Do you have some money socked away, or are you planning to sock some money away for the purpose of investing? Are you wondering why investing would be a smart idea and how you can best benefit from the act of investing? Simply put, you are going to want to invest so that you can create and build wealth. Investing tends to be relatively painless in nature, and there are numerous rewards to speak of. When you invest in the stock market, you will have much more money on hand for things like education, recreation and retirement. Whether you are starting from scratch with your savings or if you have some money lying around for a rainy day, the following investing basics will help you understand the journey ahead toward financial well being.

First and foremost, you should know what you are saving for so that you can set your saving and investing goals accordingly. Are you saving up for the purpose of retirement, so you can send your children or grandchildren to school or for a brand new car? Let us say that you begin with $2,000, and you put it all in the stock market. If you get a 10% return, which is the historical average for the S&P 500, then your two grand investment will be worth a grand total of $34,898.80 after a period of thirty years. This may not buy you a retirement home but it will certainly serve as a sizable down payment.

Even if you do not have $2,000 burning a hole in your pocket, you can still invest effectively. Can you afford to invest just your lunch money? Sock away $4 per day for 250 days and brown bag your lunch instead. If you are in your early 20's, then you have the best ally on your side investing, which is time. After 46 years, which is right around when you will be retiring, you will have more than $1 million dollars, which is a nice nest egg if you really think about it. You can't spend all this in a year or a couple of years, so keep investing and watch your nest egg grow even further.

As you become older and increasingly financially stable you can put more and more money away. Upping the ante just a bit to $166 a month will allow you to hit the million dollar mark in 39 years rather than 46 years, proving that the money does really add up. This is something that you really need to be thinking about when it comes to your financial stability. The more that you are able to put away into safe investments now, the more you will benefit in the future when your nest egg has grown considerably. Good luck with your financial decisions and investments in the future.

Photo Credits: iChaz

Originally posted 2009-07-20 05:43:10. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Review: The Teen's Guide to Personal Finance: Basic concepts in personal finance that every teen should know. Time is a resource that many teenagers don't realize is their greatest resource for finacial independence. "The Teen's Guide to Personal Finance" is a tome that will provide teenagers with important financial lessons, in a manner which will pull their interest and convey itself effectively in its intended task. The......
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Now that the Olympics are over, many people have been inspired to try harder, to live their dreams and to focus on their futures. These same feelings and motivation can be carried over to your financial life as well. There is no better time than right now to get your personal finances in order, and sometimes, looking at them in a different light can be very beneficial.

While you may not be able to win a gold medal for the best balanced checkbook, by looking at financial security as a race to glory, you may be able to reshape your financial outlook. In fact, you can even get some inspiration for developing a financial plan right from some of these Olympic events.

The key is figuring out whether you want to go for the gold, or whether you are happy to settle for silver, bronze, or even not placing at all. By developing a winning mindset, you can greatly impact your financial future. Sometimes, all it takes is looking at your personal finances a bit differently to get a better outcome. Let’s start with determining what “going for the gold” means to you.

1. Financial stability – For most people, going for the gold means being able to retire comfortably and not worry about money. In many cases, it will take an athletic-style push to get there, but with perseverance, the right training and a good effort, it can be achieved. When you look at financial stability as an event that you need to win, it may be easier to reach your long term goals.

2. The ability to buy whatever you want - For others, going for the gold may mean the ability to purchase anything their heart desires, without having to worry about it. If you are not already to that point, it will take a lot of hard work and financial effort to get there. If this is your goal however, you need to start training to make it. Decide how you will reach this point, whether it is through leveraging debt for a bigger return, or finally starting that side business you’ve always dreamt about, or any other means.

Whatever going for the gold means to you, write it down and begin to formulate how you plan to reach that goal. This will be your training program. Learn all that you can about personal finance, and take the time to be cognizant of your spending, how you budget and what paths you will be taking to get to your gold “medal.”

Just like the Olympics, going for gold financially may not be simple, but it is incredibly worthwhile. Even if you don’t have the world cheering you on, you can still reap the benefits that focusing on your finances can have for your entire future. If you want to be able to achieve those goals, it may mean going for the gold – even if that does require hard work and extra effort.

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Originally posted 2008-10-16 05:37:49. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Running Out of Time? How to Catch Up Financially Before it is Too Late Whether you are pushing thirty and trying to get your first home or your retirement is staring you in the face, there are times when you may feel as though you’ve run out of time financially. We don’t always make the best decisions when it comes to saving money and......
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This is part two to a series on credit cards and where our country is heading when it comes to credit card debt. In the previous post in this series we talked about some of the statistics in the credit industry and how to interpret them to get an idea of where we stand financially.

Let's look at some more of these numbers now.

Only 29 percent of households owe $1,000 or more dollars on their credit cards. Approximately 21 percent owe $2,000 dollars or more, 6 percent owe $8,000 dollars or more, 4 percent owe $10,500 or more, and only 1 percent of households in the United States owes $21,400 or more. These statistics, which are from the Fed pretty much go with what Fair Isaac, the company behind the FICO credit score discovered upon reviewing millions of credit reports in the United States.

There are, however, a few differences between the universe that the Fed looked at to arrive at the figures above, and what Fair Isaac analyzed. For example, the credit reports are individual because there is no such thing as a joint or household credit report. Also, to have and use a credit report you have to have and use credit. Finally, credit reports do not distinguish between revolving balances and those that you pay off every month.

Statistics from Fair Isaacs have shown us a world where most people are lightly or moderately using credit. Approximately 48 percent of all credit card owners owe a total of less than $1,000 dollars, and approximately 10 percent of card holders hold balance totals that are in excess of $10,000. More than half of all of the people who hold credit cards are using less than 30 percent of their limit, with only approximately 1 in 8 people using 80 percent or more of their credit card limit at any one time.

There is plenty of credit card trouble out there right now. It may not mean that all the hand-wringing over consumer debt is really what it's cracked up to be, though. While a good amount of Americans seem to be avoiding the credit card track all together, however, there are still a number of people sitting right on the financial edge. For example, more than a third of those who owe more than $10,000 dollars in credit card debt have household incomes of less than $50,000. 13 percent who owe that much on their credit cards have incomes under $30,000. The percentage of disposable income that is used to pay debts is still in its record highs. Bankruptcies also set another record recently. In 2003 there were 1.6 million personal filings alone, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.

So while the average American seems to be doing just fine, there is plenty of evidence that suggests that a staggering number of people are overdosing on their credit card debt.

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Originally posted 2009-02-12 05:08:44. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• The Truth about Credit Cards and Debt pt 1 This is part one in a two part series about credit card debt and where we actually stand as a nation when you consider the pure numbers. You have probably heard figures like "The average American carries more than $8,000 in credit card debt on average." But what does this......
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Over the past decade, an insane amount of debt has been wracked up. Household debt has significantly eaten up a slice of personal income since around the mid 90s. Here are four clues that you are carrying too much debt:

Clue 1 - Your debt to income ratio is too high. Your debt to income ratio is calculated by dividing your debt on a monthly basis by your monthly income. If your debt to income ratio is 15 percent, 20 percent or worse, you are definitely in trouble according to most credit counselors.

Clue 2 - You have no savings to speak of. If you have no savings to speak of, then your money is stretched too thin. You need a savings account and you need to start meeting your debt obligations and your savings obligations.

Clue 3 - You are over the limit on your credit cards. Straying over isn't bad unless you're not paying it off right away. If you are carrying a significant balance from month to month, you have a problem that needs to be stopped now.

Clue 4 - You find yourself worrying about your debt. If you are stressing about your bills or your debt, then it is clear that you have a problem, plain and simple.

Here are four tips that will help you get out from under your debt.

Tip 1 - Prioritize your Bills and your Debts. Write down how much you owe to each of your monthly bills and prioritize this list. Give priority to health, food and shelter, because these are the bills that need to be paid first and foremost.

Tip 2 - Stop using your credit cards and pay with cash instead. Cut them up, freeze them in ice or feed them right into a wood chipper. Stop relying on credit to solve your problems because it is not going to help you, but rather will only make things worse. Limit yourself to cash if you want to control your spending.

Tip 3 - Set up a plan that will allow you to pare down your debt. Call creditors to find out if you can get lower rates, or to have fees waived. Try to set up a better payment plan if you can. Most creditors are more than willing to work with you but you absolutely have to work the courage up to ask if you want to get results. When you pay down your credit card debt, target the highest interest rates first and then work to the next highest, and so on and so forth.

Tip 4 - Get help as soon as you know you need it. There are credit counseling services out there that can sit down with you and counsel you on your spending habits, helping you create a repayment plan for your debt that is affordable and workable. Choose a service that is free or inexpensive if you need help, and formulate a plan that will make paying your debts down easy and affordable without bogging you down with more bills or more debt.

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Originally posted 2008-11-10 05:08:37. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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This was an absolutely fascinating read and its one of the few books that we truly recommend, especially to those with families. The main premise of the book is that our current system of having to have two incomes to make ends meet is what is driving individual family economic meltdowns. How can more money end up being a bad thing?

Warren, who is a professor of economics at Harvard, and her daughter Amelia, a business consultant, present a very strong case, backed up by numerous statistics that show we really are in trouble as a society, but it’s not our fault. Instead of falling back into the old line of complaining that American’s are overspending and dripping in debt, the two show that it’s not that at all.

According to the Warrens, it is what we’re spending that second income on that is the problem. The main case in the book is that the push to send our children to good schools has led to an incredible jump in real estate prices, especially near the best schools. In order to get into those schools, hefty tuitions must be paid. This system is perpetuating itself and creating a problem that many families cannot break away from.

Who wants to send their kid to a bad school, right? They claim that in the past, Mom was the financial “safety net,” where as now, most of her salary is going towards inflated house payments, car payments, and school tuitions, instead of into savings or investments as it should be.

With 80% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck right now, this book raises some very valid concerns. Unfortunately, there really is not a solution, barring sending your kids to public schools as avoiding pricey neighborhoods. However, if more families did that, it would free up more disposable income that could be spent freely.

We would have liked to have seen the book focus more on having “Mom” work on developing passive streams of income that would replace the need for that second salary, but overall, we found that the book was a refreshing and thought provoking read. If you are one of the millions of families that is struggling to make ends meet on two salaries, it is well worth the read.

It is rare to find a personal finance book that doesn’t encourage over-frugality, or get rich quick schemes that never work. We found this book to be hard hitting, filled with all the right facts (that were verifiable) and certainly well worth the time spent reading it. It may just open your mind up to some new ideas and help you develop a plan to break free of that trap, start creating a more passive stream of income and figure out how to get your family’s finances back on the right track. All of this boils into a lot less stress and financial hardship and that is something every one of us can use.

Originally posted 2008-08-01 05:10:36. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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