Book Excerpt

Introduction

I know what you're thinking. "Yeah, yeah, another investment book. Another author peddling ten steps to becoming a financial wizard--another 'You Can Be a Millionaire' infomercial in print. I'll bet you're already figuring that this is going to make finance sound exciting for the first four pages, then lose you right after page five... That's not going to happen. I've read those "other" finance books. Lots of 'em. The last thing I want to do is be another dust collector on your shelf. I've done my darnedest to make sure that this book isn't a bit like anything you've ever read before. Here you're going to watch ten women change their lives by changing the way they look at investing. How'd we do it? We started an investment club, studied a bit and laughed a lot as we helped each other over the tough spots.

Starting or joining an investment club is going to be the most eye opening experience you've ever had!!! You're going to figure out how to make your money work for you in ways you never dreamed of, without spending a lot of time! What we've learned is the stock market has been the greatest engine for wealth creation on the planet and "the guys" have been keeping it to themselves for too long. It's our turn and an investment club is the perfect way we can learn to safely navigate it. (Oh, and it's kinda fun... but don't tell the guys that part.)

This book is designed to be the simplest step-by-step guide to learning how to invest in the stock market ever put together. It has to be because it's the way that my investment club learned. And I guarantee you that we made every mistake, every mis-step conceivable before we got together. I'm going to start from day one of the Chicks Laying Nest Eggs Investment Club and show you how we got to the point where our portfolio (don't worry, you'll find out what that is) is beating the market by more than fifty percent (and you'll understand that that's great in just a few minutes).

Follow me and I'll teach you the basics of what the "market" is and how it works, how to start your own investment club, and eventually buy stock in some good companies. And, so you don't have to worry about how you can fit this into your too-busy schedule, I'll show you how to get a computer and get your club online! Can you say BONUS BOOK? Getting online will enable you and your club to meet anytime, from anywhere without even getting out of your pajamas, (not that I don't get ever get out of my pajamas. Come on. Not me. Puh-lease.).

Here, you'll learn how to make your monthly meetings fast and investing fun. This, mind you, while you are still able to watch the Today Show, put in a 50-hour workweek, read your People magazine front to back, nurse the baby, and whip up dinner.

Buying a stock is actually just buying a piece of a company or owning a part of a company. Instead of buying a pair of Gap jeans and feeling like you own a part of the Gap, you can actually buy a piece of the Gap, (that's a share or shares of stock) and it will actually make you a part owner of the company!!! Your goal is-- and if you have invested in or bought a piece of a good, strong company, your end result should be for your piece to be worth more the day you sell it than the day you bought it. That's a profit and that's what this book is all about, (with a couple of song lyrics thrown in.).

We are not going to be talking about realizing the profit potential of market upticks due to meta economic gobbledygook. What did I say? Meta economic upticks? The Chicks talk about investing in everyday English. We have to because this is the only language we know. So everything here is going to be in language that we all can understand.

This book is for every woman, as the time has passed long ago when any of us could afford to be ignorant about our finances. Need I go into the story of my Auntie Eileen who was widowed and clueless at the age of 40? Or should I tell you of my 23-year-old babysitter who's waiting for a rich man to marry her and until he does, she will continue to spend every penny that she's earned. Or should I tell you of my girlfriend who has let her financial situation spiral so out of control that she doesn't even know if they have any investments because her husband supposedly takes care all of that "stuff"? Or how about my neighbor who left his wife with only $65 in the checking account and moved out of the state with the perky young thing who lived next door? If I didn't get a move on it, this could have been me. Don't let it be you. (Tip: Try to stay perkier than your neighbor.)

I don't want to scare you, but you have to do something now. I was so panicked a few years ago that I bought every investment book I could find at my local bookstore.. I wanted to learn it all, every last thing about investing. Peter Lynch, Warren Buffett, Charles Schwab, Suze Orman, and the Motley Fool. I read them ALL!! And yes, I did learn some things...but there I sat.

Even after I finished reading, I didn't do anything. I sat on my duff and let our "professionally managed" investment portfolio and our professional investment manager continue to intimidate me. How could that be? I had the knowledge, but didn't have the nerve to use it.

That reminds me of how I learned to knit. (Lame, I know, relating investing to knitting. If I could relate it to chess, I would). I could have read 400 books on how to knit-one, pearl-two, but until I actually picked up the needles and yarn, I would have never made that sweater with the yellow smiley face in the center. I had the book with the sweater's pattern, I just wasn't doing it. You have to do it to learn.

Which brings me to why an investment club is the best way for a woman to learn about investing and actually doing it. We are women. We need human contact and validation. We like to know that others think like us, and we need their feedback. God gave us the gift of gab...and here is the perfect place to use it! I needed to talk about investing with someone like me before I could make a move. So, I gathered a bunch of my girlfriends and started the Chicks Laying Nest Eggs Investment Club. This was the only way I could have gone from on-my-butt-and-doing-nothing, to learning and actually doing! I was on my way to becoming a Chick! Girls just wanna have fun, but Chicks wanna learn something along the way. And when it comes to investing, we'd like to make a few bucks as well.

Chicks are confident in their knowledge of both past and future investments, can make sound decisions regarding them, and have fun doing it. This book is for any woman who wants to learn how to invest in the stock market and has no idea where to start.

Here, you're going to learn how we went from ten pretty clueless women to a bunch of Chicks able to answer without hesitation, "What stock would you invest in tomorrow?" I'll share our story and teach you how to start yours. You might even end up watching financial TV in the morning and understand what they are saying! It's a struggle at my house -Katie and Matt or Maria Bartiromo and Joe Kiernan. (CNBC personalities are becoming cult icons, at least inside my four walls.)

Even if you don't think this is the best time for you to be investing in the market, it is. There never is a "best" time, and how long have you waited? How has all the waiting worked for ya? I know you have already tried the "I'm going to read that book and figure this out all on my own... next week," or "I'm going to sit down with a financial planner and have him explain what he does," or the "I'll start putting money away after this paycheck," techniques? Forget it. Get your friends together in a club and just do it. You'll learn about the stock market, and what your investments could and should be doing faster than you ever imagined possible. Even if you have no money to invest right now, invest a little through the club every month, whether it's $10 or $50, and simply learn about the market. Then when you do have some cash to put away, you'll know exactly what to do with it.

With this book, you won't need to invest a lot of time to learn about the stock market. I'll give you enough basics to get started, and as you go, you learn more...on your way to becoming another investment club success story, or retiring when you want to. Start with this book, a three hour read and then spend a little time each month on your research. You'll be amazed at your results! With a club, your research time is multiplied by the number of members in the club, so you get the benefit of their research too!

What snowballed out of our club knowledge was that each of us now uses "The Chicks" as our think-tank for our personal investments. We invest on our own, in addition to the club, but we get our information from the club discussions and figure it into our own personal purchases!! What better than real-world women discussing their beliefs about a company and bouncing ideas off each other? Would you rather discuss it with a man behind a desk who has no idea what kind of jeans his kids wear, where his wife does the back to school shopping, or still doesn't have a home computer because he sits in front of one all day at work? You make the call. I can not begin to tell you what this does for a woman's self esteem, to be investing in the stock market, without the guidance of a broker, a husband, a father or a so called expert. Bring it on, chica!

What I am not going to teach you is how to read and track a stock hourly, how to buy and sell a stock within the same day, or become so obsessed with the stock market you don't have time for dinner with your dad. Those books are probably on the bookstore shelves next to mine...but stay clear!! They're not for you, as you want to continue to have a life. I will not pretend to know everything about the market, because I don't, but the beauty of it is, you don't have to!! Just the basics, and start doing it, is the best advice I can give. I wish I had figured this all out ten years ago, and written this then, for me to buy and read!!!

Many people will claim that the individual investor or "little investment clubs" of the world can't possibly do better than the big Wall Street firms. But, you can, and we are. The Chicks Laying Nest Eggs Investment Club has consistently beaten the market since we began... a feat 90% of the mutual funds are unable to. The funny thing is, it was easy! (What the market is and what the percentages mean is explained very plainly later in the book). My personal investments that I have done on my own, because of the club, have also beaten the market! Thank you, Chickies!!!

Of course there will be skeptics! The last thing the financial world wants to see is the individual learning too much, asking too many questions, and demanding answers.

This would not have been worth my time writing it, or yours reading it, if this were another "Read my investment philosophy and good luck to you" kind of book. This book will get you into ACTION, baby. By the end of the book you will be running for the hills, with your girlfriends in tow, ready to take the plunge, and investing in the stock market. Like the Nike ad says, JUST DO IT. Just get going, get started, buy the yarn and the needles, and see what happens from there. It's a continual learning process, but when you put that sweater on, whoa baby... strut it.

Now go... just do it. I'll be the needles, you be the yarn.

Chapter 1: I am Woman... Hear me Roar

We're women - and down through the years, the investment decisions haven't typically been ours to make. The financial world is male dominated, and I think they'd like to keep it that way. Enter: Chicks. I don't want to be the one to break it to you, but it's about time you get a financial hold on "your stuff" before it's too late. I could run the divorce statistics and you could see how women fare after a marriage ends, but it's just plain ole too scary for me. I hate that 50% of all wedded blisses end in divorce. (Ooops, sorry, it's the only stat I'll throw at ya).

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I'm pretty sure that most women usually get the short end of the stick when the bliss goes missing. We all know that it is entirely possible that one day our husbands could be gone. Would you know what to do? Do you know enough about your family's past investments to be able to do make your future investments on your own? Why not?

No band of gold on your finger? You haven't taken the plunge into couple-hood yet? Still holding out for Prince Charming with all the cash? This book is for you too, because he doesn't exist. And if he did, he wouldn't be looking for a dependent and financially insecure woman. He'd want an unattached Chick willing to sign a pre-nup. Fine, so come prepared, bring your ammunition to the table, and then fall in love.

You have to take control of your life, your own finances and be responsible for your future. No one will do it for you, or take care of you. Not your dad, not your husband and not your wealthier than snot Uncle in Fiji. If and when you do waltz down that aisle, you don't want your financial future to be the reason you are saying "I do."

Too many of us have no idea what to do with our money - how to invest it, or how to tell if it could be doing better. Worse yet, you might even avoid putting money away because you don't know where to put it! It's time you got your head out of the sand, opened your eyes and got a grip. This is your future too, and you should be in control. The hardest part about investing and being a woman, is that you aren't always taken seriously. (Please don't throw stones.) We've come a long way baby, but until the world sees that women can bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan, we will be met with some resistance when entering an otherwise male dominated territory. But this isn't the world's problem, it's ours, women, and we need to get past it. I can complain 'til I'm blue in the face that my financial planner wasn't speaking my language, or that he wasn't taking enough time to explain things, but it's not going to get me anywhere. My point is, I let him talk this way to me. Not once did I say, "Stop, back up, I want to really understand this and you are making no sense." My solution was to smile and say, "That looks great." (And I like this too.)

How is it that we can juggle five schedules, hold birthday parties for 20 screaming kids, keep up with every new John Grisham and Danielle Steele novel while still managing to count fat grams for the whole family and still be unable to say what we really think? Our plates are full. We cook, we clean, we know that Downy in the rinse cycle is better than Bounce in the dryer, we drive carpools, we pay bills, and we squeeze in a Tae-Bo video before the sun comes up. We take care of our aging parents, we put sunscreen on everyone's backs, we volunteer at church bazaars, we have careers, we GIVE BIRTH, and we can even hold a conference call from our cell phone while changing the oil in the car. Amen! I am woman. Grrrrrrrr...

Then why do we always need validation from others? We are amazing enough on our own why do we need someone else to back up our ideas? Do you think it's just in our genetic fingerprint? Were we born meek, or have we just been trained for a couple of centuries to neeeeeed validation from others?.

Why do we let what others say influence us so? We tend to blame the men in our lives. We say, "Oh my husband doesn't think I should go back to work this soon after the baby," or "My father says I should buy a Ford even though I really want one of those cute little Volkswagen Bugs." If you want and think you should go back to work, state your case, Chicky. Be confident in what you believe and know - and go get that Bug. Mine's red.

This is your bacon we're talking about here. You should decide how you want it cooked. Flabby and disgusting or extra crispy and ready for the English muffin? Are you just flippantly tossing your cold hard cash into "a plan" that some executive from the company recommended? Doesn't that go against everything that you believe in? Tsk tsk. What happened to that "You Go Girl" attitude? Girl, if you keep putting money blindly into that fund, lemme sell you my mint condition Ford Pinto. Do you think Mary Tyler Moore had Murray manage her cash? Exactly.

I realize we are not talking about whether or not you want a blue or black bug, or the next fashion trend here, this is your future. But because it is your future, it may seem scary to have it all in YOUR HANDS. It's another responsibility you aren't sure you can handle. So, remaining ignorant and letting someone else to decide your future, seems like the logical choice. Not so, and this must end. The only reason it seems like such a huge undertaking, and looks so scary, is because you don't know a thing about it. You probably don't even know where to start learning. Believe me, when you get over this hurdle, you will welcome the challenge of planning your future, (and even enjoy it). That's what this book is all about.

There is probably nothing more important in life, oh wait, there is, your health, your family's health, a Starbucks coffee, okay, a couple of things more important, but, your money is right up there at the top. It's time to get your feet wet, learn a bit about the stock market, and figure out what your future looks like or could look like. Once you learn a little, who cares what everybody else thinks. You might even be able to teach them a thing or two, though they would claim they already knew it.

My editor says I tend to ramble, so I will summarize at the end of each chapter.

• We are amazing
• We are clueless
• Think about what you want
• Voice it
• Do it
• Grrrrrrrr