Ms. Morrison Speaks Money

Archive for November, 2008

The cornucopia of plenty was ever so conspicuous this year, compared to previous year’s that I’d taken pretty much for granted, since I’ve visited the Eritrean refugee camps in Africa this July where food and education were both in very short supply. These kids are looking for both, yet their experience is that neither food nor education are readily forthcoming. While I donated and distributed thousands of dollars of medical supplies, it was in connecting eye-to-eye, and heart-to-heart with these kids, that I reveled in, receiving their smiles of gratitude.

Yes, that’s me with the head covering on the right, giving out flimsy hair bands, which were received with so much humility it made me cry. People with so little, grateful for the smallest of tokens, and yet hopeful for a promising future. These same kids plead with their mothers to spend the pittance of money they earn at two and three jobs on education, NOT food. They KNOW that education is their only ticket to freedom, if there is one.

I’ve contributed monthly to Unitus (associated with Grameen Bank), for a year now, ever since I was introduced to Mohammad Yunus’ courageous and heroic trail blazing in micro lending. My life’s mission includes speaking to women everywhere to empower them about their money, and encouraging us all to consider redistributing even $25/month to organizations that support women who have initiative and drive, and simply need a LOAN of capital–even a one time loan of $25.00–to boost them towards their freedom and that of their families.

I’ve touched and hugged those whom the world calls poor, yet their spirits are surprisingly hopeful. It is that hope that I want to rekindle. I’ve used that African experience to re-frame my own thinking, so that I am conscious and grateful for all the abundance that I have, and for the immense opportunities I have, and I can assure you that this current market decline is miniscule by comparison to the worries of entire families literally starving to death!

This Thanksgiving and holiday season may I recommend that you gift yourself and your friends with Mohammad’s book Banker to the Poor? It was one of the most powerful and riveting books I’ve read, in which he gives us hope that we can all participate in the freedom of our planet, one micro-loan at a time, freeing one spirit and family at a time.

That’s something to be thankful for, and to celebrate!

Posted by Debra in Debra's Travels | No Comments

I have been traveling so unaware of any local flyers as to exactly what time the sales will begin the day after Thanksgiving, but I’m guessing it’ll be midnight this year.  I’ve always thought Black Friday sounded too racist, so I prefer to call it Friday Fire Sales instead.  You see, in addition to the generally accepted meaning of fire sales, we’ve been burnt this year in the stock and bond markets such that retailers are going to HAVE to induce us with some pretty special savings.  What will it take to rouse you out of a deep sleep,haul yourself into your car and for those of use living in cold weather states, possibly have to clean the frost or snow off that same car, and elbow your way into a store or two?  Discounts of 30%?  Discounts of 40%?  How about 50%?  Now THAT’S a real bargain by anyone’s standards.

Yet if I invited you to consider buying into some stock mutual funds now, you would probably not take the same view, correct?  Yet, I’ve always said that investing involves common sense, and common sense would say that a heavy discount of a quality item is usually an invitation to buy, in anticipation of gaining terrific value without having to pony up a retail (or even wholesale in some cases) price.

They don’t ring a bell at the bottom of the stock market, nor do they ring a bell at the peak.  So, unlike retailers, who advertise their sale days and the exact % off (in advance) with glossy mailers, the stock market doesn’t advertise to the masses or event a select few, but rather gallops along, available for purchase at any time.  And hint, hint, wink, wink, the stock market is on a HUGE fire sale right now!

Obviously the combination of buyers and sellers is what makes the market–when one person thinks it’s a great time to buy, another will be equally convinced it’s a great time to sell.  So, now in the midst of heavy selling, and some panic selling, I invite you to ask yourself, are you one who prefers to pay retail or wholesale prices?  Or are you one to take advantage of a real fire sale?

If you have extra money that you can comfortably afford to invest for 3-7 years, there has not been a time like this to buy in many a year.  Will the market go lower?  Perhaps.  Will the market improve such that you “feel” more comfortable investing?  Perhaps, yet statistics abound about how much investors lose out on by waiting too long to buy, and it’s a sizeable percentage indeed!  Remember the age old advice, buy LOW, sell HIGH!

So, rather than wade in by buying individual stocks, I recommend the purchase of no-load mutual funds–a collection of stocks–to mitigate some single stock risk.  In other words, why “pick” a stock now, when so much changing news could adversely affect your whole investment; i.e., single stock–hey who thought Lehman Brothers would now be dust just 4 months ago?  I mean if this whole financial meltdown caught Alan Greenspan by surprise who are we to wax eloquent on matters financial.  Nothing saying you can’t buy a little at a time over the next several weeks and months either, utilizing dollar cost averaging.

As you stand in those long lines then this Friday, remember that you may make some of your wisest purchases this holiday season from the comfort of your home, dialing your financial planner or broker, or placing the trade(s) into the stock market yourself. 
HAPPY TURKEY DAY!

Posted by Debra in Investing | No Comments

NASA launched spaceship Endeavour Friday night at 7:55pm EST and I was in Cape Canaveral, Florida to see it! My pictures didn’t capture the splendor of it, yet I’ll attach a video clip here to give you a flavor of the great ball of light speeding through the night sky. Here’s a shot of the shuttle (the tiny dot on the left) and the full moon on the right. It certainly did give me perspective looking out several thousand miles, seeing the ball of light called Endeavour slowly evaporate into outer space. We all bade the seven NASA astronauts “safe travels” and “come home safe”…those were the uniform wishes from all those gathered.

This mission is to perform “home improvements” to the space station, to make it more spacious and also to add various recycling systems, especially the one that will turn astronaut urine into safe drinking water. (They stopped short of saying it’ll also turn turds into protein bars, but hey, you never know!)

Routine maintenance is necessary, even in space. So, I took this as an opportunity to access my life as to where some maintenance or repair is necessary in my sphere, my life, and I invite you to join me in the exercise.

Do we have areas that need updating like our skillsets or expanding our vocabularies? I’m expanding my knowledge horizons, making more room for information and strategies and at the same time, reading more history so I don’t repeat mistakes made by our foremothers and fathers. Exciting stuff indeed! Join me, won’t you?

Posted by Debra in Debra's Travels | No Comments

That’s my prescription for whatever ails you…the markets, a speeding ticket, a less-than-great mood…you name it.

I’m delighted to have spent some quality time with Andy Andrews on Saturday at the Mark Victor Hansen MEGA Speaking event in Los Angeles.

We shared lunch together and talked of “noticing” even the little things, and the importance of having fun, something we both do a lot of.

My personal favorite is to remind myself that over a billion Chinese don’t even know I’m having a challenge right now.  That helps to reframe my personal “issues” and put them in perspective in a hurry.

So with the stock markets and real estate valuations sliding I remember the giddiness of the 33.36% returns of US Stocks in 1997, followed by 28.58% in 1998 and 21.04% in 1999 as well as the 26.37% return of Real Estate investments in 2000, followed by 13.93% in 2001, 3.82% in 2002, 37.13% in 2003, 31.58% in 2004, 12.16% in 2005 and finally 35.06% in 2006.  You don’t see those numbers being touted these days do you?  Yet we all experienced and benefited by them, didn’t we?

It’s only natural that these high flying returns would cycle downward and trough for a few months and years.  We women personally understand cycles and accept them, so it’s not a big psychological leap to recognize the markets’ cycles.  We may not LIKE the downward cycles, yet it’s pointless to fight them.

It’s a great use of our energy however to strategize how we will enjoy these times.  Months ago, I ordered the greatest Carol Burnett skits DVDs for my parents for Christmas, and I must admit I broke into them and watched 3 of them already.   I’ll rationalize to them as they open an already-opened- package, that I leveraged my investment, cause they are HILARIOUS!

You see, we can compound our laughter too.  Next time you are laughing so hard, just gently touch the knuckle on your pinky finger to “anchor” in that great feeling.  Then, you can fire off that anchor later by gently touching that same spot, when you need to go back and experience and feel that great feeling.  It’s there, we just have to remember to access it.

Same with our common sense about investing.  It’s there, we just have to remember to access it.  Stay tuned for some basics about investing in future posts.  First rule:  if you don’t understand it, don’t buy it, especially is someone is earning a commission for selling it to you.

We Can Do It Women!™

Posted by Debra in Investing | No Comments

We already recognize that we won’t work at a “job” for 40 years, receive a pension and a gold watch and live happily ever after, like some of our parents and grandparents.  Yet what are we doing about it?  We will have on average 7 careers during which we will be responsible for our own retirement savings.  401(k) plans are plans that were created to be portable, so they could move with us, from job to job, career to career.  Yet, guess what?  We do have to fund them!

I know that many people are uber focused on their 401(k)a having shrunk to a proverbial 201(k) these days and take every opportunity to lament that fact, seemingly using that as a ready excuse to suspend or reduce saving any more into said plans.

Guess when is the BEST time to invest in any systematic investment plan?  When the prices are going straight down!  Yes, it does seem somewhat counterintuitive, yet I’m always telling folks who are investing money each week or month, that what they want is a downward market.  You see, a downward market makes the price of the investments cheaper, so you buy more shares each week or month.  This game of systematic saving is ALL about accumulating SHARES.  The price each day is superfluous.

Say you are investing $400/month–that’s less than $100 a week–and the price of your 401(k) investment is $10 a share.  The first month you buy 40 shares ($400. divided by $10=40 shares).  Say the price dropped to $8 a share the second month, and you still invested $400.   You will buy 50 shares in that second month ($400 divided by $8=50).  The third month the price drops to $5 a share, and you bought 80 shares.  See how your SHARES are multiplying like rabbits?

When the rest of the world is griping about how that very share price dropped from $10 to $5 dollars–and most people’s investments did NOT drop by 50%–you are laughing at how many more shares you’ve just picked up!

Since we save for the future–and within a retirement plan most of us are saving for at least 5 years–the price of the shares will cycle through high prices and low prices over those years, so my advice is to keep saving each and every week or month, systematically, preferably payroll deducted.  The mistake that novice investors make, of course, is to stop saving when the share price drops, out of ignorance, I guess, cause they wouldn’t stop if they knew the math that you now know, right?  (The technical term for this systematic savings at varying prices is dollar cost averaging.)

So, play like a squirrel and save for the future, and fagget about the prices for now…just plow in those dollars like your lives depended on it, cause they do.  Trust me when I say it, you CAN afford to invest now.  Remember, you didn’t think you could pay over $3/gallon of gas either, and we all did.

Unless we die prematurely, we’re all slowly marching towards our own futures.  Let’s seed them with as much weekly and monthly retirement savings as we can right now.  I’ll show you the miracle of compounding soon, and you’ll not believe your eyes.  In the meantime, think of your future and that of your family, and plant the seeds now.

Posted by Debra in Investing | 3 Comments

It’s a great first day of the rest of our “less-divided”, less alienated lives as Americans.  Yes, I know we will always have our share of ideological differences, and all Black Americans don’t think like all other Black Americans any more than Hillary supporters would be Palin supporters.

Yet we have hurdled a limiting belief or at least set a new example that we can be governed by, and proud of a Commander in Chief who is other than a white male in these United States of America.

We do need now to “pitch in” as Barack urged us to do last night, and do all we can to contribute to solutions to our problems, not merely be victims thereon.  I’m no where near Phil Gramm’s “nation of whiners” admonition here, yet I do want each of us to continue to create ways in which we can help ourselves first, and then help others.  We can help ourselves by turning off the TV a few hours a week to take a class at a community college, or online, to gain mastery over new skill sets because it will make us more interesting citizens, and also, just in case our “job” is eliminated.

The internet has leveled the entrepreneurial playing field more than any other single invention; and is no respecter of color, age, able bodiedness, or any other category.  We now can explore new ways to build businesses and market to people not just in our towns or states, but the whole world wide, online.

I’m really wanting to echo Barack’s oft repeated motivation chant, “yes we can” along the lines of self improvement, because Yes We Can.  And I might add, Yes, we Must, in order to stay current or compete in the world.  We will all be taking more proactive steps because big employers or big government are no longer the answer.  It’s truly the time for self-help!

Let’s each of us grab our creative caps and think, think, think and act, act, act our way out of this recession because We Can Do It Women!™.

Posted by Debra in Celebrating Life | 2 Comments