Cheap Vacations with Intrawest and Bluegreen

Just listen to a 90 minute time-share presentation, and then spend the rest of your vacation at a cheap price. I stayed at Clubintrawest 3 days/ 2 nights for $120 at BlueMountain Resorts in Collingwood, Ontario. Regular price would have cost me over $400. So listening to 1 1/2 hour presentation saved me $280 bucks. If you are not interested in their time-share sales offer, just say "no thanks."

Intrawest was a publicly traded company but was taken private some years ago. Their is still Bluegreen (BXG) which I recently stumbled upon in the Bass Pro Shop. Stay at any of their resorts, 3 days/nights for $49 and get a $50 gift certificate from the Bass Pro Shop. How can I say no? It's like buying a fishing rod and getting the trip for free :)

BXG stock is trading near book value and sometimes goes below book value based on historics. Wallstreet just doesn't give any recognition to time-share companies. Maybe they will go private someday.....it's 93% insider owned.

100% return on investment guranteed.

Sign up for Citibank direct and get $100 signing bonus! You just have to be a U.S Resident and be over 18.

Citibank direct website promotion.

If you live in Canada, HSBC direct has extended their promotion and increased the $25 bonus to $50!

HSBC direct website promotion.

Nothing like no-risk guaranteed return :-)

Treat your Job like a Business. Be the CEO !

Being a fundamental value investor has its advantages when you can leverage this knowledge to your everyday life. Some people, like myself, have never owned a business but if you treat your job and life like a business, you would be so far in the game when it comes to retiring rich.

"family" life as a business and financial metrics to measure progress

Monthly questions
-What's my total income?
-What are my total expenses (food, mortgage, cable bill, phone bill, gas, car insurance, etc...)
-What's are my profit margins?
-What's my Cashflow? (income - expenses)
-What's my book value (networth)?
-What's my debt-equity ratio (debt/networth) ?
-What's my Return on equity

Recording these figures can give you incredible insight on how a business is run and make you a better investor. You might say to yourself after doing this "Man, I'm running a crummy business, I have negative profit margins, no cash, my debt to equity ratio is 99%. Who would buy my stock?!!" Once you know where you are, start figuring out like a CEO, "how can I run my business more efficiently?"

How to Increase Income
-Ask for a raise
-Get another part time job or side business

How to Decrease Expense
-Get rid of credit cards by refinancing your home.
-Ask your credit card company for a lower rate. 18% to 10% makes a big difference.
-Don't use credit cards and pay cash.
-Go grocery shopping once a month.
-Eat out less.
-Bring lunch to work.
-Don't buy coffee or lotto tickets.

Simple things to increase your income or decrease your expense can make a big difference in your life and as an investor!

"It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results. " - Warren Buffett

Pay yourself First. The Automatic Millionaire

I was reading David Bach's "Automatic Millionaire" and one great piece of advice from the book was pay yourself first by making it automatic.

As a small investor with a modest income, it's really important to learn how to save. Quite often when we get a paycheque, we just spend it and by the end of the month when we want to put some money into our savings nest egg, there's nothing left over from our spending. That's why paying yourself first makes sense.

One excellent way, is to set up automatic bill payments to your investment account & retirement savings account. By paying yourself first automatically, you don't have to be disciplined and savings becomes relatively easy.

Start off easy and work your way up....when I started it was:

Automatic Bill payments every month:
$10 : Investment Account
$10 : Retirement Savings Plan
$40 : Credit card (this extra payment reduces my debt quicker, it's like making 18% on my money)

Start slowly and as the months go by, if you think you can handle it, gradually increase the amount. Try it and you'll be on your way to retireing rich!!