Save, Even If It's Only $5 A Month

If you're a single mother the words money and finance probably give you goosebumps. In the United States today most families just can't make it on a single income, yet day after day single parents make it happen. They make it happen by living paycheck to paycheck and pulling off the occasional miracle. That doesn't leave much for rainy days or college tuition for that matter.

If you think you can't afford to save money you should look at your savings differently. What if you could only afford to put $10 a month aside or into a savings account? That would only leave you with $120 at the end of the year, so why bother, right? Wrong! Every little bit counts.

Eventually watching your savings account slowly add up with become an obsession!

Practice Makes Perfect...

The only way to be a better investor is to practice. Many of us don’t feel secure enough in our own money managing abilities to jump into the stock market head first. Good thing there are plenty of resources out there for people like you! Fine tune your skills by managing a virtual portfolio. By practicing with fake money, you can learn from your mistakes, without mistakes costing you! I wish I’d discovered virtual investing before I made my first investment, it would have saved me a bit of money!!!

http://www.investingexperience.com/

http://www.themint.org/about/index.php

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/7-16-2006-102539.asp

http://www.moneyinstructor.com/investing.asp

Add To Your Income

Are you looking for a way to add to your income? Making a little extra money each month to put towards paying off debt or investing would mean a great deal for your future! There are plenty of easy ways to make money online. If you spend week nights at home, watching t.v. or just hanging out, you might consider looking into these options.

www.helium.com is a fun site to make a bit of money with. Are you ever in the mood to just vent your opinion? Do it at helium! Other users will rate your article and you'll earn a little bit of money off of it! You'll see your earnings grow each month, depending on how well your article is rated. Give it a try, naturally it's totally free and you can't write on a variety of subjects!

www.associatedcontent.com is a great site, that I've made a lot of money from. That's because I enjoy writing! Write 400+ word articles on anything you want, submit them to AC and receive an offer between $3-$40 for your work. If you like to write, this site is for you!

www.shutterpoint.com, are you crazy about your digital camera? Always taking pictures? Perhaps you should consider selling some of those photos!

Last, but certainly not least there's www.chacha.com. In order to work for chacha you have to be invited. You can check out my previous posts on chacha to see what it's all about. It just so happens that I have 8 invites available to give out! If you're interested in working for chacha then e-mail me here Triciadnt@yahoo.com, be sure to include "Work For ChaCha" in the subject line.

All of these money making opportunities can be done in your spare time, like evenings after you get home from work. If you're interested in adding anywhere from $1 to $500+ to your monthly income (depending on how many sites you work with and how much effort you put into it). These are some great ways to do it!

How's It Going At ChaCha?

It's going great at ChaCha! If you haven't checked out ChaCha yet, it really is time! www.chacha.com is the future of online searching. Instead of sorting through 100's of pages of information yourself, a real person does it for you in minutes! You'll find the best information, and perhaps even have a great conversation while they're looking for you.

I love being a guide for ChaCha. It's really a lot of fun to help people get the information they need. I'm now able to distribute ChaCha tool bars. However, I have a limited number. If you're interested in downloading a ChaCha tool bar, which is totally customizable complete with "search with guide", then shoot me an e-mail. Be sure to put ChaCha Tool Bar in the subject line so I know what the e-mail is about. You'll be the first in line for the online searching evolution!

The Few, The Proud, The Elite

That's right, I received an invitation to become a guide for Chacha.com. For those of you who do not know about chacha.com, it's an amazing new way to search the web. You can find things on chacha that you simply cannot find elsewhere. The good thing about chacha for me is that I can make extra money by working for them!

I am however, having some problems. For instance, I cannot download the "guide application". Which is certainly required to do any work! I cannot even start to learn how to operate their system until I can download that guide application, so I'm stuck. Hopefully, I'll get some help with this soon!

How To Read An Annual Report

A company's annual report hold valuable information for the prospective investor. If, said investor can manage to understand what they see in the annual report! Seriously, with confusing terms and huge calculations it seems as if these annual reports are meant to confuse the individual investor. Leaving you crying in the kitchen floor screaming for your broker. It's okay, pick yourself up! Here's how to read and annual report.

* Income Statement - How sucessful has the company been at making money?

In the income statement you'll see where the company makes it's money, by doing or selling whatever it is they do or sell. You'll see that a portion of the revenue is put towards paying their own expenses. What they're left with, their profit, is the "bottom line" on the income statement.

* Cash Flow Statement - How are hey paying for operations and growth?

Here's the company's money, the "bottom line" from the Income Statement becomes the "Cash Flow from Operations" here. You'll see the amount of money that came into the company. Cash Flow from Financing, here you can tell the company's health. Has the company created new stocks to sell? This lessens the value of stocks, that's bad for the shareholder! Are they buying back shares? That can mean the company is paying off debt. That's good for the shareholder! Cash Flow to Investing: we want to see a company grow, to expand their earnings. We want the company to be able to pay for this growth with earnings from Operations, without having to raise money by selling new stocks.

* Balance Sheet - What the company owns and owes (debt)

How much will the company pay or owe to Stock and Bond Investors?

Are you more of a visual learner? Click here to see how it all works!

Free $25 For Investing

If you're a member of mypoints.com you can get 550 points and a free $25 through Sharebuilder! I received this offer in my inbox for the second time. I took advantage of this oppourtunity a few months ago by opening a custodial account for my daughter. I made my first investment and about 4 weeks later received $25 in my inbox. We all know investing is the smartest way to save your money, so there's really nothing to loose here! If you don't have a mypoints account, go sign up now- it's free!. You have to open a new sharebuilder account, if you already have one open- no big deal, open another. You can make it for something specific, like a college fund or individual account. Use the promotional code mypoints25; there's nothing better than free money!