To see earlier results from 2011, click the following links:

First Quarter Results 2011
Second Quarter Results 2011
Third Quarter Results 2011

I started the inMessment Game on Investopedia in December of 2010. The game now has a grand total of 10 players including me. As we start the second year, NOW is a great time to join the game!

Here is what you will see in this post:

• inMessment Game Numbers for Q4 2011
• Comparison To Benchmark Q4 and YTD
• The Good
• The Bad
• The Ugly
• Portfolio Changes in Q4 2011
• Full inMessment Game Portfolio at end of Q4 2011
• inMessment Game Trade History for Q4 2011

inMessment Numbers as of December 30, 2011

The fourth quarter of 2011 was a decent quarter. We had a little comeback from the third quarter drop. We ended the year down more than a percent.

• Q4 Starting Account Value: $22,482.94
• Q4 Ending Account Value: $24,579.13 (Up $2,096.19 (9.3%) from Q3 2011)
• Annual Return: -1.6% (APY)
• Number of Securities In Portfolio: 10
• Trades this Quarter: 6
• Available Cash: $5,232.14

Comparison to Benchmark – The S&P 500 Index

The benchmark I have chosen to compare my results to is the S&P 500 Index. This is a broad index of 500 of the top US companies. Many investors and firms use this index as a general benchmark.

The Blue line is my inMessment Game portfolio. The Red line is the S&P 500 Index.

Here is the Year-To-Date chart. YTD, the S&P and my inMessment Game portfolio are fairly close together. From time to time the inMessment Game portfolio is doing slightly better than the S&P Index. At the end of Q4 the S&P did slightly better than my portfolio.

The Good

Seven of my holdings did as well or better than the S&P 500 in Q4. These I consider good for the quarter.

The Bad

My bad list is not all bad this quarter. I list four holdings and they all made gains in Q4. I am listing them as bad because they lagged behind the S&P 500 so they did not keep up with my benchmark.

The Ugly

I have two holdings in the Ugly list. These both lost money in Q4. SLV really tanked as silver and gold prices continue to drop. SCZ is being hit hard the debt problems in Europe.

Changes To The Portfolio

In Q4 I have made two major changes to my portfolio.

First, I replaced my SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) holding with Rydex S&P Equal Weight ETF (RSP). I did this with the idea that I want to beat the S&P index as my benchmark. SPY basically performs in line with the benchmark.

RSP weights the S&P 500 securities equally rather than by market cap. This gives more weight to the smaller companies in the index so RSP is slightly more volatile and may provide better returns over time.

The second major change is that I have started placing stop losses on the non-core holdings. This is basically due to the huge (15%) losses in Q3. Stop loss settings may have saved some of the gains from Q1 and Q2.

On December 28 three of my holdings hit their stop loss points and were sold. Since these were sold I now have a little over 20% of my portfolio in cash. I plan to reinvest this when I see a good opportunity.

Below are the three holdings that stopped out with their net gain/loss from the time I purchased each.

Full inMessment Game Portfolio

Here is the full portfolio. Since I am late getting this out I am including the details as of January 27, 2012.
I have categorized the investments in the following way:
Core: Long-term stable investments that will not change often.
Sub-Core: Still long-term but may trade more often.
Opportunity: Long or short-term trading opportunities.

inMessment Game Trade History for Q4 2011

Below is the trade history for my inMessment Game in Q4 2011. I also include the history through January 27, 2012 as I am late getting this post out.

Join the inMessment Game

Now that you have read through my results why don’t you join the game yourself? It is completly free and the best way I have found to learn about investing.
Click Here to Join the inMessment Game!

We missed the 2011 adoption cut-off by 10 days. The Adoption Tax Credit is not “refundable” in 2012. This means we will not get it all in one big chunk. We will have to take the credit over the next few years. This makes the finances a little tighter but it does not diminish the joy of adoption in any way!

We have seen the hand of God working in this adoption. Thank you to all our friends and family who have been praying for us. We have sensed His favor and seen several small miracles along the way.

On the plane trip from Chicago to Hong Kong Linda and I did not get seats together. In fact we each got center seats across the plane from each other. I explained the situation to the lady who had the window seat and asked if she would be willing to trade with Linda. She was not willing to sit in a center seat for the 15 hour flight. (I was somewhat dismayed but I can completely understand that.)

I had tried a few other people sitting around but with no luck. Then a young Asian lady came to take the isle seat next to me. I again explained the situation and she graciously agreed to take Linda’s center seat on the other side and let Linda have her isle seat. Linda was so happy to be able to lean her head on my shoulder! God is good! God bless that young lady!

In Hong Kong we did some sight-seeing. For lunch we stopped at a small restaurant and ended up sitting next to a man and his son who were from Michigan. We talked a little and told them our story. They finished their meal, went inside to pay, and then we said good-bye. We really did not think much about meeting them. We finished a little later and I went in to pay. The manager explained that the man had already paid for our meal. We were shocked!! That has never happened to us before.

Next we took a train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou. We had never ridden a train before and did not know that the seats were assigned. Our tickets were in Chinese so we could not fully read them. We got on the car and picked a seat that seemed like a good choice for us. We wanted to face forward. That was our biggest concern.

Many others started boarding and we soon realized that seats were assigned. We studied our tickets a little more and figured out that our seats we right there in the same row just on the other side of the car. So we simply got up and moved over.

Then another guy came and sat where we were sitting. A little later an Asian family came and quite gruffly let the fellow know that he was sitting in their seat. He had to get up and move. It may seem small but we were thankful that God had lead us to the right spot on the train before we got yelled at.

It truly is a miracle that the adoption was finalized on my birthday. Only our loving God could orchestrate that! As much as I wanted it to be final in 2011, we can see God’s perfect hand in the timing. I will say it again, there is truly no better birthday present!

I guess it shouldn’t surprise me but I must admit I was somewhat shocked by this. Mayoman7 is a friend of mine and I know he only has one holding in his inMessment Game portfolio. How could be beat me with only one holding?

Back on February 2, 2011 Mayoman7 bought 300 shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ). At the time he told me he thought it would be good because Verizon was going to start selling the iPhone and might get a bump from that.

I was skeptical but I was glad to have a friend in the game with me. I was also glad that he was starting to learn about investing in the stock market.

I would never recommend investing in one stock for a portfolio. This is very risky. But as a learning experience in an investing game this is just fine.

Since February VZ has not really done much in the way of appreciation. On Feb. 2 he bought at $36.04 per share. Now, as of November 11, it is at $36.65. That is less than a 2% increase.

What has pushed Mayoman7′s portfolio to the top? It is the high Dividend that VZ pays. In 2011 VZ pays quarterly divided between $0.4875 and $0.50. This works out to a yield of over 5% per year. That is pretty nice.

Mayoman7 purchased 300 shares of VZ on Feb 2, 2011. On April 6 and June 6 VZ paid a dividend of $0.4875. This works out to $292.50 for the first two quarters. Then Oct. 5 VZ pays out $0.50 which comes out to another $150.00 added to his portfolio. The Investopedia Game added the dividends directly to his game cash.

With the 2% appreciation in the stock price and the $442.50 in cash dividends, Mayoman7 is up over $471 for the year. After another down turn on Wednesday, Nov. 16, in my inMessment Game Portfolio I am only up $158 for the year.

I don’t expect his lead to last for long as I hope that I have a good portfolio. Especially if Europe and the US can get a handle on all the debt issue, then the markets should start coming back.

Join the inMessment Game today! You will start with $25,000 in game cash and no one is too far ahead at this point. This is a great way to learn about what it means to invest in the stock market.

Here are my results from earlier this year:

inMessment Game First Quarter Results 2011
inMessment Game Second Quarter Results 2011
inMessment Game Third Quarter Results 2011

In much the same way that The Dow and The S&P 500 cover the US market, these three indexes cover three major markets in Europe. The FTSE 100 indexes the UK market. The DAX covers the German market. And the CAC 40 covers the French market.

What Is The FTSE 100?

The FTSE company is jointly owned by The Financial Times and the London Stock Exchange. This is where the name comes from. The index tracks the performance of the largest 100 companies in the UK.

The FTSE 100 Fact Sheet states:

“The FTSE 100 is a market-capitalisation weighted index representing the performance of the 100 largest UK-domiciled blue chip companies, which pass screening for size and liquidity. The index represents approximately 84.35% of the UK’s market capitalisation and is suitable as the basis for investment products, such as funds, derivatives and exchange-traded funds. … FTSE 100 constituents are all traded on the London Stock Exchange’s SETS trading system.”

From the fact sheet, I found it interesting that 4 of the top 10 constituents in the FTSE 100 are “Oil & Gas Producers”. Oil and gas are 40% of the top 10. I am not sure if that is meaningful but I found it interesting.

What Is The DAX?

The DAX index represents the 30 largest companies in the German stock market. The Deutsche Börse website says the DAX “Measures the development of the 30 largest and best-performing companies on the German equities market and represents around 80% of the market capital authorized in Germany”

The DAX seems to be a well diversified index of German based companies. It is not just based on the largest companies but tries to represent the best-performing members of the market. The website says it is “Completely rule-based and transparent.”

What Is The CAC 40?

The CAC 40 is the most broadly used index to track the French stock market. The NYSE Euronext site states: “The CAC 40 index is the main benchmark for Euronext Paris. Tracking a sample of Blue Chip stocks, its performance is closely correlated to that of the market as a whole. The index contains 40 stocks selected among the top 100 market capitalisation and the most active stocks listed on Euronext Paris, and is the underlying asset for options and futures contracts. The base value is 1,000 at December 31, 1987.”

The CAC 40 pulls a diversified sampling of 40 companies from the largest 100 companies on the Paris stock exchange.

So that is a brief overview of the major European Stock Market Indexes. These are great to watch when you want to know what is going on across the pond.

The biggest shocker is, “all player accounts will be reset to their opening balance.” This means that the contest is starting over on Oct 30. We will all be starting from the same place again.

This is great news for those who were struggling. It really stinks for those who legitimately had a great run going!

Here is the full text of the email from CNBC:

Trading in CNBC’s Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge was suspended as of close of trading today [Fri, Oct 21, 2011] at 4:00 p.m. ET for one week.

It came to our attention that there was a technical glitch in the current equity trading system, which a handful of players found and exploited to jump to the top of the leaderboard. The contest accidentally allowed what our rules specifically prohibited.

Out of fairness to all registered contestants and as is our right, according to the rules of the contest, we are suspending the contest and will restart it Sunday, October 30 at 5:00 p.m. ET. Upon relaunch, all player accounts will be reset to their opening balance. Play will begin anew for the final five weeks of the contest. All winners from the first five weeks, including this week, will retain their prizes.

We apologize for any inconvenience, but fundamental fairness compels us to take this action.

Now I am not so surprised about about the numbers some of the leaders had. There were a few with 9 and 10 million dollar portfolios. I was shocked!

Below is a screen shot of the leaders as of Fri, Oct 21, 2011.

I don’t know if there was any way for CNBC to know who took advantage of the “technical glitch” but it would have been nice if they could reset those portfolios and leave the rest alone.

For me it is not a huge issue. All my portfolios were up but none of them was anywhere near being a winner. My best portfolio was at $1,142,321.00. This was the portfolio where I was using the “look for companies who are reporting earnings soon” strategy. You can see some other thoughts I have in my Trading Strategies For The CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Contest post.

Now we can all think about how we will start over on Oct. 30.

These indexes are collections of stocks that are tracked together to represent a higher level view of the market as a whole. These are very helpful in understanding the performance and trends in the market.

These three major indexes are often used by individual investors to track the performance of their own investments. With my inMessment Game I am tracking my performance against the S&P 500 index. This allows me to compare my performance to the broad US market represented by that index.

What is the Dow Jones Industrial Average?

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (the Dow) is one of the most widely tracked indexes for the US market. You see it listed first on the two market summaries pictures below. Created on May 26, 1896, the Dow is also one of the oldest stock market indexes.

Yahoo Market Summary

The Dow is simple because its index is composed of only 30 stocks. (The original Dow Average of 1896 had only 12 stocks.) As the prices of the 30 stocks go up and down, the value of the Dow index goes up and down. This is how an index works.

The Dow is almost as simple as an average of the current prices for its 30 stocks. I say almost because the Dow calculation has been adjusted over the years for stock splits and the like. This makes it more complex but the general concept remains the same.

The 30 stocks represent a somewhat diverse sampling of US companies. The Dow overview says, “Roughly two-thirds of the DJIA’s 30 component companies are manufacturers of industrial and consumer goods. The others represent industries as diverse as financial services, entertainment and information technology.”

What is the S&P 500 Index?

As its name states, the S&P 500 Index is an index of 500 of the largest companies in the US Market. Because of this greater breadth, the S&P 500 is my favorite index for tracking the performance of the US market as a whole.

Google Market Summary

“The S&P 500® has been widely regarded as the best single gauge of the large cap U.S. equities market since the index was first published in 1957. The index has over US$ 4.83 trillion benchmarked, with index assets comprising approximately US$ 1.1 trillion of this total. The index includes 500 leading companies in leading industries of the U.S. economy, capturing 75% coverage of U.S. equities.”

The S&P 500 Index is capitalization weighted which means that the stocks included in the index are weighted according to their Market Capitalization. So the bigger a company is, the more weight it has in the index.

Over the last few months, Apple (AAPL) and Exxon Mobil (XOM) have been battling back and forth for the top position. Each have nearly 400 Billion in market cap.

What is the NASDAQ Composite?

According to the NASDAQ website, “The NASDAQ Composite Index measures all NASDAQ domestic and international based common type stocks listed on The Nasdaq Stock Market.”

It goes on to say, “Launched in 1971, the NASDAQ Composite Index is a broad based Index. Today, the Index includes over 3,000 securities, more than most other stock market indices. The NASDAQ Composite is calculated under a market capitalization weighted methodology index.”

The NASDAQ is commonly considered to be more heavily weighted with Technology stocks than the other two major indexes. I have also noticed that it tends to be much more volatile. This is likely due to the fact that it is much broader index and contains mid-sized and smaller companies in its index.

The Dow, The S&P 500 and The NASDAQ are the three most widely tracked US indexes. There are many, many more indexes in the US and even more for foreign markets. I will write posts on some of these other indexes, hopefully in the near future.

Follow me on Facebook, or Twitter, or subscribe via RRS so you wont miss these posts.

First Quarter Results 2011
Second Quarter Results 2011

I started the inMessment Game on Investopedia in December of 2010. The game now has a grand total of 9 players including me. Now is a great time to join the game!

Here is what you will see in this post:

• inMessment Game Numbers for Q3 2011
• Comparison To Benchmark Q3 and YTD
• The Good
• The Bad
• The Ugly
• Major Market Events in Q3 2011
• Full inMessment Game Portfolio at end of Q3 2011
• inMessment Game Trade History for Q3 2011

inMessment Numbers as of September 30, 2011

The third quarter was horrible quarter for the market as a whole. It was bad for me as well. I lost more than $4,300 from Q2.

• Q3 Starting Account Value: $26,802.89
• Q3 Ending Account Value: $22,482.94 (Down $4,319.95 (-16.12%) from Q2 2011)
• Annual Return: -12.23% (APY)
• Number of Securities In Portfolio: 13
• Trades this Quarter: 2
• Available Cash: $657.52

Comparison to Benchmark – The S&P 500 Index

The benchmark I have chosen to compare my results to is the S&P 500 Index. This is a broad index of 500 of the top US companies. Many investors and firms use this index as a general benchmark.

To make my comparison easier I have maintained my inMessment Game portfolio in a Google Finance portfolio as well. This is a little extra effort but I can get the chart shown below from Google and simply check a check box to compare it to the S&P 500 Index.

The Blue line is my inMessment Game portfolio. The Red line is the S&P 500 Index.

Here is the Year-To-Date chart. YTD, the S&P and my inMessment Game portfolio are down near 10%. From time to time the inMessment Game portfolio is doing slightly better than the S&P Index. At the end of the third quarter there are just about even.

The Good

In the third quarter there was not much good. But three holdings are notable.

Range Resources Corp. (RRC) has had a great year. It even hit a new 52-week high in Q3. I added RRC to my portfolio back in January for $44.70. I sold RRC in Q3 on September 21 for $69.00. More than a 50% return.

Nike (NKE) was my best performer in in Q2 after being in my Ugly list in Q1. At the end of Q3 Nike is down but still holding positive by 5.49% in my portfolio.

iShares Silver Trust ETF (SLV) has had a great run this year but got slammed in late September. I added SLV in Q1 at a low of $27.74. After selling RRC in September, I bought more of SLV at a price of $29.20 on September 26. At the end of Q3, SLV was holding onto a positive gain of 1.44% in my portfolio.

It is a sad quarter when 1.44% is in the Good list.

The Bad

For my bad list this quarter I am listing those that are down less than 10%. Unfortunately, this is only three holdings. This means the rest of my holdings are down in the Ugly section.

The Ugly

Market Vectors-Coal ETF (KOL) is once again my worst holding for Q3. It was here in Q2 as well. This is where the Buy-And-Hold strategy really hurts! KOL is down nearly 40%. I will stick with my strategy and see what I can learn.

ProLogis (PLD) is very volatile as a REIT. I am not surprised it is one of the lowest at this point.

BlackRock, Inc. (BLK) is a bit of a disappointment for me. I was hoping for a little better holding but I will do the holding myself for now.

The thing that really hurts is four of my “core investments” have also been slammed hard. This shows that my portfolio is very volatile. Some call it aggressive.

Major Market Events

The big event for the third quarter of 2011 seem to be the European debt crisis. This continues to weigh heavily on the world markets.

Along with the European troubles the US has troubles of its own. Debt is out of control and the job market is stagnating. It is about one year from then next presidential election so the political parties are fighting for positions rather than fixing issues.

At this point I am hoping for a better fourth quarter!!

Full inMessment Game Portfolio

Here is the full portfolio as of September 30, 2011. I have categorized the investments in the following way:
Core: Long-term stable investments that will not change often.
Sub-Core: Still long-term but may trade more often.
Opportunity: Long or short-term trading opportunities.

inMessment Game Trade History for Q3 2011

Below is the trade history for my inMessment Game in Q3.

Join the inMessment Game

Now that you have read through my results why don’t you join the game yourself? It is completly free and the best way I have found to learn about investing.
Click Here to Join the inMessment Game!

This is not investing. In fact, having an investing mindset is not likely to get me very far in the contest. This is the mindset in which I set up my first contest portfolio. At this point that portfolio is barely breaking even.

To do well in a game like this I must have a short-term, maybe even day-trading mindset. As much as this is against my grain, I still think it is fun to play games like the CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Contest and to try and win!

I am NOT a day-trading expert! But I will share two strategies I am using at this point to try and get an edge in the contest.

Trading Strategy 1

My first trading strategy is to use leveraged ETFs. In my third portfolio I have selected the following four leveraged ETFs. The point is to take as much risk as I can so I put 25% in each ETF.

FAS – Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares
TNA – Direxion Daily Small Cap Bull 3X Shares
AGQ – ProShares Ultra Silver
QLD – ProShares Ultra QQQ

This worked great on Tuesday as the market was up. Then on Wednesday the market went back down and the leverage worked against me.

I have a full-time day job, so trading is not something I can spend time on. This is the problem with trading. You have to watch your holdings and time the market closely. Get in as or before it heads up and get back out before it goes down.

This could be even more powerful if CNBC allowed the short versions of these same ETFs. Then you could jump from the long to the short or vice-versa when the market shifts. But, CNBC DOES NOT ALLOW SHORTING!

Trading Strategy 2

My second trading strategy is to look for stocks that will be reporting earnings in the near future and try and pick the ones that will have a positive upswing. Now this is close to looking into a crystal ball to predict the future.

Here is an article that lists when many S&P 500 companies will report their earning: DIARY-S&P 500 EARNINGS MONTH AHEAD. This could be a place to start looking for ideas. (UPDATE: 11/4/11, the following site has more earning data: Yahoo US Earnings Calendar.)

The way I am doing this is looking for companies in areas that I personally have some understanding. Then I may have a little better educated guess.

This strategy is explained further in a 2008 article on the Motley Fool, How to Win CNBC’s Million-Dollar Portfolio Challenge.

Again, this is not investing. This is taking risk as much risk as you can, with the hope that your BET pays off. If you want to simulate investing check out my inMessment Game.

Just to be clear, day-trading is not how I recommend making money in the Stock Market! For real money, I practice and I recommend a long-term, disciplined approach.

You can read my brief overview of the CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Contest fore some more details on what it is all about.

I currently have six Equity holdings in only one portfolio. The contest gives you five portfolios to play with. CNBC gives you one million dollars in each portfolio. $900K to trade in Equities (Stocks and ETFs) and $100K to trade in Currencies. I have not traded any currencies yet.

The image at the top of this post shows the performance of my one Equity portfolio. At this point I am up $12,833 (1.43%). It was very helpful that Monday, Sep. 19, 2011, the stock market started out way down and then went up all day. I figured since it was down it was a good time to jump in. Then by the end of that first day I was up over $15K. Today I am down a little.

Here is a snapshot of my current Equity holdings in inMessment Portfolio 1:

The CNBC contest site has some pretty nice features. There is an Analyze Portfolio tab that give some interesting stats on your portfolio.

I like the My Top 5 Sectors part but it lumps the ETFs into one “sector”. I wish it was smart enough to know if the ETFs were sector specific.

I also like the ASSET ALLOCATION section. Again, it lumps the ETFs into one grouping.

CNBC has also added a LEADERBOARDS section on the site. You can see your Game Rank Position here. With my fist portfolio I am ranked 35363rd. I am not at a big risk of winning the vacation trip this week!

It also has a listing of the top twenty players. I was shocked to see that the top two players had made over $200K in the first two days of trade. Clearly there is a lot I still need to learn.

That is why I like investing games so much. They are a lot of fun for me and over the next many years I hope to learn enough to be confident as an investor.

I have my own inMessment Game that I started on Investopedia. Come and join me in that game and we can learn to invest together in a safe environment.

Join the inMessment Game

I have been wondering what I would do in 2012 when the Social Security Tax Cut was rolled back.

Thursday night, Sep. 8, President Obama gave a speech to build support for a $447 Billion Package to create jobs in America.

On Wednesday and Thursday some of the speech high points were let out and it became apparent that he wants to extend the Social Security Tax Cuts into 2012. In fact, he wants to cut the tax even further.

Here is what Forbes reported about The President’s speech:

Much of the cost of Obama’s new plan come from cuts to the Social Security payroll tax. Normally, both employers and employees each pay 6.2% of a worker’s salary in Social Security taxes, up to an inflation adjusted “wage base” of $106,800. As part of the December 2010 tax deal between Obama and Republicans that extended the Bush tax cuts for two years, the employee’s share of the Social Security tax was cut by two percentage points to 4.2%, but only for 2011.

Obama would spend $175 billion to cut the worker’s share of the Social Security tax to 3.1% for 2012, providing an average tax cut per worker of $1,500 and a maximum $3,300 tax cut to a high-income worker. In addition, at a cost of $65 billion, the employer’s share of the Social Security tax would be sliced to 3.1% for the first $5 million in wages per firm and also on any increase in a firm’s payroll, due to hiring or wage increases, up to a maximum of $50 million per firm.

Janet Novack, Forbes Staff, PERSONAL FINANCE, 9/08/2011 @ 9:17PM

So the plan is to borrow $175 Billion to cover the tax cut? How does this make sense? Where will that money come from?

Anyway, it will have to be passed by congress before it takes affect.

I ran some numbers back in January to see, “Is Social Security A Good Investment?” My numbers showed me that, compared to expected returns in my 401k or IRA accounts, Social Security is a very poor investment.

This “poor investment” was at least based on the idea that Social Security would be solvent when I am ready to retire. Any good investment should start with a belief that what you invest in is a good risk. You would not buy stock in a company that you knew was going bankrupt!

The problem with Social Security is that it is not solvent. And the President is proposing we cut the taxes in half that support Social Security.

Back in May 2011, Bloomberg reported, “Social Security’s cash to pay full benefits runs short in 2036, a year sooner than the 2010 projection, the U.S. government said.” I wonder how much sooner it “runs short” if we cut the tax in half?

If the tax cuts do go through, the President’s hope is that the extra funds will be used by individuals to buy stuff and by business to create jobs.

At this point, my plan is to increase my emergency fund as much as I can. If I get to keep another 1% of my pay, that is right where it will go.

If I was a business owner, I would probably think of saving the money as well. If it is only a 1-year tax break, I would not hire employees with it for only one year. I would hate to have to lay them back off when the tax comes back. On the other hand, if I had to hire, an extra 3.1% less in taxes would sure make it easier for this year.

If the taxes cuts are approved by Congress, What will you do with the extra money?