#13 Completed! Play the Stock Market

The Market took a big dump today, which made it a great day for buying. Luckily, I had some $$ in my stock account that was asking to be spent. I purchased LF (Leap Frog) for $3.90 & SIRI (Sirius) for $0.60. Leap Frog makes those cool educational children's toys. I am hoping that with Christmas just around the corner that we will see a little spike in it's price. Frankly, I just bought SIRI to try to get some sort of return on the huge loss I have taken. Hope it works or else more money down the drain. I guess that's the risk you have to take in the Stock Market. If it was easy, everyone would be millionaires!

profit/loss, year-to-date: +230%

#13 Play the Stock Market

The stock market is on fire today!! At the start of the day I was holding DNN, CPE, SIRI, ADVNA, AEZS & XRM. I sold XRM for $1.30 ($0.35 more than what I paid for it). I have a limit trade in for ADVNA for $0.60 (only $0.12 more than I bought it for), but that's not looking like it will sell today. DNN & CPE are on the rise, but I need them to each go up another $0.25 for me to make a little $$$. SIRI is still my lost cause stock, I keep hoping that a miracle will happen. I guess Howard Stern doesn't have as much of a following as I thought. Lesson learned...don't buy stocks where one person has to carry the entire company. At some point I will have to put my tail between my legs, accept the loss & sell...it's bringing down my portfolio!

#13 Play the Stock Market

My sister-in-law says that it is "time in the market, not timing the market" and she's probably right, but I sure am having a great time trying! I have been "day-ish trading" since Jan 2009 and so far I am up 85%. By no means am I an expert, but here are the strategies (if you want to called it that) I use:

• I put all the stocks that I currently hold and the ones the I am watching in the stock application on my Iphone. When the stock market is down (all my stocks will turn red on my Iphone) I buy and when it's up (they turn green), I sell. I know, you're saying..."duh"? But, I really believe that it is as simple as that.
  
• I try not be too greedy. As Warren Buffet has said, "I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over". I only try to make $100 on each stock trade and believe me there are many times when it has been hard to sell at the $100 mark without just wanting to take my chances at making more. But, in my head the words "don't get greedy" float around.
  
• When the market is down, I turn to Motley Fools to help me pick my stocks. I go to their Top Tens "Hot 5-Star Stocks" and choose something in my price range.
  
• I try not to complicate things. My stock vocabulary consists of: trade, limit, chart, stop loss and market. I don't get too involved in all of the rest of the lingo because I feel like it will just complicate the simple "buy low, sell high" strategy.
  
• Patience. I am patient, I wait for the market to go significantly down & significantly up. Sometimes this take 1 hour and sometimes 1 month...I wait.

Here's a the list of current stocks I am holding: DNN (Denison Mines Corp), CPE (Callon Petroleum Co.), WRES (Warren Resources Inc), SIRI (SIRIUS), CSE (CapitalSource Inc.), TGB (Taseko Mines)

I hope I can officially double my money by the end of the month! Watch out Warren!

#54 Completed! Have a second home in Sonoma County

"Happy to be able to spend time in both the town I grew up in and Arizona!"

How I did it: When I moved to Arizona, I missed my family and friends so much that I decided to add "have a second home in my hometown" to my bucket list. There was an old inoperative school in my town that was built in 1927 and then turned into 10 lofts. I fell in love with the loft lifestyle so we decided to purchase the corner unit. Our intention was to turn this home into a vacation rental and we did so for six weeks until there was an opportunity for us to move back to California. We now have made the Sonoma County home our primary residence and the Arizona home our secondary!

About The List

I have always had a list. A shopping list. A to-do list. A need-to-repair list. A list of all my lists. And my favorite of them all, my bucket list. Having a bucket list is the perfect way to get myself motivated and experience all the pleasures in life. The following are things that I have completed on my list so far:

~Skeet Shoot
~Take a Pilates class
~Enter something in a food competition
~Take a Rip Line ride
~See a Volcano
~Have a 2nd home in Sonoma County
~Make a significant change in someones life
~Teach a class
~Stay at a 5-Star hotel
~Blow $150 on one 5-cent slot machine
~Get a spa pedicure
~Try to surf
~Tell my dad I love him
~Go on a $500 clothes shopping spree in one day
~Play the stock market
~Spend the day at a resort spa
~Own investment real estate
~Rappel

I still have 105 more (& counting) things on my bucket list! I hope this blog helps me keep a record of the progress of my goals and help those who want to create/experience their own list.