I've been reading Investor's Business Daily off and on for years.

I used to buy the paper on the way to work for several years until I changed jobs about 15 years ago. After that, depending on where I worked, I either had it delivered or didn't read it.

After I retired, I signed up to start getting the online edition. But despite all of that, and the fact that I believed that following their rules would make me money, I never invested using their methodology.

The main reason is time. It takes time every day to look for the right stocks to buy at the right time. So I invested using newsletters. I never found ones I really liked for more than a few years, so I kept changing. Nevertheless, the year before the market turned, I made a decent return.

Unfortunately, I found out again, that when the market starts to go down, some of the newsletters tend not to sell fast enough. And when they do, some of them then tend to take the money and put it into something else. Maybe they're optimists. Nevertheless, I lost a fair amount of money before I gave up and sold everything. Fortunately, I got out before the worst of it.

I guess it's not their fault. They try their best to pick stocks that do well, and in an up-market, they do. In a down market, I guess they feel that no one would be interested in a newsletter that said to sell everything and didn't buy anything for several months. They're probably right about that as well.

But it suddenly dawned on me that I'm retired now. Some things take a while to sink in, I guess. So now, I not only get the IBD electronic version every night after the market closes, but I've also signed up for their Premium Stock Graphs, Industry Groups and Custom Screen Wizard. I've since sold all of the stocks from the various newsletters I get and will be investing solely using these tools.

I'm trying to learn how to use all of their tools. I've also bought the Level II: Intermediate Strategies for Successful Investing course. (After so many years reading their newspaper and books, I didn't think I needed the Level 1.) I haven't looked at it so far, mainly because I haven't had the time. But with the market in correction right now, I will at least start the course this weekend.

It will take a while before I know how I do, but at least, picking my own stocks, I'll only have one person to blame if I don't do well.

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People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can’t find them, make them. - Gail Sheehy, Writer