Now if this doesn't leave you with a smile on your face then nothing ever will. I stumbled upon aYouTube video made by a guy called Juan Mann. He was feeling a bit lonely after arriving back in his home town of Sydney from overseas and just wanted someone to greet him at the airport with a big hug like all of the other happy families. He then embarked on a "free hug" campaign.  Check out his website here, but be sure to turn up the speakers and watch the video first (over 24 million others have!).

Time for another update. Things have started to look up. Two of the companies that I'm holding have really taken off. Minemakers (MAK) is going gangbusters at the moment. I've sold half my holding in the company to lock in the profit which means that the remaining half is completely paid for so there is no risk at all as I'm now playing with someone else's money! Accent Resources (ACS) has been doing very badly. I was meant to sell that one off for a loss months ago, but I missed the sell and decided to ride it out. I'm glad I did, because it has turned around and is now in the black. The other winner at the moment is Australian Education Unit (AEU). This is is a complete gamble as I've gone out on my own and decided to buy without any recommendations. For that reason, I only bought 1000 units. AEU is the company that owns the buildings that ABC childcare centres rent. As you probably know ABC has taken a huge dive and trading has been stopped on the ASX. That obviously had a bad effect on AEU and their share value has tumbled as well. I figure that even if ABC goes bust all of those kids have to be cared for somewhere, so I reckon worse case is someone buys out ABC and takes over the centres (AEU still have a tenant), or ABC recovers (AEU still has a tenant), either way I think that AEU will recover and I'll be there to grab the quick profit! Just to point out how well my portfolio is going at the moment I decided to add a third line to my graph. I'm now tracking my portfolio value (cash and stocks), the value of my initial stake if I had left it in the bank earning interest (cash), and the Australian All Ordinaries (All Ords). Check out the past few weeks!

As some of you may know, the old guy who used to own the house that I rent passed away a while ago. That's obvioulsy a sad event, however it also meant that I may have had to look for somewhere else to live. His two daughters inherited the house and were happy for me to stay on as a tennant, however they now need some cash and want to sell. That's a bad thing for me. I have tried to come to an agreement on price so that I can buy it myself, however we have very different expections. That lead me to look for another rental property. The rental price of a three bedroom house has gone through the roof latley. I just couldn't find anything that was half decent and affordable so I started looking at villa unit's. I actually signed the forms on one before I realised that there wasn't anywhere to store all of the stuff that I currently have in my garage. Last weekend I looked at the private rentals in the paper and found the one.  It's in the fairly new Whitewater estate in Kingston. I've never been into apartment living, and I remember laughing at this development when it went up. The apartments are all funky colours and situated around the outside of a big rectangular block like tents at a caravan park. I looked at it reluctantly, however I was blown away when I walked inside the door. It's actually bigger than my first house. The main bedroom even has a walk in robe and a double vanity in the ensuite. It's all very modern and stuff. The yard is just slightly larger than a postage stamp, but it's also funky and brand new and comes with it's own gardener. The best bit is that I get the full use of the tennis court and swimming pool!  Emma and Brad were with me and they both were very keen to grab it. There is so much competition for rentals at the moment that they hold open days and then choose the tennant from there. We must have said something right because he chose us! We move in a few weeks time. Legoland? That's the name that many of the Kingston locals have given to the development because the shape, size and colours make it all look as if it was made by a kid out of Lego!

Many of you are already reaping the benefits of the free stuff that can be had from Australian websites. Some of you may have already seen the story I wrote on some of the great survey, competition and free give away sites there are in Australia. If you haven't seen my previous story, then click here. I wanted to let you know of my personal experience with two of the biggest Australian sites.

I've been a member of Emailcash for about a year. In that time I really haven't participated in much of their extra activities that can give you bonus points. All that I have really done is click on the email's that they send me to earn 5 points every time. The email's are all for really big well known Australian brands such as Telstra, news.com.au, Quickflix, P&O Cruises etc. Most of them are actually invitations to enter some great competitions. I haven't won any competitions (yet), but the email's and the sites that they take you to are always interesting, so I see these as a good thing! In that time I have accumulated enough points to redeem a $30 cheque and I'm only a few weeks away from a $50 gift voucher. That's not too bad for just clicking a couple of email's a week and if you buy stuff from their partners, play the online games, participate in their forums and do their surveys then you can earn heaps more points. Click here to go to the Emailcash website.

The other winner is the YourVoice panel.  This is a survey panel that any Australian can join. This is the best paying website that I have ever signed up to. I have already received a kitchen blender for free and a Playstation Eye camera is on it's way as I type this. I bought the Playstation Eye camera with a $100 Dstore voucher that I redeemed from YourVoice, so I still have $20 left to spend. These guys pay well and every survey that you do gives you an entry into a quarterly draw for $16000 worth of car, travel or home entertainment gear. If you would like to join up then please contact me and I'll send you a referral email with a link to click that will allow you to sign up. 

 I know that there are a lot of "get rich quick" schemes on the Internet, but these two really do work!