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Have you ever found yourself staring longingly at the floor display in the home theater department of your local electronics store?  Have you ever sighed to yourself and thought, “That will never be me”?  Well, we certainly have.  And if you – like us – have thought that, then a site recently submitted may make you think again.

The author is working off the premise that the major stumbling blocks to most people enjoying richer home theater experiences are 1) know-how and 2) money.  The number of different products, models and terms you need to sort through is nothing short of dizzying; and while you’re already reeling from that, you also have to deal with the fact that one misstep can cost you a lot of your hard-earned money.  People need a guide to HDTV equipment and setup.

And learn about home theater you will.  You’ll find no-nonsense explanations of terms you need to know,  and straighforward comparisons of different technologies that will help you cut through the marketing hype and spend your money where it’s most valuable.  In fact, you save hundreds of dollars right from the homepage with a complete guide for calibrating your own TV!  Further the site goes on to give visitors a very thorough, very simple step-by-step guide for creating their own home theater PC for little or nothing.  If you’ve never seen one in action or even heard the term, you don’t know what you’re missing.  Well worth the visit.

After reading through this small site, you’ll be able to talk to sales staff with confidence, make decisions on what to buy, and have a plan for putting together a great, inexpensive home theater.

Source: http://calibratehdtv.com

With all the action taking place in the currency markets, there has never been a better time for investors to learn how to trade foreign currencies. If you have ever wanted to see how you would go about this, we recently received a site that lays it out rather well.

According to the site you need to look at several different time frames to establish which direction to trade the markets. First, you look at the long term monthly charts to see the major trend that is in place. Next you look at the weekly and daily charts to get a fix on the intermediate term trend. Once you have the overall direction of the market in mind, then you look at the hourly charts or even 5 minute charts to time your entry points.

From past experience I know that the currency markets can be absolutely wild, but they also tend to trend for long periods of time. So by doing proper research in the beginning it could save you lots of time and money!

Source: http://learncurrencytrading.us

I recently came across an excellent site that laid out all the rules for setting up and using a health savings account. It gave everything from the type of High Deductible Health Insurance plan you need to be eligible to use an HSA to all the types of services and products that can be purchased using your account. You will also want to be sure to check out the HSA Contribution Limits as those change each year based on the rate of inflation we have had the previous 12 months.

It seems to me that these HSA plans could be very useful for helping people gain more control over their insurance expenses. In fact, after reading over the information found on this site you may consider contacting your HR person at work to find out if a Health Savings Account is an option that is available for you. Depending on the plans they offer and your families health care use it could save you lots of money over the coming years.

This Oil site was sent to me last week and I found it interesting because it shows how the various Oil ETFs have performed in the huge bull market in 2007 to mid-2008, the sharp decline from June – December 2008 as well as the recovery period since early 2009. I like it when people create sites that actually show how different investments perform in relation to each other instead of just giving the basic facts (price, volume, fees etc) because relative performance is all that matters.

The first page of the site concentrates on several unleveraged Oil ETF instruments and shows comparisons between them. The thing I noticed most is that the 12 month averaged etfs have been outperforming USO even though they are much less popular.

As you look through the other pages you will see that Oil Stock ETF – XLE along with OIH have outperform nearly all other Oil ETFs for the longterm investor. It’s definitely something to look at before you purchase one of them.

For years I have been doing balance transfers from one credit card to another in order to keep from paying much interest. While I thought this was a pretty smart way to manage my debt, I ran into a problem during the credit crunch because the balance transfer offers stopped coming in.

Recently, I got one from Discover that was 18 months at 0% with just a 3% balance transfer fee. This was a GodSend because it came just when my previous one from Capital One was expiring. I’m kind of tired of worrying about keeping my rates low so over these 18 months I’m going to focus on getting these debts paid off.

I was doing some online research and ran across a site called How To Get Out Of Debt and the information was very useful. Since I have a balance on 3 different cards, that means I have 3 different payments each month so I’m going to focus on paying off the smallest balance first (about $1500). Once that one is gone I can use the money that would’ve gone to that payment to pay down the balance (about $3500) on the 2nd card faster. Once that one is gone, then I can focus all my effort on the one that’s sitting at 0%. That one is a big one (almost $10k) so I might not get that one completely paid off in 18 months, but I know I will be in a much better position in a year and a half!

When I’m trying to make an investment decision the first place I like to start is by looking at historical performance data. The best thing to see is how the different investment vehicles have performed in relation to each other. Especially in the ETF world the actual historical results don’t always match up with what theoretically should happen.

A friend sent me a nice Silver ETF site the other day which I wish I had seen a few months ago when I was increasing the silver exposure in my portfolio. I think I would’ve chosen the Silver Stock ETF or the Double Silver ETF instead of buying SLV after seeing the histrical performance.

One thing I’m going to keep an eye on is the double short Silver ETF, I would like to load up on that one after this silver bull market has run it’s course. I know it will be almost impossible to pick the top, but getting anywhere close could be a great trade on the way down.

The other night while doing some research on gold I ran across a very comprehensive Gold ETF web site. I had been contemplating adding to my gold position but wasn’t sure if I wanted to use some type of leveraged etf or whether I should buy a gold stock etf instead. The thing I liked most is that it took me through comparisons of how the different etfs had performed compared to each other since inception. It was eye opening on several levels, you have to be very careful about your entry points if you are going to use leverage.

After this initial research I’ve narrowed it down to GDX or GDXJ, maybe even a little bit of both. However, I think I’m going to wait for a good setback before buying anything. If you have an interest in Gold investing I would definitely recommend checking out this site!

The first time you do anything in the financial world it tends to be a rather steep learning curve. This is especially true when it comes to car insurance. Most first time buyers have two primary concerns:

#1: How Much Car Insurance Do I Need?

#2: How Much Is Car Insurance?

Each of those questions are linked to a site that has been specially set up to help you get answers to those important questions. Car insurance is regulated on the state level in the U.S. the required liability insurance minimum varies depending upon which state you live in. This site also gives the recommendations from the Insurance Information Institute regarding the best level of coverage to carry. The site is well organized and easy to follow.

The second (sister) site is set up in the same format and goes through most of the variables that will affect your car insurance rates. Surprisingly most of the variables are things that you have control over except for your age and gender!

For anyone wanting to learn more about car insurance I highly recommend those these two sites!

Over the years I’ve been “sold” a mish-mash of life insurance policies. You know how it is you get pressured into buying something and then a few years later you get pressured into buying something else. You get some insurance through work and who knows if you actually have enough coverage if something were actually to happen.

Well, recently I was going through my coverage and trying to figure out if I should consolidate my policies, keep them all or cancel and start fresh. I probably only need term insurance, but 2 of the ones I have are whole life. So the first thing I wanted to do was figure out what type of coverage I actually need. After discussing this over coffee with a friend of mine he sent me a site called Term vs Whole Life Insurance and I have to say it was easy to read and made a lot of sense.

I’m not going to do anything until after the holidays but at that point I think I’m going to consolidate down to 1 policy after the holidays. I’m going to carry enough permanent coverage to cover “death needs” and the rest can be 20 year term to make sure the kids college, the mortgage and enough residual money is available for my wife if something happens between now and retirement.

I’m going to make sure the term policy is fully convertible to permanent should my health decline or something of that nature. If you have lingering questions about your life insurance I think you will find this a useful place to start!

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