Message-ID: <16641002.1075862249498.JavaMail.evans@thyme> Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 09:38:42 -0800 (PST) From: fool@motleyfool.com To: richard.shapiro@enron.com Subject: Thanksgiving After Sept. 11 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ANSI_X3.4-1968 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-From: The Motley Fool X-To: Shapiro, Richard X-cc: X-bcc: X-Folder: \RSHAPIRO (Non-Privileged)\Shapiro, Richard\Deleted Items X-Origin: Shapiro-R X-FileName: RSHAPIRO (Non-Privileged).pst The Motley Fool: FoolWatch Weekly Digest EDITOR'S PICKS FOR WEEK OF 11-23-2001 Thanksgiving After Sept. 11 Straight Talk on Penny Stocks Thankful for Intel? Before the Bubble Burst SPONSORED BY Kaplan College Become a Financial Planner! Kaplan College's online Cert. in Financial Planning program prepares you for success in the #1 ranked profession. Invest in your future career today! Quote Of The Week "As you take a few minutes to ponder all that you have to be thankful for, take an additional few minutes to think of the billions of people who don't have it so good. Even as we suffer from a declining economy and terrible acts of murder, as a nation we're still more fortunate than most people on Earth. In many places, malnutrition and dysentery are the rule rather than the exception. Our poverty would be prosperity in most of the countries of the world. In hard times, it's more necessary than ever to remember how rich our lives are." Selena Maranjian, "The Need to Give" ? Weekend Warrior Can You Save $100 a Month? If you cut your spending by $100 a month and invested that money in a tax-deferred retirement account, you would add $145,346 to your nest egg by the time you retire at age 65 (assuming you're 40 now and earn an 11% average annual return). Wow. Pretty inspiring, eh? Try it yourself with this calculator to see how your stats add up. Then check out these guidelines for finding those extra 100 donuts a month: Do you know how much you spend on groceries? On books? On utilities? If not, fire up any old spreadsheet and start recording your expenses. You can visit the "How Much Am I Spending?" calculator for a list of categories, and it'll even count the beans for ya. Review your checkbook, bank account statements, and credit card statements and start filling in the blanks. If you find yourself faced with a lot of "$100 ATM Withdrawal" items in your history, you'll need to do a little more work to see where you've been indulging. Try this: Every time you use cash, keep the receipt. If the receipt doesn't list what you purchased, write it on the receipt. Every night, put the receipts in a jar. At the end of the month, enter the items in your expense-tracking spreadsheet and you'll know exactly how much you've been spending. As you pile up your savings, sock it away regularly -- automatic savings plans are a beautiful thing. You can set up an automatic deposit to a money market fund , for example, and earn some interest in the short run. When you have enough dough saved to open an Individual Retirement Account, pat yourself on the back, then check out our 60-second guide to IRAs for the fast track to building your nest egg. So there's your game plan: Trade a few minor extravagances for the long-term comfort and security of a bulging retirement account. That's a pretty sweet deal. Weekend Features Refinancing Could Mean Big Savings Confused about how to determine if refinancing is right for you? Let us help you. Security Software Leader Check out this stock idea and others in this month's issue of The Motley Fool Select. SPONSORED BY Kaplan College Become a Financial Planner! Kaplan College's online Cert. in Financial Planning program prepares you for success in the #1 ranked profession. Invest in your future career today! UNSUBSCRIBE | CHANGE FORMAT | SUSPEND DELIVERY | CUSTOMER SERVICE Become a Financial Planner Become a Financial Planner Legal Information . Copyright ? 1995-2001 The Motley Fool. All rights reserved.