Friday, February 17, 2012

Done with stock options

I've had it with stock options. I think it is just delusional to think that I can buy stock options and make any money with them. Maybe people who write options can make money, but someone who buys them is almost certain to lose. The last options I had were in ARM holdings and Red Hat. I lost about $500 this week in them. I can no longer afford to lose that kind of money. I'll have to get a job and save about $10,000 to invest in stocks.
This is a picture of Mary the owner of Java Johns. This is in the back room, looking towards the kitchen.
This is a picture of Claire. She's a barista at Java Johns. This is looking towards the front of the coffee shop.
I hang out at Java Johns most of the day. I'm probably the person who is there the most. I spent about two hours with Loula and her financial adviser today. It was the first time anyone asked me about financial decisions.
Loula made the commitment to go metal detecting with me. She doesn't know it but we'll get out there a lot sooner than she thought. If the weather keeps warming up like it has lately, we'll be looking for coins in a week or two. The ground is already warming up and thawing. I can't wait to get out to a ghost town named Conover to see if I can find some old coins.
Til then I might have to look for beer cans for the redemption value. Maybe I should get a real job but I can't see risking my disability by holding down a job. Unfortunately, beer cans don't pay very much. I've never been able to make more than $4.00/hr. looking for them.This is better than nothing.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Lazy Day at Java John's

I've slacked off on posting lately. It turned out that when I went to Google Analytics, that I actually have a few viewers of my site. It looked like 5 people went to my site last month. I'll have to get fired up and start posting more often. Site Monitor didn't show anyone as going to my blog so I got discouraged. I think the lesson is to use Google.
My investing didn't go to well, so far. I transferred some money into my E-trade account but then I waited for it to clear before investing. Had I invested right away I might have made $2,000 for an investment of $300. Netflix had a great earnings report and it moved up about $15 a share. I bought the option too late to take advantage of that. I shouldn't have bought it at all. You snooze, you lose.  I now have options in John Deere and Case. They are both machinery makers. Tomorrow I'll be buying Morgan Stanley and maybe, Boeing.
As always, my car started costing me a bunch of money just as I starting investing. I've been running up credit card debt on the presumption that most of my expenses are one-time costs and will be easily taken care of. The trouble is that I have to make money on the options to justify that sort of thinking. If the market tanks due to something going on in Europe, I might have to get a job.
I might have to get a job anyway. I'm tired of being broke most of the time and I need a little more structure to my life. I just don't want to work more than about 20 Hr./wk. I'm happy with having most of my time to myself.
Even the big blizzard that hit Southern and Western Iowa missed us. We got no snow when it snowed 11 inches in Omaha. I'm just not making any money. When it does snow I have a hard time keeping up with the work.
I might have to go to California and help out my sister. I could get free rent by shoveling manure for her horses. I know that she would keep me busy with maintaining her house and horses. I also know that I would be making the least possible working for her. I like having my own apartment anyway. The gold prospecting seems the best bet. I just need to get my car running a bit better before I take that on. I should replace the engine, at least. I'll have to save up for that somehow.
I've been reading a lot about the Law of Attraction, lately. I'm hoping that  it helps me with my investments. The book I'm working on now is "The Intention Experiment" by Lynne McTaggart. It has to do with experiments pertaining to the mind influencing external things. It's too complex to give a simple explanation of it.
That's all that I have for today. I'll be posting some more with pictures in the future.
Thanks
Craig

Friday, February 3, 2012

Sixteen dogs

This is something that my sister told me about. It's kinda fun:  sixteen dogs