to show you what I’ve been tinkering with on the options market and that I’ve been able to make some small (but significant %) profits. (And that you can too)

I’ll explain a bit about Options Trading (it’s not daunting, don’t worry) and then about how to find profitable stocks and what tools you can use to kick things into gear. There’ll be a few links at the end of sites you can check out, sign-up for free online brokers and do some ‘virtual’ trading on your own. (not real money, but it uses the real results from the stock market).

Things might get a bit confusing as we go along, but I made $1,200 last night without lifting a finger so it’s worth you getting a cup of tea, having a good read once or twice, following the links, and if anything doesn’t make sense then either drop a comment or send me an email. If you’re viewing this post via the email subscription or RSS feed, it’s probably better to head to the site as some of the images enlarge if you click on them.

Introduction to Stocks & Options

Late last year I attended a seminar on shares, options and CFD’s (ignore the last one). This piqued my interest so I read a few more books and found that most of the information was readily available for free in books, none of the theories were new or top secret and what wasn’t available in books was available online. I got hold of a good course of DVD’s and CD’s and studied away, eventually starting up a free account and experimenting, reading more books and found that the whole game was about learning, getting some experience, risk management and not putting all your money on the table at once.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know anything about the stock market, stocks or shares and all that jazz. The words ‘company’, ‘shares’ & ‘stocks’ all represent the same thing, if Ford Motor Company came out tomorrow with the flying car then their share price/stocks/company would increase in value. If their flying car crashed when you drove it then their share price/stocks/company value would decrease.

What is an Option?

So anyway, what are these options I keep going on about? An ‘option’ is based on a stock. An option has three components; time value, a premium and a strike price. Confused much?

Time Value

Like car insurance, you buy an option to last for a set amount of time; one month, two months, six months, a year, it varies. (Consequently the more time you buy, the more it costs) You’re not actually buying the ’stock’, in essence you’re taking out a policy that will give you the ‘option’ of buying the stock at a set price further down the track.

Premium

This is the ‘premium’ you pay for the option, similar to the cost of your car insurance. The backbone of options is that the premium is more often than not only about 10% of the cost of buying the actual stock. (Think about it, $10 stock that you control for $1, if it goes up to $12, you’ve made 100%).

It’s worth jumping in here to give you the textbook definition of an option to help clear things up; “An option gives the buyer have the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell the underlying stock at a specified price (strike price) until the 3rd Friday of their expiration month (Time Value).”

Strike Price

From above, the ‘strike price’ is the price at which the buyer can buy the stock for. So if you buy an option on a $10 stock for $1, and your stock moves to $15, you have the right to buy that stock at $10 (and here you’d have $5 profit as the stock has moved to $15).

Hopefully you’ve just had a light bulb moment from the above paragraph and probably asked as I did “surely that’s not possible?” I probably haven’t done the greatest job at explaining all of this so head here when you’ve got the chance to read up on it.

Sales Pitch

So if you do a few google searches or even attend a seminar or two, you’ll hear/read a few of those gimmicky sales pitch catch cries to reel you in. Here’s a few I’ve put together that ARE true and should make you stand up and want to get into this for yourself;

• Options Trading will take a whopping 15 minutes of your time per day
• You can double or triple your money rather easily
• You can profit hugely from stock going down
• You can make money if stock goes sideways (neither up or down)
• You don’t have to know which way the stock is going to make money

Ok that’s the gimmicky sales pitch crap out of the way, and I’m not even trying to sell you anything!

The whole options trading thing is full of strategies, you can; buy, sell, make money on stock going down, all sorts of stuff, but to ease you into it I’ll work through some real examples that I’ve used myself.

If you missed the two screen shots within this post scroll back up and check them out. The first screenshot is of the daily account email I receive which outlines my overall position and the second screenshot is when one of my orders gets filled and I make a profit! If you want to learn some more right away you can google ‘options trading’ or go to one of the many online brokers and sign up for a virtual trading account, I’ve used optionsxpress and they were fine.

In US Options Trading – Part 2 I’ll show you a behind-the-scene’s look at how I find trades (companies), what to do with them once you’ve found them, and how to place trades.

Receive the Twelve Days of Christmas (and Part 2 of Options Trading) delivered directly to your inbox here. If you’ve got twitter it’d be great if you would retweet the article.  

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• The Second Day of Christmas – Facebook is Your New Best Friend

On the Second Day of Christmas, My True Love Gave to Me, A Massive Invasion of Privacy…

Do you have ‘spending 2 hours a night on Facebook’ under ‘Activities’ in your personal information profile? In light of trying to lead our own free world, improve the work life balance and get out there and do something, we seem to be spending an awful lot of time on facebook?

This week facebook rolled out its new privacy settings and this caused somewhat of a small uproar amongst people. “What? Now how am I supposed to spy on people’s photos?” On the surface, facebook is great for connecting with your friends, sending emails and sharing your photos with each other. What it’s really for is advertising! Never before has there been more targeted demographic advertising than facebook.

Your New Best Friend

Facebook knows what you’re a fan of, what you like, what activities you’re interested in, where you live, your gender, relationship status, employer and what you’ve been up to lately! The combination of all of your keyword inputs are used to generate advertising that is directed at you. I was a bit miffed to be offered not one but two lovely ladies courtesy of facebook.

Become a fan or join groups of the most obscure things and see what pops up on offer as an advertisement?

You might have changed your privacy settings or made custom friends lists so your boss can’t see you drinking beer through funnels on the weekend, but facebook will always know all!

Status Updates That Should be Banned

• Anything containing ‘OMG’
• Telling me you’ve just gone to the letterbox to check the mail
• That you’re soooo bored
• That you’ve just been to the shops
• That you’re at the pub* (You’re at the pub! Out and about, not on facebook, enjoy it!)
• Complaining about shit drivers on the freeway, while you’re using your cell phone to do a mobile  facebook update while you’re driving. Think about it.*
• *All mobile uploads

Targeted Advertising

Back to the target demographic advertising, anything you are a fan of, like, or activities you list then you’re falling into an advertising ‘category’. As far as facebook is concerned I enjoy breathing in, ice-creams named with a homosexual vibe, I have a yearning to be playing with my childhood toys, I watch too much television and I enjoy not being on fire. Advertise to that!

Before you hit me with the hypocrite stick, I quite enjoy facebook. I think it’s brilliant for keeping in touch with family and friends and especially friends overseas. It also has plenty of other pros;

• Spying on school pals who’re bald & look like they’re 40
• Checking up on school pals that are on their second marriage
• Tagging your friends as farm animals
• Realising that the vast majority of people don’t know how to spell

With all of this facebook privacy who-ha that has been going on keep things in check, remember what the service can do for you. You don’t need to divulge all of your personal information. You might have just been on an amazing vacation to Costa Rica but would you sit down in your lounge room with all of your ‘friends’ on facebook and show them your holiday snaps in a photo album?

Well you know that I long to play with Lego, enjoy not being on fire and smother everything in HP sauce. Tell me about your experience with facebook. You can leave a comment below, follow me on twitter, sign-up for the remaining 10 days of Christmas or ironically join the Facebook group.

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