Not i am jim cramer, cohost mad money, squawk on the street. That plus avatar, 140 characters sums up everyone these days. I want you to know more than that. Did take me two years to learn avatar wasnt a movie and a hashtag wasnt a numbers sign. What i want to do in a personal show is trace the arc that brought plea to mad money, not for auto biographical ego trip but to give you money make lessons from my various careers and how to profit. In the end, this is cramerica in short, i am going to give you the investor cramer guide book, how i continue to learn every day, to help you be better than i ever have been or will be and thats the goal of mad money. Back in the time machine. My love of stocks didnt begin after law school, college or high school. No, my love for stocks started back in fourth grade. Fourth grade. My dad would bring home the old philadelphia bulletin, at that point one of the largest newspapers in the country, great afternoon paper, when he returned from work every night. I wanted it for the comics and sports. I was a ridiculous Philadelphia Phillies fan. If i could have made it i would have been a new york fan. No one would choose to affiliate himself with the team with the most amount of losses. Curiositys been a blessing and curse of mine. Not like of a cat thats probing, looking, jumping on a couple of hot stoves. Anyway, also a solid chunk of the paper that seemed impenetrable to me, called the business section. It had these giant lists of names and agate type, seemed to go on forever. The other tables. Different from the batting average tables and box scores i would scrutinize with regularity. They made no sense to me, open, range, close, what open, what range, what closed . What were these strange things . Why did they matter . My dad would get mad within he heard prices mentioned on the radio. In particular he seemed angry when i heard something called National Video. And how National Video went out. I didnt know what National Video did or why it went out. I didnt know if it popped but i know it made him furious. I wanted to find out what these things are that made him react with fury. He explained each line represented the performance of a stock of a company on a different day, different day, each day, the open where the stock opened up in the morning, opening bell, range how low, how high it traded during the day and the close how much it was worth when trading finished at the closing bell. It fascinated me. How could there be so Many Companies . And why the heck did they trade in ranges and what did it mean to close . He described to me that people tried very hard to figure out each day which stocks would go up at the close and wanted to buy them to make money from the increase during the range from the open to the close. Frankly, this struck me as downright silly. I told him when i liked at baseball tables i was trying to figure out who was hot, who would go up in average, who would go down what it would mean for the teaches, specifically the phillies. He said it was the same with stocks, study the Companies Like you studied the players. Some players were doing okay, some hot as a pistol, some were duds. I wanted to try to figure out which were going to go higher like everyone else was trying to figure out. He said why dont you try . It seemed in my house the radio was always on until pop put the tv on in time for dinner. We always watched the news while eat, even though i hated it most of the news was about the war, vietnam. It seemed frightful, scary, even in real life, even when i was 9 my mom was worried i had to go to vietnam. I was spared from the conflict. After the world news, they always mentions the Dow Jones Industrial average. And they either talked or showed the most active stocks and the ones that had done the best or the worst. National video was often on the worst list i discovered, hence the anger. So what i did was write the names down that i heard and i tracked them. Kept them in, well, believe it or not, this ledger that i still have. Here it is. What a terrific game. I was trying to figure out the next move of the stock. Even as all i knew was the name, polaroid, xerox, National Video. Sin tech, pan am, united. Most of them were defense stocks and they went up a lot. In tandem with the war. Hey, i followed a lot of those. A bunch of others. Look at that. Conair. Eastern. Yeah, national, rca, admiral. After a year i decided this was about as cool a game as imaginable. I wanted to introduce it to my fifth grade class, i did, show and tell with the philadelphia bulletin, showing them my ledger, inviting everyone to play to see who could find stocks that went up the most during the week. Not everyone was into it as i was. My dads company at Time National gift wrap and box company represented 3m, then the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company in the philadelphia area, selling tape and fancy ribbon that bowed easily. My producer talking about satin ribbon, you had to make the bows, triple m, coming up with new product lines which it still does, one of the reasons ive always favored it, you should, too. Pop came home with a new line of 3m he was selling, games. Right they got into 3m bookshelf games. He said perhaps i might want to learn about more about how the stock market really worked and the Company Created two games about business. Acquire about takeovers, which had been the range at the time. And stocks and bonds, of which i am fortunate enough to have gotten a copy here, courtesy of george, producing mad money, who gave it to me for the holidays. I almost cried. I asked the ceo of 3m to bring the games back. Apparently i dont own the rights anymore. The point mentioning this from my stocks and bonds which george bought off of ebay, the stocks are fascinating enough to get your kids started in them now. Its easier than ever. Pick stocks, not of defense companies, but of companies familiar to your kids and have them track them and guess which will do better over time. Not the city transport, not the Growth Corporation of america. Not the pioneer mutual fund. Not the central city Municipal Bond but was stocks that are real. Bottom line, of my childhood stock market obsession, get started early. And they may play for life because the last of the stock markets a longterm contest. When i think the earlier you get in the more you can win. Im going to mickey in new york. Mickey caller jim, i wanted to thank you for all you do. Your books and show got me through investing at a young age. My next question, ive been investing sense i was quite young. What type of changes should i make to my investment process as i get older . I tell you what, its a generational thing. In your 50s, 50 bond, 60, 60 bond. No more pop find conservative stocks that give them partnerships, good yield and shift over time from the high gross stocks to the partnerships and you will pick up income and do well. Rick in arizona, rick. Caller hello, mr. Cramer, how are you . Real good. How about you . Caller im doing great, sir. Ive been watching your show a couple of weeks ago you mentioned your bucket list and wanting to attend the indy 500. I have a bucket list as well of things that i want to do places i want to visit during my retirement. Because of following your advice this last four years i am well on my way to being able to do those things. Fabulous. Caller thank you so much. My question i have, i have a couple of young children, trying to get them started in investing. The question i have is, what advice and what are the most essential items or ideas on investing concepts if people need to know when they start learning about the market and investing themselves . First thing they need to know is what they own and the idea behind that is to own things like disney, i tell people start with disney, dominos pizza, mcdonalds if you like mcdonalds. Go to the mall, costco, places youre familiar with. Read the annual. Buy a share. One share. Get him or her involved. Get them started early. Teach your kids about the market. It is a very valuable lesson. And there are many more coming up on this special edition of mad money. Well be right back. The world is changing faster than ever, creating new opportunities for those who stand ready to seize them. In a time when the biggest risk is playing it safe, we believe outshining the competition tomorrow requires challenging your Business Inside and out today. At cognizant, our flexible, collaborative approach helps forwardlooking companies not only run better, but run different. To give your customers every reason to keep looking for you. So if youre ready to see opportunities and see them through, we say lets get to work. Because now more than ever, the future belongs to those who challenge the present. Welcome back to a bizarrely special mad money. Where im trying to teach you life lessons in investing from my life. I am not a dollar sign represented by a man or a stock symbol, for that mat, ticker jim i have stumbled around the stock market long enough in life to learn a thing or two. Youre getting wisdom from the school of hard knocks. Dont you love it at beginning of a pro Football Game where they have the player say his name a school and some say the school of hard knocks . Thats what i attended when it comes to stocks. Youre getting the on tv version right here right now. Now we covered how i first got involved fourth grade obsession with keeping a ledger to track stocks. And then ultimately to learn how they trade through the greatest game on earth. No, it wasnt monopoly. It was stocks and bonds. But with its little certificates and its game boards and its cards that would you know about news, it tells you about news how that would send a stock higher or lower thats what this was all. I left the stock market games behind me by the time i got to middle school which, by the way, junior high, where my obsession became sports and i was the second fastest guy in the school for ages. I ran track, of course. The other thing i cared about was girls whose movements were more elusive than any of this stuff. They were more elusive than the ranges of stocks. That was a random walk down springfield high main street. I couldnt win for losing. Thats a subject of a different show, maybe entirely. However my father did ingrain in me the desire to save. Early i learned even in high school, you got to save. I saved as i bussed tables at the old block and cleaver which we call the block and cleavage because we were hilariously stupid back then. Thats what we did. Subsequently i sold cold soda and graduated into selling ice cream. At that job i learned value of market power, specifically cornering the market and i paid people to give me the exclusive right to sell ice cream. Vanilla and chocolate on the 600 and 700 level of the vets stadium. Imagine how much money could be made if you had the only franchise in the upper deck even for a team as horrible as the phillies back then . Paying these guys not to sell ice cream against me, i made fortunes except one time they gave me only strawberry ice cream. Talk about running from a customer. Other when steve karl would pitch it got players out so fast i would get stuck with unsold ice cream. You have to buy the company before selling it. I would take a genuine beating. Talk about learning how business worked. The shelf life of ice cream on a hot july night after the ninth inning can be as short as short can be. During the lightning round i might jest with you about your name. Jeff, captain, i learned names at the ballpark. Its what people called me to get my attention to buy ice cream. I never forgot the monikers, bud, partner. I made a ton of money. I opened an account at fidelity with the Magellan Fund and contributed every week with my winnings. One by the great peter lynch, one up on wall street and beating the street which remains two of the best investing books and theyre the ones i tell them to get after they read my books and say sigh want to learn more about the stock market. I didnt save enough when i got to college. Money paid was work study and went to division and room and board. When i got out of college and after attempts to get a job in the newspaper business rejected by more than 50 papers i have every single rejection letter in a trunk i landed a position as a reporter, earning 160 a month. I keep a pay stub to remind me how hard it was when i got started and how poor i was. Nevertheless, poor 156 i contributed even then. I put a few dollars away when i could. Not long after i applied to and got a job the defunct Los Angeles Herald examiner, wow, a horrible job. Making 179 a week. It was in a town about four times as expensive as living in tallahassee. Soon after my sojourn began i found a bungalow apartment in the fairfax district, 1819 orange grove, around the corner from Pioneer Chicken which was too expensive for me to go to. Few weeks later i was stalked and broken into repeatedly, something cops were helpless to stop. I was assigned a story in san diego, Horrible School shooting. When i returned everything was gone, everything i had. So if began. My terrible but thrilling six months of living in my car. Basically trying to get by. The only real upside being when you met a woman it was pretty easy to figure out inevitable end of night query. Your place or mine . Now i know this isnt your normal behavior but as much as i knew my goal was to save to get an apartment, living hand and mouth, people would take me in now and then, get a shower, change, get a good nights sleep. I still never quit saving. I remember cashing my paycheck every other week and writing a check, yes, to Fidelity Magellan Fund for what i could afford. You only have gasoline, car, insurance, food expenses in a car. Terrific saving 0s on homeowners, rent. How poor was i but still getting money away. When i got mononucleosis, i had no health care. The hmo of my newspaper i belonged to had no state. When it put me on the road to submit expenses for day to day, i had to go to a farm workers clinic to get fixed up. I still put away money as i was making weekly trips to the doctor one of the best i ever had. Upside of investing living in your car, given money to the best stock picker of all time i managed through all of the years, 35 years later to put enough money away to take advantage of the great bull markets of our time. Not to brag, but to teach. That money ultimately amounted to a fund well into the six figures. Not because of my capital additions. I stopped putting money away in that found years ago but the power of compounding with an amazing investor at the helm. I never touched it, i let it build. The earlier the better, through thick and thin. When cnbc has allstar managers on, if you dont have enough money or time to handle your own stock portfolio or it can only buy one or two stocks, send money in as little or as much as you can. Heres the real bottom line. If i can still send those checks to Fidelity Magellan Fund when i was living in my car, sick as a dog with jaundiced liver, kept warm by a bottle of jack, and safe by a pistol by my side the most down and out you can be in the great country, you can put some money away, too. After the break ill try to make you more money. Youve done your homework. Youre ready to buy. But how do you know when the time is right . Yes, that is a monster stock. Just ask cramer. A master of making money, cramer. Mad money week nights on cnbc. Were riding the delicious magical money mystery tour tonight. Im giving you life lessons i have learned the hard way, through decades of stock investing. I told you, first, how to get kids started early and how nothing should stop you from investing. If i can do it living in a 1977 ford fairmont, you can put money away, too. Right now i want to tell you how high got started in individual stock picking, something you know i still love. And still believe in. Even after seemingly interminable period of pain and chaos and chicanery. Its worthwhile, if not lucrative, and, yes, is the reason i believe you watch certainly your inclination. Unless you like the money outfits and the outrage sound board courtesy of when i used to have a radio show similar to mad money. Buy, buy, buy. Sell, sell, sell. Called real money if youre picking stocks playing with real money not just a ledger, or with a game of stocks and bonds, you need to open an account. When i got started in 1979 there was no such thing as online account. I mad money with fidelity. I chose to put money into an individual stock account. I didnt know where to look for ideas so i turned to forbes. People at forbes, do not take this personally, i read an article about american agronomics, terrific orange grower in florida. It seemed to be compelling. I bought first thing, ten shares for nine bucks. A week later, frost wiped out the whole crop. My investment was more than cut in half. I was completely devastated. The house of pain but not defeated i sold it out and took the capital. You know what i did . Went back to forbes. I bought seven shares of bobby brooks, clothing outfit i never heard of. Forbes said it could be a terrific buy. All of a sudden my money was halved again. I had a decent job at american, making 20 gs, living in 4th and first and second. The cheap 40 a month rent with the sofa bed, albeit twice the rent for a beautiful bedroom in tallahassee and better than a backseat of the car allowed me to replace the coffers. After a hard night on the town see researching a story in kentucky i fell in love with breakfast at bob evans farm. Finding out it was publicly traded back home i visited the midtown Manhattan Public Library with the big lions and devoured everything i could about bob evans farm. Magazines with articles, 4monthold financials and publications with writeups that allowed me to care bob with other industries. I bought 20 shares. The stock went up immediately on a good quarter and the stock split and i figured out the first component of investing know what you own. Like it even. What did i know about growing oranges . Who knew about womens fashion . A good plate of scramble and sausages served in an attractive setting the way nice waitress . A company that i found long tradition of good service, nice enough growth plate expand in the midwest . That was for me. Next up, Standard Press steel. Sps technologies but the old Standard Press steel. My hometown