I hate to admit it, but, at times, I lose sight of reality. Now mind you, I’m considered by those who know me as fairly intelligent. I have a good job, I read a lot and have helped a bunch of people end up with better jobs than me, by doing their resumes. However, when someone approaches me with an opportunity to make money, the cognitive side of my brain must simply shut down. I know I’m not alone, but it sure feels like it sometimes. I must admit that I think this year I finally grew up and learned something. First off, don’t believe anyone if they tell you that their husband who was royalty died at the hands of an assassin and now they need to get the money out of the country and you are the one they picked to help them, based on a referral from a prominent businessman in the UK. Hmm, I really didn’t think I knew any businessmen in the UK, but you know, I’m always on the internet and always looking for a way to make money. Maybe our paths did cross somewhere and he liked me and referred me to this person. I can laugh at this one, because the only thing I lost was a hundred dollars (after I sold the offshore account I had set up on Ebay). Looking back, I feel really stupid for falling for it, but in my defense, this was in 1998 or so and people weren’t onto this Nigerian scam thing. Okay, so I wised up to that type of scam, but then along came an investment broker with lots of good advice on how to turn my measly little $5k into hundreds of thousands if I made a monthly allotment and let the interest reinvest. This was actually pretty cool and worked for a while until things got crazy in 2000. I had become obsessed with investing, putting every last quarter in and watching it grow in leaps and bounds. Then just as quickly as it went up, it started going down. I kept asking my advisor, “Should I pull it out?” And he kept saying, “You’re in it for the long haul…it’s has to turn around eventually.” Well, I ended up having less than a thousand dollars in my account and that ended my Wall Street adventure. Investing is not for the little guy. My new strategy is to only invest in real estate…it’s tangible and if you lose all your money at least you have a place to sleep. Some other things I’ve learned over the years are…nothing you put in your bathwater can make you lose weight, wearing a sling around your head does not eliminate a double chin, taking carotene pills do make you have a nice tan, and forwarding an email to ten people will not make a popup window come up telling you that Bill Gates is tracking it and will pay you for doing it. Too bad…I’d like to get a check from Bill Gates for email forwarding.

        

 

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