Back to lighter issues...

OK, so, I am tipping Obama to win the US election. I put all of my Nadal winnings on this at 1.49 which is still available at Betfair this evening.

The title of my blog describes exactly what happened to a friend of a friend of a friend.

The man (aged about 60) who sold his house for £1M was stitched up a treat by the Estate Agents (who sold it for £2M seven days later) and quite literally couldn't live with himself. He committed suicide.

I am also aware of someone who had the chance to sell his dot com business for £1M (sterling) and ended up selling it for £1 a year later (the buyer had to take on losses as part of the deal).

This person (aged about 35) managed to fight on and has had to build a new business from scratch which just started to look promising, but now we seem to be heading for a huge recession again...

Taking the above into consideration kind of puts a few things into perspective.

i.e. There are more important things in life than money!

Having said that, this is meant to be (mainly) a fun blog group with ideas for making money. I just wanted to put in a bit of balance.

A single person in Britain needs to earn at least £13,400 a year for a minimum standard of living, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has claimed.

Interesting BBC article about today's cost of living.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7481927.stm

I bought HSBC in February for £8.08 and sold them in May at £8.92

In the last few weeks they have fallen all the way back to £7.54 (so lucky I sold).

I have not 'come back in' yet as the market seems wickedly turbulent at the moment.

I would start getting very tempted at around £7.30 as this would mean they'd 'only' need to go back up to about £8 for me to take profits.

There are other attractive 'offers' around, but really it's anyone's guess to where the market will 'settle' and what the real value of these shares is in today's climate.

I am still tipping Marks & Spencer, and British Land as good to 'buy and hold' at today's prices.

All depends on whether one can afford to hold on until prices recover again!

Nadal is the second favourite at Wimbledon (again) this year, but I think he's worth a small position at 3.6 (2.6 to 1) on Betfair.

There's also a bet on a Nadal/Federer final this stands at 2.18 currently (but doesn't look very good value to me!)

Good value shares to buy and hold right now IMHO are M & S £3.42 today British Land £7.43 and HSBC £8.04. I actually sold my HSBC holding about 5 or 6 weeks ago at £8.92 this has seemed like a pretty smart move as I took a neat 12% profit and had I held on this would have been not only completely wiped out, but I would be sitting on a paper loss of a few %.

I think that if you are prepared to buy and hold for up to three years, you should be OK at today's prices.

My own policy is a vey flexible one. I buy to hold medium to long term, but should I see an instant profit (as I made on HSBC in about 3 months) I will take it, 'get out' and continue to follow prices.

Tournament: The Open (known as this rather than the British Open !!!)

I backed this golfer (who won this year's Green Jacket) at 65-1 on Betfair.

Sneakily, I managed to lay off the bet in full at 55-1 !

The bet was for £12 which once I'd sold (or laid off) the bet in full, was returned to me in full £12.

Result. I have my £12 back in full and also the possibility of winning £120 if T.I. wins this tournament!

I'm 22, the current age of retirement for men in the uk is 65. So that gives me 43 years of payments.

the only problem is i really dont know what to look for when shopping around for a personal pension plan.

Should i just talk to different companies, letting them blind me with their figures and projections? Then flip a coin?

Since last Friday i'm up by 43%

However, i've reinvested my assets so i could be down 95% by tomorrow

i took up some small positions on a couple of friendlies being played today and tomorrow. Out of 5 bets i only need to win 2 to break even.

the matches are:

Ivory Coast U20s v USA U20s
Hungary v Greece
Ireland v Serbia
Croatia v Moldova
Ivory Coast v Japan

I looked at the play-off between Bristol City and Hull, but although i think Hull will win the match i think it will be in extra time or penalties so there's little point in backing Hull for the match (i.e. within the 90 minutes) win IMO.