Sign of the times, from Tupperware Parties to Gold Parties

What seems to be going on in living rooms across America with mom’s overrun with daily chores, household duties and job expectations is a party bringing groups of curious neighbors to find out how much money is hiding in their closets, shelves and jewelry boxes. With gold prices on the rise and oil prices pushing prices further a new business is born in living rooms across America. The business was started by an innovator as brilliant as the Tupperware inventor himself. In early 2008, January Thomas decided to create a business around the famous Tupperware model that was focused on gold.

It was all back in the year 1946 that a famous inventor named Earl Silas Tupper came up with a ground breaking design and business plan that changed the face of America. The product was dubbed as Tupperware and gained it’s famous and patented, “burping seal” trademark that became well known throughout kitchens of the country. The business was built through women returning from jobs they had acquired during World War II. After returning from jobs that proved to women they had the skills to do business, they started forming “jubilee” celebrations honoring top sellers of Tupperware. Within 16 years Tupperware become an international brand known throughout the world. Now looking down the road in current affairs and the new face of the American economy, we see a new business built off the same core model of business fundamentals and viral opportunity.

This business is built in American homes and is modeled to be replicated throughout the American countryside and the world. This new business is not built off of burping Tupperware products, but comes from a raw material that is mined from the depths of the earth. Just as people rushed to the West for riches in the exploration of gold, people are rushing into living rooms to hawk up their possessions of love, gifts, heirlooms and other possessions that are made of gold. In the hills of suburbia lies a mine deeper than was once realized, the overfilled or forgotten jewelry box or attic.

The business was not created from thin air, but festered from a marriage that brought Mrs. Thomas into a jewelry-dealing family that opened her eyes to what gold was worth, once it was liquidated into dollars. With rough times facing many lower and middle-class families in America, Mrs. Thomas decided to start a new business that played middleman to the gold refinery business and named it My Gold Party. Typically, it’s a tossup what you might get when liquidating a piece of jewelry, a watch or even coins that are made of gold but with this new business model, the value of the gold is told to the owner within minutes.

While you won’t come home with something to store food in, you will come home with a check or cash if you decide to let go of your gold belongings. With foreclosures, tight credit and tough times seeming inevitable, people are giving up gold for dollars. Homes around America are allowing people in a hard situation or looking to have more liquidity, cash in with their unwanted gold. In fact, another company that calls itself Cash4Gold.com is seeing a dramatic rise with the changing face of the economy. When looking at the business that goes through companies like Cash4Gold, 25,000 gold transaction are rushing through the company operations in a month.

If you take a look at the gold prices in public markets like Kitco.com, you’ll see that gold is starting once again to show some strength. Since a low of $845 an ounce in May 2008, gold has pushed back to levels around $935 an ounce. With oil prices going over $135 a barrel the price of gold is soon to find a related upward momentum that could take it back to lifetime record highs of $1,030.80. Respected financial institutions like Goldman Sachs predict prices of oil to reach $200 a barrel, now other major financial institutions, investors and oil producers are talking about prices around $500 a barrel.

As oil receives it’s price pressures from speculators, it’s pushing up gas prices in every home in the world. The double sided result is a weight on household finances and a growing rise in a commodity like gold that is very closely related to the uncertainty of markets causing household financial pressures. The gold business is booming and parties all across America are cashing in. For $700 anyone can start up their own Gold Party business and seek the gold some don’t even know is hiding in their homes. Tupperware has seen a slight decline in modern times, but a business built off the same model aims to cash in on a recession economy that opens a new door.

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How to stay afloat during the recession

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Stock prices and home values are down. Gas, food and health care costs are up. The economy is slowing and earnings are slumping.

Welcome to what feels like and what many economists predict is a recession.

What can you do about it?

You can worry and wring your hands. Or, you can focus on doing a few things that will buy yourself peace of mind.

Here are tips from financial planners for dealing with your investments and household finances.

INVESTMENTS

Know your risk tolerance — you’ll sleep better. If the stock market’s volatility is keeping you up at night, your investment plan doesn’t jibe with your risk tolerance and you need to make adjustments, said Todd Calamita, certified financial planner at RBC Wealth Management in Charlotte.

That doesn’t mean you flat-out dump stock. If you sell off and buy back in after the market recovers, you’re doing exactly what you shouldn’t — buying high and selling low.

“If you sold at the low of 2002, you would have missed out on five years of unbelievable returns,” Calamita said.

If you want to ease up on investments, Calamita suggests gradually changing your allocation — out of stocks and into bonds or cash.

Set targets. For instance, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average recovers a certain amount of lost ground, shift 5 percent of your portfolio out of stocks.

When it hits another mark, take out another 5 percent. The idea is to gradually reduce your stock holdings to a level that makes you rest easier, while avoiding selling low.

Watch mutual fund fees. The more you pay for investments, the bigger the returns you need from the market.

Pay attention to mutual fund loads and expense ratios and consider lower-cost options, such as exchange traded funds (ETFs) and index mutual funds, “especially when we are in a market that is going to be sideways for a few years,” said Drew Waterbury, certified financial planner in Charlotte.

As for mutual funds, the average expense ratio is about 1.25 percent, Waterbury said. But index funds’ costs are much lower. The Vanguard 500 Index Fund’s expense ratio is 0.15 percent. A good place to check fund performance and expenses: Morningstar.com.

Buy more. If you don’t need the cash now, buy more stock. “A downturn is wonderful news for people who are buying the market,” said Cynthia Anderson, a certified financial planner in Charlotte. “It is your chance to buy things ‘on sale.’”

HOUSEHOLD FINANCES

Jump-start your emergency fund. If you don’t have a home equity line of credit, get one, said Tom Pemberton, a certified financial planner in Charlotte. Consider it a cushion in case you get sick or lose your job. Just don’t tap it for vacation or shopping sprees or home renovations that can wait.

“If you can be disciplined enough not to use it, it’s a prudent addition to building up your emergency fund,” Pemberton said. “There’s no substitute for an emergency fund or for putting more in it now than you would have a year ago, because the economy ... certainly is slowing.”

Now, this next bit of advice is going to sound like a contradiction, but hold on.

If you have a home equity line already and think you might need the funds in the next year, you might consider pulling the money out now and putting it in the bank until you need it, Pemberton said. That’s because up until the past year or so, banks were being more generous with credit lines, lending 100 percent of the equity in homes.

Some homeowners — particularly in areas of declining home values — are getting letters from banks saying their credit cap has been lowered. But do this only if you think you will need the money soon and have no other funds.

You will pay more interest on a home equity line of credit — albeit tax deductible interest — than you will earn at the bank.

Save your tax rebate. The checks started hitting mailboxes last week.

“Every retailer is coming out with ads ... to entice you to spend the money,” Pemberton said. “Maybe from a macro (economic) perspective that is the thing to do, but from an individual perspective now is the time I would be augmenting my emergency fund or paying off credit card debt.”

Keep a credit card diary. “The one (thing) I have been telling people lately, as budgets are getting tighter: keep a check register of all credit card purchases,” Anderson said. “It is very eye opening.”

Anderson said one client told her that every time she went shopping at the mall she spent $250. She kept a record and saw it was really $1,000.

“You write it down, you start keeping better track of it ... you kind of second-guess that everything you are buying you need,” Anderson said.

OTHER WAYS TO TRIM COSTS

Stock up on beef. Don’t go to the grocery store without a list and don’t go more than once a week at most.

You’ll waste money on impulse purchases and gas. One value at stores right now: beef, Pemberton said. Corn is so expensive because of global demand for ethanol that ranchers can’t afford to feed their cattle, so they are slaughtering them and flooding the market with beef.

Pemberton recently spotted angus beef steaks at the grocery for $5.99, the lowest price he’d seen in nine months. “I bought as much as I could fit in my freezer, because I like porterhouse steaks.”

Once the surplus is depleted — in a month or two, Pemberton predicts — prices will rise. Experts say you can keep beef in your freezer for at least a year, so long as it is wrapped well and doesn’t partially thaw and refreeze.

Save on insurance. Consider raising the deductibles on your insurance policies, which can significantly reduce your premiums, suggested Linda Schoenfeld, a certified financial planner in Charlotte.

Drive less. “Most people underestimate how much it really costs to operate an automobile,” Schoenfeld said.

AAA’s cost per mile this year in South Carolina is expected to reach 58 cents for each mile driven, up 11 cents from last year.

With this year’s higher prices at the pump, Schoenfeld said, “think car pools, public transportation, consolidating errands, and walking and biking for close-by errands.”

Baldwin is a writer for The Charlotte Observer, a McClatchy newspaper

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8 Different Types Of Headlines Which Sell

Following on from the 12 rules to create kick ass headlines which sell, below are the 8 different types of headlines you can model from with examples.When you follow the 12 rules, find your hook and then model the headlines below, you will create sizzling headlines which compel your prospects into reading your persuasive copy.

1. The News Headline:If your product or service offers something newsworthy, announce it in your headline. You would normally use this to introduce a new product or the improvement of an existing product.Here are some words you can use in your News Headlines.New, Announcing, Introducing, Finally, Just released, Now, At last.Examples:

“At last! A Tooth Paste Kids Will Love”

“New Diet Burns Off More Fat Than If You Ran 98 Miles a Week”

“Announcing . . . The New Bald Cure Guaranteed To Make Even Trevor Crook Look Like He’s Got A Full Crop Of Hair!”

2. The Guarantee Headline:

These state a desirable benefit and guarantee results or other benefits. If you offer a powerful guarantee . . . let your prospects know by stating it in the headline.

Examples:

“Makes Money In 90 days Or It’s FREE Under my 100%, Unconditional Money Back Guarantee”

“Hands Which Feel As Smooth As Silk In 24 Hours . . . Or Double Your Money Back!”

3. The How To Headline:

With over 7,000 book titles starting with ‘How To’ you can’t go wrong with this one. If you ever get stuck, try adding ‘how to’ in front of your headline as these type of headlines promise your prospect a source of information, advice and solutions to their problems.

Example:

“How To Win Friends And Influence People”

“How To Avoid Snake-Oil Selling Scumbags On The Internet”

4. The Benefit Headline:

Benefits sell . . . features DO NOT! To write a successful benefit Headline, you must know your market so well, you can offer them a powerful, compelling benefit driven headline which they can’t easily get somewhere else. You must do your homework though in order to know what benefit will motivate your prospect/s to take action.

Examples:

“Dries Up Your Hay Fever In 15 Minutes”

“Stops Diahorrea in 30 Minutes”

“It Cleans Your Breath While It Cleans Your Teeth”

5. The Question Headline:

Be careful when using this one. You must know your market backwards otherwise you can blow your whole advertising campaign. The best types of questions to ask are questions which get your prospect involved.

Examples:

“Do You Make These Mistakes In Marriage?”

“Do You Make These Mistakes In English?

“Can You Smash Through 6 Bricks Like Dr. Stan ‘Breakthrough’
Harris?

6. The Reason Why Headline:

These give your prospect specific reasons why they should read your ad, sales letter or website. These are very effective because they contain facts and specific numbers.

Examples:

“27 Reasons Why You Should Attend Trevor Crook’s Persuasive Writing Sells Online Course”

“37 Fun And Easy Ways To Earn $500 In Your Sleep”

7. The Testimonial Headline:

This is just what it says. It uses a customer testimonial for a headline. This gets your customers to sell for you by talking about the benefits they received.

Examples:

“How I Make $557.63 Per Week In My Sleep”

“I Had Never Purchased A Share In My Life. I Opened A Share Account With $14,000.00 After Attending The Trading Edge Workshop . . . In Six Months My Account is OVER $21,000!”

8. The Command Headline:

This tells your customers what to do. Your command should encourage action by offering your prospect a benefit which will help them. The most effective command headlines start out with action verbs.

Examples:

“Stop Baldness Today Before Your Head Looks Like A Bowling Ball”

“Stop Wasting Time On Advertising Guesswork”

“Stop Being An Advertising Victim”

The 3 Most Powerful Words To Use In Your Headlines:

FREE You Your

Dedicated to kicking your ass until you succeed!

Warmly

Trevor ‘ToeCracker‘ Crook
PS. Next article - see the 3 headline test which 1 advert pulled a whopping 1700% increase in response and the adverts cost exactly the same to run.

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