Stock market investment strategies are like opinions, but not everyone has one. To invest in stocks without any investment strategy is to invite frustration into your financial life. If you want to make money in stocks, start by defining how you intend to play the stock investing game. Consider these three investment strategies.

To put things into prospective let’s consider the 10-year period from 1999 through October of 2009, and what happened to the stock market as measured by the most popular stock performance indicator in the world, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (the DOW).

The DOW first hit 10,000 in 1999. In October of 2009 it was at 10,000 again. The stock market took investors for a wild ride that took them nowhere after 10 years. Stock investing was a losing proposition and was frustrating for most people.

If you want to invest in stocks and relax a little, its time to make a basic decision in terms of investment strategies. How are you going to play the stock market? You can play short term as a trader or speculator. At the other extreme you can just buy stocks and hold them. And then there’s a third choice.

Few people really make money when they invest in stocks on a short-term basis. Traders have their good days, but few profit from market swings consistently. Besides, short term speculation is at least a part time job that requires time, effort and experience.

At the other extreme, buy-and-hold is a simple investment strategy and requires virtually no effort. This investment strategy has generated long term returns in the stock market of 10% a year, over the long term, for the past 50+ years. Not so in 1999 through 2009. For ten years stock investing the easy way produced little more than acid indigestion for investors.

I suggest you kick a field goal and split the uprights right down the middle. Don’t try to make money in stocks with short-term speculation; or by just buying, crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.

There have always been cyclical bull and bear markets, and markets have always gone to extremes from time to time. Recognize this, and pay attention to stock prices. By checking the DOW just once a week you can get a feel for what’s happening in the world of stock investing.

When you see extreme price movements it’s time to act. How can you spot extremes? Get familiar with historical stock market data. A good place to start: a long-term chart of the DOW.

For example, by the year 2000 it was obvious that stocks had gone too far too fast. The only thing keeping them going up was greed. Taking emotion out of the picture, any rational being could have seen that stock prices had gone to extremes. The rational thing to do was to take some money off the table.

Or, look at the stock investing scenario in early 2009 with the DOW having fallen 50% in a few months. Was this a time to step up and buy stocks, or was the world as we know it coming to an end?

Don’t view the stock market as rocket science or some other complicated thing that you can’t understand. Learn the basics and follow the market on at least a weekly or even quarterly basis. Your basic investment strategy: lighten up on stocks when it looks like they’ve gone up to extremes. Step in and buy when there’s blood in the streets.

All of us wish to have stress free lives without a worry for what the next day holds, or where the funds to support it will come from. Having a carefree existence is unfortunately only a pipe dream for many of us. We are struggling to find a way out of the money problems and debt in which we constantly find ourselves covered. Indeed, for most of us, living life debt free seems an unattainable goal.

So is there anything a person can be doing to achieve debt free living? There are a number of steps you can take to achieve a lifestyle like this, however the first step is to be aware of your personal financial circumstances. You must determine what your entire monthly income is, (minus taxes and other fees). Then calculate how much you spend in an average month. If you don’t want to have debt, you need to earn more than you spend.

The result of this is that as long as you stay within the stipulated guidelines, you can spend as much as you desire of the aggregate income you make. To pay back your loans you need to cut back on buying so you can cut back your debt.

Make sure you plan ahead when making purchases on a credit card and if at all possible you should pay off the balance every month, or with large purchases at least within two or three months, to avoid paying interest as much as possible.

If you want to be debt free, you need to change some basic spending rules in your life, even if they are not the way you are used to spending.

To begin your journey into debt free living you can’t continue to use you credit card indiscriminately, just because you can. You’ll have to compromise at times and this is as good a place as any to start! Living free of debt means to start living within your means which will be an excellent start to staying debt free!

Other strategies make your life living free of debt possible. To locate additional means of debt reduction and painless (for the most part) living, LivingOutOfDebt.com is a great new way to make sure you are living within your budget.

The key to your success in buying property in foreclosure is going to be organization. For this you need to have foreclosure investing software with a database that provides you with all the information that can enable you to locate in your area properties that have large equities. The software should allow you to choose about a dozen candidates, of which you take photographs and enter them into the software.

Your first step is to contact the owners of the properties. Since 9 out of 10 foreclosures are single family residences, most of the owners can be found at the properties. You can reach owners in different ways. The most obvious is the telephone – if it is listed and if it is still connected. But generally, your most efficient methodology will be a letter writing campaign.

Using the data from your foreclosure investing software, you will find that seventy percent or more properties will have equity at some level. You should send letters to all of these people. Further, you will need to send letters repetitiously. Keep in mind that it may take numerous letters before you can attract the attention of an owner. A unique letter will be helpful. This is not as expensive as it sounds. A postage stamp costs less than fifty cents, so you can mail 100 letters for less than fifty dollars. You should have a campaign of sending 200-300 letters per month. Results are virtually guaranteed if you are consistently mailing.

You only need to send letters to the people on your daily list of foreclosures you will get from your foreclosure investing software and you will be successful. Every month, a number of people will contact you asking whether you can assist them. Spending a few hundred dollars per month is well worth it when you can make $25,000 or more for every foreclosure purchased, especially when you consider there is no other overhead.

Experience has shown that a low key approach, whether in person or by mail, is your best course. Your goal is to have a meeting in which you can discuss their problem and how to resolve it. The usual approach is for you to offer a sum of money in addition to paying the existing monthly payments that are overdue. You have to leave a significant profit for yourself, and the best way to explain this is, that if you take over the mortgage, pay the owner money, fix up the property for sale, and wait for it to sell, you have to receive a profit for your efforts and risk. Your ultimate goal of your negotiation, of course, is to pay the owner the smallest amount of money possible for his equity. If can’t make a profit, you must move on to the other properties.

Using your foreclosure investing software, you are able to find properties with equity. However, there is also a way to make money with properties that have no equity. You do this through a “short” sale with the lender, that is, by paying them off at an amount lower than the existing balance. In a short sale you will also need the cooperation of the buyer and normally he will receive nothing, except relief from the foreclosure. For many this is enough, because of the extreme pressure they have been under.

In a hot market in properties this is extremely difficult because the lender has no motivation to reduce the loan. But in a soft market, some lenders may be interested in receiving a lower sum and walking away from the foreclosure. They would do so because foreclosures usually take about six months, causing lenders significant costs, as well as the fact that lenders have to pay large expenses to fix and sell properties. Whether the market is hot or soft, you shouldn’t even think of prospecting for foreclosure properties, no matter what stage they might be at, without first-class up to date information from reliable foreclosure investing software.

Certificates of Deposit (CD’s) are one of the safest investment options on the market. If you have already made your money and want to move away from high risk/high yield investments into something a little less aggressive, a high yield CD is the best option for you.

CD’s earn you interest on your money in a similar way as a savings account does, but your earnings tend to be somewhat higher with a CD account. This is because when you purchase a CD, your bank is improving upon your investment by offering you higher interest, and they expect that you will keep your money in the high yield CD for a specified period of time. They make money by using your money as loans for other customers, and they pass some of those earnings on to you via the higher interest rate.

First, think about how long you are willing to invest your money for and what kind of return you want to see on your investment. CD’s with longer maturities (time commitments) pay off with higher interest rates than those with shorter maturities. By promising the bank that they can use your money for a longer period of time you are securing a higher return rate on your investment. However, be sure to consider all your options because sometimes there are exceptions to this rule. Also, keep in mind that rates will rise and fall as the economy generally dictates them.You need to decide whether or not you should lock your money up long-term for a higher rate, or whether you should wait and see if rates will be more favorable in the near future.

Getting a CD is easy. Meet with a representative at your bank and ask them about what kind of CD’s they offer. You’ll need to fill out some simple paperwork and complete a number of disclosure forms. When everything is completed, signed and approved, your bank will move a specified amount of money from your savings or checking account into the high yield CD. Although CD does stand for Certificate of Deposit, you will not actually receive a certificate; you’ll just see a new CD category for the deposit on your regular bank statements.

Eventually, CD’s begin to pay interest. You can choose to withdraw the interest or reinvest in your CD. Reinvesting the money will help your money grow faster as the interest compounds. When your CD matures, or in other words, when you have reached the end date specified when you opened the CD, you usually have a brief window of time to decide if you want to reinvest your money into a new CD or withdraw it. If you do nothing, most banks will automatically reinvest the full amount into a new CD. However, be sure you know the policy. If you need the money right away and your bank automatically rolls is over into a new CD account you will not be able to access it without penalties.

If you are planning to retire from your stressful job sometime in the future, do proper planning first. Planning will prepare you for the life ahead. Note that the plannings you should do should encompass every aspect of your life, from finance, relationships, etc. Your financial plans can involve saving from your wages during your working years.

Volunteering at your local charity or helping in the community is one way to keep your life busy after retirement. Retirement could really be interesting if you think of things to do. It only becomes a headache when you chose to fold your hands, watch and do nothing.

To find the ideal investment for you in preparation for your retirement, you need to do your home work well. It is not easy to decide on the best way to invest, especially since you can’t depend on testimonies to help you. The fact is one investment that works for one person might not work for you, so you really have to search and do the right choice for you.

There are many myths making the round about retirement. One of them is that retirement is an event that occurs on the last day of your career. This is certainly not true. It is simply a new phase of your life that doesn’t call for excess stress.

Myrtle beach, Palm springs and Asheville are some popular retirement attraction areas. These resort areas feature sand, landscape and sea that can tantalize the senses of any person who has retired and needs a little bit of excitement.

Retirement can seem like a good idea when you feel you are running on fumes. After a while however, it can feel like hell on earth, especially when you aren’t particularly active in anyway. Most people suffer from one common ailment after they retire and that is boredom. Don’t let this happen to you. Find something you can do to keep you active, even when you retire.

When you retire, exercise is very important. If you were already used to exercise, keep it going. If not, make sure you get yourself hooked up to some exercise and fitness program. If you do, you’re sure to have a physically strong body that will keep you through a strong happy life.

If you are someone that loves reading, one way to enjoy your retirement is to organize a book club. You can get hooked with like-minded friends, and relatives, working professionals and students in order to have regular readings, discussions, debates and reviews on books, articles, novels and any other intellectual reading materials. This will help to sharpen and widen your mind. It will also keep you very active, even in retirement.