Thinking of Buying Gold? - Gold Eagles

By Bill Haynes


If you are thinking of buying gold and end up with 1-oz American Eagle coins, it would be difficult for anyone to say that you could have done better. These U.S. Mint products have become the most popular one-ounce bullion coins in the world.

Gold Eagles, as they are commonly called, were introduced in 1986, and they were unique to the U.S. Mint, being the first 1-oz bullion coins ever minted by the Mint. Further, they were the first 22-karat (91.67% pure) precious metals coins ever minted by the Mint. Because of the copper added to make the coins 22-karat, the gross weight of the 1-oz Eagle is 1.0909 oz.

Today, 1-oz Eagles dominate the new gold bullion coin market in the U.S., claiming some 80% of the market. Since their introduction in 1986, nearly 12 million have been sold. In 2008, the Mint sold 710,000, but through the first nine months of 2009 the Mint sold right at 940,000.

Eagles are bullion coins, which sell for the value of their content plus a small premium over spot. Spot is the price at which large commercial quantities of the yellow metal changes hands in raw form for 48-hour settlement. Spot gold is the benchmark for the price of this most senior of the precious metals.

During normal times, the Mint turns out four sizes: 1-oz, ½-oz, ¼-oz and 1/10-oz. However, the Mint has yet to sell any of the fractional-ounce Eagles in 2009 and is not expected to sell them until December. Investors wanting fractional-ounce 22-karat bullion coins now will have to buy Krugerrands.

The one-ounce coin is, by far, the biggest seller in total ounces of all four sizes. Some years, more 1/10-oz Eagles were sold than 1-oz coins; but in total ounces of metal, the one-ounce coin is the biggest seller.

The 1-oz Eagle carries a $50 nominal face value, which means that it could be used as money at a value of $50. However, because the coin is sold at the spot price of gold plus a small premium, the cost of one coin greatly exceeds the nominal $50 face value.

Gold Eagles were given legal tender status to make them "legal tender coins." There is a much greater demand for legal tender coins than for straight bullion products, such as 1-oz bullion bars. The ½-oz Eagles has a face value of $25, the ¼-oz $10 and the 1/10oz $5.

They are packaged twenty coins to a tube, twenty-five tubes to a Mint box, which weighs right at forty pounds. Most investors buy 1-oz Eagles in multiple tubes. However, it is becoming increasingly common for large investors to take delivery of Mint boxes.

Bill Haynes heads CMI Gold & Silver Inc, one of America's oldest precious metals dealers. See CMIGS' website for more information about gold investments. This article may be reprinted provided this signature remains intact, including the direct links to CMI Gold & Silver Inc.

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How you feel after Retirement Lifestyle Freedom

I liked being retired, even while homeless! Nothing is redeeming or proud about a minimum or survival job at 50% to 75% pay reduction from your last "Real" job. Some folks claim they will be bored when they retire, won't know what to do...uh huh! Well those are the "Type A Workaholics" that annoy the rest of us. My job doesn't define me. I don't live to work, I work to live! Work may actually interfere with your life. So when retirement greets you, take full advantage of it, even if you sleep in a doorway!



By the term Retirement Freedom, I mean a non-traditional retirement away from the work-a-day world. I call this "Fretirement" since it is a lifestyle that is free from all of the expectations that most of us have with retirement. In "Fretirement", you dont necessarily quit working, rather you quit having to work.

Why go through all of the traditional drudgery associated with a traditional job? Who really wants to spend an hour or more each day commuting to and from an office? Is there anybody who really enjoys office politics and ladder climbing? Or how about the words "outsource" and "downsize" and "layoff"? Can you really get excited about these things? Do you really want to spend a large portion of your earnings for fuel to get to work and for overpriced and unhealthy food during "lunch hour"?

It is possible, at almost any age, to effectively retire from the traditional workforce and to create your own economic machine. Thanks to the electronic age and the advent of the Internet, you can likely make this happen in that area of business wherein you enjoy a certain amount of experience, knowledge and passion. In fact, the more passionate you are about a niche, the more likely you are to be successful in making a good living in it.

In his current bestselling book, "The 4 Hour Work Week", author Timothy Ferris writes about how he managed to wean his company from its dependence on him being present 5 days each week. He did this by outsourcing many of the routine tasks that he did to a Virtual Assistant, or V.A. that he found on the Internet. In fact, he was able to do this so effectively that soon, he weaned his company from needing him at the office 2 days per week. Due to the company's inefficiencies, he and his V.A. were able to produce more results for the company during the 2 days each week that he was absent than he had been producing when he was present!

This went on and on and, over time, he showed up at the office very seldom, but his production was so great that his managers were thrilled and even gave him a raise and promotion! Now, at age 34, he has effectively "retired" from working, enjoys a lot of travel and has a staff of 3-5 V.A.s working for him across the globe! He quickly moved to his desired retirement lifestyle at the ripe old age of 34!

I'm not suggesting that you will be able to work miracles like Tim Ferris did, but, you can certainly explore the opportunities in the niche of your passion and expertise. You might elect to do something complementary to what you are currently doing or perhaps explore a whole new way to accomplish similar results by harnessing the power of the Internet and by outsourcing menial tasks to V.A.s so that you can focus on the really important tasks.

If you are nearing the traditional retirement age, you may be able to spring free of your job years ahead of schedule if you can get some Internet "Cash Machines" setup to provide a level of passive income for you and your family. You can establish many diverse streams of income from various Internet activities and each can be independent from one another. Once you have these in operation, you can have the retirement lifestyle that you desire!

For example, I have income from the sale of an electronic book, or e-book that I have written on the subject of retirement. I also do some affiliate marketing wherein I advertise products for several large companies such as Best Buy and Amazon.com. Additionally, I have a membership site on the Internet where retirees come to learn ways to earn income from Internet activities, and I provide advertising space for Google and other companies. All of these income streams are passive and the income just shows up in my bank account each day! Some days are great and others not so great, but, on average, I earn enough to support 2 sons in a large accredited University without using my Social Security check!

It took me a few months to learn these techniques and a few more months to put them into operation, but now all I do is tweak and tune my marketing programs and explore new ways to compound my streams! Fortunately, I am able to play golf several times a week and get to travel extensively to visit my grandchildren and to just have fun!


I love my retirement lifestyle! You can easily see why I call this freedom that I have my "Fretirement"!

Don Seibert is an Expert Author who writes timely articles and books on retirement including the Amazing Retirement Formula at http://www.Amazing-Retirement.com . Having retired twice, he now is the host of http://www.RetireToEasyStreet.com Visit the site for a complete discussion of Retirement Planning, early retirement, and Retirement Income Options

Student Loans Could Be Forgiven After 10 Years of Public Service

The government hopes a new loan forgiveness program will give students an incentive to consider a career in public service. In exchange for 10 years on the job in a field of public service such as public safety, education, or social work, the Department of Education will erase certain borrowers’ remaining federal student loan debt.

To be eligible for this initiative — the Loan Forgiveness for Public-Service Employees Program — you must have either taken out or consolidated your federal student loans through the federal Direct Loan Program, in which you receive your student loan directly from the government rather than through a third-party lender.

Breaking It Down: How the Loan Forgiveness Program Works
The loan forgiveness benefit is available for any federal consolidation loan or any federal parent or student loans you’ve taken out through the Department of Education’s Direct Loan Program. If you took out your federal college loans from a private lender through the Federal Family Education Loan Program (rather than directly from the government through the Direct Loan Program), you’ll have to consolidate your FFELP student loans into the Direct Loan Program in order for those student loans to be eligible to be forgiven.

In addition to holding a federal Direct loan, you’ll also have to meet certain borrower requirements in order to qualify for the loan forgiveness program:

Spend a decade in a public service career. You must remain in a qualifying public-service career, working full-time, for 10 years, during which you must be making payments on the student loans you’re looking to have forgiven. You must still be working in the public-service sector at the time your student loans are forgiven.

Hit the 120 mark. During your 10 years of full-time public service, you must make 120 monthly payments on the Direct college loans you want forgiven. Only payments made after Oct. 1, 2007, will count toward the payment requirement. If you have FFELP loans (college loans that you took out from a private lender and not from the federal government) that you’re consolidating into the Direct Loan Program, you’ll only be able to count the payments you make on your Direct Consolidation Loan after your FFELP student loans are consolidated. Any payments you’ve made prior to Oct. 1, 2007, or to any lender other than the federal government won’t count.

Sign up for a qualifying repayment plan. Your required 120 payments must be made under one (or a combination) of three repayment plans: standard repayment, income-contingent repayment, or income-based repayment, which becomes available July 1, 2009. If you’re enrolled in a different Direct Loan repayment plan, only those payments you make that are at least equal to the monthly payment amount you’d be required to make under the standard repayment plan will count toward your 120-payment requirement.

The Fine Print: How You End Up Paying Off Your Student Loans Yourself
If you’re considering applying for the loan forgiveness benefit, you may want to look into your eligibility for the income-contingent and income-based repayment plans, which allow low-income borrowers to qualify for lower payments and extend their repayment period to 25 years. Only borrowers who are making reduced monthly payments on an income-contingent or income-based repayment plan will likely have a remaining balance left to forgive after making 120 payments on their student loans.

If you’re in the standard repayment plan, which has a repayment term of 10 years, you may find that you don’t have any student loan debt left to forgive after meeting your 120-payment requirement, since your 10-year repayment term is the same amount of time that the government requires you to hold your public-service job before any of your student loans can be forgiven.

What Qualifies as Public Service?
Public-service fields eligible for the loan forgiveness program include:

Military
Emergency management
Fire departments
Law enforcement
Public library sciences
Public school education
Public child care
Public health
Public service for the elderly
Public service for individuals with disabilities
Nonprofit work with certain tax-exempt organization

Creative Marketing Ideas

The following creative marketing ideas are specifically about finding new places and ways to advertise. This has always been an area ripe for new ideas. What prompted me to write this page is an article I recently read on a company called Show Media.

Show Media has advertising displays on top of 3,000 taxis in New York. They charge client (which include Levis, Nike and other big companies) $200 per month for each ad, and they pay $100 to the cab company. That leaves enough room for healthy profits. Founder Laurence Hallier says that a typical campaign, which would cost $40,000 per month for exposure on 200 taxis, is seen by 25% of the city's residents - each day.

That got me to thinking about what other creative marketing ideas and opportunities are out there in the area of advertising. The following is a short list I am coming up with as I write this. Some of these may already exist.

Street Signs - In these tough times, many cities are looking for additional revenue. Could placing advertising on street signs provide it? In addition to providing monthly revenue, the company that arranges this might have to make new signs for the city, saving it this cost.

Personal Car Ads - I know this is being done in some areas already. What is needed is a simple system. Have a place where a driver can pull in, have a sign attached to his or her car, and get a check for keeping it there for six months.

Kite Ads - In areas with consistent breezes it might be possible to have kites flying most of the day with large ads on them. Beaches are a natural location, but this may work in other places as well.

Sidewalk Audio Advertising - As people walk by certain locations an ad automatically plays. Advertisers could be charged by the number of times an ad plays (getting a good deal when more than one pedestrian happens to be there to hear it). Another angle here is to sell the units to specific businesses. A restaurant might have a recording that is triggered by each passer-by, saying something like, "Hello, come on in right now and you'll get a free drink with your sandwich."

Yard Sign Advertising - I'm not sure about the legality of this in most places, but many yards have signs supporting political candidates or announcing that some company just replaced the windows or did the landscaping, so why not have paid advertising? Residents get a monthly check for each sign, and advertisers pay twice that, leaving room for a profit for the company that does this.

Mural Advertising - This one might be an opportunity for a budding artist. He could find a building that is ugly and ask the owner how much he would want to have a nice advertising mural on it. Then he could find advertisers who will pay enough to leave him with a decent profit. The owner of the building might have to get final approval on the planned mural and agree to leave it there for a couple years.

Odor Advertising - Have the smell of fresh cooked food pumped onto busy sidewalks, alongside a sign or audio ad promoting a restaurant.

Advertising With Plants - Bushes could be trimmed into the shape of a company logo. Flower beds could be planted with logos or even in the shape of words for advertising. Cornfields near airports could have ads cut into them to be seen by plane passengers above.

Marketing Games - A company might get word-of-mouth advertising by making it into a contest or game. Participants sign up online and get a number which they give out with their recommendation. The person who has referred the most customers after a year wins a big prize.

DVD Ads - There is already advertising for other movies IN DVD movies, but what about on the box that the DVD comes in. I'm not referring to the one that it is sold in. Many movie rental stores have their own blank boxes that they send out all of their movies in. Could they sell advertising on those? It could be for local products or services (a restaurant, for example), or products available nationally.

Those are the ten creative marketing ideas that I could think of in the forty-five minutes it took to write this. You can probably add a few to the list with a bit of brainstorming.

About the author:
Copyright Steve Gillman. Learn more Ways To Make Money, and get the free Unusual Ways (To Make And Save Money) Newsletter, plus e-courses and ebooks, at: http://www.UnusualWaysToMakeMoney.com

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