Often, I get emails from readers asking for advice and I would remind them that I am not allowed to give advice. I am just thinking aloud here in my blog and if my soliloquies have proven inspiring or even helpful, I guess that is a good thing. A recurring theme in a number of emails from readers is whether having a smallish capital is good enough to start investing in stocks. So, over the last few years of blogging, I have thought aloud to myself as I looked at bits and pieces of the puzzle and more recently consolidated some of these thoughts into an "e-book" which is found in the right side bar of my blog. I believe that getting our basics right first is more important in helping ourselves to be financially secure than investing in stocks. Of course, investing has an important part in the grand ......