Hello – I wanted to drop you a note to say Happy New Year! I also wanted to put the following thought out there in the Universe – “Let’s all work together to make 2014 THE year for all of us.”

I’m happy to see 2013 go. We had some events, which I may discuss someday, and they’re better left in the past. Luckily, none of the events set us back financially. They could have, but they didn’t. That’s the important thing.

A buddy of mine from Colorado and I were visiting and he thought I should make some changes to this blog in 2014. I think his ideas are on the right track and I’ve asked him to come up with a marketing plan we can work on starting in January.

In January he wants me to tell you how having purchased my 1995 Mazda Protege is paying for my 2014 living expenses. I hadn’t thought about it, but he’s right. I will show you an example of what I did automatically that allowed me to fund my present lifestyle.

In January he wants me to start the Early Retirement Roadmap. The Early Retirement Roadmap will become a book that I publish on Kindle and in paperback this summer. He’s pushing me to write a book, but I am willing to give it a try. Each month we’ll add a location on the map. That location might be a point on the way to your retirement or it might be a final destination.

In February he wants me to put on a webinar about trading in the stock market. I made 30% last year and did not trade for the last 4 months. How did I do that? Would it be of interest to you? I told him I don’t want to do this, but he is willing to do the webinar, start to finish, with my material. I said O.K. We’ll see how this turns out.

I am not a speaker and I am not comfortable talking to an audience. Since he doesn’t mind this method or platform speaking, he will be doing all of the Taking Early Retirement webinars we conduct from now on. We are using his webinar room, but it only has capacity for 100 people. The webinars will be recorded.

In March he wants to do another webinar about S.O.A.P. He thinks, as do I, there are a lot of people who have been burned in the stock market so many times, they are frozen to do anything and are doing nothing instead. S.O.A.P. is an acronym for Starting Over Again Portfolio. The portfolio starts out with seven stocks. It holds those stocks for four weeks. Then we do a rebalance.

Rebalance is a fancy term. It means at the end of four weeks, we look at the portfolio and compare it to the overall market. Some of the stocks may stay in the portfolio, some may be sold and new ones purchased. I have a good example of how we did for the first five months of 2013, and after reading that post, you can decide if S.O.A.P. is for you. The webinar is free. If you decide to sign up for the S.O.A.P. service, the first four weeks of the service is also free. If you stay, we are charging $15 a month, payable every 12 weeks. No contract, no long term commitment, cancel at any time you feel it is not right for you. You will get a pro rata refund for the unused portion of your subscription. You only pay for what you get.

This is the first quarter line up. I have to be honest and say I am a little nervous, and excited at the same time. Let me know what you thnk either by e-mail or by leaving a comment below.

For Taking Early Retirement (TER), I hope you are enjoying a great retirement or are close to that day!

Jeremiah John