I happened to pass by a gas station today that had a sign advertising a credit card with a 5% cashback option. While there was probably a catch since I whizzed by the advertisement sign, I was with another person who made a comment on how he felt that credit card rewards with points such as airmiles are a waste in comparison.

I personally prefer cashback options, although from a value point of view in most cases the reward options you receive seems to be almost inline with each other. The only main difference I see is that with one option you are forced to get something that you don’t necessarily want.

One thing is for sure though, I hate having to pay for those premium reward options and would usually avoid them if they require any kind of additional fee.

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I was at a seminar yesterday and one of the topics that came up was about making patents and how even if you don’t want to be the person who actually executes the idea, just thinking them up can generate people a lot of wealth.

I was then reading up about an individual named Ronald Katz who owns over 50 different patents with most of them consisting of technology patents that businesses use everyday. As a result, he generates billions of dollars licensing out his patents.

While this is not exactly the same, just by reading this it almost sounds like a person who just sits down while trying to think of the best domain names to register and then hoping that someone will pay top dollars for it. I can only assume that trying to patent an idea requires more financial investment, but it sure puts it in perspective when people say you just have to be the first to think of it.

It definitely made me more curious to learn more about the industry and process though.

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My parents was telling me about this old $2 bill that was given to my brother a long time ago and how it is suppose to be worth about $500 or so now. That brought up a discussion about saving old money currency as a form of investment.

I’ve never really been into this type of investing/collecting as I guess during the time where the currency in question is in abundance you tend to not think too much of it. Just the thought of say a very old penny being worth say $10 seems kind of strange. Something like that one million dollar coin I heard about before seems more like an investment to me.

Then again, I guess like any type of collecting the dollar value of the items are subjective and some people would be willing to pay big amounts for it.

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I’ve been reading a lot of articles recently on how the price of gold has reached to about $1,000 an ounce which is a new record. The funny thing about this is that I often hear people suggest that investing in gold is a good idea yet people like myself don’t really put much thought into it for some reason.

I know as I grew older it seemed like whenever someone mentioned the word “investing” it would always revolve around stocks or real estate. When it comes to gold, the only time where I really identified it as a good way to maintain a sort of wealth portfolio is from watching all those children cartoon shows as a kid. You know, like how all the characters always fight over gold or how it seems like it is the only item used to measure wealth. So, maybe that convinced me to sway away from that thought.

When you read about it in situations like this though, it sure does sound like a wise form of investment.

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I saw a clip from the Larry King show that had a panel of money gurus on it and were addressing the fears of a recession in the US. Now apparently there is some kind of plan down there to give families say an extra $600 a year that is going to take place in hopes that people will spend it to reinvigorate the economy.

For the most part, they were cynical on how it is only $600 which won’t do much and that in terms of a recession they viewed this time as a great event if you’re an investor as it should be time to buy with prices being low. They then dived into how people have to change their way of thinking when it comes to money as generally if you are stuck with that workers mentality when it comes to money then not surprisingly times like these will be bad for you.

The general message is very true I thought as it does have a lot to do about mindset when it comes to money. The only thing I was a little bit iffy about was the notion that $600 can’t do much. Maybe I am just one of those Internet age people, but you can definitely do a lot with $600 if you really want to. Heck, with the Internet there are so many things you can do even with no money to try and generate an income.

Even thinking of it from a more traditional view, I even see things such as people say holding their own simple speed dating events which costs them very little to do while being able to generate a profit fairly quickly. Good old fashion entrepreneurial spirit mixed with passion and ambition I guess you can say.

I guess like with the $600, even with that it comes down to mindset as you shouldn’t limit yourself to only one type of thing that you can do. Example, if I was only thinking more traditional investments such as stocks and real estate then of course that figure sounds like nothing. Expand your way of thinking. This might sound strange, but another example would be to take that $600 and invest it in yourself to become more knowledgeable as a person. Your newly acquired knowledge can end up generating great returns for you.

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