I would suggest you take $4.95 and buy "The Richest Man in Babylon" by George Clason it's lessons will be well worth the cost if you choose to follow them. As for the rest, the trick is knowing sound advice from waiting until you get the advice you want to hear.
The following exchange, taken from http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6869, should qualify.
Okay - good points. Let's have a look at it a different way - more of an economic type analysis I guess. Is it better for our economy for this gentleman to suck up, work off the debt (including the huge interest, overlimit charges, late charges)? Is it productive activity? Or, could he be of more use to the rest of us to be rid of the debt, higher educated, and turned loose on the economy hopefully with the admonishion to go forth and not do it again (he can't file again for 6 years anyway)? The often used example is an Edison who blows out 2 or 3 times, wets the bed on all of his creditors, then gives us the light bulb on the 4th try. What do you think? Geo.
What are you talking about, you are a bigger ass than I suspected. Find me one thing in that quote that was hypocritical. And junk bonds had a 20% run from that post, or did you miss that? Year to year one of the best asset classes. In fact why don't you tell us all what the S&P did the day I posted that. You really need to take notes and stop chatting.
The fact is that you asked the people on here FOR ADVICE by way of a poll; was that not something you challenged us to find in any of your posts? Did you not ask people for advice on whether bottom picking could be profitable strategy? I'm sorry if i offended you but I couldn't help but laugh as I had a vision of you with your foot in your mouth, nearly halfway down your throat. You derided the act of asking for advice and yet you yourself were found to be wanting of advice on whether a certain strategy could be considered viable. I personally do not consider hypocrites to be of respectable integrity as they like to ADVISE one thing and then DO the exact opposite. In this case, you made fun of my search for advice and yet lo and behold it was found that you yourself were guilty of such advice seeking. All in all, you seem to be the WALL STREET type who tells clients to buy a dog and who then proceeds to short it. I am not doubting your trading ability (nor am I lauding it) as I know nothing about you except that you are inherently hypocrital (and this, I gather from our limited corresponence on here). I am just saying that you could not come to the conclusion that bottom picking can work on your own; you had to ask the people on here for advice on the matter. Normally, I wouldn't care and would urge the wisdom of adivsors to be sought but for the purposes of exemplifying your hypocrasy I thought I should respond to subliminal's comment. You're a hypocrite. That is the point !