* Highly
Recommended *
One
Simple Step To Make 2007 Your Wealthiest Year Yet
More
than any other activity you can do, investing in your ability
to achieve your personal dreams is the greatest gift you can
give yourself this year.
As
2006 comes to a close, ETR has compiled its best products and
put them into a blowout YEAR END SALE. These are our
lowest prices ever, guaranteed, so there’s not better
time for you to begin working on your goals for 2007.
Whether
you want to start your own profitable business, invest in real
estate or simply become more productive and proficient at the
things you’re already doing – there are programs
to help you get there faster.
Take
a moment to give yourself a distinct advantage this year.
Million-Dollar
Gift Ideas for Your Kids
By
Andrew M. Gordon
Sure,
you can get your kids the new Wii ... the latest Cranium board
game ... or an iPod Shuffle. But why not give a gift they'll
appreciate for decades?
I'm
talking about investing in a Roth IRA for any child who earns
up to $4,000 a year. You can invest as much as they earn. And
because this investment vehicle is tax-free (for them, not
for you), their earnings will compound over time without Uncle
Sam getting his hands on the money ... even when it's finally
withdrawn.
Not
only will you be giving your children a head start on planning
for retirement, you'll also be teaching them a valuable lesson
about saving. And since it never hurts to spell things out,
give them a card along with your IRA contribution to let them
know exactly what that lesson is. In your best handwriting,
write: IT'S NEVER TOO EARLY TO SAVE!
This
is a holiday message worth spreading to all the young-uns.
If
you're a parent or a grandparent, you could contribute to a
529 Plan for any child under 18. This plan - which is the perfect
way to help pay an aspiring scientist's or president's way
through college - has advantages like tax-deferred growth on
earnings and tax-free withdrawals. Some states even allow deductions
for contributions. [Ed. Note: Keep reading ETR for a more in-depth
article by Michael Masterson on the 529 Plan.]
For
the ultimate in planning for your kids' financial future, pick
up a copy of Justin Ford's Seeds
of Wealth program, which teaches you
and your kids (and your kids' kids) valuable savings strategies
as well as techniques for building wealth.
And
if you've got a high-schooler or college kid, Michael Masterson's
best-seller (and Amazon.com's #9 Best Finance and Investing
Book of 2006) Automatic
Wealth for Grads… And Anyone Else Just Starting Out makes
a great stocking stuffer.
[Ed.
Note: Andrew Gordon, ETR's financial expert, is the editor
of our new investment service, Income.
Each month, he uncovers specific stocks that promise safety
(first and foremost), along with much higher-than-average profit
potential.]
"We
live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future;
we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read."
-
Abraham Lincoln
Protect
Yourself
By
Robert Ringer
Today,
I'm going to give you a Christmas present that I believe you
will cherish the rest of your life. Provided, of course, you
make use of it. My present comes in the form of advice - but
not just any old advice.
Allow
me to explain.
It's
always amazed me that most people live their lives on the assumption
that worst-case scenarios haven't yet been invented. But people
in New Orleans (Katrina), Florida (nonstop hurricanes), and
New York (9/11) can tell you with certainty that they have.
Disasters really do occur!
Even
so, Murphy's Law did not come into existence on the basis of
an occasional natural disaster. Houses burn down every day,
people die without their loved ones knowing where important
documents are located, and viruses regularly wipe out computers.
We live in a complex world where the loss of valuable documents
and other items can change a person's life - overnight and
forever - for the worst.
Many
documents are like a spare tire: You may not need them often,
but when you do, you need them badly and you need them fast.
That being the case, my Christmas gift to you is to urge you
to protect both your important hard-copy and digital files.
It's
hard for me to fathom that less than 25 percent of computer
users back up their computers on a weekly basis. I have tens
of thousands of documents, folders, graphics, e-mails, e-mail
addresses, macros, AutoTexts, AutoCorrects, templates, spreadsheets,
and other files stored in digital form. I don't know about
you, but I can ill afford to risk losing them.
That's
why I bought an insurance policy against such a loss - for
only $130. And, believe it or not, it was a one-time payment.
That policy goes by the name of "external hard drive." On
a couple of occasions when my computer died, all I had to do
was disconnect my external drive and plug it (via its USB cord)
into another computer.
Note
that I said external hard drive. If you try to back
up to a second hard drive that is internal - a very risky setup
that many people have - it's like sawing the branch off a tree
while you're sitting on the end of it. If your computer is
stolen or wiped out in a fire or flood, you still lose everything
that's on the internal backup hard drive.
I
should also point out that I'm not one of the 20+ percent of
computer users who back up their hard drives once a week. No
way. I back up my hard drive every day! Further, I have 14
separate backup folders on my external hard drive, and each
night I assign a new date to the folder I'm using for that
day. That way, I always have a complete backup for each of
the last 14 days.
If
you're chuckling and thinking "anal retention," you
either don't know much about computers, don't use a computer
to any serious extent, or have never experienced a computer
disaster. If it's the latter, congratulations on your good
fortune.
But,
trust me, your good fortune won't last. No one makes it through
this computerized world of ours without experiencing a computer
disaster. Whether you like it or not, it's coming. It's only
a question of time ... and whether you'll be ready for it.
Serious
computer users also would be wise to look into offsite backup
options. This is not in lieu of an external hard drive but
in addition to it. A couple of the better known offsite backup
services are Pro Softnet Corp.'s IBackup and America Online's
Xdrive. They charge only $10 per month for five gigabytes of
storage and $100 per month for 25 gigabytes.
No
matter how overboard you go to protect your files, the costs
involved are relatively small, especially when compared to
the high cost of regret.
So,
here's hoping you accept, embrace, and utilize my Christmas
gift this year. The last thing in the world I would ever want
to say to you is "I told you so."
[Ed.
Note: Get
Robert Ringer's unique perspectives and profound
wisdom ... and join the millions of entrepreneurs, business
owners, salespeople, and individuals in all walks of life who
have taken gigantic steps toward achieving their personal and
professional goals ... with three of the most powerful personal-development
books of all time on CD.
And
sign up today for a complimentary subscription to Robert's
thought-provoking e-letter, Voice
of Sanity in an Insane World.]
* Advertisement *
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Your Nest Egg in 2007 With Monthly Smart Investing Tips
Don
Dion’s Retirement Income Guide delivers timely
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the December issue.
New
Yorkers Take a Step in a Healthy Direction
By
Al Sears, MD
New
York City's Board of Health is the first city in the country
to fix one of the FDA's many blunders: its position on trans-fats.
Ever since the FDA gave its stamp of approval, trans-fats have
exploded the risk of heart disease worldwide.
New
York's ban on trans-fat won't take full effect until July of
2008, but it's a step in the right direction. After years of
widespread use, numerous studies link trans-fats to heart attacks,
strokes, and cancer - to name just a few of many problems.
They have proven to increase your LDL (bad) cholesterol. What's
worse, they decrease your HDL (good) cholesterol. They also
cause inflammation and rob your brain and heart of the real
fats you need.
Many
doctors recommended "low-fat" products containing
trans-fats for years, thinking they were helping their patients.
My friend and colleague, Dr. Walter Willett, Chairman of the
Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health,
recently said:
"A
lot of people had made their careers telling people to
eat margarine [containing trans-fats] instead of butter.
... When I was a physician in the 1980s, that's what I
was telling people to do and unfortunately we were often
sending them to their graves prematurely."
And
margarine isn't the only culprit. In fast-food restaurants,
you'll find trans-fat in just about every menu item. A McDonald's
deluxe breakfast has a whopping 11 grams of trans-fat. A Kentucky
Fried Chicken dinner has about seven grams. The average order
of fries has six grams.
Whether
you're at home or in a restaurant, make sure you know what
you're eating. And get a balance of the good fats that matter
- like omega-3s. You'll find them in grass-fed beef, wild salmon,
avocados, nuts, and cod liver oil.
[Ed.
Note: Dr. Sears, a practicing physician and the author of The
Doctor's Heart Cure and 12
Secrets to Virility, is a leading authority
on longevity, physical fitness, and heart health.]
Reader
Feedback: "I came away from Bootcamp with a whole new
arsenal of tools to make business happen."
"Although
attending the ETR
and AWAI Bootcamps in succession was exhausting,
the content really was relevant and flowed beautifully from
technical considerations to content development needs of any
business - Internet or brick and mortar. I'm a pretty knowledgeable
techie, yet I came away with a whole new arsenal of tools to
make business happen. Thanks for all your hard work!"
-
Barbara Perkins
Mesquite, NV
Notes
from Michael Masterson's Blog: Publicity Events Come in All
Sizes
"I
got my undergrad degree from Stanford, but I got my Ph.D. in
Newark, and some of my best professors were here in Brick Towers," Newark
Mayor Cory A. Booker told a New York Times reporter
recently. He was preparing to leave his "bachelor-pad" apartment
in Brick Towers, one of Newark's worst - and certainly its
most notorious - low-income buildings.
[Ed.
Note: Read the rest of this article on Michael
Masterson's blog.]
-
Michael Masterson
* Highly
Recommended*
Do
You Need To Start Out Small?
If
you don't have an Internet business yet, or if your company
is smaller than $1 million then you need something different...
something that lets you start off small.
One
man I know turned $10 into over $500,000. How's that for starting
small!
Let
me show you how to get a similar Internet
income stream running for almost nothing.
-
Patrick Coffey
Word
to the Wise: Undulate
To "undulate" (UN-juh-late)
- from the Latin for "wave" - is to move with a
sinuous motion.
Example
(as used by Peter Marks in The New York Times): "The
actors' hands quiver and the poles undulate in the wind."
