1) Your family. Spend more time with them. For get about the "quality" adjective. Thats a cop out.
2) Your health. No resolutions. Just do it. Exercise, or better yet just do anything whether it be a sport that keeps you active or a lifestyle change. make it big and make it last last. None of this 'baby-steps' bs. And for crissakes see a doctor, and if you haven't been in a long while, go to one of those heart check or body scan places spend the few hundred dollars and see what the heck is going on in your body. You will save much more money than just about any other thing you can do, and give yourself much more time in life for your family and loved ones. Don't let your life be cut short. (we need you also to help pay for social security and work longer for the generations our government has put into debt
)3) Your spirit and mind. No matter what happens economically or globally on the financial front, this is a tremendous investment in any environment. Engage in activities that get you away from this computer, and the Web. My favorite is taking one of your own personal personal talents or strenghts and using it to help others.
4) Write more letters. NO. Not email. That does not count. Real letters on real paper, and snail mail. Make an investment in writing people and doing one of several important things
1. Tell them how important they are to you if it is true. 2. Thank them for being in your life. 3. Off to do something for them 4. Write something fun and/or creative. Use it to get your dang fingers/minds away from the Blackberry's, computers, or cell phones in your life. These things are killing people faster and allowing time to slip away needlessly.
5) Get outdoors much much more. And think about how you might improve something while you are at it. You can go on hikes or camping or what-have-you, or sports, but try doing something more persistent and rewarding. Like gardening, or volunteering at a local nursery or arboretum if necesary, or even something dramatic and unusual like bee-keeping. You don't have to live on a farm to do this stuff, but trust me this will be a major investment for you and your family. Think about it in terms of how you might also include others, your children, your neighbors, etc.
6) Monetary - forget buy and hold. Trade more. Sign up for more financial help or advisories. Try out Mark and the TT gang for example. Don't just visit this site for nothing. Spend the dough. It will come back in spades. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money.
Or if you trade too much, do the complete opposite and don't do ANY trading. and just focus on the above 5 items. Go cold turkey for 6 months or longer. Then next year you can come back re-freshed and stronger in all aspects of your life. My best investments I ever made from a financial standpoint, all occurred AFTER I really gained and "invested" in two or more of the other 5 areas listed above. I can almost guarantee it will work for you too.
7) Learn how to fix things and be more mechanical. (or even low volatge electrically inclined) If there is any one area I highly recommend is this: Learn how to do more things that involve your hands and mind. I cannot tell you how much I have saved in my life, and time for myself and others, and far less frustration by taking the time to solve my own problems that are things most anyone can fix or repair if they simply put their minds to it. In the day and age of our now "services" society, so many people have become beholden entirely to others to fix things in their life, whether it be cars, home repairs, equipment, toys, electronics, themselves, etc. Think of how interdependent you are on so many others in society, and things being able to work, and necessary to be in 'working condition' in your life for your life to proceed each day. Take all those things you use everyday, and think about what might happen if you couldn't get those services or buy new ones.
Its also highly rewarding to know how and to be able to fix things. Women need to do this as much or more than men. Bu repair manuals, google it, and go to the library. It seems like you could get it done far more faster by just "paying the man" to get something done. But once you learn it and do it, the dividends pay off highly. I have learned so many things that have built on each other, that so many people are always asking how do you know how to do that, or how in the world did you fix that so fast ? We also live in a throwaway society where things "break" far faster and more frequently.
Which leads me to my last "investment":
8) Buy or 'invest" in QUALITY. Period. (that is if you must buy at all) Pay the extra bucks. Buy things that can last a 'life time.' (or something close). Its better for you, for the environment (less to recycle and less to go into the landfills) and far less expensive in the long run. If you think you can't 'afford it' think again. And generally speaking, higher quality products, are usually able to be repaired by you or someone else far more easily, and even cheaply.)
If you demand QUALITY, and ONLY buy QUALITY then the crappy manufacturers who are out there now will either change their products or go out of business. Just look at the BIG 3. They are having SO much trouble bc they have built crap for years and continue to do so. But the cheap chinese (indian, or whatever the nation) imitation of so many inferior products only exists bc consumers consume them and keep coming back for more. If we only persisted and insisted upon QUALITY there might have been more American manufacturers to stay in business and not have outsourced their own manufacturing to ther nations. That is NOT to say that only Americans have built quality over the years (aka the BIG 3 shows us that), but many high quality manufacturers have gone out of business or 'outsourced' much of their production and there simply is little effort taken anymore to build things for what manufacturers and consumers have turned into a disposable society.
