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Jim Cramer’s Mad Money is a compelling television show for many. He brings excitment to the sometimes boring subject of investing. Many see him as a clown, but he gets the attention of many more people than a typical investment show. He really is a teacher. I do not recommend taking all of his stock tips, but his teaching skills for investing is top-notch.

The Mad Money Recap goes like this:
Jim Cramer comes out and discusses a stock for 5-10 minutes and then takes a couple callers that typically have questions that pertain to that stock. Cramer goes to another segment on another stock. Then Cramer does the Lightning Round where he takes callers stock questions, he gives an up or down, without knowing what stocks the callers will ask about. It is truly amazing that he can speak intelligently on a stock off the cuff. He also has several other types of segments on Mad Money that will follow the Lightning Round. Often he has on a corporate CEO and discusses their company. Finally he wraps it up with email questions. Finally, he does the Sudden Death period and takes two quick calls on stocks and that is it.

Mad Money Recap: It is an educational and entertaining show. It can be difficult to take at times, but you can really learn a lot and take the advice and do some homework and make some Mad Money.

Being a successful investor requires careful planning that cannot be done without work. I know people often want the quick fix to any problem, even financial, often without considering the consequences. Discussing and writing down a strategic plan to meet your financial goals will go a long way in actually meeting and hopefully, exceeding them.

• Pay yourself first
  
• You have probably heard of this term before and might not have known what it meant. Paying yourself first you put money way (preferably automatically) in a savings or retirement account directly from your paycheck to the account. Now you have no way of blowing the money before you have the opportunity to stash it away.
• Have your money and time work for you

• The longer the investment time horizon the more opportunity you have to watch your money grow exponentially. See the Rule of 72.

• CDs, Money-Market accounts and othe rfixed income product are not as safe as you think
• Inflation will eat up the paltry returns you earn on these investments; plus you are not diversified well enough by simply investing in these financial instruments
• Use Asset allocation
• As just mentioned putting all of your investment eggs in one basket can be harzardous to your financial health. DIVERSIFY your investments along a wide-range of asset classes in order to lower your risk and increase your returns over a long investment time horizon
• Dollar-cost averaging
• When investing in mutual funds dollar cost averaging is the best way to make money and lower risk. By investing a set amount at a set time interval will even out your cost basis and therefore smooth out the highs and lows of the stock market. DRIPs are another way to dollar cost average, but here you are doing it with individual stocks, while avoiding the trade commission that would normally be charged by a broker.
• Take advantage of all tax breaks you can
• After taxes, retirement, healthcare, commuting expenses are taken out of my check I get about 1/3 less than my gross. Many would see this as bad, but in reality I have taken all the pre-tax advantages available to me by my employer and lowered my taxable income. Come tax time you will be very happy you did this.

Private-equity

• Investment is not usually tradable during a market day
• Private-equity funds’ valuations are set by the fund’s general partners
• Expense ratio for that you pay the general partners of a private-equity partnership is very expensive
• Some less regulatory burdens and costs
• Private equity does not correlate to the stock market, ergo good diversification
• The returns in private equity are higher than they are for traditional stocks and bonds and that is why so many are jumping on board
• It takes a lot of money to qualify to invest in private equity, but there are ETFs available now so an average investor can afford to get in the game

The exchange-traded mutual fund around since the early 1990s. They combine index investing with the lower costs and liquidity of individual stock ownership. But are ETFs a good match for your portfolio?

What exactly is an ETF?
Exchange-traded refers to shares that trade all day on major stock market exchanges. Funds are investing vehicles that have many thousands of companies under one umbrella, typically with an investing theme, like technology stocks.

There are ETFs to represent virtually any segment of the market. Therefore, if you are about to dive into ETFs look examine your portfolio and see where you can get more diversification.

If you want some indexing in your portfolio and want to invest a lump some, ETFs provide some flexibility you might find useful. Unlike mutual funds, ETFs can be bought or sold anytime the market is open via your brokerage account.