Doji is a candlestick with closing and opening prices equal or very close. Length of both shadows can vary.

When doji emerges on a chart it usually means that bulls and bears have similar strength and there is indecision, no clear direction for further movement. The longer shadows, the more indecision.

If doji appears in uptrend or after white marubozu, it can signal end of the movement in this direction. In a similar way, if doji appears after downtrend or after black marubozu, it signals possibility of changing the trend soon.

Although doji is very strong indicator, it is good habit to wait one or two stock exchange sessions and look for confirmation

There are two very specific types of doji, which are worth short presentation:

Gravestone Doji

Gravestone Doji has no lower shadow and long upper shadow. If gravestone doji is preceded by uptrend or white marubozu, it usually signals change in direction, because bulls tried to reach higher price levels, but were pulled down by bears to the opening price.

Dragon Fly Doji

Dragon Fly Doji is reversal to the gravestone doji. It has no upper and long lower shadow. After downtrend or black marubozu, it signals that bears’ domination was neutralized by growing bulls strength.

In both cases, it is good to wait one or two days for a confirmation of direction change.

One week ago, Frugal Dad started a new series of posts called Sunday Conversation, dedicated for random ramblings.

In the second edition of Sunday Conversation, Frugal Dad was giving answers to questions from his readers. I took the opportunity and asked him a question about success:

“What is your greatest success as a Frugal Dad so far?”

Frugal Dad:

Kacper, this was an interesting question, and one that caused me to really stop and think about the answer. Because I now attempt to compartmentalize various areas of my life (writing, family and full time career) I have a couple different answers.

As a Frugal “Dad” I would say that my greatest success is sharing in raising two wonderful children. My wife and I have worked hard to instill values in them at an early age that will carry them through the remainder of their lives.

From a frugal perspective my greatest success has been breaking the cycle of credit card usage my wife and I began to rely on to compensate for living on one income. The elimination of this lifestyle debt, and the credit cards than went along with it, has been a “freeing” experience, financially. Dave Ramsey wasn’t kidding about experiencing Financial Peace.

As a blogger, my greatest success has been convincing 900 strangers (and a few friends) to follow my writing in just four short months. I never dreamed so many of you would subscribe and I am humbled by your numbers. When the subscriber count reached 500 or so I began feeling pressure to put out top-notch content - after all, FIVE HUNDRED people were reading everything I wrote! That was a growing pain that went away after I realized what people really wanted was the same thing I want from a blog - just an informal conversation about money, living frugally, raising kids, being a better employee, etc. Sometimes the fear of performing can be lessened by the realization that none of us are perfect. Some days I’m more “in the groove” than others, and sometimes life happens and I’m just not particularly in the mood to be overly inspiring. One of the great things about interacting with so many of you is that just about the time I start to feel that way I’ll get a nice email or comment with some encouraging words to lift my spirits.

You can find more Q&A from Frugal Dad in last Sunday Conversation.

I definitely love reading different success stories. Each one has a lot of value and can help us to achieve and enjoy our own successes. If you have an interesting success story, don’t hesitate and send it to me. I will gladly post it on my blog.

It is time for third edition of Sunday Roundup. Below are links to articles I really enjoyed last week.

Check fifty habits of highly successful people published on Lifehack.org.

There is an interesting post about hypermiling on MyMoneyBlog. I find it very useful and I’m currently working on my fuel economy.

On John Chow dot com, there is a great guest post concerning making money by recommending products you like/use.

Jeremy from Generation X Finance presented list of 24 signs that you could be in financial trouble. Better check them as soon as possible. In case of any troubles, it’s better to react sooner than later.

Finally, on GetRichSlowly.org, J.D. prepared a list of twelve top personal finance podcasts.

If you would like me to include one of your link/post in further roundups, please contact me. I will be happy to promote quality content there. Of course, it should concern ideas related to what I write about on KacperWrzesniewski.com.

We often complain that we don’t have enough time. We don’t have enough time to read a book, exercise, start own website, write a post or satisfy spouse (or lover).

Sometimes, we use stupid excuses to avoid being creative and/or productive. But sometimes we are simply not organized and our time management is poor. One idea that can help is to identify and eliminate (or at least, reduce) timewasters.

How to identify them? Track time of your daily activities for a week. Simple. On the end of week, sum up all values and look for most time-consuming activities that don’t bring you any serious value.

…and no, my blog is not a timewaster. It brings you value, isn’t it?

Let’s don’t waste more time and go to the point. Below are my Top 3 timewasters:

1. TV

I’m constantly decreasing number of minutes in front of TV, but it still wastes too much of my time. Since today, I want to watch no more than four hours per week. Just three Polish shows and sometimes random financial news.

2. Internet

This one is really tough. I think that a lot of time I spend in network is definitely not wasted. But I have to reduce amount of time I dedicate to:

• different social media, especially Digg and StumbleUpon,
• dropping cards on Entrecard,
• reading different forum, random blogs and my things in my RSS reader (I have to reduce my subscriptions),
• chating.

Is watching porn a timewaster?

3. Sunbathing

I love my garden. I can sit a lot of time there doing nothing. Of course I prefer practicing kung-fu or reading a book in the garden, but it doesn’t change too much.

Now, there is a lot of sun out there. Therefore, sunbathing is currently my favorite ‘garden’ activity.

photo credit: Waka Jawaka

I’m pretty sure that in case of TV and Internet I will improve, but I honestly don’t expect I will reduce my time sunbathing. I’m pretty sure, that time saved on TV and Internet will be spent on sunbathing. Haha….