Storage benches come in a number of sizes, shapes and designs. Plus, some designs are even easy for the do-it-yourselfer to build. The idea behind them is simple, but the number of uses they have is amazing.

Depending on design, storage benches can be great additions to bedrooms, playrooms, gardens and even entryways. Where a particular bench will be most useful, however, will really depend on its design and the items necessary for storing.

Here are some different kinds of storage benches and ideas for incorporating them into a room’s design:

* Adult bedroom. A hardwood, finished storage bench with a wood color similar to a bedroom suite can add space for storage while offering some great seating. Placed at the foot of the bed like a footlocker, these benches are great for holding extra blankets, winter sweaters and more. They keep the items out of the way and lend a lot to the overall design of the room, too. With proper planning the bench seat can incorporate a cushion that matches curtains, a bedspread or another accent color within the room.

* Child’s bedroom. The function for a bench in a child’s room would be similar as the adults, but with proper hinges (those that don’t allow slamming) a storage bench here can double as a great toy box. Think of it as a window seat that can go anywhere in the room and the idea becomes a little more clear. In the kids’ rooms, however, coloring of wood might need to be brighter or bolder. Plain dark mahogany looks great for mom and dad, but the stately look likely won’t appeal to a five-year-old girl. Think princess. Pink and white! Or, bright primary colors. For a boy, maybe football themed, nautical or so on.

* Entry ways. Again, the wood and stain will make a difference here. A beautiful cherry storage bench with a cushioned seat is great for holding umbrellas, shoes or so on, plus it gives a welcoming feel to the entry.

* Gardens. If you never know where to store your garden tools, this is a savior. Not only will a storage bench give you a great place to sit in the garden, the seats are perfect for holding hedge trimmers, plant food, small clippers, gloves and more. Just remember with the outdoor use, the wood will need to be different than that desired for a bedroom or entry. Go with something pressure treated or at least make sure it’s painted or sealed properly to withstand the weather.

They may seem a little old fashioned, but a good storage bench is a great idea for giving a home or outdoors area extra seating and a place to stash items, too. Functional and beautiful is more than possible for indoors use and sturdy and weatherproof for the outdoors.

More Resources

Storage bench resource.

storagebenchsitedotcom

Storage bins and totes.

storagebinsincdotcom

This is a question that I wish more people would ask, but the thing is not too many people know they even exist!

The main reason that I love option trading is that options provide the opportunity to turn a small or modest amount of money into a large amount of money quickly!

How is this possible you might ask?

Well before I get into the ‘how’ that let me show you exactly ‘what’ options are.

Options are simply ‘contracts’ that give the buyer the right or choice (but not the obligation) to buy or sell shares in a particular company, at an agreed price, on or before a set date.

Now the thing is, as an option trader I am not interested in buying or selling stocks, I am only interested in buying and selling the options on stocks.

I want to buy an option for one price and then onsell it to someone else for a higher price and make a profit before the option expires.

Now whether or not I am able to do this depends on two main things:

1) Whether the underlying stock (the stock that the option is concerned with) goes UP or DOWN in price.

and

2) The type of option that I have bought.

Now, there are 2 types of options, CALLS and PUTS.

Call options give us the right to BUY shares in the underlying stock.

PUT options give us the right to SELL shares in the underlying stock.

As I said before, we are not interested in buying or selling the underlying stock, only in making a profit by buying the options (on a stock) and then onselling those options to someone else for a profit.

However, the only way we can make a profit is if the option itself increases in value.

So What makes options go up or down in price?

CALL options increase in value when the underlying stock goes UP.

PUT options increase in value when the underlying stock goes DOWN.

This may sound confusing if you are new to option trading, but basically what we want to do is to buy CALL options on a stock when we think it is about to go UP in price or buy PUT options if we think the stock is about to go DOWN in price.

If we are right and the stock moves in our desired direction, UP for CALLS or DOWN for PUTS, we will make money.

The concept is really quite simple once you accept that it is possible to make money whether the underlying stock moves UP or DOWN.

Now here’s the thing that makes option trading so appealing.

Options only cost a fraction of what it would cost to buy the underlying stock itself and a small move in the price of the underlying stock, creates a much larger move in the price of the option by 10 times to sometimes 100 times!

Let me give you an example, let’s say that GE is trading at $31.00 per share. If we wanted to buy 1000 shares in GE today it would cost us $31,000.

However, the option to BUY GE (CALL options) for $30 at any time during the next 60 days is only $2.00 per share. If we bought enough options to give us control over 1000 shares in GE it would only cost us $1,500.

Now let’s say that GE goes up by $1.00 to $32.00 during the next 3 weeks.

If we had bought the shares in GE we would have have made a $1,000 profit (1000 shares x $1.00 per share) or 3%+ return and if we bought the options on GE we still would have only made $1,000 (1000 shares x $1 per share) however as we would have only invested $2,000 into the trade, this would be a return of 50%!

By trading the options instead of the stock it is possible to make far greater returns and at the same time risk only a fraction of the capital.

This is called LEVERAGE and this is the main advantage to option trading over other wealth creation strategies.

However, just as leverage can work for you it can just easily work against you.

This is why you need a solid trading system that stacks the odds of success in your favor on every trade and at the same time reduces your risk.

James Thomas is a successful private option trader and creator of option-trading-tips.blogspotdotcom – an informative resource full of useful option trading tips, including free video tutorials.

When we write a naked put we are effectively ‘promising’ to buy someone else’s shares in the future should the stock price fall below a certain level.

For doing this we are instantly paid spendable cash for each share that we ‘promise’ to buy. If the stock does not fall below this level (the strike price), then we simply keep the cash without having to buy the stock.

TIP:

Just like covered calls, only write naked puts on stocks that you would be happy to own and if you want to be more conservative, only sell the contract equivalent of the amount of shares you wish to buy, should the stock fall below the strike price.

As each option contract represents 100 shares of the underlying stock, you can work out how many contracts you can afford to write simply by dividing the amount of capital you want to invest in that trade by the strike price of the option you want to sell and then divide that number by 100.

Here’s the formula:

Capital/Strike Price/100 = Number of Contracts

So if you have 20,000 to invest in one trade and let’s say that the strike price of option is $10, then you can safely write 20 contracts.

By ’safely’ I mean that you can afford to buy the stock should you be assigned.

Another thing to remember is that should you be assigned, you would effectively be buying your shares at a discount.

Let’s say for writing the $10 put option, you received $0.50 cents per share (5% yield).

Because you receive this $0.50 per share, your overall purchase price (should you be assigned) is lowered by $0.50 to $9.50.

Should the stock fall and you be forced to buy it, a great way to keep this cash flowing and at the same time continue to reduce your risk is to simply turn around and start writing covered calls on it.

That being said, it’s never a good idea in my opinion to write naked puts on a falling stock. Always look at a stock’s chart for:

1) Moderate uptrends.

2) Sideways trends, especially 1-2 months AFTER a steep sell off.

If you go to: stockchartsdotcom and pull up the QQQQ chart for the first quarter of 2003, you’ll find a great example of this second pattern.

During this time I began writing naked puts on the QQQQ and then when I was eventually assigned I then wrote covered calls on the QQQQ profitably for a number of months.

In sideways or rising markets, writing naked puts to potentially aquire stock (and be paid while you wait) and then writing covered calls on the stock when and if you are exercised, may well be the ultimate strategy for generating a cashflow income from the markets.

Also, considering that a large majority of options are never exercised, much of the time you may never even be required to buy the stock.

When it comes to writing naked puts, you often get paid for a ‘promise’ that you don’t end up having to keep. Now that’s what I call leverage!

Happy option trading and investing!

James Thomas is a successful private option trader and creator of option-trading-tips.blogspotdotcom – an informative resource full of useful option trading tips, including free video tutorials.

This is because when you have an option trading system that you are truly comfortable with i.e. you have backtested it extensively and paper traded it on live market prices, you have built a solid foundation for your long-term success.

This is due to the psychological advantage of ‘objectivity’ that an option trading system that you know and trust provides.

When we follow a precise set of trading rules that we have confidence in:

– We feel no pressure pushing us to trade.
– We trade without fear or the need to be right.
– We trade what we see, not what we think.
– We know in advance ‘exactly’ what we will do in ‘any’ market scenario and we have already ‘committed’ to doing it.
– We are not focused on how much ‘money’ we may or may not make, but rather on ‘trading well’.

If the above points describe you and your trading equity is growing consistently, then congratulations, you have found a good option trading system that fits your psychology and risk profile. Your option trading system and your psychology are ‘in sync’.

This is fundamental to your long-term success as an option trader.

If however, you feel that you fall short of the above criteria, then I would suggest that you stop live trading immediately (if you are) and go back and continue backtesting/paper trading your option trading system.

You may need to adjust your trading rules as you test but when you finally have a trading system that performs consistently well over time (that you have traded up, down and sideways) on a select group of stocks, you will have the ‘confidence’ to put your money into the market with a ‘winning’ trading psychology.

This is absolutely critical because as the old Wall Street adage goes, “Scared money never wins!”

The good news is that you can alleviate ‘fear in option trading’ by following a trading system that you know and trust, including sound money management and by detaching completely to the money in your trading account.

Once you reach a place of both consistent peace and consistent profits in your trading, then you will know that both your trading system and your trading pyschology are in sync.

Your long-term success depends on this ‘harmony’.

James Thomas is a successful private option trader and creator of option-trading-tips.blogspotdotcom – an informative resource full of useful option trading tips, including free video tutorials.

LEAP options that don’t expire upto 2 years into the future give the buyer much more time to be right about the future direction of a stock and at the same time offer tremedous leverage.

LEAP option trading has become quite popular in recent years because just like all options, LEAPs only cost a fraction of what it would cost to buy shares in the underlying stock itself, but give you the same amount of control.

As with all options though, time is the enemy (if you are a buyer) and over time options lose their value.

So how can we use LEAPS to speculate on the future direction of a stock (UP or DOWN) and at the same time reduce our risk of losing all our money on them?

Well let me share with you a couple of simple LEAP option trading strategies that have worked well for me over the years in both bull and bear markets…

TIP:

If you believe a stock will go UP over the next 1-2 years, then buy Call option LEAPs on it and at the same time sell the call options (at least one or two strike prices out of the money) that expire in the current month.

If you believe a stock will go DOWN over the next 1-2 years, then buy Put option LEAPs on it and at the same time sell the put options (at least one or two strike prices out of the money) that expire in the current month.

By doing this you will effectively be getting cash back on your investment every single month that you hold your LEAPs.

Over the long-term this will not only offset the time-decay of your LEAPs, but also offer you some downside protection, should the stock go in the opposite direction that you want it to.

This is known as a Calendar Spread and is a much more conservative way of speculating with LEAPs.

Important:
If the stock rises above your sold strike price for your current month Calls or below your sold strike price for your current month Puts, then you risk being assigned/exercised.

You should never allow this to occur because the moment you are assigned you will lose whatever time value is left on your LEAPs.

It is far better to close out the trade for a profit by buying back the sold option and selling your LEAPs for an overall profit or simply holding your LEAPs and then writing (out of the money) options against them for the next month.

James Thomas is a successful private option trader and creator of option-trading-tips.blogspotdotcom – an informative resource full of useful option trading tips, including free video tutorials.