Disadvantages of Commodity Business

Article by Sherin Dev; Join me Twitter / Facebbok

Disadvantages of Commodity BusinessInvesting on commodity type business are a nightmare for value investors due to various reasons. It is very simple to identify a commodity type business if you try to identify some common factors that including or excluding a company to or from commodity type business. Why any value investor not interested or not to go for investing on commodity type business? Here are some important reasons to explore major disadvantages of commodity type business.

A commodity type business generally not have any business monopoly in the market with any of the product. It also leave lots of room for its competitors to come with various products or similar products. If such situations arises, generally competition will start and that result to reducing prices of products. As I have mentioned in my various articles, when there is competition happens, companies will not be able to sell its products to the right price.This will affect to the company profit and force to depends for debts.

Commodity type business are not able to beat inflation by raising or reducing price because of the existence of huge competitor base. This will be a major disadvantage for such business to fail or sunk to debt in the future. Investors thus lose there money to a great extend.

Identifying a commodity business is easy. Any business that have no consistency with per share earning for last 10 years, probably have a commodity type business. Such business generally have huge bad debts. Any company have a debt more than two times of its yearly net profit, should not be considered as a good value investments as per the strategy of legend investor Warren Buffett.

If you look into the cash flow of such companies, you can find the cash flow through financing activities will be high due to issuing new shares time to time for managing enough funds for business activities. This will further reduce the investors wealth to a great extend. Here is an article to know how stock buyback help investors to adding wealth to their investments.

Building an Intelligent investing strategy is the only possible solution to avoid such dilemma happening to investors. As I said in the previous article, reading to get right strategies and select the proper strategy as yours are the right methods.

Further read: Disadvantages of Monopoly Business !

Comment your thought here. Also, inform any queries that you may have on this article.

***Sorry. Comment to this article has been closed. Sorry for inconvenience..


Sherin Dev is the founder and editor of Investinternals.com Blog. Learn more about him here. Follow him on Twitter @Moneyhacker or be in touch with him at Facebook
If you like to add a guest article in this blog, contact him at investinternals@gmail.com

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Why Not Invest On Telecom Stocks

Recent years, telecom companies being the best pick for most of the people. Mutual funds are competing to add telecom stocks to their portfolio by seeing the immediate profit possibility in it. Daily news's on the requirements of Infrastructure growth in developing countries converting the telecom companies as a hot cake to investors. Is it really worth investing on telecom companies? In the past experience of investment loses by booming industries, what a value investor need to do now.

Telecom companies acting as real opportunities at present. But, no one able to say how long it will sustain. If you look into the telecom companies, the back side scenario will be worst than what is projecting in the front end. As all of us aware, retained earnings have huge role to play creating wealth to investors. Most of the best companie using retained earning to expand present business or hunt for new opportunity to add value to investors money. In this context we will have a look into the possibility of having retained earnings with telecom companies.

If you look into the cash flow report of any telecom companies, you will amaze the amount using for investing activities. This is happening because of the regular changes required with laying infrastructure for infrastructure companies to operate. Cabling, machines, office equipments all required to have replaced time to time and the money flowing to such activity will be more compare with any other industry. In this context, telecom companies generally have very less cash in hand and will move to debt if there is any further expansion required. This will certainly pull down the price as well as value of the shares in the long run.

Also, the space running with competitions and companies coming up with lots of offers and there is no monopolistic position available as an advantage for us. By considering this situations and the non availability of retained earning, it is better advisable to not move with telecom companies as a value investor.

Welcome your thoughts on this article. Comment here once if you have any queries or doubts on this and I will rectify the same with return comment.

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Think Against Public To Invest

Making an Intelligent stock market investment is not rocket science. But, it is generally happening when using common sense than emotion. Emotion doesn't have any space to value investing world. To be a right value investor, a person should learn to control his emotions first, prior to taking any investing decisions, But, he highly required to think about the possible results that can follow by any action that he is planning to make. Thinking in advance obviously prevent a person from taking wrong decisions lead by emotions than common sense.

Do not follow public' is a well tested, well proclaimed 'Don't' in the value investors world. If you think a little, you can see people always thinking to make money as faster as they can. Due to this, stock market filled with traders, same as gamblers, than real value investors. While seeing tips and analyst reports, the first thought in your mind should be, all they focused to traders than value investors. There are very, yes, a very few resources are available for value investors and very difficult to find such.

For a trader, the word 'Value investing' is for laugh. In my investing life, I have found lots of traders who always laughing on value investors and considering them as worlds biggest fools. Never mind if you have such experience as a value investor. If you visit any stock market forums, you will be able to find the forums generally filled with self acting gurus frequently recommending stocks for public. Most of such recommendations coming with attracting promises to ger fast money withing hours or in a day. If you sit back and think calm, you can identify the foolishness inside such behavior as a trap for innocent investors to lose money.

If you come to the article subject, avoid following public activities because of the stupidity associated with such action. People always think differently and have different views on similar things depends on how they are thinking and their mind working. Each person might have his own view on any action he may made to attract others to it. In this context, by following public or anyone's activity, a value investor converting him as the slave of someone's mind or thoughts.

Capacity to have independent thoughts are the first door to success. If you know this point, you will never follow public and it will be difficult for you to act as per any public activity. Instead, you will come to a position to think or analyze deeply to identify the advantages and disadvantages from committing any action, prior to really commit to it.

Read, Read, Read

Read maximum as possible. Consider buying and reading good reference guides as your first source to learn value investing. There are excellent reference guides available on value investing and explaining successful investment strategies of legend investors. Read it, understand it and create your own investing practice as per the good points from there. I am not saying to blindly follow all the strategies mentioned in these guides but, be very choosy to selected ideas and strategies upon your capacity.

Creating your own investment strategies helpful to improve investing skills time to time. Any happening mistakes can be identified intermediately and can take appropriate measures to avoid such mistakes in the future. There is no legend value investor in this world without committing any mistakes in their past. The best part is, they all have learned well from any happening mistakes and always took care to not happen the same in their entire career.

Always be an intelligent investor by thinking a lot on the advantages and disadvantages of any forthcoming actions to avoid mistakes. Make a practice of analyzing both sides of any planned action to avoid unnecessary mistakes and errors.

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Interview With Fivecentnickel

I am very happy to introduce Nickel from the famous personal finance blog named "Five Cent Nickel" to the TMM readers. Nickel is very famous among personal finance bloggers with niche articles, have excellent quality. Through its simplicity, article from "Fivecentnickel" can be followed by people from any age category. Here is TMM's interview with Nickel to know more about him and great blog.

The Money Maniac (TMM): You are famous among personal finance bloggers with a fantastic name ‘Nickel’. Can you tell us a little about yourself?

Nickel: I'm in my mid-30s, I have a full time job, four kids (all boys), and I've been blogging since 2005. I like candlelit dinners, long walks on the beach, and... Oh, wait a minute. Wrong interview! ;-)

TMM: Like me, those who interested to personal finance cannot avoid your classy blog www.fivecentnickel.com , one of the best personal finance blog today; we are very interested to hear a little about your blogging flashback. Taking to your old days of blogging, could you share when and how did you got into blogging and what are the inspirations behind to be a successful personal finance blogger?

Nickel: I actually got started blogging after reading a cover story about WordPress in a magazine called Mac Addict (I'm a diehard Mac user) back in early 2005. To make a long story short, I downloaded it and started messing around, writing a few posts, etc. After a few days, I realized that the main thing that I like writing about is personal finance, so... I decided to launch a site where I could focus on just that.

TMM: At your early years with fivecentnickel we can realize that you may have worked very hard to establish your blog. As most of us know, personal finance blogging is not easy compare with any other subjects, because of its nature of a serious subject. Writing article to personal finance blog required fantastic knowledge to get attention from readers worldwide. Your blog seems to be done it well. What is your experience in finance industry and how do you keep coming up with articles? I seem to struggle sometimes to come with different articles in my blog. Do you have any posting timetable? Also, how do you keep updated yourself to provide most relevant information for readers?

Nickel: I don't have any directly relevant professional experience. I just really enjoy reading, learning, and writing about financial topics, and have always been good with money (thanks Mom and Dad!). As far as topic ideas go, it's a mix of things. I frequently write about things that are going on in our financial life, and I also read widely (both online and in print) so I get a lot of ideas from that, as well. I typically try to post at least once per weekday, though I often manage to publish two posts per day. I mostly take weekends of from publishing, though I do often write an article or two over the weekend for the upcoming week.

TMM: Are you a full time blogger? If not, how do you find time to blog and how many hours per day?

Nickel: No. I've considered it, but haven't pulled the trigger. I have a good job, and I also have a wife that stays home with our kids, so I've decided that it's just not worth the risk, especially when I can keep things going on the side. It's hard to put a firm number on the time I spend doing this, because much of it is done while I'm watching TV with my wife, etc. I don't really set aside time dedicated to just blogging.

TMM: At present, lots of new entrants are there in personal finance blogging space. In my experience, most of them not last more than one year. They stop blogging later by either losing interest or by not getting the income as they expected. In this context, could you share your major experiences as a start up personal finance blogger to know us how did you manage yourself to succeed by overcoming all the obstacles like establishing blog, creating your network, income generation etc? We also like to hear any personal tips that you may have for new bloggers?

Nickel: Yes, an awful lot of bloggers get started, do great for awhile, and then just fade away. I don't really have any secrets to prevent that from happening other than to encourage people to choose a topic that they're passionate about. I keep doing this because I like it. If I didn't, I would've quit a long time ago. As far as other tips go... Don't get too obsessed with your stats (I'm still guilty of this myself), be patient, and make genuine connections with others. Regarding this latter point, don't just e-mail people asking for a link. Make good, insightful comments on their site, ask for their advice on specific topics, etc. Also, when people visit your site and leave a comment, respond to it. Doing so dramatically increases the chances that they'll come back. Finally, income generation... I don't really have any secrets here, either. The main thing that you need to do is focus on creating great content. Everything else flows from that.

TMM: How much your blog influenced to your own personal finance? Do you suggest some best posts from your blog for our readers?

Nickel: My site is largely a reflection of my personal finances. It's hard for me to say how much my situation has influenced the site vs. the site influencing my situation. As far as some suggested posts... My most "famous" post is probably "Dave Ramsey is Bad at Math." I'm also pretty happy with my recent post on "How to Get Out of Debt." Another fun one from awhile back is "How Much Does a Million Dollars Weigh?"

TMM: What are your goals for this year and for coming years?

Nickel: My primary goal is, as always, just to keep growing. It's very gratifying to see my traffic and subscriber numbers increase, as that means I must be doing something right. I don't really set specific growth or content goals -- I just keep plugging away and working to improve.

A final word to TMM readers: 'Five Cent Nickel' considered as one of the best personal finance blog in the world. TMM highly recommend people should visit and get maximum knowledge on personal finance from numorous qualitiy articles from this blog and get benefitted from the extreme knowledge of Nickel. New bloggers have lots to learn from him by following his path to enjoy huge success in life through hard work, dedication and passion.

My sincere thanks for the time he have spent for TMM to complete this interview.

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Secret Method on PPF to Save Tax

Do you have a PPF account more than 6 years old? Do you struggling to save your tax under 80C? You can use your PPF account to save tax using a rare method. This can be used to save total tax under 80C or partial to complete any tax liability you still have declaring all other instruments.

Those who all are dealing with PPF are well aware, a PPF account holder can withdraw money after 6 years. This is one of the best advantage for us to save tax using PPF in a smarter way.

Scenario: Suppose you have declared tax of Rs.70000 under 80C (after your company deducting PF amount of Rs. 30000) and you have invested only 40k till the end of the tax year. Now there is 30000 pending to invest and you don't have money.

This is the time to depend your 6 year old account. Go to the bank and withdraw 30000 from your PPF account and invest back to the account in the very next day. Now you are ready to show the full Rs. 70k proof as your 80C investments for the year.

Use it if none of other method available because we are not sure how it will affect to you interest later. I will have a talk with concerned personal and will update this article soon on this part.

Inform if you have any queries or doubt on this article.

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Opening PPF Account Dilemma With Banks

Those who have a PPF account in any Indian bank might have realized the difficulty of opening the same. Due to not having any advantage from PPF accounts, personnel from banks generally try to influence the customers to back from opening PPF. They are generally using the trick of comparing some of their products with PPF by saying advantage of their products and the disadvantages of PPF. I have found RD and FD are two products they are using to compare with classic PPF account.

In this context, this article intend to educate readers to have better idea on the wonder advantage of investing on PPF and foolishness of believing bank officials to invest on their products than PPF. It also intend to protect yourself from not falling to any canvasing methods using by bank officials to go with their products than PPF.

At the very first, understand PPF is the only classic debt instrument available in India in its kind and no one able to beat this product with more than facilities providing by PPF. If you had read my previous article, you might have knew some of the best parts of PPF.

I will start with my personal experience of opening PPF with a big bank branch in my city.

I went to bank about 15 times to open the PPF account and most of the time they are sending me back saying one or other reason.

When everything found fine from the bank perspective, the manager called me and started his advice on the advantages of their products. They have introduced me the recurring deposit against bank PPF as first. I have not convinced the same because of not received any answer to the following.

1. Recurring deposit required a fixed amount in each month in the particular date required to be there in the savings account to transfer to the recurring AC. PPF doesn't required this.

2. Recurring deposit doesn't have compounding interest where PPF has the same.

3. Recurring deposit doesn't have tax benefit but customer is liable to pay tax on interest accumulated. PPF is the only product in India with the word 'Tax' not attached to this both for source and interest.

4. Compare with 8% interest rate of PPF, how can an RD beat this with its 3.25% or 4.25% interest rate?

5. Where you are going to get loan against RD? and what is the possibility of withdraw money without losing the interest till that day?

When I have asked the above questions to the manager, he immediately have little water but till now no proper answer received. It is because, there is no answer for this. Very natural.

Secondly, they came with there fixed deposit schemes and tried to force me to for FD with more than 9% interest for long term. Below was my doubt on this:

1. No tax benefit for interest as PPF giving.

2. Systematic investment not possible. You have to pay full amount at the beginning to start FD. Not possible to add more money to the same FD whenever required later. With PPF we will never face such problems.

Above two are enough to trash the FD or RD against PPF account. So don't fell to the trap by bank personal. My best advice is to approach main post offices and open the PPF account their than banks. Banks are the one of the place I really hate to go, I always suggest to open a PPF with general post offices or selected branches. I am sure, with post office, you will never face problems that bank can give you all the time.

In case, you have convinced to RD or FD, still post offices are your best option than banks due to its high interest rates than what banks offering and relatively easy procedures.

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How To Treat The Recent Market Rally

Some of my friend approached me and asked the reason for the market rally of 2000 points immediately after declaring the Indian General Election. Most of them wondering how such huge rally possible and what was the reason behind the same. Yes there is reason behind such huge rally that I was expected after knowing the last result on the previous day.
If you are a true value investor who thinking like Warren Buffet, the greatest value investor, no need to think again to give a proper reply to the above said queries. You can easily answer to this question considering Buffett's well said Macro Economic Factor effect.

Yes, there has not been any major changes happened in the economy with any supporting micro factors but there was a huge change happened with a macro economic factor. This change is the huge win of UPA and that lead to form a stable government in India for next 5 years. There will not be any uncertainty on this. This is the major influenced Macro factor that lead the market to the new heights.

May be you might have asking a question yourself that, is this guy saying the market will come down again. Very simple. No doubts. It will come back to the same or less point of 12k, from where it start booming, once after UPA forming the government. This is known as the power of Micro economic factors. Uncertainty in economic fundamentals still remaining and that micro factor later drag the market down.

There will be a question at this point. What should an investor do at this time? Of course, we should prepare for the next buying opportunity when the market coming down next time and here is a chance to valuate your stocks and to any stock you have invested as a coward, identify the price and move away.

As an investor, analyzing the reason of this immediate market height will be useful. This is a temporary boom happened by greed which highly backed by a simple macro factor, the possible stable government, and doesn't have any supported, solid factor to keep this uptrend intact at this present level. As a value investor, you should take extra care before committing to any investment decisions.

Comment if you have any different thought on this post or have a query or doubt on this.

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Financial Planning for Kids in India

'Financial Planning For Indian Children' is trying to introduce the most simple and disciplined approaches on portfolio creation to meet any future financial goals for your kids. The best part is, this article sharing my personal experience and success with the steps and ideas explained in it, to give a feel of tested and succeeded practices and steps.

Creating a child financial plan is really simple compare with one for adults. When creating a financial plan for children, parents are totally free from some of the best practices involved to financial planning foundations. It is, budgeting, creation of emergency funds, age and risk based asset allocation to portfolios or medical and insurance policies. Why I am saying a child financial planning is free because, most parents might have done their own personal financial planning by giving importance to their kids.

When going for child financial planning, the only requirement is to identify and create a well, fail proof, investments portfolio. This article specifically focusing to this area by introducing my model child investments portfolio with some of the well known, disciplined investment approaches and possible instruments to achieve the financial goals for log run.

A major point to remember when planning for child portfolio is, it should plan for long term. Start investing for your kid immediately after she or he born with a focus of 18 years. Long term investments on right mix of investment products are always a good idea to meet all your kids future financial goals.

Secondly, equities are naturally the best option to invest for long term because of its capacity to generate dream returns. When investing for kids, remember to have enough equity exposure to the child investments portfolio due to the reason mentioned in previous line.

To protect and balance the child portfolio, always add best available debt instruments with enough weight to the portfolio.

Below are some of my practices followed when starts creating child investments portfolio:

1. Mutual Funds - Start investing a or two best large cap mutual funds immediately after your first child born. Follow a disciplined investment approach by utilizing the Systematic Investment Plan method to invest minimum amounts with both funds in each months. Large cap generally have a portfolio of most prominent companies in India and would be able protect your kids money from huge volatilities in the stock markets. Naturally the prominent companies are able to produce handsome returns in the long run.

Personally, I am using the SIP method to invest Rs.1,000 in each month with DSPBR Top 100 equities and Birla Sunlife Front line equity. This SIP have done to go for next 12 years.

2. PPF Account - To add a debt instrument as a part of my kids portfolio, I have chosen most trusted compounded interest generator PPF account. I am adding Rs. 1,000 in each month to this PPF account.

To concrete my selection, below are some of the most important facilities I am receiving from this account:

1. Tax benefit on source and return - PPF is the only one investment instrument in India providing tax benifit to all the money dealing with it.

2. PPF has ability to grow my money through the magic of compounding. Remember the word of Albert Einstein, once he said "Compounding is the 8th wonder in this world"

3. PPF protect your money through direct guarantee from India Government.

4. If required, I can apply for a loan immediately after the completion of third year with PPF account.

5. PPF has the facility to withdraw your money partially, after the sixth year.

6. PPF account also has the facility to extend your present period of 15 to another 5 years if required.

If PPF has all the above facilities, why should I go behind any bank to add my money for getting low interest rates? I am sure, adding 1000 each per month for next 15 year will be enough to meet the higher education requirements or any other important financial goal of my kids when she reach to the age of 20.

3. Direct investments - A person who well versed with equity investments can buy shares on behalf of kids. Identification of the right and best company and price to buy their stocks have importance in it. Yes, I am doing this using the following methods:

I have opened a trading account for my kid and linked it to a bank account. Each and every month, I am transferring some fixed as well as surplus amount to this account to build enough money to buy shares. I have a good list of prominent companies and yes, able to identify the right price of each companies to buy. When it is reaching to the price I have set to buy, I never delayed to purchase number or stocks using the money in the account, I have accumulated from long time.

Revisit later to read all of my forthcoming article series on 'best Indian companies to invest in', specifically suitable for direct equity investments for kids.
4. Teach your kids about money and build corpus for buy shares - You can open a bank savings account specifically for your kids. Remember, it should be the ordinary one and not the kids specific account. Kids specific accounts are top flop in India. Present her a piggy bank to collect coins. Teach her about money and the savings requirements. Start this immediately after your kid reaching to the age of 2. Whenever she filled her piggy bank, put it to her account and once after she have enough money in the account, go for NSC or buy some fantastic shares in here name using the 3rd option I have mentioned above. Through this, she will get the money saving habit and later an idea of investing for successful future.

Optional yes strictly optional :

5. Child ULIPs - Yes this is an option for kids investments. Even though, I don't have one because, I am not personally interested to ULIP products. Prefer this if parents doesn't have sufficient insurance. One could go for child unit linked insurance plan with maximum life coverage and rider option like premium waiver etc. Remember to select equity funds if you are going for child ULIPs. Always compare all the available child ULIP's and select a best from it on the performance, cost and features.

There are numerous investment methods available to create better child investments portfolios. Even though, I prefer to go with simple, manageable methods. Small is always beautiful and manageable. I have already realized the success of my initiative by investing in a disciplined manner.

I know most of you might have better idea than this or idea to magnify above methods. Share it frequently to help others and update myself. Contact me once if you have any queries on anything I have mentioned in this article.

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Infolinks May contest is open for publishers

As a winner of Infolink's April Challenge with my review post in TMM blog, I have received an iPod Shuffle as a price, happy to inform you about the May contest opened by Info links for its publishers. Infolinks, a popular in-text advertiser this time came with their May contest, starting today, to award a Nintendo Wii! with very easy steps.

Participating to the context is very easy. Just go to Infolinks Website and register as a new publisher.


By joining to Infolinks, you are going to get benefited by different ways.

1. As Infolinks is the most highest CPC payer today compare with any of its competitor like Kontera or others, you can change your in-text advertisers to Infolinks by doing easy steps.

2. Those who are troublining with very less CPC, can certainly test infolinks to get huge revenue.

3. You can easily invite your friends from Infolinks website itself, to join as publisher and thus participate the May contest to win a fantastic Nintendo Wii!

4. If you are not using any in-text advertisement methods or not tried yet, this is a best opportunity to try Infolinks and see the revenue growth in each click. You can as well configure infolinks to any part of your blog to not disturb your readers too. it has very sophisticated and simple methods to do the same. Read my April Contest winner review article to know how beautifully you can place Infolinks ads with your comment area to not disturb readers, to not disturb any other ads and earn handsome revenue from it.

5. Joining to infolinks contest at the earliest, you are getting best chance to win a Nintendo Wii! due to its new advertiser status.

6. The best of this contest is, it is based on the random selection. Once if you win, your friends also win. If your friend win, you also be an automatic winner. Fantastic !!!!

Don't miss this opportunity. Join now and be a participant in this elegant contest.

Here is the terms and conditions:

Terms & Conditions:

1. Contact your friends who have a blog/website and let them know about the option to earn more with Infolinks In-text ads. In order to participate in the raffle they need to sign up as a publisher by using this link. When your friend registers to Infolinks, in the comment’s section your friend must write “I was referred by PID number.” No exceptions can be made so make sure you give your friends your accurate PID! (Here is my PID for you to join: 16752)

2. Your friend must integrate Infolinks script in their website and be an active publisher of Infolinks.

3. Registration ends June 10th, 2009.

4. The lottery will take place on June 15th, 2009. We will notify the winners by personal email and in our June challenge email.

5. The Infolinks May challenge is only open to active Infolinks publishers.

6. If there is a problem with shipping to specific destinations, Infolinks will issue a payment of the equivalent value.

7. Infolinks reserves all rights to change the terms at any time without notice.

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3 Simple Steps To Invest In A Good Company Or Business

Dilip Lillaney of diliplillaney blog is a specialist blogger writing on the possibilities of investing on various companies. His posts are very short and sweet but, able to pass all the required core information to readers. Most of us facing difficulties to give clear ideas using few lines but Dilip is a clear winner on that.

This guest post from Dilip is a best example from Dilip on how we can pass enough ideas to readers by few lines. In this guest post, he is advising '3 Simple Steps to Invest in a Good Company/Business'. Have a look.

1. Debt/Equity Ratio

The company/business should have little or no debt. I prefer to buy companies with a debt/equity ratio of less than 1.

2. Return on Net Worth

The company/business should have a good record of increasing net worth over an 8-10 year period. I prefer to buy companies with a RONW > 8-10% per year.

3. Price/Earnings Ratio

The company/business should be available at a reasonable price. I prefer to buy companies at a low P/E ratio.

My thanks to Mr. Dilip for this guest post.

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TMM Won Infolinks April Challenge Contest

TMM team is very happy to announce that, TMM won the Infolinks April Challenge Contest. A review post on infolinks added to TMM blog on April, 17 has been selected as the best review post. We have contacted by the Infolinks team to congratulate TMM blogger for such wonderful posts added to the blog and that won the April Challenge.

To those who interested to read the fantastic review that won the Infolinks contest, can go here. TMM already given an idea to add Infolinks along with AdSense or AdBrite to generate maximum profit from the blog. Event though, I would like to re-write the same here.

If you have a blog with huge number of comments under each post, can join and configure the Infolinks in-text ads to appear with Comment section under each post. You can configure any other ads like AdSense or AdBrite to appear any other place than the comment section. Even though, my personal recommendation is, let it appear post wide by considering its capacity to generate maximum income through CPC. Please read more here and Join Infolinks now for generating more revenue intelligently.

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Interview with Jim of Bargaineering

As a practice of adding interviews with top finance bloggers, here is the second personal interview with Jim at 'Bargaineering' a top blog in the personal finance space. Jim has been responded very nicely and I have enjoyed the interview with him.

Jim was of course, very busy but, spend enough time to my questions.We can find the combination of fun and passion behind the huge success of Bargaineering. Jim has done a lot and clearly giving a message to the world on the requirement of passion and dedication to have success. Here is the interview.

The Money Maniac (TMM): Jim, you are very famous in personal finance space with the blog ‘Bargaineering.com. Can you tell us a little about yourself?

Jim: I’m 28 and I’ve been blogging for about four and a half years. I live near Baltimore, MD though I grew up on Long Island, New York.

TMM: Like me, those who interested to personal finance must required to visit the blog www.bargaineering.com , as one of the best personal finance blog today in this space; we are very happy to hear a little about your blogging flashback. By remembering your old days of blogging, could you share when and how did you got into blogging and what are the inspirations behind to be personal finance blogger?

Jim: I got into blogging because it seemed like something fun. When I started working and getting more interested in finances, I thought starting a blog would be fun. Personal finance has always been interesting to me because I want to be a better manager of my finances. Having always been relatively responsible with things like credit cards, I was fortunate to always be on the offensive when it comes to personal finance. I can look for the newest things and research the trends, rather than being forced to focus on paying down debt. It’s allowed me to research a variety of things I probably would’ve have looked at otherwise, like Treasury bills or annuities.

I always like “figuring things out.” Whether it’s trying to solve daily problems or trying to understand how a particular financial product works, I like learning how things work and how I can use them in my life. My inspiration for blogging is fueled by that interest and the fact that it’s so easy to start a blog and interact with people.

TMM: At your early years with bargaineering we are sure you might have put lots of effort and hard work to build and establish this blog. Yes persona finance is a tough subject and commonly known as a boring subject and very rare group of serious visitors only can expected to your blog. It required fantastic knowledge to write and get right attention from readers worldwide. Your blog seems to be managed by such person, and really done it. What is your experience in finance industry and how do you keep coming up with articles? I seem to struggle sometimes to come with different articles in my blog. Do you have any posting timetable? Also, how do you keep updated yourself to provide most relevant information for readers?

Jim: I don’t have any experience in the finance industry, I just keep coming up with things because I see things around me that are interesting. I just write about the things that I would want to read about.

TMM: Are you a full time blogger? If yes, do you have any other blog or network? If not, how do you find time to blog and how many hours per day?

Jim: Yes, I have a few others but Bargaineering.com is the main one by far.

TMM: At present, lots of new entrants are there in personal finance blogging space. In my experience, found most of them stops blogging later by either losing interest or by not getting the income as they expected. In this context, could you share your major experiences as a startup personal finance blogger to know us how did you manage yourself to succeed by overcoming all the obstacles like establishing blog, creating your network, income generation etc? Also, do you have any personal tips for new bloggers?

Jim: You have to be passionate about it and enjoy it tremendously to keep it up. I didn’t make any money the first six months and money wasn’t my motivation so it didn’t bother me. You have to write good content, market it well, and be patient.

TMM: How much your blog influenced to your own personal finance? Do you suggest the best three posts from your blog for our readers?

Jim: It’s completely influenced by my personal finances.

1. Financial Network Map
2. Best Student Credit Cards
3. Devil's Advocate Columns (I like all of my Devil’s Advocate columns!)

TMM: What are your goals for this year and for coming years?

Jim: Just keep on chugging along!

I have personally visit his above said 'Devil's Advocate Columns' and found enough tasty meals there. Join with me to appreciate him for providing such fantastic advises and information for those who really want to manage his or her personal finance beautifully. Thanks Jim !!!!

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Announcing The New Face of The Money Maniac Blog

After thinking a lot yes, a lot, I have finally decided to change the face of 'The Money Maniac' blog to be more specific with geo-focused articles. Until now, I have posted many articles on personal finance, investing, insurance, money, debt management, child investments and many other subjects, generally focused to the people from anywhere in the world than a specific country.

Now a days, I thought it would be better and beneficial if I add more focused articles specifically for readers from my own country. This change certainly help me to achieve two major goals:

1. I can utilize my knowledge and familiarity in a better way by writing well focused articles on personal finance and investing, for the readers in my country.

2. I can take maximum advantages from the popularity of this blog by writing any articles for people around the world.

However, any such changes by focusing more to my country, never affect present readers. No major changes will taken place with any article in the database. The multi-face functionality of my blog certainly work as the best place to get articles that helpful to people from all over the world and specifically from my own country.

Here is what you can expect from this blog:

- General tips on personal finance, investing and money for all

- Interviews with international and national top bloggers

- Reviews and subject focused articles

- Financial Planning Guidelines and money management

- Exploring Indian investing possibilities, stock analysis and investing guidelines

Residing in my own country as a resident Indian, I find that it is all the more reason why I think that exploration of these subjects may turn out to be interesting and noteworthy. Hope you hang around and find what you’re looking for over here..

You can about me to know more

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How to be a frugal at work

Little thoughts to be a frugal at work of course, going to be a right post in my blog considering the present market and economic conditions. Most of us working as full time or part time employee with any offices and activities such as blogging, certainly coming as the second priority. Fortunately, most of the offices today, providing facilities for employees to be frugal at work. Intelligent use of facilities by staying inside the rules, help us to save money through various ways.

Here is some tips on the possible money saving tips and being frugal at work.

1. Charge your phone at work place. Of course it is free

2. If you have a company phone, immediately stop your personal phone service or give the same to your kin or wife. Company connection generally coming with discounts on calls than personal connections. Some companies setting some calling limit for its employees too. You can call from the company cell phone and inform them to reduce the amount from your salary. this will help you to save money by doing calls from a discounted connection.

3. Arrange a group of employees and apply for any connections like cell phone or internet, to get possible discount on applying as group. If you take little initiative, you can get this discounts along with your colleagues and that helps to save money.

4. Do you have a habit of drinking coffee or tea? Most of the offices have vending machines installed for employees to get tea or coffee. Such facilities enable employees to use the same frequently and save money. Utilize maximum if you have a coffee or tea drinking habit.

5. If your employer allow to work from home, utilize that facility. You can thus save fuel costs, laundry costs as well as internet costs by reimbursing the money.

6. Utilize the availability of discount coupons, tickets or any other passes that come as company specific. This will help you to save money to a great extend.

7. Bringing fruits and other snacks to keep inside the refrigerators at work place help you to access the same whenever you required as well as save money by keeping the same in home refrigerators and taking to office in each day.

8. Office is the best place to charge your laptops to save save electricity.

There are lots of small things you can do with office to save money.Whatever it is, whether it is small or big, inside the rule of a company, you are the ultimate winner and an example to be frugal at work.

some of you might have more innovative ideas and please share the same here if you willing. It would be helpful for readers to get maximum knowledge on the possible ways to be frugal at work. Comment frequently.

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10 excellant money saving tips

Here are the top 10 excellent tips to save money gradually. Just reading this tips never help you to save money but, find your way to practice these tips certainly help to save lots of money from your daily activities. These tips are helpful to get more and more ideas for one who really think to get more better ideas.

Remember, budgeting through clearly identifying your debts and income and balancing between two, should be the beginning for anyone to start saving money. Recording all the activities truly help you to identify your money source and where you are spending. Such practice always help to set preferences on your spenidng and thus never run out of money for the most required items.

No tips in this article required any brilliancy but required minimal common sense.

1. Get the information of best deals running around various groceries in your area. Compare the prices for each items that you want to buy. Use grocery coupons to save money. Avoid shopping for recreational purposes.

2. Prepare a menu when you are going for eating out. Prepare a list of items that you want to buy when going for shopping. Control eating out and always try to pay by cash instead of credit cards.

3. Always look around your house to find a possible solution to make things done before moving to buy any item from the store. In the same way, always identify the possibility of making a food before deciding to buy from stores.

4. Always identify the money saving possibilities from each action you do. Build a regular saving habit as the part of your everyday budget. A piggy bank is a better idea for such.

5. Automate all the possible savings and investing as possible. An automatic pay check deposit to savings is an example for such.

6. Always try to identify a free or low cost ways to entertain yourself. This will help you to save lots of bucks gradually.

7. Use the credit card wisely. Always pay any outstanding amounts in time. Utilize the reward points maximum.

8. Identify the possible ways to reduce electricity bills. Read this article to know how one can save money by using energy intelligently.

9. Make practice of doing regular checkup with your vehicles before starting from home. Check for oils, enough air in tires and water in radiator. Have a practice of keeping a or two spare tires, tool box with necessary tools, water in the vehicle to avoid the requirements of taking the vehicles to the workshop or calling a technician and this save money. Always try to identify a best and cheap insurance policy for vehicle by comparing with all the available policies and prices.

10. Never buy any items, especially electronic equipments like TV, DVD, Refrigerator, Washing Machine and cell phones at the same day or the week it is launching to the market. Instead, wait for some time to get the next product launched. This will drag the price of previous item down and this could be a the right time for you to buy.

I have referred a lot to identify these tips among thousand of available tips. Of course, each of you might have some very useful tips that may using personally. Sharing such tips will be highly helpful for all the readers. Comment frequently once if you have any queries or want to inform any tips or sharing personal experiences to our readers, please do the same without any hesitations.

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Save money using energy intelligently

Utility bills are a major headache for most of us because of its direct influence to our monthly budget. Utility bills cause huge cash flow if not using the electrical, electronic equipments intelligently and able to destroy our family budget.

Here is some tips to use the gadgets and other electrical and electronic power equipments intelligently and save enormous money for long term.

1. At the very first, check and confirm your main meter is in good working condition by free from any defects.

2. Confirm the earth wirings for the entire building or house works perfectly.

3. Replace all the bulbs with energy efficient CFLs.

4. Never let electronic equipments run after use. Practice to immediately switch off small kitchen equipments like Microwave Oven, toaster, coffee maker and home appliances like TV, air conditioners, internet modem, radio etc., after the use.

5. Never Use iron box frequently. Instead, practice ironing once in a week. Remember, Iron box is a major cause for increasing power bills.

6. Don't use motor pumps frequently as it will utilize more power. My better advise is to use diesel pumps instead of electric one.

7. Avoid electric heaters to the maximum as it is utilizing power in a great amount. Use small gas heaters instead. Remember, eclectic water heater can increase the bill maximum.

8. Defrost refrigerators at least once in a week by switching off for minimum 4 hours.

9. Confirm your refrigerators are working with right settings. This will help you to save energy by not wasting unnecessarily due to improper settings.

10. Configure laptop and computer displays to shut off display after certain times if sitting idly. Switch of internet routers if not working or when going to office.

11. Learn to wash dish plates by hand than using electric dish washer. If you still want to use a dish washer, practice to not use at least once or twice in a week and wash all the plates by hand.

12. Practice to switch off the main switch if you going out for long term or holiday.

13. Always use electronic circuit breakers to tackle power leakages.

14. Install solar panels for bulbs in the prominent places inside the house and any most required equipments in the nights.

15. Install solar panels for hot water instead of electric heaters.

16. Avoid using plug extensions. Instead, have enough wall mounted plug points with fuse.

17. Practice switching off electricity power for 10 minutes everyday evening in the peak hours. If not possible, practice a 1 hour peak time shutdown in a weak.

18. Switch off any decorative lights in the peak times.

19. To avoid unnecessary usage of motor pumps for garden, implement drip irrigation lines with locks for over tank.

20. Switch of any unnecessary decorative garden lights that waste power a lot.

21. Take care on fish tanks not using power required decorations or gadgets.

22. Always wash full load of laundry with washing machines.

23. Instead of drying the cloths using washing machines, let the job done by sun light.

24. Maintain heat inside room using thermal lined curtains, proper ceiling and floor insulations.

24. Wood burners and pellet burners are efficient method to save energy than using electric room heaters.

Bonus tip:

25. Remember to check and understand the required power consumption for each equipments you are purchasing. A good understanding on these measures help you to select the best.

Also, it is important to acquire enough knowledge on all the measures that decide your electricity bills. such knowledge help you to save money by identifying counter measures to reduce electricity usage.

You can consider saving energy as a short budget along with your main family budget. Take all possible actions to use electricity intelligently and confirm you are not wasting power.

Teach your kids and family members about the requirement of saving power for saving money as well as for a better today and tomorrow.

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How to add unlimited adsense ads

Those who have registered with AdSense already aware about the maximum number of AdSense units possible within a single page is three. If you want more than three, you can add three link units. Any added units than the limit of three, will not appeared and the space you have used to add this fourth ad will appear in your blog as a blank space.

I agree, there is no solution to display more than 3 similar ads within a single page. But you can configure multiple ads appear with multiple pages. I have used a solution to add another three advertisements in my blog to appear on any page than my main page considering below scenario.

Scenario: I want to have 3 ads need to be appeared in both sidebars of my blog homepage. Any of the pages in my blog, other than homepage, should have another 3 ad units to be appeared in different place from the first. If it is not a homepage, the first three ads should not be appeared and the space for the same should not be left blank to avoid any weary look.

To achieve this gaol, I have done the setting as below:

I have added three 300x250 ads in the right sidebar to be appeared with my homepage and disappear immediately if it is not the homepage without leaving any space in the sidebar. I have used this article for this configuration.

I have added another three ads to appear with any other individual pages than my homepage. As per this configuration, a 468x60 ad will appear just above the post title and a 300x250 ad is below the post title. Another 300x250 ad will appear at the end of each post.

You can have a look of this configuration in this blog. If you go to my homepage, you can see a 120x600 ad unit at the top of left sidebar and two 300x250 ads in the right sidebar. When you click any post title to read, the above said 3 ads will be disappeared and later said 3 ads will be appeared, where 2 will be at the top of the post and another will be at the end of the article. If you go back to the homepage, again the previous three ads will be appeared.

With this configuration, I have eliminated the possibility of appearing any blank space anywhere in this blog and configured the ads to appear as I want it.

Welcome if you have any queries.

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The Buffettology workbook review

the buffettology workbookToday, I would like to add a review on a fantastic value investing guide "The Buffettolgy Workbook". Written by Mary Buffett and David Clark, The Buffettology Workbook being a must have to any investors library due to the excellant guidance providing to the investor to be a successful value investor. It is of course, designed to walk you step by step through how to identify a Buffett type investment.

'The Buffettology Workbook' has been released by the writers once after the success of the guide "The New Buffettology". The later is certainly different from any similar books available in the market with its simple and solid explantion along with ample real world examples to understand each section, described in the guide.


As a person read all the books about Warren Buffett, this book attracted me a lot because if its style of writing. I am sure, it's authors put enough effort to simplify each section in this book by using most relevant examples and better, simple explanations.

Broken into 23 chapters, The Buffettology Workbook virtually divided and considered as two parts. Qualitative and Quantitative. In the first part, focus given more to the qualitative aspects of a company to select and invest. This part totally focused to Buffett's investment philosophies and value investing. In this area, you will find the most required qualities to be a value investor and the required approach to select a stock and deal with market. You can see the ability of writers to explain the qualities of a real business and the ways to identify such qualities prior to make any investment decisions. It include identifying a real monopolistic company to invest and identifying a sick commodity business to stay away.

Following the above, writers explaining the factors an investor should take care of to buy the company in a right price. It explains various possible factors that can drag the price of any company down.

Following section, the quantitative part, describing the most required financial formulas to identify the real returns and value of the stock. It explaining the ways to examine financial status of a company to identify the buying suitability of a business or stock. Excellent explanations to calculate the initial rate of return from the buying price, compounding annual growth rates of a company, identifying the return on share holders equity, relative returns comparing with bonds and many other using good examples are totally new and incomparable with any similar books available in the market.

To have better understanding, each chapter in this book ends with a few rather simplistic questions, review of the 'key points' in each chapter. 'The Buffettology Workbook" ends with three excellant case studies on the points Warren considered while select in invest on three companies. This is a good area to focus while reading, to get good information on Warren's real world considerations.

Overall, I rate the book to be worthy of reading and get real value to your money spent here. This is a great book if you are really into Warren Buffett. It is designed to walk you step by step through how to identify a Buffett type investment. It presents very simple and straightforward investment guidance, which does not require any advanced degree of knowledge to implement. If you focus exclusively on Part One of this book and Chapter 22, then you will see dramatic improvements in your investment results going forward.

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Interview with Trent from The Simple Dollar

An initiative to introduce eminent personal finance bloggers to our readers and new entrants to the personal finance blogging space, this week, TMM interviewed Mr. Trent Hamm of "The Simple Dollar". Trent sharing his blogging experience with us along with lots of useful information for new bloggers.

Before the interview session, I would like to share two important thoughts to TMM readers. First, those who interested to have sufficient personal finance knowledge should know and visit eminent blogs like " The Simple Dollar" in this space. It certainly help them to attain fantastic knowledge from their rich, excellant contents.

Second, new bloggers in the personal finance blogging space might have heard big names like "The Simple Dollar" and found trying to imitate them. Instead of knowing the huge effort and handwork behind success of such bloggers, new bloggers entirely focusing to the monitory benefits. Normally they will stop blogging by not getting enough financial benifit from their blogs compare with big bloggers. In this interview, I have specifically asked to Trend about this nature of new bloggers and you can read his advices to new bloggers about the required passion and dedication to be a great bloggers like him.

************************************************

The Money Maniac (TMM): You are famous among personal finance bloggers with the blog ‘The Simple Dollar’. Can you tell us a little about yourself?

My name is Trent Hamm. I currently live in the country outside of Des Moines, Iowa, with my wife and my two children (ages three and one). I started The Simple Dollar in October 2006 to chronicle my experiences with turning my financial life around - I originally intended to mostly just share it with friends, but it kept growing.

TMM: Like me, those who interested to personal finance cannot avoid your classy blog www.thesimpledollar.com , one of the best personal finance blog today; we are very interested to hear a little about your blogging flashback. Taking to your old days of blogging, could you share when and how did you got into blogging and what are the inspirations behind to be personal finance blogger?

Trent: I've always wanted to be a writer. I had dabbled in blogging several times before without success, though my final blog before The Simple Dollar was slightly successful (I wrote a parenting blog that was getting some traction until I found that some people were using some images of my son in an inappropriate fashion that left me uncomfortable, so I abandoned it).

I started The Simple Dollar not because I wanted to make money with it. I started it because I love to write and I was passionately engaged with my finances when I began the site. I largely intended to share it with friends, many of whom were also in some degree of financial difficulty (with debt) and I hoped to put a few ideas out there for them to think about.

The first two months weren't successful at all in terms of traffic, and I didn't earn any significant income until about the eight month mark. The thing is, I didn't really care. I was enjoying the writing and really enjoying the sense that I was helping people to think about their money.

TMM: At your early years with www.thesimpledollar.com we can realize that you may have worked very hard to establish your blog. As most of us know, personal finance blogging is not easy compare with any other subjects, because of its nature as a serious subject. It required fantastic knowledge to write and get huge attention from readers worldwide. Your blog seems to be managed by such person, i.e. yourself, really done it. What is your experience in finance industry and how do you keep coming up with articles? I seem to struggle sometimes to come with different articles in my blog. Do you have any posting timetable? Also, how do you keep updated yourself to provide most relevant information for readers?

Trent: Ideas aren't the problem, really, at least for me. I constantly come up with lots of ideas - my problem is usually filtering them and picking the ones that are good - and, most importantly, useful to others.

I think the biggest factor is that I read constantly. I spend at least two hours a day doing nothing but reading about personal finance topics and areas tangentially related to it. I read things like The Economist and BusinessWeek and the Wall Street Journal and Money. I read tons of blogs on all kinds of subjects, from food blogs to marketing blogs. I also read tons of emails from readers.

While I'm reading, I keep a notepad nearby. Whenever I have the faintest inkling of an idea, I jot it down immediately, but then I go back to the reading. After a good session, I'll have forty or fifty ideas jotted down. Most of them are trash - I'll quickly cross off all but ten or so of them.

The rest go into an "idea incubator" - I use Evernote for this. I keep a big list of post ideas in one note and I'll regularly add bits and pieces to individual ideas. When I'm ready to write, I just dig into this incubator until I find something that seems intriguing to explore.

TMM: Are you a full time blogger? If yes, do you have any other blog or network? If not, how do you find time to blog and how many hours per day?

Trent: I'm a full time writer. Besides The Simple Dollar, I've written a book (365 Ways to Live Cheap) and edited another (1001 Ways to Make Money If You Dare). I've also sold a bunch of freelance articles. On top of that, I've been shopping several short stories as well.

The Simple Dollar is a big source of income, but it's not the only one.

TMM: At present, lots of new entrants are there in personal finance blogging space. In my experience, found most of them stops blogging later by either losing interest or by not getting the income as they expected. In this context, could you share your major experiences as a startup personal finance blogger to know us how did you manage yourself to succeed by overcoming all the obstacles like establishing blog, creating your network, income generation etc? Also, do you have any personal tips for new bloggers?

Trent: A blog doesn't work if it's not fueled by passionate writing from the heart that also contains information relevant to others. If you're just in it to turn a buck, no blog will work.

I overcame the obstacles by not spending much time at all on networking or "optimizing" my blog. Instead, my constant focus has been on coming up with ideas.

TMM: How much your blog influenced to your own personal finance? Do you suggest the best three posts from your blog for our readers?

Trent: My own life is at the core of much of what I write about. I think personal finance is just that - personal. Much of it is in the mind - psychology and behavior. Thus, I often take the information I read about and try to see how it compares to my life.

Here are three great posts to start with:

Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance on the Back of Five Business Cards

31 Days to Fix Your Finances

Building a Better Blog

TMM: What are your goals for this year and for coming years?

Trent: My big goal for 2009 is to finish the manuscript for my second book. It's a more in-depth work than my first book, and I think it's quite a bit different than the other personal finance books out there.

Beyond that? As long as I keep writing stuff that interests people, opportunities will happen.

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My sincere thanks to Mr. Trend Hamm for the time he spent for answering each questions. Of course, there are lot for new bloggers and personal finance readers to keep in mind and go ahead with.

Trent have been selected three wonderful articles for TMM readers as per my request and those are my highly recommended read. It serves lot for you.

New bloggers must read his recommenced article "Building a better blog" which can consider as a free, short course for new bloggers to get good startup.

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Watch Realtime Stock prices with MS Excel

Here is a method to access and watch real time stock prices with Microsoft Excel. This will eliminate the requirement of visiting the stock market site or any other site to find the real time price time to time. Thus you can save time.

The requirements to get real time stock price data with Microsoft Excel, First, you should have internet access to the computer, Second, you should know stock market web page where you can view the real time stock prices. I have used NASDAQ most active stock index from this web address the below steps to get real time stock data to your excel and refresh in each and every minute, automatically.

For the Example, I have used the NASDAQ Most active Stock indice. (right click the link and select properties. You will get the web address). You can use the address of your stock market page, where you can see the real time price.

Follow these steps:

1. Open Microsoft Excel and Click on any Column

2. Select 'Data" menu > select "Import External Data" > select "New Web Query"

3. In the Address Bar, give the exact web page address of the stock quote appearing with your stock exchange web site. (For an Example, I got the address of real time information of "Nasdaq Most active Stock Index" (address is http:// dynamic.nasdaq.com/aspx/mostactive.aspx (no space after http://))

4. Click 'Import'

Now you will be able to see the index of companies in your excel sheet. Don't try to beautify the columns. If you do so, it will change again when the refresh happening. You can have a try. I have not tried this.

Now our task will be to get real time data. To do so, the page should be refreshed time to time. A refresh in each 1 minute will do better.

To happen a data refresh automatically in each minutes, follow the below steps:

1. Go to the "Data" menu

2. click on "Import External Data"

3. Select "Data Range Properties" and select "Auto Refresh" to '1' minutes.

Now you have a real time data of your interested index on your desktop with excel. You now don't want to go to website to collect real time prices. Enjoy this excel feature.

Comment if you like this article and once if you have any suggestions.

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Free quicken online-Manage Your Money online

Today, It is necessary to have some kind of budgeting system to track our home budget properly. Microsoft Excel sheet is still the favorite budgeting. Even though, people start using budgeting softwares like quicken to manage there finance with its advanced budget tracking features. After iPhone introduced, facilities to use an online software became so famous.

Here, I would introduce the Free and easy online money management through iPhone introduced by famous personal finance software company Quicken to take control of your finance wherever you go.

Major attraction of Quicken Online is, it 100% free to use. Below are the selected features of Quicken Online.

1. A single point to manage your accounts. Quicken Online works as a single point for you to coordinate and manage all your checking, saving, Investments, credit card, loans and any other accounts with single password.

2. Quicken online is 100% to use. It is very easy to use and keep your pocket intact.

3. Safe and secure - Through its 128 bit encryption, Quicken Online provide maximum safety to your transactions and data.

4. Connect to Mobile - With Free Quicken Online Mobile, you can now manage your account from an iPhone.

5. Know what is due and what is left - Through this feature, you will able to track your scheduled bills for each month. This will help you to identify the cuto of date of each bills and arrange the payments before its to avoid any consequences or late fees.

6. Easy budgeting - You can set budget goals and track how you are performing with the same.

7. Automatic updates - All the quicken finances are automatically update when you login to the software

8. Cash tracking facility - It has the feature to update all your accounts automatically. Which help you to track your money in a perfect way.

9. ATM tracker - It has the facility to track the nearest ATM wherever you go.

If you concern about the security part of such, there is no need of worry. They using 128 bit encryption for data protection. Quicken using a personal identification number system (PIN) to protect your accounts in a most seure way. Such facility allow you to reset your account immediately, in case of any lose.

Compatibility

Quicken Online Mobile is totally compatible with iPhone and iPod touch second generation. It presently support English as the language.

How to get started to use Quicken Online Mobile

Registration process is so easy. Go to the registration page and create a profile. Once after creating, it will guide you to the rest through an easy to use interface.

Considering the overall features, it seems the best free online personal finance software for those who are in US. Have a look by visit and registering for this to know more features and manage your finance online with a free highly secured environment.

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15 Investment Failure Reasons

About Sherin; My Twitter; My Facebook Page

Top Reasons why investment failsHere is top 10 reasons why people facing investment failures. These are well researched common reasons, avoidable by little study and planning to enlighten knowledge for smart investing.

1. Lack of knowledge - lack of investment knowledge easily lead a person to the bad practice of following the public and taking advises from wrong personnel or investing through believing reports from stock analysts and tipsters. Finally he will face total investment failure.

2. No Goal - A clear vision or goal should be the backbone of activities like investing. Setting perfect goal helps to have proper planning that lead to right investments. absence of the same, lead one to irresponsible and cause huge money lose.

3. No Risk awareness - It is not advisable for a person to invest directly to stocks if his risk taking capacity is less. If such people investing to stocks, fear or panic lead them to take wrong decisions like selling at wrong price.

4. Lack of patience and discipline - Patience and discipline is the two most required qualities of any investor. Lack of any, lead to investment failure. You can refer point 3 above, totally related with this.

5. Identification of investments - Have a look at point 2. As an investor, identification of right instruments have ultimate importance. It depends on various factors like risk profile, goal, financial status of an investor. For an example, if you invest on equities to meet a short term goal within 1 year, your investment give you huge failure.

6. No having a right adviser - Approaching a qualified and experienced financial planner is a right move by beginner investor till getting required knowledge and thus confidence for invest self. A good adviser can help investors to not commit big mistake that may possible if someone doing the investment as self. With little knowledge, entering to the stock investments lead people to huge failures.

7. Overconfidence - Remember, even legend investors lost money by mistakes. No one is perfect by making money by not committing any mistakes. whoever thinking of not make any mistakes, have more chance to lose money than any ordinary investor. Overconfidence is dangerous for an investor.

8. Being a trader - Short term trading is a kind of gambling than investing. Luck is ultimate with trading activities. Casinos are the better place to visit than doing trading activities with stock markets.

9. Improper balance of portfolio - Portfolio balance should be done time to time by considering age, financial positions, risk factors etc. Getting advice from right financial planners will do better for such. Lack of proper mix can lead to huge lose of money or less profit than what planned. For example, if a person near to the retirement age holding a portfolio that have major chunk of equity investments, putting himself to hell.

10. Less diversified portfolio - Any portfolio with total focus to a particular sector or company may face huge failure. This can happen when the sector growth stopping or the company face internals problems. For example, if a portfolio focused to only large cap stocks or focused to the stocks of the companies from a particular sector have chance of failure compare with a portfolio diversified with large, small, mid cap stocks or invested across multiple sectors.

11. Over diversification - similar to point 10, over diversification presenting an uncontrollable portfolio to a person. With an over diversified portfolio, there are possibilities of missing great investments. For an example, A port folio have more number of excellent company stocks but very small number of each,really missing the chance of getting huge profit compare with a portfolio that have less excellent companies with considerable number of stocks.

12. Concentrating to return - Such behavior is the most dangerous to lose money by investing on any product by aiming its possible return by short term and not considering the risks. Such behavior and related heavy lose happened when the internet stocks start booming. People invested their each and every penny to such such stocks by not considering the risks associated with them. Finally, they lost everything by the crash of such stocks.

13. Being aggressive - Aggressive people never think about the bad side of any action. Being more aggressive always put a person in trouble by taking wrong decisions. An example, buying a stock by seeing its booming nature and not considering the right price. I have mentioned the same in Point 12.

14. Lack of monitoring - Yes, stock investments are for long term and may no need to monitor time to time. But, there should be another asset classes in the portfolio to leverage the profit and that may required monitoring in time. For an example, mutual funds required monitoring time to time to identify the performance of the fund as well as the fund manager. Or such investment lead to money lose.

15. Finally, no time for research - An investor who investing on a product by not having all the required knowledge, simply putting his money to something to lose heavily. Ignorance always cost a person in two ways. First, without having knowledge, a person may not bet able to identify the real potential of the instrument and which lead him to not having right percentage of the same. Second, he may not able to identify the risk associated with the instrument and that may lead him to huge lose in the future.

If you have a point to mention here, most welcome to comment the same here.

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