One of the biggest differences between the wealthy and the not as wealthy is that the wealthy people earn interest and everyone else pays interest. It is important to realize that money is a tool that can help you to achieve your goals. In order for you to reach true financial independence you need to have your money begin to work for you–not you for it. Here are three things you can do to start making your money work for you.

So here it is. Fuck the AFI and screw Rolling Stone, here is FreddieBlack’s best movies of this decade. We know that many will be shocked and appalled that we have left their favorites off the list, and we’ll apologize in advance for any unrest our selection may cause. The fact of the matter is, there were more than ten great movies made over the past ten years. There were hundreds. We tried to shy away from the obvious choices, and instead chose movies that mattered for a particular reason. So here we present, without further ado, FreddieBlack’s selections for the ten best movies of the 2000’s, in alphabetical order.

Every year, each one of us has a Christmas many around the world could only dream of. We don’t mean to only say Christmas, for whatever your choice of celebration is just fine by us, but nonetheless you’re extremely lucky. It’s easy around this time of year; a time filled with gifts, malls, Christmas parties, and stupid sweaters, to forget what is truly important in life. Granted, each one of us goes through our struggles and sorrows and we sincerely feel for each of us that has this year, but a simple tour of the globe this Christmas day will show you just how lucky you are.

Freddie has always been a fan of hats. Whether its a perfectly worn in baseball cap during a day at the beach or a crisp felt fedora out on the town, a well made hat would not go unnoticed in his hands. This month’s DVD release of the Chicago-loving, gun-wielding, historically inaccurate Public Enemies got us thinking, and got us a phone call from Freddie. “Those hats are from Optimo,” he said. Knowing that director Michael Mann was an accuracy buff (interesting, considering there were more than a few falsities in the story), Freddie knew the hats were made in Chicago, probably at the closest source to where Dillinger would have gotten his. This means only one name, Optimo Fine Hats.

Someone asked us recently to name a few books that stuck with us for various reasons throughout our lives. When the answers were complied, we had a staggering list of both classics and rarities. There were works crossing every genre line, but certain ones made themselves apparent, even among this group. We begin by profiling one of these great works; a shockingly gritty autobiography. This is the story of a Los Angeles Crip who joins the gang at eleven years old when eight blasts from his sawed-off shotgun ripped through the chest of a rival gang member. This book may have been written more than a decade ago, but the emotion and rawness are just as fresh now as the day it went to press.

We were recently flipping through a shall-remain-nameless rag and came across a picture of one of Hollywood’s most “in control one moment, out of control the next” starlets who was rocking a men’s gold Presidential Rolex. There was something innately and subconsciously attractive about seeing such a powerful piece adorn the thin, beautiful wrist of the wearer. Now ladies, we know not all of you can afford a $20,000 gold Rolex, but then we got to thinking, was this even her watch? We presumed no, simply because we refuse to give said starlet that style credit. We believe that the beautiful metal accessory came off the wrist of an unsuspecting victim of the femme fatal. So Girls, Listen Up! You should do the same.

Occasionally, there will be someone on your holiday gift list who has everything. These people are extremely hard to shop for, almost impossible to surprise, and many times the least excited about anything less than a truly original gift. Well my friends, fear not, because we have an original gift idea for any man who “has it all”. No, this is not an advertisement and we are not being paid by Johnnie Walker, but for FreddieBlack’s money, a gift that never goes out of style is the personally engraved option Johnnie Walker provides on their website when purchasing a bottle of their most prized blend, Blue Label.

The world is both an amazingly hopeful and terrifying place, and those extremes will only become more apparent as technology and world trade increase at a rate many times more quickly than at any time in the world’s history. Would it surprise you if we told you that the US is not #1 in internet usage in the world, not even #2 or #3? No, the United States ranks #19 in world internet bandwidth usage, with what many people think would be #2 in Japan coming in at #22. The number one country in the world using the internet is Bermuda! It is these kind of startling facts that are showing a world which could not be more different than that of fifty years ago, and the numbers are beginning to become literally mind-boggling. There is a short, wonderful video that will show you where the world is heading, and pose the question of what it all means. Watch the video, see our analysis, and decide for yourself.