Falcon Hobbies

In this article I want to talk to you about a blueprint that basically guarantees your long term success in business (be it Internet business or any business). This is a little tip that's easy to implement. I do this myself and I can honestly say that it's one of the greatest investments I've ever made in my business. It certainly pays back the highest "ROI" or Return on Investment. Ready...OK, here it is. Whenever someone buys something from me, I immediately deduct the hard costs involved. For instance, let's say I'm selling a seminar on DVD for $50. Let's say it costs $3.50 to produce that DVD and ship it to the customer....we'll call the customer Bob. So I deduct $3.50 from $50 for a total net...

Investing in the stock market is one of the hardest things that most people will ever do in their life. Because of this, it seems like we're always looking for better ways to make money investing. One of those better ways to make money is by investing in stripped municipals. In this article I'm going to discuss stripped municipal bonds, what they are, and how you can profit from them. Stripped Munis are bonds that are particularly attractive for people who are in a high tax bracket and who also know exactly when they need their money. Most of the time they come in maturities with less than one year, all the way up to 30 years which gives you quite a bit will leeway when making investment decisions...

I don't know about you, but stock market investing is incredibly difficult for me! There's just so much to know, and it can all be so confusing at times, that the slightest little error on my part can wipe out everything I've worked so hard to build over the last ten to fifteen years! But I keep plugging away, learning more and more as I go, and slowly but surely I make progress. Over the years I've learned several valuable things about the stock market. Today I want to write a short little article about one of those things that you may not ever have put a lot of thought into, but is vitally important to your stock market strategy. The thing I'm talking about is Stock Buy Backs. First of all, what...

Investing in the stock market is too dangerous and too risky for many people. The fact of the matter is, unless you've had fairly specific training and a lot of experience doing it, investing is very hard and since we're talking about people's lives and their retirements, you don't want to take any chances that you don't have to. But you have to invest in something, and so luckily we have mutual funds which allow people without the necessary investment skills to, nonetheless, invest for the future and for their retirements. But of course this begs the question, which mutual funds should you invest in? In this article today I want to discuss several secrets that I have for picking the best mutual...

Around the middle of 2008 the financial markets started to wobble. There wasn't anything wrong per se, but there was a sense of something jittery in the air. People started to whisper amongst themselves, and everyone started to get nervous. Summer gave way to Autumn and suddenly the housing market in the US collapsed and then the financial sector melted down. Banks started to go bankrupt, investment companies such as Lehman and Merrill folded overnight. And the stock market plummeted. 2008 ended just about as bad as any year ever did excepting the years of the Great Depression, and 2009 didn't look to be much better. In fact it wasn't much better till about half way through it. Then miraculously...

Making money in the stock market can be tough during the best of times but when the economy takes a downturn and spirals into recession, making money in the stock market can seem to be nearly impossible. In this article today I'm going to give you some tips and tricks on how to profit even during tough times in the stock market. With these tips you'll be pretty far ahead of the game compared to everybody else. The most popular strategy for making money in a tough economy is to engage in short selling. Short selling scares a lot of investors, especially a lot of smaller individual investors because either they don't quite understand the strategy or they get nervous about the potential open-ended...

Investing in stock options can be complicated for a lot of people, myself included! That's why I wanted to write this article today and give you a few simple strategies that you can use to profit from selling and buying options. If there's one thing that professional investors have long ago created it is a large and impressive number of different investing strategies they use the options market. Many of these strategies are very very complicated and since they use a huge amount of capital they're not recommended for many individual investors like you and I. On the other hand however, many of the basic option strategies that they use CAN be used by us little guys to give us many different investment...

Well, we certainly live in interesting times, which I guess is a pretty good thing! On the other hand, we also live in inflationary times which can be devastating to those of us who are responsible savers. Why is that? Because all of the hard earned money that we have scrupulously saved year after year is suddenly not worth as much as it used to be because of the (some might say) irresponsible government policies that have led to massive printing of new money... which always has and always will create massive inflation. But, being the responsible investors that we are, there are steps that we can take to save ourselves from the ravages of the monster that is inflation. Historically speaking, one of...

Insurance insurance insurance that's all anybody ever talks about these days! But there's a reason why people talk about insurance so much, and it's because it is so important to so many different parts of all of our lives. I wish it wasn't so important because it bores me to tears to think about it, let alone talk about it but here I am writing an article all about insurance for you today anyway! Why? Well hopefully I can explain it in a way that doesn't bore you to tears and is helpful to you. Disability insurance is incredibly important and it's something that most people don't give a second thought to let alone purchase. "I will never get disabled - not me!", that's what everybody thinks... the...

There's a lot of great things about growing older. Wisdom, elegance, grace, wealth all seem to grow as we get older and older. There are some fairly nasty things about getting older too such as various health problems and of course death! One of the worst things about getting older though is the slow and steady decline in memory and that's exactly what I like to talk about in this article today because there are steps you can take to boost your memory as you get older. Experiencing a memory decline is nothing to be ashamed of, it really happens to all of us at one point or another as we get older and if it's happening to you then you should talk to your doctor right away because there are a number...

If you are like many people out there, then the thought of investing your own money in the stock market yourself leaves you with a little bit of trepidation and angst. Most people don't have the training or the skill set necessary to invest successfully in the stock market and often times lose a good percentage of their money. This makes saving for retirement especially difficult. One way that many people have found to get around this problem is by joining an investment club where many individuals pool their money and make decisions jointly on what to invest in. There are two main problems with this... the first one is that many investment clubs are often closed and will not allow new members to...

In this article today I would like to talk to you about something that is very near and dear to my heart and is probably something that you've dealt with yourself either directly or indirectly at some point in your life. I am of course talking about bad breath. Bad breath is bad enough when you have it but it's even worse when somebody else has it, especially if that person is standing next to you and carefully explaining in very great detail some long and laborious topic! It's is sort of like acne in that there are a million and wives tales about how to treat it but nobody really knows exactly what to do to get rid of it. This is somewhat baffling because any dentist can tell you quickly and easily...

Investing in the stock market is tricky to say the least and it's getting trickier as time goes by. Heck, most major investment banking houses hire entire divisions full of mathematicians and theoretical physicists... theoretical physicists! How can I expect to handle my own finances and invest in the stock market with any degree of certainty when I'm going up against theoretical physicists and mathematicians? One answer to this problem is to simply hire a money manager and if you have considerable assets, at least $250,000-$500,000 or more, then this may make sense for you. But most people don't know what to expect when it comes to hiring a money manager and that is exactly what I'm going to talk...

The estate tax recently lapsed in 2010. Congress didn't renew it because they were too busy worrying about health care reform. That means that if you die in the year 2010, you won't owe any estate tax. Yes, you read that right you will not own a single penny in estate tax for 2010. But you can bet Congress isn't going to be idle, they have the whole rest of the year to pass a new estate tax law. And with the Democratic Party running Congress at the moment, you can expect that they're going to try everything they can to charge you as much tax on your estate as they can get away with. They're very open about it; it's one of their main goals after health care reform. Now there are many different things...

If the stock market, with its wild swings up and down and it's inconsistency and dangerous nature have put you off of that form of investing, then you may be ready to take the leap into real estate investing. The fact of the matter is that real estate investing can be a great way to add stability and growth to your portfolio and at the same time enjoys fantastic tax benefits that I'd like to talk about a little bit in this article today. It is true that tax reform has changed many of the tax benefits that we used to get from owning real estate, there are still many rather significant advantages in the tax arena that continue to make these investments attractive even today in the crazy housing...

I don't have to tell you that when it comes to stock market investing it's a dog eat dog world! Make one small mistake and you can see years and years of careful savings and investing evaporate in the blink of an eye. But the over-the-counter stock market, that's a whole different beast completely! The OTC market is the wild wild west where just about anything goes. If the regular stock market is dangerous, then the OTC market is life threateningly dangerous... Why is that? Because the OTC market deals with small stocks that are very thinly traded. Even without shenanigans, a stock may just drop out of the sky because the company is simply not very good. But under the worst of circumstances there...

With the stock market the way it is these days, people are looking for different places to invest their money and one of those places may just be real estate. I know I know, we're coming through, and in fact are still in the middle of, one of the worst recessions in the history of America that was fueled primarily by a huge bubble in real estate investing... But the fact of the matter remains that prices on many property investments are dropping dramatically because of the recession which means that it may be time to start looking to get back into the real estate game. If you are new to this game then you have come to the right place because today I want to talk about several different ways of...

Many people often ask me if it's possible to jog in the cold winter. The short answer is; yes it is possible to jog in the winter. Depending on where you live, the term 'winter' will mean different things to you. Winter in Vegas doesn't remotely equal winter in Boston, and neither equal winter in Hawaii or Russia. So the longer answer to the question of whether it's possible to jog in the winter is; it depends. So let's stop talking location and start talking temperature. For this article I'll be talking in degrees Fahrenheit, not Celsius. Generally speaking, the closer the temperature gets to zero Fahrenheit, the more precautions you want to take because the more serious things like frostbite...

I've got a safe deposit box. I don't know you, but I'm guessing that YOU have a safe deposit box too! At least, if you've got any brains in your head you do! In this day and age, with identity theft such a growth industry, it's more important than ever to keep all your important documents in a safe deposit box. And of course, it's always a good idea to keep other valuables besides important documents, I'm talking about jewelry, rare coins, gold bars, diamonds, etc in a safety deposit box. Or is it? Just how safe IS your safe deposit box? Sure, it's in a bank....but banks get robbed all the time. Sometimes robbers go straight to the deposit boxes because they know that's where the good stuff is...

People move from job to job all the time these days. In fact, job hopping seems to be more popular now than ever. This has become a huge problem for many companies because they are finding it harder and harder to keep key employees. Because of this, employment contracts are becoming more and more complex in an attempt by the companies to keep a hold of their employees. But there is a golden lining. Because companies are so keen on holding on to their employees, you can negotiate a better employment contract in many cases. There are benefits and disadvantages for you and the company when it comes to signing an employment contract and I'm not going to go into these in any sort of detail in this...

If there's one question I get asked over and over, all the time really, it's this: Where should I practice basketball? That's a tricky question for several reasons that I will get into later in the article. For now, I will just say that its something that needs to be talked about because it is very important to your basketball development. So I am going to answer that question today in this article. Where you practice is very important for many reasons. First, you play the best where you practice the most. They call this "Home Court Advantage" and it is a very very real phenomenon. Another reason this is so very important is slightly more sinister. I know a guy that used to practice for hours a day...

An ancient philosopher once said "May you live in interesting times", and we certainly live in interesting times these days! The recession that began towards the end of 2008 and has stretched into 2010 with little signs of lessening anytime soon has made us all stop and think about our investments in many different ways. When the recession began the first thing that crashed was the stock market. Many people suggested that this recession was fueled by the financial sector meltdown. They were talking mainly about regular banks and also investment banks as well. For whatever the reason, the stock market became a very dangerous place to invest in at the beginning of the recession. While the stock market...

Historically I've been a stock market investor but with the wild swings to the market over the last few years due in large part to the meltdown of the financial sector and the current recession that we are still in right now during the first quarter 2010, I've moved much of my investment activity into real estate. The thing that hurts most people and keeps most people out of real estate investment is management. Nobody really wants to manage a bunch of rental properties. Let's face it, you don't want to get a call at two o'clock in the morning by a tenant who is screaming into the phone because the plumbing in their bathroom just burst and there's sewage spilling out into the living room! Yes, that...

Investing in real estate can be very very good idea. In fact many people turn to real estate to fund a major portion of their personal retirement accounts because they just don't trust the volatility that comes with the stock market. Especially during recession times like we are facing today! With real estate they get income in the form of rents, and they also get steady appreciation in the form of property price increases over time. These increases usually keep track with inflation or increase greater than inflation which makes them especially attractive for retirement type planning. But there is one thing you have to understand when investing in real estate and that is the passive loss rules...

Quitting smoking is just about the hardest thing in the world to do. WHEN you quit actually has a major influence on how successful you will be. Decide to quit at the wrong time, and you are almost doomed to fail. Pick the right time to quit, and quitting becomes much easier. I used to smoke over two packs a day. And I also smoked a pipe with pipe tobacco. I loved to smoke! When I finally did quit, I went through one really bad week. The second week wasn't nearly as bad, but it was still no walk in the park. But I had a special weapon that I was able to use, that most people don't have. You see, I own my own business. So I was able to stay home for two weeks while I quit. If I had had to go to work...

We all need to borrow money in order to purchase our homes, hardly anybody pays cash for such a large purchase, which means we need a mortgage. But there are several questions you should ask before you sign that mortgage and that's exactly what I want talk about in this article today. First be sure to ask about points. Points are a percentage of the amount of the loan that are paid to the lender at the beginning of the loan. The bank is not required to charge points, they do so because they can get away with it if you let them. Many times you can negotiate them away by threatening to go to another bank who may be charging fewer points. The next question to ask is about prepayment penalties. Most of...

The stock market... oh the stock market! Investing in the stock market is never easy, let's face it it can be one of the hardest things in the world. And it can get much more complicated when a company that you have invested in suddenly declares that it's having financial troubles that may lead it down the path to bankruptcy. As somebody who's invested in a company that is contemplating bankruptcy, you may be confused as to what your options are. There is much to consider and several actions that you can take and I'm going to talk about them in this article today. First things first, let's talk about the different forms of bankruptcy. For the most part the company will either declare chapter 7 or...

Tall kids aren't supposed to be able to handle the ball well. That is to say, tall kids aren't supposed to be good at dribbling. I'm not sure if we think this because they are so much higher off the ground then shorter people or what, but it's silly. I am a tall person, so I know what I'm talking about. But there's nothing fundamentally that says a tall kid CAN'T dribble the ball well. There are no laws of physics stopping a tall kid from dribbling. In fact, most point guards in the NBA are tall compared to high school kids. Michael Jordan, for instance, is six foot six inches tall. That would have made him one of my high school's tallest centers in school history! But we don't think of Jordan as...

Having high cholesterol is a terrible problem for a large and growing population of the people on this planet, not just Americans. There are steps that just about anybody can take to help lower their cholesterol and that is what I would like to talk about in this article today. Of course there are drugs that you could take and this may be the first option that many people choose. I'm not going to discuss drugs in this article today because that's something everybody needs to discuss directly with their own personal doctors because drugs are different and each persons individual health history will need to be examined before any decision on drugs can be made. So, today I'd like to talk about non-drug...

As a basketball player, you understand that there are only so many hours in the day. You have to decide how many of those hours you want to spend practicing free throws, or three pointers, or jump shots or anything else on the court. But on the other hand, you have to decide how many of those hours to spend on body work. By body work I mean muscle workout. Many, if not most basketball players at the lower level (I'm talking about high school and below) elect to spend most of their time working on their game. That is, they spend most of their time on the court practicing their shooting. For whatever reason, this seems to hold true. I believe it's because of that that you don't see overly muscular...

I get asked this quest a lot, all the time really. It's about the mechanics of practice, the scheduling. The question is this, what's the best about of time to practice, and do I have to do it all at once? That's a really great question and one I want to answer in detail within this article. First of all, how many hour should you practice each day? I'm talking about during the off season. During the regular basketball season you will of course be practicing two to three hours a day with your team and you may or may not find any extra time to practice. But during the off season, your schedule is wide open. It's good to have a set routine when it comes to practicing. But first, back to the question of...

I saw a study recently that said 97% of hospital bills are incorrect. And those errors are almost never in the patient's favor. The average error, at least in this study, was nearly $1,500. Think about that for a minute... almost every bill is off by $1,500! That is incredible! I'm not the kind of person that listens to studies or statistical data because I think you can find a study to prove just about anything and statistics to prove just about anything. But in this case, even if you don't agree with the exact numbers in the study, anybody that's been to the hospital knows that billing errors are quite frequent and can be quite large. So what do you do if you find that you've been overcharged? The...

We've all been there! You worked your tail off for years, you put your heart and soul and everything else you had into building a business but it just didn't work out. Sure the company makes money, and you're able to meet payroll most of the time, but as far as being profitable... well that's another matter. And you finally made the decision, it's time to get out. So how exactly do you sell an unprofitable business? Believe it or not, even a company that doesn't make a profit, still has value and is worth money to the right people. In this article I'm going to discuss several ways to sell an unprofitable business that you may not have thought about. In my mind there are basically for potential ways...

Starting a new job can be stressful. One part of picking a new job that doesn't have to be stressful, and in fact can be a lot of fun, is picking which perks to sign up for if you have that option. In this article I'm going to discuss a pseudo-shopping list of perks that you might expect to find when you start a new job. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list, and it doesn't mean that your specific company is going to offer all these perks or even any of these perks... this is just an example of what may be out there, of what you might expect, and if your company doesn't offer some of these perks; why not ask for them? Perks, by their very nature, are special. They are important because they...

Investing in real estate can be incredibly exciting, and it can also be very lucrative. I don't know of any better way to save for your retirement while also building current income that you can use to live off of. The problem with real estate investing is that it's incredibly expensive and even if you can get a bank loan, it doesn't always quite work out financially when you crunch all the numbers... at least not in the short term. One solution to this problem is to purchase a house with no money down. I'm sure we've all seen the late-night infomercials promising to teach you how to buy real estate for no money down, but is it really possible? The answer is yes and I'm going to talk about it today...

It's a fact of life that has been true ever since there have been colleges and universities... if you attend a state college or university, and you are not a legal resident of that state, you're going to have to pay three to four times higher tuition than in-state residents pay. What's the reason for this? Well, state colleges receive most if not all of their budget from the actual state themselves. And the state gets that money from the taxes that it charges to its taxpaying residents. So basically the taxpayers of each state pay for, or subsidize if you like to think of it that way, a large part of your college tuition. Therefore if you don't live in that state, you don't pay taxes to that state...

Investing in stock market is no piece of cake. In fact many individual investors have gotten burned on the stock market in recent years, and I won't even mention the massive near crash of the stock market during the recession of 2008 to 2010 in which the savings and retirement plans of millions of investors were nearly wiped out overnight. And if the stock market wasn't bad enough, there's inflation to worry about as well! With the current recession, the government has been printing money like never before which many experts believe will lead to runaway inflation throughout the years to come. Many investors like to investing in gold as a hedge against inflation but the fact of the matter is...

I'm not going to lie to you, investing in real estate can be incredibly lucrative both in the short-term and especially in the long term but there are many intricate pieces that go into the puzzle before you can really profit on your investment. Finding the right broker is one of the pieces, and in fact may be a very important piece. But one of the absolute most important pieces in my opinion is finding the right real estate appraiser. There are all types of appraisers out there. Some of them will rubber stamp anything you say and you may be tempted to use those kind of people especially if you rely on your appraiser in order to refinance mortgages and need them to state a specific value of your...

Paying for college is just about the hardest thing most of us will ever do. The cost of tuition just keeps climbing year and year out, usually faster than the normal rate of inflation! The best way to finance college is to get it paid for with a scholarship. Luckily scholarships are becoming more and more common, and more and more available for students; even students with less than stellar track records in the grades apartment. But there is one or two major traps when it comes to winning a scholarship... these traps come from the Internal Revenue Service! Most people don't realize that scholarships can be taxable. Now it's true, the most scholarships are tax free, but they are only tax-free if they...