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Treasuries – bonds issued by our government – have also had quite a run as investors have fled to safety. If interest rates go down, the value of the underlying note goes up. Interest rates are incredibly low right now. How much lower can they go?

Even if you hold it in cash, savings accounts are paying a paltry amount of interest right now. It would take you about 144 years to double your money on a 1-year CD, given the best rates posted on Bankrate.com. We don’t know about you, but we’re not sure we’ll live that long!

We’re looking at generalities here. You should discuss your specific situation with your financial planner. But our point is that it’s hard to look into the future right now and see an obvious place to put your money.

As we were talking about this, we realized there are some good places to put your money, even now.

Your own debt

If you have any debt, you can earn a decent return by paying it down. Let’s say you have a car loan on which you’re paying 6% interest. You can earn a guaranteed 6% per year return by paying it off. That’s pretty hard to beat right now.

Of course, if you have credit card debt, your returns may be as high as 30%!

Durable goods

You can still get a good deal on durable goods. Think cars, appliances and those sorts of things.

Some dealers are still hungry, although not as much as they were six months to a year ago. So you may be able to strike a good deal by buying a little bit prematurely.

Non-perishables

Think canned goods, household supplies and such. If you see something that you regularly use priced at half its normal cost – and you know it doesn’t go on sale very often – you can get a good return by stocking up.

Energy-efficiency

This is one of the few outlays you can make that will pay you back month-after-month. For example, if you have inefficient windows, you can seal up your home better by replacing them.

Energy prices are relatively low right now compared to what we will probably see in the years ahead. So getting a good deal now may very well give you a decent return.

These are good places to invest. But we haven’t discussed the best place to invest right now.

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Yourself

Invest in yourself! It’s the best place to invest now. Does that surprise you?

You may invest in more education that you know will make you more marketable in the future. Your investment of time and money may pay handsome dividends.

You may make a lateral move to beef up your resume or invest a little extra time to learn a new skill related to your current work. 

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That’s how I learned to do audio production. When I was in the early years of my career in radio, after I got done with my on-air shift, I would go into the production room – where the commercials were being made – and soak up all the information I could get. The only investment on my part was my time, but I have to tell you, it continues paying dividends to this day!

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If it weren’t for that, The Bigg Success Show may have never happened!

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You may want to dip your toes in the entrepreneurial waters, even just part time.

• First, you may invest time – and perhaps some money – to hone up the skills required to run a business.

• Then, you may invest money in samples of the product you want to sell and test it with potential customers.

• Next, you may make a small investment in the infrastructure of the business (e.g. a web site) to see if you can attract enough customers to make it worth your while.

• By keeping your costs low while you test a concept, you’ll be able to keep testing them until you find one that makes you money.

Invest in yourself – it’s the best investment you can make right now. Let’s face it – it’s the best investment you can ever make at any time because it leads to bigg success!

What are you doing to invest in yourself? 

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

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Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00525-112409.mp3

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You may have noticed that the market is up year-to-date. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we’re still off quite a bit from the top.

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The main market indicator, the S&P 500, hit its highest level in history on October 9, 2007. The good old day, we guess you could call that.

It hit its most recent low on March 9, 2009, off 57% (excluding dividends) from that high nearly one-and-a-half years earlier. Of course, now we’re up over 49% from that March low but we’re still off about 35% from the high if we factor out dividends.

The bottom line is that our portfolios have still taken quite a hit. It made us wonder …

Are there investments that don’t lose value?

It depends on your goal.

Your investment goal

Why do you invest? Obviously, you want more money. Why?

For some people, it’s the end. However, the end is pretty empty. For most of us, it’s a means to an end. Instead of financial returns, we really want emotional returns.

We want to be happier!

If that’s the case, research shows there may be a more direct path to happiness, assuming that basic needs — food, shelter and clothing – have been met.

Invest time in work you love

We tend to follow an indirect path to happiness. For example, many people strive to build a portfolio that allows them to retire when they want.

One direct path to happiness is to do the work you love. Bea Arthur, the late-great actress, said:

“Actors don’t retire. People who work in jobs they don’t like retire.”

Invest time to find the work you love. Invest time doing the work you love. It’s an investment with returns beyond your wildest dreams.

Invest time in relationships

Some people want more money so they can buy things. There is a more proven path to happiness.

Invest your time in relationships. Research shows this delivers higher returns on the happiness scale than having more money.

The direct path creates synergy

Bigg success is life on your own terms. The bigg idea behind bigg success is synergy. One place to search for synergy is between the five elements of bigg success.

Let’s look at two of the five elements of bigg success – money and work. You don’t need as much money to be happy if you’re doing work you love.

The funny thing, though, is that research shows that doing the work you love often leads to more money. If you put first things first, you end up better off all the way around. That’s synergy!

Now let’s look at money and play. Research shows that strong relationships lead to greater happiness than more possessions. You can save money by having friends.

It’s also interesting that, in our interconnected world, those relationships may very well lead to more money if you don’t force the issue. Put the relationship first and let the money follow.

Invest directly in happiness by investing time doing what you love with people you love. That’s bigg success!

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Thank you so much for checking in with us today. Please join us next time when we discuss mixing business with pleasure. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00456-081009.mp3

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Does that mean you’re going to sing, George?

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I hope not. We want our audience to keep listening. I only put you through that torture, Mary-Lynn.

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We do like music here at Bigg Success as you may have noticed by all the songs and bands we talk about.

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I’m more of a melody person and George is the lyrics guy.

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With it being St. Patrick’s Day, we started thinking about the song, I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover. What a happy little jingle, written all the way back in 1927 but, ironically, overlooked until Art Mooney popularized it in 1948.

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The song opens, “I’m looking over a four-leaf clover that I overlooked before.” And in the lyrics … see I am a lyrics guy … are three great lessons.

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Sunshine + Rain = Roses

The second part of the song goes, “One leaf is sunshine, the second is rain, Third is the roses that grow in the lane.”

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This is the first lesson we see in this wonderful song and it seems particularly appropriate right now as we face tough times. Sometimes the sun shines. I just love sunny days. The sun represents the good times.

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Up until about a year or so ago, we were living in pretty good times, economically. We often aren’t thankful enough when we’re in the middle of them.

Then it rains. And we’re in the middle of a storm right now. But the thing is – if the sun was always shining, if it never rained – would we really appreciate the sunshine?

It’s the change of weather that makes weather more interesting. It’s the change in circumstances that makes life more interesting. And boy, are they interesting right now or what!

This part of the song wraps up talking about the roses that grow in the lane. And here’s where the lesson comes in. Without the sunshine and the rain, those roses wouldn’t grow. Without the rain, those roses wouldn’t bloom into their full beauty.

So it is with us. It takes sunshine and rain, good times and bad, for us to reach our full potential. Because in the down times, when the challenges may be the greatest, we gain wisdom, strength, and skills that we would never have otherwise. And those things carry us to greater heights than we could have ever imagined when the good times come. 

The fourth leaf

The song continues, “No need explaining, the one remaining is somebody I adore.” St. Patrick’s Day is all about luck. The fourth leaf of a four-leaf clover is often associated with luck. And how lucky we are if we have someone to adore! That’s the second lesson from this song.

Isn’t it interesting that the song doesn’t talk about having somebody who adores us? It’s showing us that to give our love, our adoration, is so very important. Because we can’t really love someone else fully unless we love ourselves enough to have some love to give, some extra capacity. Then we can experience the joy of giving love.

Let’s not overlook the third lesson

Believe it or not, that’s the whole song … it’s like the whole song is a chorus.

So you may be saying, “Wait a minute. They said there were three lessons in this song and so far they’ve only talked about two of them.”

Good catch. The third lesson is in the first part of the song. “I’m looking over a four-leaf clover that I overlooked before.”

Since we view four-leaf clovers as a sign of good luck to come, we wonder …

We have wonderful people in our lives. We have the basic necessities we need. We have so much and we often fail to stop and be thankful for it. Yes, today is a day to realize how lucky we are. Our stocks and the value of our houses may be down. But we shouldn’t overlook how fortunate we are.

We feel fortunate that you spent time with us today. Thank you so much. 

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If we don’t have enough of this one thing, we’ll fail. If we have too much of it, we’ll fail. Join us next time to find out what this one thing is … and exactly how much you need of it to succeed bigg. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

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Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00352-031709.mp3

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You can save your change for a change.

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If you find that you’re running out of money before the month runs out, this is one of the easiest ways to get started saving. Give yourself an allowance. Pay for everything with that cash. At the end of the day, put all of your change in a jar or a piggy bank.

Did you ever have one of those cool banks where you get to see the coin going down into the bank? It made saving fun and is a great way to encourage kids to save. Or adults for that matter … why should the kids have all the fun?

It’s amazing how much you can save with this simple little technique. Ever so often, say at the end of the month, go to the bank and deposit your change. Once you get your money in a savings account at a bank, you can start earning interest on it. Your money making money on your money … that’s what you want.

The five little piggy banks

Richard Jenkins, editor-in-chief of MSN Money and author of A simpler way to save: the 60% solution, has an outstanding idea:

We know what you’re thinking – you’re having a tough time getting by on 100 percent. It’s ludicrous to think anyone could get by on only sixty percent!

But hear us out. You just might like this program …

Set up five piggy banks (or envelopes, accounts, or any other way that works for you). The key thing is to segment your money right upfront. Here’s what the five piggy banks are for:

Piggy Bank #1 – This little piggy stays home. This piggy bank gets sixty percent of your gross income. You’ll use it to buy the basics – things like food, clothing, household expenses, taxes, insurance, donations, and the like.

Piggy Bank #2 – This little piggy goes to the market. This piggy bank gets ten percent of your gross income to invest in long-term assets, like the stock market. Most likely, your investment vehicle will be a tax-advantaged account, like a 401(k) through your employer.

Piggy Bank #3 – This little piggy gets the beef. Set aside ten percent in this piggy bank to beef up your long-term savings even more. You’ll also invest this in long-term assets, but you’ll want to maintain enough liquidity so the money is available for an extreme emergency.

Piggy Bank #4 – This little piggy gets none. The ten percent that goes into this account is for irregular expenses. So you won’t get any long-term benefit from this piggy bank. What you will get is the ability to pay for large expenses upfront instead of with a credit card. So from this account, you’ll pay for your vacations, major repairs, replacement of appliances, gifts and the like.

Piggy Bank #5 – This little piggy cries “Wee, wee, wee” all the way home!
This ten percent is your fun money. It’s your reward for setting aside the money in the other piggy banks the way you planned to.

Think about it this way – If you meet your goals, you get to spend an extra ten percent!

Managing your finances with these five little piggy banks will help you live bigg now and retire bigg later!

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Thanks so much for reading our post today. Join us next time as we wrap up this series. We’ll discuss making change work. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00342-030309.mp3

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We thought it was very astute to add that third category. Which one do you fit in?

The workers in the study split themselves about evenly between saving and spending. 46 percent claimed to be savers while 45 percent admitted to being spenders. So that leaves only 9 percent who classified themselves as investors.

Merging the two categories

We suspect that fewer people today would classify themselves as spenders than say a year ago. A lot of us are getting on the savings bandwagon. That’s definitely a step in the right direction, but saving it isn’t good enough.

This data suggests a bigg idea. We shouldn’t think of ourselves as either savers or spenders. We should always think like an investor. We should merge the two categories – spender and saver – into the third category – investor.

We must know how to invest it or we won’t end up with the resources we need to live the life we want.

From spender to investor

Here’s some good news for spenders: thinking like an investor doesn’t necessarily imply that you don’t spend. It means that you spend differently.

You look at every single dollar you spend as an investment. Is it going to bring you enough return to make it worth giving it up? And that “return” may not come in dollars earned on dollars invested.

It may mean that it adds enough to your level of “happiness” to make spending the money worth doing. If it passes that test, then spend, spend, spend! If not, hold onto it.

For example, you may see a real deal on some non-perishable consumer good. Buy it. Stock up. Say an item is on sale for half off. Let’s pretend that you know that it only goes on sale once a year. If you buy a year’s supply, you’re making 100% on your money. That’s hard to beat!

So get to know the promotional cycle of the brands you use regularly and time your investment appropriately. Know when various businesses need the money more. For example, from car dealers to contractors, there are seasons when people are buying a lot and times when people aren’t. Time your purchase for their slow periods and reap the benefits.

From saver to investor

Now let’s think about savers. It’s great to save, but if you’re only earning two percent on your money, where’s that getting you?

We know … we know … you’d rather earn 2% than lose 40%! We completely understand that thought process.

However, investors don’t operate out of fear. They operate rationally. And we have to resist the temptation to go with the masses because they’re usually wrong in the long run.

Just like with consumer goods, there are some real deals out there on assets right now if you can afford to hold them long-term.

The best time to get out of a particular market is often when everyone else is getting in. And the best time to get in is usually when everyone else is getting out.

Years ago, we were told by a very successful real estate investor that when you see the no-money down real estate infomercials proliferating, it’s time to get out of real estate. How many of those do we see now compared to three years ago? 

Now think about stocks. Many of the same people who are touting doom and gloom now were spouting off about the end of the business cycle and the ever-upward spiral of stocks just a couple of years ago.

So to think like an investor, think for yourself. 

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Thanks so much for spending some time with us today. Join us next time when we ask, “Does haste still make waste?” Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00336-022309.mp3

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