As hard as it may seem to do in this current environment, one should always keep a long term view of your personal finances situation as well as your investment portfolio. What is so ironic about both of these statements though is that it is natural to take a long term view of savings and personal finances when things are going poorly and to take a long term view of investments when things are going well.

What do I mean by this statement? For example, when things are going well for you and your family it is likely that you feel more comfortable spending money more freely and having less money in your savings account. In reality this is not at all a good idea since we never know when something could turn on a dime and that money in savings will be needed. From the other side of things, it is very difficult to take a long term view of things such as a stock portfolio and IRA accounts when the stock market is doing very poorly, but that is definitely the prudent thing to do. So many investors that sell all of their stocks in a down market end up wishing they could have held on for the long run. In fact, it is the famous Warren Buffett who says, “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.”

What is the basic message here? The basic message is, always keep a long term view and don’t let yourself become too short sighted about anything pertaining to finances. Never let yourself get too excited about your gains and never let yourself get too depressed about your losses. When things are going great realize that it can turn on a dime and when things are going poorly remember that it too shall pass in time. A steady hand is very necessary to keep your long term goals for your money attainable.

Global economic crisis triggered massive layoffs all over the world. It also triggered spurt in cyber crimes, especially online theft, according to the report by McAfee.

In its report, McAfee has predicted that malicious cyber activity will further strain the already suffering global economy by impacting consumer confidence, which could further delay global recovery in 2009.

The report also said the volatile economic environment is diverting political attention worldwide and cyber security is not much of a priority around the globe for real headway to be made against the perpetrators of online crime.

“Cyber criminals are exploiting the global recession by luring in susceptible victims through the promise of easy money. While governments and law enforcement bodies’ attentions are diverted by the current economic crisis, the door is left open for cyber criminals to continue to target bank balances worldwide and to potentially damage the consumer trust needed to aid rapid recovery,” McAfee chief executive and president Dave DeWalt said in a statement.

If you don’t have anti-virus in your computer, install one. If you are already spending $40 per month for high speed Internet, spending $20 per year for anti-virus is a wise thing to do. If you don’t want to spend money on anti-virus software, you should get free firewall software like Zone Alarm. You can also have free virus check at Trend Micro.

As a rule of thumb, do not open any attachments in the email unless you really know the sender. Cyber crooks infect your computer by sending virus thru file attachment or image attachment in the email. Your computer can be infected just by clicking a link in the email sent by crooks.

If you see any email that promises to pay you $1,000,000 from defense ministry in Nigeria, hit the delete button quick! Any email that asks you to come to Dublin to collect $2,000,000 from a rich widow can wipe out your bank account, if you respond with your bank account number. Any email from your bank should be handled with care. Many crooks send phishing emails that appear to come from your bank; if you click on the links in those emails it will take you to fake bank website that is set up by cyber thieves who can steal your bank password in a matter of seconds.

In general, do not click the links on any email if you don’t know the sender. Just clicking the link alone can open the path for virus to get inside your computer and steal your personal information.

When I read an article that says “Be frugal. Cut your own hair. In that process, you will save $10 a month and $120 a year”, I just throw the article in the trash. It’s really irritating to see these irrational arguments to save money. If I cut my own hair, I save $10. Ok, but how can I get out of the house with the ridiculous hair style created by none other than me?! What about the opportunity cost if I fail a job interview because of my crazy hairstyle?

If I ask these questions, someone will come and say “well, you should learn proper hair grooming”. I am not a hair stylist and I don’t want to be one. I don’t want to spend time on learning hair grooming just to save $10. I would rather watch Jim Cramer shouting “Booh…Yaah”!

There are really practical ways to save money. One of them is to bag your own lunch. If you can’t bag your lunch every day, at least try that few times a week. There are situations where you must go out to eat with your co-workers either for political reasons or for networking.  Doing that every day will put a tiny hole in your savings. The tiny hole gets much bigger over the years.

Reading this may not convince you. That’s why folks in Chase bank put up a cute calculator on the web to show you how much you can save just by bagging your own lunch. See the picture below for sample savings if you bag your lunch 20 days a month.

You can access this calculator in this link. Click on “Cost of Lunch” link the right column. The above chart shows the savings for 4 years. If you bag your lunch for 30 years, it would save you $68,500!! I understand that we can’t bag our lunch every day for 30 years. However, it’s good to see these numbers so that the concept of savings would motivate us.

Chase also has a neat calculator to calculate how long it would take to payoff your credit card debt. You can use this calculator to calculate your payoff chart for any other debt.

This calculator would show you how much you can save in the interest charges by paying more per month. If you have huge credit card debt and want to know the practical ways to save money, write your comments with your details. I will get back to you with a plan!

So many people are asking the question, how bad will the economy get? Although there are a number of different data points and metrics to keep an eye on, I truly believe the real answer will lie in a single area, the job market. As a consumer and an investor, if you want to know just how bad things will get, keep a close eye on things such as the weekly jobless claims number as well as the monthly non-farm payrolls data.

Why do I simplify this all the way down to the job market as being the single thing that you should watch? It really is quite simple if you consider all of the reasons that a terrible job market hurts our overall economy badly. A consumers fear of losing their job certainly drives them to spend far less money, which in turn hurts economic numbers. If one actually does lose their job they most certainly won’t be out spending money on discretionary items. Finally, and very importantly, a poor job market means poor business to business spending as well. If a company is slashing jobs quickly it is unlikely that they are spending a whole lot of money to input new technologies, softwares, etc.

The most recent job numbers have been extremely bleak, and today’s weekly jobless claims number was the worst one in 26 years, so the signs are not looking good at all. In the interim it is likely that things will get even worse before they get better, but if our economy is going to stabilize anytime soon we will have to see a slowing in the number of jobs being lost. The American economy simply cannot turn around without the job market stabilizing. While all the experts are crunching every number, save yourself some time and energy and simply watch the job market, it will show you the economic picture.

It’s happening. Any home buyer in bay area knows that sub-prime crisis didn’t affect the home prices in the bay area much. The price came down a little bit, that’s about it. Now, it seems that price is dropping fast.

San Francisco Chronicle reports that some bay area homes are listed for less than $100,000. These homes don’t have live-in condition; most of them are fixer-uppers. Still, $95,000 is a good deal for 2 bedroom house. It’s common that owners/residents vandalize the house when it’s foreclosed. That’s why most of these houses are literally ripped off and might cost you significant amount to fix the house.

If you are going to buy the fixer-upper, just make sure that you understand the total costs involved in making the home livable. This calculation will help you to make a wise decision.

If this trend continues, we may see more low-priced properties in the bay area and other parts of the country.

I am sure there are literally thousands of people dreaming to become a venture capitalist (VC). Most of the VCs mint money. They have money machine in their offices that print money at their wish, right? Mohanjit Jolly says “yeah, right!”.

Mohanjit is the executive director of DFJ (Draper Fisher Jurvetson) India. He got educated in MIT and UCLA. He was the managing director of Garage Tech Ventures. Now, he is managing DFJ’s portfolio companies in India. He explains the challenges and difficulties one has to face in the VC world in his article in VCcircle.com. If you are even thinking about becoming a VC, this is a must read. Sometimes, it’s better to get a reality check before you enter the dream box, especially from the guy that has already gone thru the similar path. Most VCs seem to be very secretive. They try to guard their working methods. Mohanjit is refreshingly different.

In the past there may have been a time where mutual fund companies could keep a load on their fund because its performance was just so stellar that it warranted an investor buying in even with the huge fees, but that day has come and gone. There is a plethora of great no load mutual funds available to investors, and there is really no good reason whatsoever to get into a fund that has a load.

What is a loaded mutual fund? A loaded mutual fund is a fund that charges a sales commission for buying shares in the fund. These charges can be front-end loaded, meaning they are taken out when you first invest in the fund, or they can be back-end loaded, taken out when you pull out the money. These fees can be very steep, as much as 6 or 7% in some cases. Let’s say you just invested your hard earned $25,000 into a loaded mutual fund with a front-end load of 6%. Do you realize that your investment will automatically be worth only $23,500 because of this front-end load? In reality back-end loaded fees are even worse since, the hope is at least, that your portfolio is worth more at that time.

If you work with a financial planner to help you in allocating your assets, I strongly suggest you make it a point to let them know that you only want funds without a load. The reason I make this point is most financial planners get a nice kickback from selling the loaded funds, so while it won’t help you, it does help them to push a loaded fund.

The differences between no load funds and loaded funds are simple, but they can eat a hole in your pocket very quickly. Just say no to loaded funds and make your investment go that much farther for you.

Many individuals have the wrong idea about saving and investing their money. There is large group of people out there who believe that in order to make a viable investment they must have a large amount of money. In recent years this has become even more untrue with many new products that help serve those who have saved up small amounts of money to invest.

If you want to invest in the stock market with small amounts of money DRIPS and Direct Purchase Plans are perfect for you. These are both great because they have no minimum investment amount and no minimum monthly or annual contribution. This is a great way to invest directly into a certain stock and only buy portions of a share. DRIPS and Direct Purchase Plans are perfect for those who are patient and are investing with small amounts of money.

Want to invest in a mutual fund, but you’re afraid you won’t have enough? There is good news for you here as well. More and more mutual funds are moving to make themselves available to even those on a shoestring budget. There are quite a few mutual funds with a minimum of $500 or lower now. In fact, there are several funds with a minimum of just $250, or even $100 to open an account. Typically, index mutual funds have lower minimum requirements.

If you are looking for a guaranteed return, many banks are offering low minimum certificates of deposit and money market savings accounts. While you may not earn quite as high of yield as those who have a huge bundle of money, it still sure beats the heck out of just having the money sitting in a piggy bank making you absolutely nothing.

The fact is, every little bit of money you save can and should be invested. The days of only the rich being able to invest are long gone.

According to the survey by Bank of  America,  18% of Americans said they have withdrawn retirement assets prematurely because of the recent economic turmoil. Many raided those accounts to pay for near-term financial obligations, including credit card debt and mortgage payments. But more than one in five, or 22%, withdrew money early from their retirement because of a recent job loss.

Treating your 401k account as an ATM is not a good idea irrespective of your financial situation, unless you are bankrupt or face real hardship. If you desperately need the money, the better option is to take the loan from your 401k or IRA. Marketwatch folks wrote a detailed article that gives information about various options to handle your individual situation.

Can you save money by having sex? Britons think so. According to BBC News, Britons are turning to sex as a cheap way to pass the time and save money. They don’t want to go out and spend money especially in the current economic climate. They want to stay at home and do free activities such as sex.

However men and women sexes differed on their priorities, with women preferring to gossip with friends while men had sex firmly at the top of their list. Ok, no surprise there.

Sex can save your heating bills too, that would be nice especially in this winter where everything in economy seems to be messed up. It can rejuvenate your body and mind so that you don’t need to buy those ginseng tablets. Although it’s intuitive and obvious, research also shows that sex is better for your happiness than money.  Dartmouth College economist David Blachflower and Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in England estimate that if you increase the intercourse from once a month to once a week, that would be equivalent to the amount of happiness generated by getting an additional $50,000 in income. Wow.. that’s a pretty compelling number!