While most people do want to get rich, a lot of them don’t understand the meaning of being wealthy. Rich mindsets focus on the rewards. Poor mindsets focus on the risks. World seems like a huge ball full of endless opportunities to get rich but still millions, if not billions, of people are stuck in poverty. While some cases may be argued as sheer bad luck or misfortune, most people are simply not becoming rich because of various factors that have been highlighted below.

Most people don’t become rich quick because of the failure to balance the paradoxical process that is full of contradictions, requiring a strategic balance of the various elements.

1. They never plan

Without a plan, and without sticking to the plan, becoming rich becomes a moving target or a wild goose chase. Most people do not become rich quick because they just lack the plan to take them there. Whereas plans can be subjected to turbulence, they provide goals and contingent approaches of achieving these goals or salvaging the entire venture if things become unbearable. Without a plan, and without goals, nothing can ever be accomplished, and you will keep on starting all over again every other time.

2. They procrastinate

The best time to start acting on your plans is now. Most people, however, postpone their plans until it all remains as a thought that can never be actualized. Without starting, you can never know the challenges and neither can you come across the opportunities and hence becoming rich for these people is also postponed.

3. They never invest

We have all heard of hardworking employees who retire without a penny in their retirement accounts and have to continue working for their daily sustenance in their retirement ages. It becomes impossible to get rich if you only depend on one stream of income known as linear income. Linear income requires that you get a job done for the payment to be effected and hence without working, there is no stream of money. On the other hand, passive income is the money earned from investments that give a return without you having to step in the office. Passive income is the equivalent of making your money to work for you as opposed to you working for the money. Most people will keep on laboring but will not experience their financial breakthrough because they do not make investments that will enable their money work for them.

4. They lack intent

Intent is masked in several facets including ambition, accountability, and responsibility among others. The process of becoming rich is an intentional journey that must be followed to fruition. It means that you will take responsibility and remain accountable to yourself, and even when faced with obstacles, your ambition will drive you through up to the realization of your goal. This requires a balance between courage and foolishness, and patients and grabbing opportunities. Most people who do not become rich quick simply lack the ability to persevere and exercise restraint while others exercise restraint and perseverance enough till they miss the chance or get ‘burnt.’

The post Why Most People Don’t Get Rich first appeared on Fortune Watch.

A Financial Planner can help you :-

Assess your current financial situation.

Create a realistic plan to meet your financial goals.

Understand how to meet your financial and retirement goals.

Put your financial plan into action and monitor your progress.

Update your financial plan to grow with your changing needs and goals.

If you have any of these questions or concerns, you will benefit from a consultation with a Financial Advisor:

Confusion about conflicting financial advice and options.

Paying too much income tax.

Not saving enough for retirement.

Not sure where to invest money.

Changes in life that affect your financial future, such as a career change, marriage, retirement, loss of a spouse, birth of a child, etc.

Not enough time to attend to personal financial affairs.

Financial Planners are licensed professionals with a broad background in finance. They can guide you through some important life decisions.

They can help you manage the risk involved in making decisions that can paralyze some of us, such as:

What kind of retirement plan do I need?

Am I paying too much in taxes?

How can I save money for retirement – tax free?

How much life insurance do I need?

How can I make sure my estate is left to family members, and does not get depleted by probate court and government taxes?

Can we afford college tuition for our children – and how do we save for this, knowing how much tuitions are spiraling?

Would you benefit from having professional advice when it comes to planning your financial future? A Financial Planner is a partner that can help you understand your options and help you build and protect your assets.

A Financial Planner can also help you evaluate different life insurance plans and help you determine which policy or product is best going to serve your own unique needs and budget.

Always ask how your Financial Planner is Compensated

Whenever you meet with financial advisors, ask how they are compensated.  Some financial advisors earn their fees from banks and investment companies. So although they offer “free” advice – which may very well be tempting – these advisors usually earn commissions from the investments they sell you.

I’m not saying all planners who work on commission are going to give bad advice, but a good planner should be transparent.

The post How Can A Financial Planner Help You? first appeared on Fortune Watch.

If you are a crook, unethical or a scam artist then there’s easy money to be made investing in the stock market.

When the stock market is strong, it invites the purveyors of schemes designed to make you poor and them rich to push their wares even harder.

People who know nothing of investing get tempted in a strong stock market, but want to get in on the action and there are always crooks willing to help them invest in the latest hot stock.

Unfortunately, the deals sound so great that many unsuspecting novices to investing in the stock market fall prey to the schemes.

Fear and greed are the two most powerful emotional motivators. Both drive investors to make decisions that are foolish.

When the market is in one of its down cycles, fear drives investors out of the market as prices are dropping. When the market rebounds they buy back in at prices often higher than what the got as they exited the market. Thus the famous sell low, buy high strategy – not a winner.

When you are offered or see ads for “millionaire secrets” or “expert’s strategy” or some other catch phrase that implies you will receive knowledge others don’t have, that is the usual sign that what you receive will be more enticements to “upgrade to the pro platform” and so on.

Here’s how a “pump and dump” scam works. The crooks buy a big chunk of stock in a company, often a penny stock where they can get a lot of shares cheap. In most cases, the company is not a participant in the scheme.

They may use several accomplices so no one person attracts attention with their purchases.

The crooks then start an aggressive campaign of pumping up the stock with stories about what a great business it is and how it is about to make a big announcement. They predict the stock will make huge gains in the next few days.

You are encouraged to buy now while the price is right.

If the crooks have done a good job of pumping the stock, people will start buying it and the price will begin to rise.

As the price starts to rise, the crooks will double their efforts of pumping the stock, pointing out that the price is going up, but there is still time to make a killing.

The crooks keep pumping the stock – even to the point of issuing false press releases or analysts comments to hike the price even higher.

When they feel they have pushed the price as high as it is going to go and company officials are publicly expressing concern about the rising price of their stock, the crooks dump their shares for a fat profit.

This unloading of a large block of stock sends the price plummeting and other shareholders, seeking the price falling, sell also. The stock plunges, sometimes lower than before the crooks took an interest.

The crooks walk away with a fat profit, the shareholders who bought on their advice are burned and the company gets a black mark it probably didn’t deserve.

You can avoid a “pump and dump” scam by: Never buy on the recommendation of someone you don’t know. Promises of quick gains are rarely true .Big announcements, new products, and so on are a give away that you are being hyped.

If it seems to good to be true, the odds are very high it is not true.

The post Except For Crooks, No Easy Money In The Stock Markets first appeared on Fortune Watch.

Whether it is investors, potential investors or general public who is looking to start investing, everyone gets excited the minute they have extra cash on their hands and one of the usual plans is to invest it for quick profits. People want to start making their money work for them and that’s a very understandable and rational thought but sure enough one needs to be practical about their finances as well. There is a lot of due diligence and groundwork that goes into understanding the financial markets before one must start investing and it’s for their best as well!

An investment making company will generally help you get started with your investment and offer you end-to-end insights into how to make more money and how to invest money to achieve your financial goals. However, there are a few things you as an investor must consider before approaching any Asset Management Company or getting started on your investment journey.

Here are the top things one should consider before they start investing to make more money:

1. Pay Off Prior Credit

No investment can start without you actually being done paying off your dues and clearing your credit. A clean slate for all your debts is very essential to begin investing stress free and focusing on returns.

2. Build Cash Emergency Fund

Before you start investing it is very important for you to have a separate cash fund prepared just in case of emergencies. There is no questioning the volatility of the market and you can’t really depend on redeeming from market when in dire need. Having an emergency fund lets you start your investment journey with a bit more ease.

3. Create Financial Goals

By and large the most important questions often asked is how to invest money and earn quick profits! However, there is much more to investing than just expecting returns. It is equally important to have your financial goals set it place and invest accordingly. Be it buying a dream home, car or saving for retirement, an investment making company will know exactly how to help you get started.

4. In Depth Understanding of Financial Instruments

There are various financial instruments in the market which offer numerous benefits. The bigger question often is what you as an investor wish to achieve, quick profit, long term stability, lesser risk or just saving for the future? It’s not tough to make more money with your investments as long as your priorities are already quite clear.

5. Due Diligence on Investment Options

Asset Management Companies have a variety of financial instruments that an investor can pick from and ensure that they make more money. If you want to know how to invest money wisely on the other hand then it is best if you do your due diligence on all the financial products in the market and then make an informed decision to earn quick profits.

6. Research on market trends

How to invest money wisely is indeed a question every investor should be asking themselves or the investment making company who is helping them build a portfolio. Keeping updated about the market, staying on top of news in the world markets and knowing the current business trends makes it easier for the investors to pick their financial instruments for investment.

7. Evaluate your risk bearing capacity

Every individual has their own risk bearing capacities. An investment making company will often ask you the risk level your profile fits in as an investor as it helps them decide where and how to invest money and earn quick profits. How to invest money is often a question answered at the expense of how much risk are you willing to take for the same,

As simple and lucrative investing and making quick profit sounds, the truth is that unless you have a foundation in place and thorough research to build up, your investment portfolio won’t be solid.

Asset Management Companies are there to help investors with their portfolio, right from researching and investing to managing and reinvesting investors’ wealth. If you are new to the world of investing then these pointers will make sure that it doesn’t seem intimidating anymore!

The post Things You Must Do Before You Start Investing first appeared on Fortune Watch.

“A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.” – Jane Austen

“If there is anyone to whom I owe money, I’m prepared to forget it if they are.”Errol Flynn

“If you owe the bank $100 that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.” JP Getty.

“Undermine the entire economic structure of society by leaving the pay toilet door ajar so the next person can get in free.” Taylor Meade.

“It’s morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money.” WC Fields.

“You should always live within your income, even if you have to borrow to do so.” J Billings.

“October is one of the particularly dangerous months to invest in stocks. Other dangerous months are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.” Mark Twain

Read

“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.” Woody Allen.

“The hardest thing in the world to understand is income tax.” Albert Einstein.

“Money can’t buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.”
Spike Milligan.

The post Amusing Money Quotes For The Weekend first appeared on Fortune Watch.

Dying without leaving a will is a bad idea.

If you haven’t made a will, then you have made a mistake, everything you own will be shared out according to the law instead of in accordance with your wishes. This could mean your estate passes to someone you hadn’t intended – or that someone you want to pass things on to ends up with nothing. For example, if you’re not married and not in a civil partnership, your partner is not legally entitled to anything when you die. If you’re married, your husband or wife might inherit most or all of your estate and your children might not get anything.  All of this can be avoided if you make a will, setting out your wishes.

Oh, and if you needed any more persuading, if you do die without having left a will, all your assets are likely to be frozen until the estate is sorted out, which can mean hardship for your loved ones in the meantime. And it’s much more expensive to use the courts to reconcile an estate, so there’ll be less left over for your family too. It really is a ‘no brainer.’

Make provisions for if you are no longer capable

A good number of us can expect to lose our mental capacity as we get older and this can be just as difficult for the family to deal with as death, if not more so. It’s therefore prudent to not only leave a will but also Lasting Powers of Attorney for our finances and our health and welfare. These will give our family or trusted loved ones the capacity to make decisions on our behalf when we’re no longer able to, ensuring that bills get paid, and that any decisions about our health can be made by those who are closest to us.

Document your health preferences up front

You should also consider leaving a ‘living will’ which is a statement of your wishes intended to guide your family (when you are not able to make the decision yourself) about what treatment you might want in various scenarios. This will give them the confidence that they are acting in accordance with your actual wishes rather than trying to second guess you.

Don’t leave your young family in the lurch

All of this is especially important if you have dependants, but it’s not the only thing that needs to be addressed. Too many of us assume that if anything happens to us, the state will step in and look after our family. That may be the case up to a point, but it won’t be easy on those you leave behind. Much better to take out some life assurance when you’re young, to pay out if anything happens to you. This will give your family a cushion to tide them over should your income be lost to them, or alternatively you have to pay for childcare if your partner is no longer around. It’s only really necessary whilst you have financial responsibilities to others, so can lapse once the mortgage is paid off and the kids have finished education. It is surprisingly inexpensive too.

Talk to each other about what you want to achieve with what you leave behind

We’ve all seen the TV dramas. where the family solicitor reads out the deceased’s will, and everyone is shocked by what it contains. Unless you’ve a vindictive streak, that is not really how it should be. It’s much better to talk to your loved ones openly and candidly about your assets, and what you’d like to do with them when you pass on. Often there are 3 generations to consider, and an open and frank discussion, perhaps aided and abetted by your financial adviser will help to make sure everyone understands what your plans are. It may be for example that you initially expect to leave your assets to your children, but they may prefer it if you left them to their children instead. Discussing such things up front helps set everyone’s expectations, and avoids any conflict and disappointment later on.

Plan early to leave more to your family and less to the taxman

Inheritance tax is a tax on the estate, and is potentially payable once the estate has a value of over a prescribed amount. So if you are leaving behind a substantial estate, you could be leaving your loved ones with a large tax bill too. However, with some simple planning you can significantly reduce the amount of tax payable. It’s a complicated area so you should seek some specialist advice from a financial adviser. preferably one who is affiliated to the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.

Make a plan for your funeral

That’s the last thing your family will want to do in the days following your demise is argue about what they think you may have wanted for your funeral, so leave them some instructions. Things like burial or cremation, whether you want a religious service or not. All these decisions can be taken up front and take away any pressure on the family.

The post Reasons Why You Should Plan For Death first appeared on Fortune Watch.

This is my list of meaningless expressions that are used by investment analysts when they are talking about the equities. But first, an acknowledgement — I find that I have either used, or accepted as meaningful almost all of them. Cunning investment rogues crowd much of the Stock Market, and they speak a strange and mystery-shrouded language.

There’s a X% Probability of Markets Rising

Generally speaking, X is equal to 50%. This is an extremely useful phrase for analysts who have no clue about what the markets are going to do (which is generally all of them, all the time) because it is guaranteed to be correct under all possible circumstances. If it does rise, then your 50% prediction is right. But if it falls or stays flat, then the other 50% comes into play and you are still right. You can actually set the percentage at 99 and still be always right.

The post Be A Stock Market Expert Or Sound Like One In 5 Minutes first appeared on Fortune Watch.

Being a Financial Planner, I am naturally more in tune with the truthfulness or, should I say, the intentions of retirement advertising. It’s all about hitting the pain points. Not much fun, right? At least buying a new car or a house is fun. Yet sometimes the important things in life are not “fun”. Retirement planning is one of those things.

When you need a new car, you check out the rates at the credit union. If you need a mortgage you also check rates. In other words, you shop for the best rate before you shop for your car or your new home. When was the last time you said, “Hey Honey, we haven’t saved enough for retirement. Let’s go down to the credit union and meet with a financial advisor.”? Probably never. I wish people were as in tune with their retirement planning as they are with getting a new car or a new house.

To compound matters, the big financial companies, that can afford to advertise on TV like to make you succumb to what I call the Lump Sum Scare. You know, they tell you that you need a lump sum of several million dollars or you won’t be able to retire – ever! I know better. If you haven’t saved “enough” and that is a relative term. It’s as personal as your fingerprints, you can still retire, be they different terms than maybe you are thinking about right now.

Let’s look at 5 ways you can retire on your terms, even if you are starting late.

1. Work longer, retire later. Don’t forget, each year that you continue to work increases not only your Social Security benefit, if you have a pension it could increase that benefit as well. It will also allow your retirement investments to continue to grow.
2. Work a second job or part-time after retirement. The first step is to figure out what your income shortfall will be and then you can start considering the type of part-time work you will need to supplement your other sources of income in retirement
3. Reduce monthly expenses. Yes, this can be a painful process but in many cases, it will be necessary. This is why the budgeting step is so crucial. You don’t know what needs to be reduced if you don’t know what you are spending. Most retirees don’t need to live on their pre-retirement standard of living. It will probably be somewhere between 70-80% of what you are spending now. Once you have your budget you can figure out what can be reduced or eliminated.
4. Increase the contributions to retirement accounts. Use the power of compounding and time to work in you favor. Even a small increase of $50 to $100 a month can have a dramatic effect on your retirement savings depending on how long you have until retirement.
5. Sell an asset. Again, probably a tough decision. Maybe not, if that vacation home is going unused now that the kids have grown and are not as interested in using it as they were once upon a time. Or maybe you want to downsize and get a smaller, less expensive home or move to a part of the country that is less expensive than where you live now.

Don’t be forced by TV and social media. Meet with a financial advisor and decide what your retirement terms look like, even if you don’t have a big lump sum saved. You can still retire on your terms. Even if you are starting late.

The post You Can Retire on Your Terms Even If You Are Getting Started Late first appeared on Fortune Watch.

If after 10 seconds you didn’t notice the shark in the background, you probably need to train your ” adversity quotient ”.

It is the same when investing, you always get attracted to those ‘big’ returns.

Be careful of the lurking adversity.

The post After A Financial Crisis, Things To Note When Investing first appeared on Fortune Watch.

Most adults know that they need to invest in order to meet their long time financial goals. Most people enter the investment world with little real live experience, even less investment-applicable education, and a myriad of unrealistic expectations.

Every investor is different, and each has their own set of criteria. Some may base their decisions purely on the facts; others might be more inclined to factor their feel for the people at the helm into the equation. Some may be in the right frame of mind for risk-taking; others might be playing it safe for a while, or waiting to see how out-standing investments play out.

Seven Realistic Expectations – This Is What You Want:

1. I want to lose less market value than my markets do, during cyclical corrections.

2. I want always to be prepared for corrections, and with enough cash to take advantage of lower prices.

3. I want my investment “base income” to be dependable and consistent — even in the midst of financial crises.

4. I want my investment portfolio to make faster moves to new All Time Market Value Highs.

5. I want the productive “Working Capital” in my portfolio to grow constantly and consistently throughout the market cycle.

6. I want my annual “base income” to grow every year, regardless of market conditions.

7. I want never again to experience disappearing profits in excess of a reasonable target %.

Six Steps To A Secure Investment Future – This Is How You Get It:

1. Learn how to use “cost based” asset allocation techniques.

2, Learn how to develop and apply fundamental risk minimization techniques.

3. Learn to understand the investment environment and to use it to your advantage.

4. Learn how to select income investments and how to guage their performance.

5. Learn how to select “safer” stocks, diversify properly, and to establish profit targets.

6. Learn how do protect yourself from the demons of Wall Street and their media cronies.

Author:- Steven Selengut

The post What Investors Want & How To Get It first appeared on Fortune Watch.