If you’ve got a lot of money - or even just a little bit - there are all kinds of people ‘’out there'’ eager to convince you to ‘’invest'’ some - or preferably, all of it down to your very last dime - with . . . THEM. It is impossible to watch the teevee, listen to radio, surf the Net, read a magazine or newspaper or just answer your own phone - without having someone do a number on you - attempting every which way from Sunday to sell you on a promise of a larger bank balance.
It’s often irritating, because most of us who have ‘’been around the block a couple times'’ can instantly recognize mere hype from pure fact. Especially gauling, are the many ‘’free seminars'’ conducted daily across the land wherein people are drawn into the clutches of high-pressure salesmen eager to flick out their glib tongue and snarf up another sucker-fish filled with golden nuggets.
That would be YOU, my friend, if you’re not cautious. Most all such promoters promise either free or low-cost participation - yet end up clipping attendees who succumb for hundreds - usually, thousands of dollars.
Well, that’s okay, I suppose - it’s the American Way, after all - send something up the ol’ flagpole and see who salutes it! If it works, fine - if not - try something else. But from your standpoint, you’ll want to strive to conserve as much of your hard-earned assets as possible, whilst hopefully, increasing their value.
That’s essentially what this particular feature addresses: Finding unique but conservative investment opportunities that may help you slowly compound what you already have - without drastically risking everything you’ve got in the process. Let’s see what we have for your consideration at this time!
-Dean
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WHEN IT’S NOT JUST ART FOR ART’S SAKE!
By accident, we recently came upon an unusual and very inexpensive long-range investment opportunity you should definitely consider. The least you can lose is five bux - but no one on earth has a clue as to the most you could make - which is why ’tis so fascinating!
There’s a young man, Jason Mitchell (34), married, with a 15 month old child who wants to go back to college and get his MBA. He needs $47,000 to do that, so after considering every possibility, he launched a website from which he offers original, colorful abstract artwork, which I refer to as ‘’micro-mini-masterpieces.'’
The little paintings are unique - no two alike - and each is a mere 3″ X 3″ - and now, get THIS: He prices them at a pittance - just $5.00 per - and that includes postage! His goal is to sell 10,000 which will give him the needed funds for college.
Now, because I have seen his work (we have a bunch of ‘em in-house, as we speak), and he’s already had 500,000 ‘’hits'’ on his website, he may well someday become ‘’well-known.'’ When that happens, those earlier works - the ones available to you right now - today - may easily become very valuable.
In view of that, perhaps, you should consider buying a few of his nifty little works of art - the more the merrier - as you will also simply enjoy the works and showing them to your friends, etc., - if only, from the novelty aspect of it all.
And do note: Jason also numbers and signs each painting (on the reverse side) that DAX-DOERS buy - at no extra charge! That adds a bit of cachet, as well as establishes indisputable provenance for future resale of your holdings.
Go to his website WWW.ART4MBA.COM and scan the many colorful examples of his work. Either select the one(s) you want or ask him to make a selection for you - either way, you’ll receive some small, but qualitative, original paintings available nowhere else, that we know of!
This is one investment I do not think you can go wrong with - even if you merely keep and enjoy your one-of-a-kind, genuine, original art. Or, you can see if there are any du Vall original works available somewhere - but they start at $15,000.00 each nowadays - if you can find one - HA!
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SIGN HERE, PLEASE . . .
Like most DAX-DOERS, I read a lot. Oddly, I suppose, seldom do I read my own stuff until many years after the original writing, editing and publishing. Others who know that fact seem to think it peculiar. ’tis not due to a weak ego - only that by the time a lengthy article or an entire book is actually produced - I’m simply sick and tired of the thing!
I also do not really keep up much on what others may have said or are saying about my various works. So recently, I was surprised when it was pointed out that a number of websites of ‘’collector book-sellers'’ had a few of my earlier works offered.
But frankly, what sort of shocked me was that my very first novel, ‘’The Big Dream,'’ which (in 1979) was published in hard cover (with dust jacket) by Lyle Stuart, Inc. in New York for a mere ten bux a copy - is nowadays fetching anywhere from $42.02 to $138.82!
And in each case, that is not for a mint copy but rather, the condition is listed as ‘’acceptable.'’
The Derek Dax adventure/mystery series (and there were only two, due to the very real demise of my alter ego’s ‘’sidekick'’ - Kareem in the case of Hameed - Dax in the case of ME): ‘’The Enchanted Cottage'’ and ‘’Class Prophecy: Murder!'’ - those books were only published in paperback - the original price per was a mere $6.95. They now bring upwards of $30.00 to $40.00 a copy.
Further - and it is thus that forms the basis for this piece - all those prices are merely for Plain-Jane copies. In short, they are not autographed or more importantly, they are not inscribed! Just plain vanilla copies off the shelf . . .
Authors ‘’sign'’ a lot of books, but not very many are ever inscribed to a particular person - and many, are not even dated. But an original copy of a book - especially, if a first (printing) edition - which is inscribed, dated and signed by the author generally, makes the thing worth several hundred percent more.
I surfed around a bit to check on other authors of my acquaintance and came across a bunch of books by my late friend John D. MacDonald, who developed the famous Travis McGee mystery series, and was my mentor when I decided to start writing the Derek Dax adventure/mystery series about a quarter of a century back.
We corresponded now and then and he delighted in gossiping about other popular, contemporary writers and referred in one letter to an especially annoying romance novelist of the era, Judith Krantz as Judith ‘’Crotch.'’ Ha!
Over time, he sent me a number of his first (hard cover) editions - always inscribed to me personally, dated and signed. Today, most all are worth upwards of two grand each!
So, here’s my suggestion: First, if you already have any of my earlier books - you may want to either keep ‘em and allow to grow more mo$$ - or sell on ebay or Amazon.com to someone for a pretty penny - and a nice return on your original investment - especially, if in some cases, you received the dang thing as a gift!
Hopefully (but unlikely on a statistical basis) yours will have been autographed, perhaps inscribed but always at least, dated. You may have attended one of my seminars at which I signed - and inscribed - a number of books, as I recall. (My biggest ‘’recall'’ was that of a young woman with a child in tow who veritably accosted me at an airport demanding that I sign her copy of ‘’The Big Dream.'’)
I realized then and there I cared little for actual, ‘’I-know-who-the-heck-you-are!'’ in-your-face celebrity. Indeed, I cancelled a scheduled appearance on the Larry King Show (he was a longtime friend of Lyle Stuart’s - no doubt the only reason I had been asked to appear).
More important: I would suggest that you scour garage sales, flea markets, Goodwill stores and the like to see if you can find any books that were signed by the authors. Generally, that data will appear in the fly leaf - although sometimes, you may discover it on the content page - even the copyright data page.
Although, you should be on the look-out for works from the likes of Stephen King, the aforementioned John D. MacDonald, plus all other ‘’names'’ - for the tiny investment usually involved, I’d also pick up any author’s work - whether he or she still lives - if, in particular, they wrote anything of a personal nature in the book.
Most all books from the sources listed - regardless of the author, the book’s age, etc. - can be picked up for 50 cents or a dollar. SuEllen and I recently stopped by a couple yard sales on the last day of a highly-touted 3-day event ‘’The longest garage sale in the Midwest’ It stretched from Detroit to Chicago along old route 112) and a couple vendors were so desperate to ‘’dump’ their remaining stock of all sorts of stuff that it was all 100% FREE! We got a trunkload of ancient books for nothing that we have yet to sort through.
A nasty fact of ‘’authoring'’ is that for the most part, newly published books have a ‘’shelf life'’ (in this case, a most appropriate descriptor!) of just a few weeks - or a few months, in isolated cases.
Thereafter, the leftover books are returned to the publisher or distributor and generally, end up as ‘’remainders'’ for a few pennies on the dollar at various retail outlets. Some such may come to be of greater value later on, but again, for the moment we are talking about books that have been autographed, etc., as detailed earlier.
This may just well be a fascinating adjunct to other ‘’seek and ye shall find'’ activities if you already enjoy looking for valuable old PEZ, comic books, lunch boxes or whatever.
I should point out, I suppose, that all of my earlier books (of fiction) have been out of print for quite awhile, thus, we have none available for purchase. Indeed, I’d be hard-pressed to find a copy around here to read myself!
Oh, and this: Sorry, but I will not now (years after-the-fact) autograph, date or inscribe any otherwise ‘’Plain-Jane'’ books of mine that anyone may have acquired in yesteryears! That’s cheating, in my mind . . .
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WHEN THE CHIPS ARE . . . UP!
A fast-growing hobby is also becoming a fairly intriguing investment, of sorts, although one requiring some caution and exercise of common sense like the field it represents . . . gambling.
We’re taking here about casino chips which some like to say are the new baseball cards, in that a great deal of interest in the hobby has been generated of late. The chips, a/k/a tokens, may be quite valuable - upwards of $10,000.00 apiece - especially, if from a defunct casino such as Bugsy Siegal’s Flamingo, the old Hacienda (where the late Redd Foxx would hold ‘’very blue'’ court) and others. A couple examples:
A $5.00 chip from the defunct Desert Inn will fetch up to $8,000.00 whilst a five-dollar marker for the aforementioned Hacienda is worth more than $10,000.00. Generally, the higher the value, the more the item is worth. Hence, a $100 chip will be worth considerably more than a $1.00 or $5.00.
Also popular are the kind of tokens that SuEllen collects: I always called them ‘’funny money'’ as that was what they were called when I was haunting the Vegas Strip ‘’way back when.'’ They are the $1.00 tokens which are used in slot machines. Every casino has it’s own style and design and some are rather creative.
One such was the original token from the Soaring Eagle Casino in Northern Michigan. It was a solid brass base, but had colorful plastic overlays on each side. Only problem: The overlays wore off very quickly, so mint versions are quite rare. If you’ve been a DAXER for a few years, perhaps, you were one of the lucky ones who received one of the free mint condition coins back when we were handing ‘em out!
Anyway, I bought S.E. a leather album to display her collection and we are still adding to it. Last I knew, she was still in need of both Landmark and Golden Nugget coins. BE CAREFUL! There are a bunch of coins that have been produced just to cash in on the craze, but most collectors have disdain for the likes of ‘’I got divorced in Vegas'’ or some of the restaurant (not casino) versions.
There’s a fellow, Michael Haas, known as Mr. Chips - an expert on the topic - and he tells us that those type of coins are mere ‘’sucker bets.'’
An interesting aside: Each major casino in Vegas has to replace about one MILLION $1.00 coins each year as tourists take them home as souvenirs. ‘course, no one’s crying about THAT because that million bux for each casino is darn near 100% profit!
Here’s an enlightening website you might care to visit: WWW.OldVegasChips.com
Re: This hobby/investment . . . Collect chips for the fun of it, and as cheaply as possible when acquiring via a website (there are numerous ones available and of course, the familiar e-bay, where at any given time you’ll find about 2000 offered), but do not shell out huge sums until or unless you have fully informed yourself on the topic.
Then, you may well find excellent bargains now and then and theoretically, most of those chips/coins will appreciate in value with the passing of time - and the continuing demolition of once-famous casinos! (It seems like every time S.E. and I stay at a hotel/casino - they soon after blow it up! As with the Sands, Dunes, etc.)
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AS SAFE AS IT GETS NOWADAYS!
This is not so much data on where to stick your extra $$$, but rather, something you may want to consider as regards your ‘’everyday money'’ - funds you use on a regular basis that you do not necessarily want to tie up, but nonetheless, would like to realize a decent return on.
To that end, may we suggest that you explore the possibility of utilizing the services of one of the on-line banks? In case you are unaware - and you may well be, as the on-line banks are a fairly recent phenomenon - there are now several ‘’stable'’ financial institutions that operate exclusively on-line. As such, they have far less overhead than the traditional bricks and mortar operations (such as you pass every day when you go into town - wherever you live.)
The online banks are fully protected by the U.S. Government by way of the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) up to $100,000 per depositor - $200,000 when two people own the funds jointly.
BENEFITS
There are several advantages to placing your unused funds - or even your occasionally-used monies - in one of the on-line savings banks. First, they generally pay you a far greater annual interest rate. For example, one or more of the banks (listed for you later) offer upwards of 4.75% (soon to be 5%, we predict) interest and here’s the important thing to understand:
This is NOT where you take out a CD (Certificate of Deposit) and commit your funds to a long term, but rather, simply a basic savings account just as you may otherwise have at one of your local banks - you know, the kind where you go in and waste an hour or so listening to the fat-ass/fat-cat banker tell you all about his recent golf scores and other nonsense when all the while, you’re just trying to get a ‘’good deal'’ on giving him all your excess funds!
Additionally, the modern on-line banks are almost always connected to, or in most cases, actually OWN a separate entity that offers either a VISA or MasterCard account (or both) whereby you can gain additional ‘’free money'’ by virtue of obtaining one of the cards (we did so in an incredible 3 minutes!)
Then, each time you use the card, a percentage of any and all purchases is set aside and ultimately (in many cases, every 6 months) automatically deposited into your savings account. Free money - that also earns additional interest! This can amount to several hundred dollars every year of, again, FREE MONEY!
Currently, you will find numbers such as these actual ones: (up to) 4.75% annual APY on your savings account PLUS (up to) 1.45% ‘’MORE free money'’ paid on all your credit card purchases - which as we mentioned, is subsequently deposited as REAL MONEY to your interest-bearing account (of 4.75%!)!
Most on-line banks offer other 100% free services: You can transfer funds electronically (and instantly) in or out of the account from any other ‘’local'’ account you may maintain. There is NO CHARGE for this service by either bank! In short: Go downtown, deposit a thousand bux into your regular bank, which nowadays probably pays you a measly 1.5%, then, go on-line and instruct that local institution to make the transfer.
If/when you need or want some funds back in your local account, just go on-line and make a few clicks and . . . whamo! Your $$ is back at your local institution where you can withdraw it or write checks on the sum. Caution:
A couple of the on-line banks offer a checking feature along with the basic savings plan. It sounds good, but we would avoid that, as there are monthly charges for the check privileges whereas with the strictly deposit-fund-via-bank-transfers (deal) there are NO extra costs!
Another feature of this whole deal: The charge-card adjunct option is such that each month, they will email you (if you like) a few days in advance of your (postal) mailed statement to alert you to the amount you’re gonna gave to pay - plus the individual transactions for that month. Yikes! I just got one today - for over $9,400.00!
Here are a few of the currently popular on-line banking institutions: www.ING.com e-Savings (at) citibank.com www.HSBC.com www.EmigrantDirect.com www.GMACBank.com When you check out any of these - or others - make darn sure they are all FDIC protected!
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A VALUABLE ASSET YOU ALREADY HAVE IN YOUR PORTFOLIO!
Let’s discuss a genuine, significant INVESTMENT, which you certainly must already possess, even though you may be unaware of that fact!
Huh? Yes - ’tis true! More than likely, you and/or your employer have been contributing ever-increasingly large sums of money into YOUR Federal Social Security fund from the first day you started to work. I once told you, that when SuEllen, as a teenager, got her first paycheck from her first job at a drug store, she looked it over and said ‘’Who the heck is this FICA guy - and why is he getting so much of MY money?!'’
It’s just a fact of life - ours, at least - that we all must pay that ‘’SS vigorish'’ at every pay period -and for those of us who are self-employed - we pay the ‘’full shot'’ - rather than just half, as those who work for others do.
OKAY DEAN, SOCIAL SECURITY, SO WHAT?
Let me ask you a couple questions and we’ll see ‘’so what?'’
Right now, do you know at what age YOU can start receiving full SS benefits? On your 65th birthday you say? Not if you were born after 1938. Depending on the year of your birth, you need to add months or years. Some examples:
1939: Add 2 months
1942: Add 10 months
1943: Add one year
1959: Add one year PLUS 10 months!
In all the years between the above examples, the number of months you must add (to the basic 65 years) varies, of course.
Do you have any idea how MUCH money Uncle Sam would send you every month if you were to start claiming your benefits? As it can range anywhere from nothing to darn near $2,000.00 (a MONTH) maybe you should look into it!
If you live until your nineties, your aggregate windfall may well approach three-quarters of a MILLION dollars!
Do you know that you can start receiving (proportionately reduced) monthly payments starting on your 62nd birthday - that you do NOT have to wait until you are 65 (plus whatever months or years are normally required)?
Despite many statements by so-called financial advisors to the contrary, are you aware that if you start receiving benefits at any age - 62, 63, 64, 65 - or if you elect to wait until later years when your monthly payments will be even greater, nonetheless, over a protracted period (say, ten - fifteen years - all things being equal, you will NOT lose a dime - even though initially, your monthly payments may be much less than had you waited.
That’s one of several myths about Social Security that most Americans believe. You will see otherwise intelligent men and women on teevee chat shows - especially, of course, the financially-oriented ones, espousing how one must carefully study the issue and determine precisely when it’s best for the individual to start receiving benefits.
Bull Tickey! The best time is whenever they’re offered! The money you get NOW can be utilized, spent, invested, draw interest or whatever. It is REAL money. Otherwise, it is no more than a promise that you MAY live long enough to see some $$ years from now.
For a long time - and to this very day - many people believe that the amount of S.S. benefits one receives is determined by a formula based on the last five years of gainful employment BEFORE benefits are claimed. Not so. The actuaries take the highest 35 years of your earnings and base the monthly amount on that computation.
There are instances where the amount can be increased later, should one continue to work and contribute significantly to the S.S. ‘’kitty.'’ NOTE: Depending upon your earnings after you start to receive S.S. benefits you may be subject to a reduction in the monthly federal fork-over - so, you need to educate yourself in that regard, too.
No doubt you know that certain disabilities entitle you to receive S.S. benefits long before ANY specific ‘’retirement age.'’ Tons of our tax bux go out every month to people all over the country who are younger, and in some cases healthier than us ‘’oldsters'’ - totally legal, of course. There are numerous loopholes and hidden benefit possibilities built into the Social Security system - and await anyone willing to exploit them.
Conversely, there are many worthwhile benefits that await YOU, the hardworking DAX-DOER type who has paid into the fund for many years and one of these days you will be in a position to reap your reward. I only suggest that you take the time to learn all about it BEFORE that time.
You should already be receiving an annual state-ment from the Social Security Administration office detailing your life’s wages and contri-butions to the fund (as well as to Medicare). Study that - check it over to make certain it is accurate. If not, they will be more than willing to correct it, believe it or not!
Also, and perhaps, here is your strongest ally: Go to www.socialsecurity.gov There, you will find a marvelous website that is interactive and ever-improving - based on the suggestions of people just like you and me. Avail yourself of that totally free data - and make the most of it! It is, after all, YOUR money - not that guy’s named FICA!
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