I was surprised to find out that a good friend of mine recently invested on a food stall in one of the leading supermarkets in the city. It has been in his plans for so long and I was pleasantly surprised that he was able to do it finally. I asked him how he was able to save up for it given the economy that we have and he answered that he invested in gold coins. I was about to brush him off and ask him if he was joking when he told me it was true, and that I should be buying from the US Bureau already. Gold is a good investment because demand for it is high and even from years back it has never depreciated.

My friend’s husband Rommel got lucky on his birthday in 2005 when he caught the racket of then World’s number 1 in Badminton Mixed Doubles, Nathan Robertson. When Robertson and his partner Gail Emms won the championships, Nathan threw his winning racket to the audience. Local newspapers and television crew were able to capture that moment. Rommel got luckier. Nathan agreed to make the racket an autographed sports memorabilia when he signed his name on the handle. My friend said it was an amazing experience. Other sports collectors need not get as lucky to own autographed memorabilia. There is already an online site that sells authentic sports items, like autographed baseballs, of popular athletes old and new. Hollywood Collectibles has been in the business of selling sports memorabilia for more than two decades. That experience alone makes it the most trusted in the memorabilia industry. Clients are assured of the authenticity and are provided with certificates to affirm that that items sold are indeed authentic. I am sure a lot of football fans from Spain have checked out the soccer items especially that Team Spain recently won the recent FIFA World Cup. If you are a big sports fan, you might want to check out the items available to add to your collection.

A friend of mine finally took a dip into the food business. She has already made quite a following in her home-based pastry business and we have been telling her that she should open her own shop so that she can further expand. Besides, all the orders can no longer be made into her home kitchen and she needed to hire additional people to help her bake, track and receive orders and deliver them. So her cake shop is born! It just opened a few months and it is doing really well. Word of mouth travels fast and since she already has a steady base of customers even before she opened her formal shop, it wasn’t much of a growing pain to attract customers.

Branding the business was harder. She needed to come up with a nice logo for her business. It will go into her business cards, letterheads, food design stall and the cake boxes. It will also be infused into the uniforms of the employees. She ordered custom polo shirts from Lead Apparel because it offers a one-stop shopping experience for both screen printing and embroidery services.They offer so many choices for blank apparel including T-Shirts, Tank Tops, Golf Polo Shirts, Golf Jackets, Corporate Polo Shirts, Jackets, and Climate Proof Apparel.