The millennial generation has embraced the art of binge TV-watching. They made fun of it on Portlandia, and the Wall Street Journal has analyzed it. According to them, 73% of viewers who watched the first episode of Breaking Bad watched the entire season (although it didn’t say in how many days or weeks). I think we need to apply some of that dedication to our investment practices. How much time do you spend watching television versus time spent researching investment opportunities? If you spend more time watching TV than researching investments, it may be time to tip the scale in the opposite direction.

There are plenty of investment opportunities that don’t start with “mutual” and end in “funds”. You guys know I don’t think mutual funds are the way to go, but I haven’t been very strong about telling you what I am doing with my money. Since I am just over two months away from paying off my debt, I need to make those decisions and put them down on paper so I can continue to refine them.

First, I plan to invest in real estate. That’s a no-brainer because it is one of my goals in life to become landed gentry. The good news is I don’t plan to buy too much house or let my mortgage be more than 20% of my monthly gross income. Since there will be additional funds to invest (now that I am no longer spending like a maniac), I also plan to invest in individual stocks and ETFs. The ETFs help because I am very new to active investing, and want to experience and understand overall market returns. This stuff is not new to me, even though I have studied it for a long time, it means little when you are not invested. Another option is forex trading. My family travels to countries in the Middle East where the currencies can fluctuate wildly, and there are many opportunities to make money during different swings in the market. It’s risky if you don’t know what you’re doing, but with the right research it can pay off nicely.

So there you have my basic investing plan: real estate, individual stocks, ETFs and forex (maybe). I still love watching television, but I want to spend at least as much time doing financial research each day as I do watching television (it’s Sons of Anarchy right now).

There’s a moment that will come when you will pay off all your debt. It’s July 1^st (knock on wood) for me, and I couldn’t be more excited. But like any reformed spender, I want to make sure I will be responsible when I get back to living normally, spending and saving and not throwing everything at debt. I have a plan for using my credit cards without getting into trouble again.

If You Don’t Have It, Don’t Spend It

After the hard lesson I learned piling up and then paying down credit card debt, my first rule is knowing how much money I have to spend. Know exactly what’s available for you to spend on variable expenses like food, gas and entertainment, while still having enough to cover housing and any other monthly bills. If you only have $50 extra this week, you can hold off on shopping or paying for a future trip until you have the money.

Take Advantage of Perks

The next is to take advantage of what’s out there. You can apply for a credit card to take advantage of rewards, companion flights and other perks. As long as you are only spending the money you have and not using it as a short term loan, your credit card can be just another tool. Think of it in the philosophy of “first do no harm”. You use tons of other things in your life as tools without causing harm to yourself. You use your cell phone daily right? You take care of business, talk to family and friends and just use it as an all around guide. But do you also use it to repeatedly call your ex, thus embarrassing yourself, or prank call your old place of business, thus getting a restraining order taken out on you? Of course not. You use your phone within reason, usually without too much emotion. Just do the same thing with your credit cards.

Be Responsible

OK, so you’re going to put a short term loan on your credit card even though you know it’s not the best idea. The best thing you can do is look for interest free credit cards to take advantage of their short term zero interest rates. As long as you pay it off before the interest is due (and hopefully use that money to make more money), then you are still using your credit card responsibly. So that wasn’t too hard, was it?

One of the best ways to stay out of debt and to stay free is to protect what you have. Of course, this is obvious – you have your house and contents and your car insured, right? But for many of us, the single most valuable thing we have – aside from our house – is our information. But do you really protect yours? And what would be a realistic cost to replace it all?

Of course, I’m talking about your PC or Mac – and you’ve very probably got one or you wouldn’t be reading this; and who hasn’t today in the developed world?

For many people in this day and age, their working, financial and personal lives are more or less totally dependent on their own computer, but the truth is that most people don’t back it up as well and as often as they should – yet should the computer crash and the information contained worth in it is almost priceless – to its owner at least, i.e. you.

Your PC or MAC probably contains a lot of information on your personal finances, as well as things beyond price such as personal photographs and family videos and the like. But all this information is highly vulnerable – to a technical problem like a crash, or to theft or to physical damage through a fire or flood, or even your spilt morning coffee for example! And it’s not even the cost of the computer that’s the problem. After all, they’re getting cheaper and cheaper. But what about all the songs you’ve paid for and downloaded – to say nothing of all the information you need?

The simple fact is that loss or damage to their computer would derail many people’s lives and certainly wouldn’t help as they make efforts on the machine to get themselves free from debt. There are even examples where loss of vital information has contributed to bankruptcy.

And remember, most insurers don’t cover you for data on your computer. So make sure you back up all your electronic data on an external hard disk drive. These are cheap to buy – but could well be the most sensible money you’ve ever spent. Alternatively – store everything in a “cloud” but keep it well protected, note your passwords in a way only you will understand – and stay on top of your data.

Even though the real estate industry is picking up steam and it can definitely be a seller’s market out there, this is still a good time for buyers. If you have a decent down payment, you can qualify for a home loan with an interest rate under 4%, which is near historical lows and will save you thousands over the life of your loan versus a 6% or 7% interest rate, the norm from just a few years ago. The best way to save money during the house-hunting and home loan process is arming yourself with tons of information, literally, as much as you can handle. I would start with watching Khan Academy’s videos on mortgages, so you can understand what you are getting yourself into. Once you understand and expect this new responsibility, you’re ready to think about your own numbers.

Set Your Limits

Before the bank tells you how much you can borrow, you should decide on a number you are comfortable. As a rule of thumb, your total housing costs (including the loan payment, taxes, HOA and insurance) should not be more than one-third of your take-home pay. That leaves you with the other two-thirds to pay for your living expenses, and set aside money for investing. Consider what the difference will be in your payment from what you pay in rent now. If you are paying $700 a month in rent now, and expect your total housing costs per month to be $1,000, are you able to afford the additional $300 per month? What would you do with the $300 if you weren’t spending it on a mortgage? If your answer is “blow it all on gummy worms and mascara”, you probably didn’t have a more productive use for your money. But perhaps you could put that money towards a small business that will grow and create a passive income for you. Consider all the possibilities before you commit to a new home loan as it will be a major financial consideration for the next several years.

Have Your Documents Ready

If you are considering applying for Newcastle Permanent Home Loans or other home loans, you’ll want to be prepared with your personal financial statements and documents. It shouldn’t be the first time that you are considering the answer to “What is monthly gross income?” when a loan officer asks you. Know where you stand with your income, assets and expenses. Have at least the following statements available:

• Paystubs
• W-2’s or tax returns
• Bank statements
• Investment account statements
• Retirement account statements

Not only will it help you with your loan, it will make you comfortable on a regular basis. These days, I’ve been feeling a lot less stressed financially just knowing that my monthly income exceeds all of my monthly expenses by a healthy margin. I thought it would never happen two years ago, but it just took a lot of rearranging and prioritizing.

Look at Homes Close to Your Budget

A lot of homes are selling for more than listing price at the moment. But that doesn’t mean all homes are going above listing price. Consider homes within your price range, but don’t go too far outside of your comfort zone (you’ll end up like the girl on Say Yes to the Dress with a $4K budget falling in love with a $12K dress). If the home has some issues, could use a little TLC, or the sellers need to sell quickly, there could be room for negotiation in the price. It will take some time to find the seller who is willing to neogtiatie, but it could help you find an excellent value in the end.

Oil is one of the most popular financial spreads and “Turmoil in the Middle East!” has long been the favourite rallying cry of oil traders.

In March, crude oil jumped upon news that Iranian production would fall sharply. Reuters reported that it would fall by 300,000 barrels a day, and the price of oil jumped by around three percent.

It is popularly believed that whenever something is blown up in the Middle East, oil prices spike. In July, a bomb blast killed three top advisors to Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, and another bomb blew up a bus carrying Israeli tourists, for which Israel accused Iran. Neither country does much in the way of oil, but they are close enough to oil fields for supply disruption to ensue, and of course, oil price to spike.

Three tweets caused an oil spike in August. An account falsely set up in the name of Russian interior minister, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, tweeted at 9:59am in New York that President Assad had been injured or killed. Two further tweets confirmed the death. Syria produces scant oil, but Iran is a major supporter and it is feared it would react. The rumour circulated by email and instant messages. From 10:15 to 10:45, light, sweet crude futures ascended from $90.82 to $91.99 a barrel. Phil Flynn, an analyst for Price Futures Group, said, “A well-placed story can move the market, and that looks like what happened.” The Russian Interior Ministry later said it was not connected to the account. The spike later reversed, although not completely.

An Israeli attack on Iran could cause oil to spike. Robert McNally, formerly the senior international energy advisor to the US National Security Council of George W. Bush, said that the experiences of the Gulf and Iraq Wars had led oil traders to believe the US military would rapidly restore transport of oil through the Strait of Hormuz if Iran acted to interrupt the channel. 35 percent of oil conveyed by sea passes through the Strait.

War games by US planners, however, have shown that it could take as much as a month to reopen the Strait. Saudi Arabia has traditionally been viewed as the solution to a shortage of oil, but electricity consumption in the country has been rising by 10 percent a year and the Kingdom increasingly needs its oil for itself. Another cushion is the US strategic petroleum reserve, which the US government claims could yield 4.4 million barrels of oil a day, but produced less than 500,000 barrels a day when it was tested last summer because logistics had changed.

The implications for spread betting go even further: imminent US military action customarily results in a bump to support of between five and seven percent for the sitting president, which could swing the election.

Last month, oil spiked when Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu made a speech to the United Nation calling for a definite red line on Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. The price of crude oil leapt 2.1 percent to $91.85 a barrel, the largest jump for eight weeks.

As is evident, following the news could allow you to foresee a sudden rise in the price of oil, and profit accordingly.