What do an old shoebox, a country girl in Texas, a big insurance company and millions of dollars have to do with an investment strategy? Meet Lyndall Scott Russell, a 101-year-old woman from Fort Worth, TX. She bought $315 worth of stock in an insurance firm back in 1950, put the stock certificates in a shoebox, then became a multi-millionaire and the largest single shareholder in the company. Lyndall gives great advice about how patience is an essential ingredient to successful investing. Read more about Lyndall…

Jeremy Siegel, a finance professor at the Wharton School of Business and author of Stocks for The Long Run Jeremy Siegel, explains in Investing 101 why our country gal Lyndall did so well, and how “slow and steady wins the race” for investors in the form of reinvesting your dividends and diversifying your portfolio.

The temptation to make money fast is hard to resist but investing seminars promising just that don’t make a long-term financial formula for success. In our Scam Alert, retirees Claudette and William Beamer tell how an infomercial lured them into spending $40,000 to learn get-rich-quick trading strategies. While they spent big money to make big money, the Beamers and other students ended up losing most of it.

**IMPORTANT NOTE regarding this Scam Alert: On October 26, 2009 the Associated Press released an article stating “U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga said prosecutors simply failed to show the two [Woolf and Gengler of the get-rich-quick scheme] had been part of any fraud scheme.” So, the judge tossed the verdict in this case.