Mark Skousen - The New Scrooge Investing: The Bargain Hunters Guide to Thrifty Investments, Super Discounts, Special Privileges, and Other Money-Saving Tips

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The New Scrooge Investing

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OTHER BOOKS BY MARK SKOUSEN

ACADEMIC
Playing the Price Controls Game
The Structure of Production
Economics on Trial
Dissent on Keynes (editor)
The Investor's Bible: Mark Skousen's Principles of Investment
Puzzles and Paradoxes in Economics (coauthored with Kenna C. Taylor)
Economic Logic
The Making of Modern Economics

FINANCIAL
The Insider's Banking & Credit Almanac
High Finance on a Low Budget (coauthored with Jo Ann Skousen)
The Complete Guide to Financial Privacy
Tax Free
Scrooge Investing
Mark Skousen's 30-Day Plan for Financial Independence

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The New Scrooge Investing

The Bargain Hunter's Guide to Thrifty Investments, Super Discounts, Special Privileges, and Other Money-Saving Tips

Mark Skousen

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Copyright 2000 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

0071376704

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DOI: 10.1036/0071376704

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To Gary North, my favorite tightwad

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CONTENTS

Preface to the Third Edition

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Acknowledgments

xiii

Introduction
The Scrooge Philosophy of Investing

1. How to Find a Bargain Investment

Part 1
The Scrooge Stock Investor

2. Bargain Hunting for the Stock Buyer

3. Penny-Pinching on Penny Stocks

4. Which Discount Broker Is Best for You?

5. Saving Money on Mutual Funds

6. The Bargain Hunter's Guide to Higher Income and Capital Gains

7. Cutting the Cost of Holding Cash

Part 2
The Online Scrooge Investor

8. Scrooge Investing on the Internet

9. The Cheapskate's Guide to Unlimited Free Investment Information (Especially on the Internet)

Part 3
The Nontraditional Scrooge Investor

10. Cutting Your Fees on Options and Futures

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11. Saving Money on Precious Metals and Bargain Hunting for Mining Stocks

12. Saving Money When You Buy and Sell Real Estate

13. Saving a Bundle on Rare Coins, Collectibles, and Antiques

14. Slashing Fees on Offshore Investments and Foreign Currencies

Part 4
More Scrooge Investing

15. Low-Cost Methods of Borrowing Money

16. Cutting Your Biggest Investment CostsTaxes!

17. More Discounts and Benefits for Scrooge Investors

18. Conclusion: The Philosophy of the Scrooge Investor in the New Millennium

Index

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PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

Most of the great investors are misers.
Warren Buffett

Eureka!" That's what Scrooge McDuck would say to the incredible response to the first two editions of Scrooge Investing. Why has Scrooge Investing struck a chord among investors?

Two reasons. First, by spending less, you put your money in your pocket. There's no fun in overpaying, paying too much to brokers to buy overvalued stocks, real estate, or airline tickets. And it happens all too often.

Second, one of the supreme joys in life is finding a bargain. There's no better conversation topic at a cocktail party than telling everyone about the cheap stock you tripled your money on, the used car you bought at half the bluebook value, or the foreclosure you picked up and sold for a $25,000 profit in one monthall using online brokers!

I love being a Scrooge Investor. (And by Scrooge Investor, I mean the fun-loving Disney character Uncle Scrooge McDuck, not the misanthropic Dickens character Ebenezer Scrooge!) How can I forget the day that...

... One of my students bought America Online at $7 and held on as it rose to over $200 a share (split adjusted).

... I saved $10,000 buying a first edition of Adam Smith's 1776 classic Wealth of Nations by buying through my art discount dealer.

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... The Republicans won control of Capitol Hill in November 1994, and I told my income-seeking subscribers to buy an income fund yielding 9.1 percent tax-free (the symbol was VOT!), only to see the fund jump 24 percent in three months. (As I told my subscribers, "Vote for VOT!")

... One of my readers picked up a Parker Aztec gold pen for only $55 at a garage sale and sold it to a specialty dealer for $15,000!

... My friend and I got into an Oakland Athletics sold-out baseball game for $5 and sat in the tenth row.