Sneak Preview: Win Like the Pros

How strongly do I feel about the need to keep the cash, not for a rainy day but for a monsoon? Even in my own 401(k) I don't commit all at once. I commit one-twelfth of my annual allocation a month, changing my behavior and putting the rest in, only on a 10 percent decline. If I don't get a 10 percent decline, I will have committed the money on my regular one-twelfth-a-month schedule.

What can you do to ensure that you will have cash for those great opportunities? And believe me, having that cash will be the difference between staying even with the averages and trouncing them. I want you to consider the cash you have to put to work like the gas in your car. Would you ever consider running it on empty? Don't you always like to have at least an eighth of a tank of gasoline? That's what I want you to do with your stock money. If you can fill 'er up there, that's fabulous. But if you can't, sell something you don't like as much as what you do like, or sell something to buy something better.

Unless the market's down 10 percent, consider yourself fully invested until a huge decline occurs, and then you will be able to have a shopping list ready. When I write in RealMoney or on Stockpickr.com or when I say on my TV program that it is time to get your shopping list ready, you won't be mad at me. You will be grateful.

Oh, and by the way, if you are even tempted to use margin -- borrow money from your broker -- and if you are even contemplating a home equity loan for stocks, please go recycle this book; I wasted good paper on you.

Editor's note: This is a special sneak preview of Jim Cramer's just-released book, Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer). Look for more sneak previews every day, and get your free copy with your annual subscription to Action Alerts PLUS; click here for details. Catch Cramer in person to get it signed: Wednesday, Dec. 12, at 7 p.m. in Bridgewater, N.J.'s Borders; and Saturday, Jan. 12, at 1 p.m. in Westbury, Long Island's Costco.

Missed the first sneak previews? Read the book intro and the rules of getting and staying rich: Rule 1, Rule 2, Rule 3, Rule 4 and Rule 5.

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