Winning Money

Need Cash Nelp? Apply Now for Instant Approval

2009-09-08T11:07:00.000+07:00

Disability Coverage

2009-01-05T11:08:00.002+07:00

Disability insurance policies are designed to pay part of your wages should you be injured in an accident or are unable to work because of illness.

Here are 2 types of policies available: long-term disability and short-term disability.

Short term disability pays a portion of your wages should you be out of work due to injury for up to one year. Some employers pay for this benefit for their employees, some offer it for employees to purchase.

If you have a pre-existing medical condition, the time to enroll is during the initial enrollment period when a medical exam is not required.

Replacement of wages is only partial; insurance underwriters, as well as your employer, want you back at work as soon as possible. Usually there is a waiting period of 14 days in which you will not receive payment.

Long term disability policies are purchased to replace what your potential earnings would be from the time you become disabled until age 65 when Medicare would be available.

For instance, if you are 55 and make $40,000 per year, you should purchase a policy for $400,000.

You cannot get a long term disability policy if:
(1) you are or are soon to be pregnant,
(2) make less than $18,000 per year,
(3) are unemployed, or
(4) you are required to carry a weapon for your job.

Typically, the waiting period for long-term insurance to kick is at least 60 days and as much as a year.

Disability insurance is an important aspect of your overall insurance coverage plan, and if your employer offers it as a benefit you should definitely consider it as a wise investment.

Making Money with a Blog

2008-12-04T18:58:00.000+07:00

If people ask you what is the easiest way to earn money? Mostly, online businesses are the easiest way to gain money.

Internet has made it possible for individuals to earn a living without the use of physical function. You only have to be skillful and knowledgeable about the different ways of dealing business online.

What you need to do is having your own website, but buying or creating one is extremely expensive. Even if you exert all you human efforts on researching, buying all the books but if you realize that you do not have millions; you will never be successful in this task.

You obviously need some money to finance your needs such as buying domain names, web space, advertising and other related expenses. However, there is another way to sell, it is by creating blogs.

Blogs are free and aside from that, there are many reasons way you can earn money easily by using blogs. This will be a sure success for you.

Remember that blogs do not require programming, web design and artistic skills, so it is easy to manage plus the set up is very easy.

You can go to the different websites that accepts blogs. Register for a new account and you can start posting your advertisements right after.

Blogging does not require many expenses. No associated cost needed with blogging. You can save up to piles of money by using blogs other than producing your websites.

A typical domain can cost you a lot of money while using blogs; you can create account without spending heaps of money. You can add blogs as many as you want.

Affiliate marketing is one among the easiest way to gain money without spending too much on making websites.

However, you need to pay the percentage of the merchandise that is sold through the site. It is better than building your own website. People use this type of business to describe their products through blogging and provide the links to their affiliate links to make commissions.

If you are always using the internet, you are aware of how difficult it is to get indexed on the different search engines online. Aside from that, getting a high rank on search engines is difficult as well.

In blogging, you do not need to wait for long time to be indexed by a particular search engine. One week time is enough for your blog to be seen over the different search engines.

Many online marketers generate income from Contectual Ads such as Google Adsense, once a person clicks contextual ads on your blog, you will be receiving revenues based on how many clicks your blogs have received. Imagine that easy? And there are still lots of income stream on the internet, such as Pay per Review, Pay Per Lead, Pay Per Sales, etc.

By blogging, you will have the chance to earn money the easiest way. You only need to be patience and determined to be able to gain success in the business.

Car Insurance Quote Tips

2008-08-13T12:04:00.003+07:00

Getting Car Insurance Quotes

Do some research - Try to find some brokers who specialise in policies appropriate to your age, gender, make of car or occupation. One example might be the NFU [National Farmers Union] who do car insurance specially for farmers and give very competitive quotes. If you know someone who's got a similar car or occupation to yours, why not simply ask then who insures them? - Chat forums, owners club magazines and garages are all good sources of this kind of anecdotal information.

Be aware - those companies who can afford to do the highest profile advertising are probably not the cheapest!

Get on the phone - Once you've got some companies in mind, get on the phone - Car insurance brokers [3rd parties who are simply giving you a quote and not actually 'underwriting' your policy] often change who supplies their policies and just because they might have given you the best insurance quote in the past does NOT necessarily mean they're actually in a position to give you a competitive quote this time round.

Never take the first quote - The first quotes you'll get back for your car are likely to be on the high side - insurance companies capitalise on the fact that until you've received a few quotes you won't know what's actually a realistic quote - Never take the first quote you get, no matter how competitive it might seem!

Play companies off against each other! - Make thorough notes about all aspects of each quote that comes back and play the companies off against each other. There's no point in lying as most companies are all too aware of the REAL cost of a car insurance quote! Quickly you'll realise that the phone operatives have the ability to negotiate on the price of their quote and most of them would rather drop their prices than lose the business to a competitor...

If you're serious about getting the cheapest possible car insurance quote, be sure to:

Ask for a higher 'excess'. Higher excesses usually reduce premiums!
Mention any 'organisations' you are a member of - there might be a discount already arranged.
Get Thatcham approved security devices fitted to your car.
Consider how much mileage you're actually going to do - a 'limited mileage policy' is often the simplest way to get the best car insurance quote.
Mention if the car's going to be kept off the road or is garaged.
Mention if you have access to or drive a second car.
Say if you are the member of an owners club - 'enthusiasts' represent a lower risk to insurance companies.

Finally -

Buying insurance can be confusing. Be aware that lying will invalidate your policy and most companies record their calls to cover themselves in case of litigation. Declare ALL modifications you've made to your car and if someone else is going to be driving the car or you're going to use it for business - mention it up front!

Remember - insurance companies are going through hard times and are always going to look for ways of minimising how much they have to pay out in the event of a 'total loss' - If their inspector turns up to the breakers yard and discovers a flip-painted fire-breathing VR6 with 19 inch alloy wheels in place of the 1 litre they'd been insuring, you'll be in trouble, possibly seriously!

And if you need Free Car Insurance Quotes, please try:

(Articles Taken from : http://www.matey-matey.com)

Zlio Store

2008-07-29T15:53:00.000+07:00

Zlio Store

Actually what I am going to talk now is like a pretty crazy idea. But it works to make me happy by shopping around (just like shopping without take out some money).

Maybe you heard about Zlio Store (http://www.Zlio.com)?

It’s free for the members to open a shop selling anything they want. So anyone could register and open a shop.

But what is the relation with shopping habits? Well, by opening a store you suppose to set op the product, what you are going to sell, the layout, and anything else. So, when you are choosing your product, it’s actually like shopping (at least for me it feels like shopping, I choose many beautiful, even luxurious items for my store display).

By choosing many items I want, I feel like shopping. I don’t buy anything but I am happy. Especially if there is somebody buys something through my store I will get some commission. Well, I think its worth to try.

Why Join Affiliate Program?

2008-07-24T23:04:00.000+07:00

Now everything going expensive makes all adult have to think hard to make an extra income. While it is almost impossible getting raised salary this year; because the company itself has difficulties to survive.

So what can we do? Your needs might be delay, but how about your children education? And I believe you have needs that must be fulfilled.

In this case, I would like to introduce you to know more about affiliate program (if you still new to this). Affiliate program is a program that let you earn commissions for selling their products/services, or if you give the company leads (depend on the program requirements).

You don’t have to be a great programmer to have your own blog, instead you can learn by googling about how to make a blog. It’s like riding bicycle, what you need is keep practicing & learning.

You could also find many affiliate program directory on the internet, but for now I would like to introduce you to a very good choice of affiliate program, Pepperjam Network.

On Pepperjam Network, you could find many merchant that needs your effort to sell their product, or generate leads for them.

The payment would be twice a month. It will give you better cash flow. You could receive your money through paypal, checks, wire transfer, direct deposit, or google checkout, the choice is yours.

With an affiliate program directory such as Pepperjam, you could meet many merchant without doubt about the fairness of the payment. Pepperjam Network as program directory would guarantee that all your effort will be paid on time.

Imagine that you have 3 merchant and have to control and deal with all of them one by one, it will spend you more time, better have an affiliate program directory to be like the agent, it’s simpler for you.

And a good news for you that on July 2008, Pepperjam Network has promotion, that every new affiliate sign up will have a bonus of $10, hmmnnn….not bad, right?

They just want to show you how serious they are doing the business with you. So take your chance. It’s on July.

If you really want to earn more, you have no reason not to receive this offer.
You could do this affiliate marketing as your side job or part time job.

Remember economics is tough nowadays, if you have chances, you should take it. $10 is only the beginning, you could earn more with the Pepperjam Network program once you sign up, much more than $10.

Prices Going Crazy

2008-07-01T10:57:00.001+07:00

Before the tough economics nowadays, I will have a full bag of snacks for USD 15 on grocery store, but now my bags getting thinner at the same amount of money.

I could only buy less with the same amount before. Due to the crazy increasing oil prices, everything gets much more expensive.

But what can I do? I don’t have the authority to determine the oil prices, neither you, I think.

So, what can we do to survive?
I hate to say this, but true, we have to be savvy, only buy what we need and not what we want. And at the same time we should try to get more extra income, because what we earn might not enough anymore.

But I get asked once by a friend, ”How can you earn more? Who would hire you now for a higher salary? Company fired people, not hire people anymore to survive themselves.”

Really? Is that so? I mean you should think out of the box if you think that way. You born not only to be an employee, you have more potential to be somebody else.

Here I will give you some idea to drive more ideas from you:

Sell your home made cookies, puddings, pies, whatever you could do best at your home kitchen. Maybe at the beginning you just let your friends and neighbors know that you are able to make something nice for them at a fair price. It will bring you fun, you could do your hobby and it brings you money at the same time. Who knows that someday you will sell your pudding across the region?

If you like pets, I believe people would like to ask you to look after their dogs & cats while they are out of town.

Do you like gardening? Why don’t you put a banner on your gate saying, “We Sell plants & flowers, free delivery on certain areas.” Who knows they will drop by to buy some from you?
If you like blogging, browsing or another internet activities, go ahead, start your own sites & blogs. There are lots of internet programs you could make money with, like: Parked.com, Kontera, Chitika, YouSayToo, and so on.

If you think you are a pretty good writer, try to sell your articles to some media or media sites. If it’s a good idea & useful for readers I believe they don’t mind to pay you.

Be a mentor, Nowadays lots of student needs private teacher to help them with their school lessons, be that one.

Basically just do what you could do best, then be creative. You could earn more by being creative at your best area. Start the steps. One mile journey starts from a single step.

Good Luck Guys, You Can Do It.

Be Smart & Diligent on Grocery

2008-06-26T23:09:00.000+07:00

Guys, how is the way you shop at grocery? You have a list about what you need and then do you grab it right away or you compare the price & quality of the same product range before you buy one?

Lets say you need to buy detergent. Brand A has 250gr packages cost you $2.0 and the 500gr cost USD 3.9 and the 1 kilos one cost you USD 7.5. Which one will you buy?

You also need to buy some toilet tissue. Brand B has a package of 6 rolls tissue cost USD 2,5 and a package of 12 tissues cost USD 5,2. Which one will you buy?

For detergent buy the 1 kilo packaging would be cheaper, but would better choose 2 package of 6 rolls toilet tissue rather the 12 rolls packaging.

The point is the bigger size sometimes cheaper, sometimes not; and this happens on every products.

You’d better be diligent be diligent while you shop. You might not earn as fast as you spend the money. So please take time ti think & compare before you grab things on grocery.

Nowadays everybody in the world suffers though economics and if you want to survive you have to be smart and wise.

Is It Really Savvy?

2008-06-21T10:16:00.000+07:00

I think you often see “Savvy Shopping at Us Today” or “Savvy Shopping bla bla bla here.” But do you think it will save your money ever?

Savvy meanings buy what is important that you need, it doesn’t have the same meaning with cheap.

Meanwhile the store/grocery you see is offering cheap price on certain/all items. Don’t you think it is economically buying rather than savvy.

If you need to buy a coke for USD 1, but you buy a package contains of 6 cokes for USD 5. What do you think? It’s savvy or economize? You only 1 coke only, but you buy 6 cokes which makes you spend more than you need.

Please realize & differ the economical prices from savvy. Especially in a though economics stage right now, you should be very wise in using your money.

Don’t let “Savvy” promotion trigger your impulse buying attitude. You could do better.

Social Networking

2008-06-04T18:22:00.002+07:00

I write this social networking post for intermezzo…..

I know lots of my friends like blogging, getting involves on certain forum, or else on the internet. Some of them do it for money (because they are truly internet marketers) and lots of them just for fun, they like meeting people and gather a lot of online friends.

Usually they do social networking on friendster, hubpages, myspace, squidoo…. I think you can browse more to know more…. Just type social networking and see what you get.

One of my friends invites me to join a social network last week, and what is so happening is…. This social networking pays for referring people hang out on their site.

At first I am so lazy to join one more social network…. But my friend in so nice that he remind me to give it a try, however I don’t lose anything, I just have to sign up, refer people and have fun there.

Even they have some programs that can generate money easily. So I don’t see why not.

Like my friend said, you can do it just for fun, or do is as one of your business. Or hmmnnnn…. Maybe both, It’s a fun way getting more pocket money.

However, check this social network yourself, or you can just sign up and start to play.

Make Your Own Home Office

2008-05-25T19:26:00.001+07:00

This is not about how to design a home office, but to make sure that it’s so important for work at home moms to have their personal home office.

If you are a working at home mom, I believe you understand how precious is your working time, as you have to make your own time in the middle of family routine, take care of your husband, home & kids (the latest will take your very best, I believe)

Working at home meaning more flexible time schedules, also flexible dress code (you even can work wearing your kimono and slippers), and maybe you are used to access your business phone from your kitchen.

But it’s not recommended for you wearing kimono and slippers while you are working, please moms, be professionals. You are working; this is a business not an evening nap. The clothes you wear will influence your mood & attitude, and you can not risk your business in a wrong attitude. Although you are not wearing a formal cloth, at least you can try to wear a more proper one when you are on your working zone.

Okay, enough with the dress code, we are talking about home office here.

Do you often disturb by your kids when you are working, I mean they grab your files and throw it away, or they use your pen to draw on the wall so when you need it you have to ask their favor to give it back to you?

Imagine you have your own home office, then tell your kids, this is mommy’s office, mommy is not playing around here, mommy work for the good of the family, and can give better education, more toys if mommy work. Not only that, tell your kids that they should not playing on mommy’s office nor disturb mommy when mommy is in her office, it’s like they are not allowed to disturb somebody else on church.

You might not need to have a closed room for your personal office (especially if your house not big enough for you to have a closed room only for you), but you could try to have a working zone, a corner that you could work without disturbance, it’s like your personal zone.

A working zone is also important for you, hopefully it develops your mindset, you are a working at home mom, you have your own business, and you should work there, be professional. Make your own time to work, a time when the kids doing their own activity, time when the family activity is minimum.

A business is not a business yet until you do it. Keep remember this if you want to succeed in your business.

Make Different Account

2008-05-06T21:08:00.001+07:00

Do you know exactly how much you spend for your internet provider this month? Or pay for your domain hosting? And how much you pay for your grocery? Have you paid your rent for the next 6 months? How about your car insurance, is it paid for this 3 months?

How much money do you exactly have in your account right now? Is it enough if you need some emergency funds in the next 3 days? And wait, do you still remember how much you paid for last week lunch with your client?

If you feel you can not answer to those question or questions like that, I think you need to manage your cash book once again. Can not answer such question meaning you might have a mess money management. Maybe you spend too much, maybe you mixed your personal expenses with your business account, which is not good.

Imagine if you mixed your personal account with your business account. You might be forget how much exactly each account has, and then when you feel you still have some extra money, you just don’t realize it is your business money and you should pay some business cost next week using that money….. You will get trouble next week I believe.

Actually it is so simple to manage your accounts if you have your own business. The very first step is having different account for each usage. Open different bank account for your business and your personal money, thus will be best if you have one more account which is your savings (don’t touch this money unless there is a certain emergency).

Have your own policy for each account, like:

For your business account, you will never use the money for your personal use, it only use for the business inflow and outflow. You only pay your business cost, and every business income goes straight to this account. And if you need some money for business emergency, of course you could borrow from another account of yours, just don’t forget to pay it back ;)
For your personal account, you will live only from this money; you cannot borrow money from another account of yours to buy grocery or other personal needs. You must discipline yourself to live with the amount (so calculate how much you need and live with it)
Make an extra account for your savings, the money can come from your business profit (you could take certain percentage from your profit for your savings, beside some profit you might put back to develop your business) and also you might save the rest of your personal money if you could save some.

Having those personal account might be sounds some paperwork, but believe me, it worth. You only have to put the certain money on the right account. It’s like you have a different shoes for different occasion, it’s that simple.

The extra job you should do is periodically prints your book and monitors the amount and the book keeping, it’s that simple, once you get use to it, it will like riding a bicycle.

Having a business meaning you have a responsibility for reaching your goal, this only a small tip that might help you.

You Need a Credit Score

2008-04-17T15:14:00.003+07:00

credit score

Do you know that when you apply for credit card, a car loan, a mortgage, borrow some money to bank or other lenders, they will determine your credit risk by take a close look at your credit report, checking your credit history & view your credit score?

Most credit scoring will be calculated based on your total amount outstanding debt compared with your overall credit limits from all your lenders. Your score will be based on information of your bills payment history, your credit card, your loans or other bills (credit) you ever have.

Do you know that there are credit bureaus that keep file of every payment you make on all your debt to every creditor you have?

That’s all facts should make you understand why actually you need to have a good payment history to keep your credit score high.

And for your information, under a new Federal Law, you have the right to receive a free copy of your credit report once every 12 months from each of the 3 nationwide consumer reporting companies.

By always knowing & improving your credit score, you will qualify yourself for better rates & amount on loans from lenders.

But please understand that each bank & lender have their own scoring system to determine your credit risk. Credit score will range from 300-850. Most people will have score between 600-00. And if you have a score 720 or higher you will be in a better position when you need a mortgage, or any other loan you need.

A survey released by Consumer Federation of America found that lots of American consumers don’t have a good understanding of the importance of their credit report and how it could affect them.

By those facts above, you should give more attention to your credit score by using any credit you have on a high responsibility. You will never know that someday you will need your score, who will ever know that you will ever have to ask for additional card, additional loans (credits)? So, why you put risk on yourself?

What you need to do is actually be your best to pay your every bill on time. It’s that easy. You just need to be responsible of managing your credited amount.

Even if right now you are in a bad credit position, you don’t need to have a low confidence, your credit score will constantly change every month based on your debts, payments and all your credit activity.

Thus now there are many companies that will help you analyze your credit score & help you improving your credit rating. So just get help if you couldn’t help yourself.

Additional fact you should know:
Fritz Elmendorf, the vice president of communication for the Consumer Bankers Association, once said, “If you have a credit score of 700 or higher, you can be confident of qualifying for the best rates. And if you are below 680, you are going to have trouble qualifying for the best rate. But you should still shop for the best rate you qualify for.”

from : http://www.my-pp.info/

When to Teach Your Kids about Money

2008-04-09T22:38:00.001+07:00

pocket money

Nowadays, money is a general issue among all ages. Not only adult who are concerned about it, but kids also worry about their allowances.

Kids cannot earn money themselves because of their age, and this fact may cause them not appreciative about the value of money they get. Kids only realized that they need money to buy ice creams, toys, and else. When they beg long enough, they will get what they want.

It is an important issue for parents to teach their kids about money, where it comes from, how to get it, how they should use it and else.

The best time to teach your kids about money depends on their maturity of understanding things and their mathematical level. Do they understand denomination, numbers, and basic mathematical ability (such as addition, substraction, multiplication)?

You can learn whether your kids are ready for allowance responsibility. You will notice when they can resist the temptation of what they want, whether they can delay their gratification, and whether they understand that sometimes they cannot buy whatever they want.

Above all, your kids will actually learn about money themselves by following your examples. Kids learn fast from what they see and not from what you say. That is why it is important for them if you could lead a good example about how to deal with money.

What to Teach Your Kids about Money

2008-04-03T19:11:00.001+07:00

Pocket Money

When your kids understand the difference between each money denomination, they are supposed to be able to determine how much they should pay for ice cream, candy, snacks, etc.

What you should teach them is the responsibility in regards to their personal allowance. An allowance will be a useful teaching tool to pass each money lesson to your kids.

There are several things you can teach by giving allowance to your kids:

The resistance of temptation.
It is important for kids to understand that they have to make choices on what they want as they cannot have it all. They have to train themselves on what to buy, and when.

The importance of savings.
Kids supposed to have their own savings to buy things beyond their allowance. They should wait until they have enough money to buy it. Kids can discipline themselves to save at least 10% of their allowance for their unpredictable needs.

The usage of bookkeeping.
You may teach your kids to take a note of their allowance, savings and expenditures so that they will learn to see how they spend their money. This habit will bring the kids advantages in the future as they will hold more money than an allowance.

The ability of logical thinking.
By giving them the chance to manage their own allowance and freedom to buy what they want with their allowance, you develop the ability of logical thinking on your kids. They will learn how much the normal price of an ice cream, which one is better whether buying books or buying a sticker. By giving them chances to analyse their expenditures, you actually develop their logical thinking.

The knowledge that money has to be earned.
You can offer your kids for some extra allowance by doing housework within their age, such as watering the garden, washing dishes, help you wash the car and else. They will appreciate the money that they earn themselves.

There are still a lot of things to teach your kids about money. It is important to teach them to be responsible as soon as they can understand.

Responsibility is like a habit, it has to be trained and disciplined

Pocket Money 101 ......for Your Kid

2008-03-22T21:57:00.001+07:00

As working moms maybe you are so busy already with your personal business and make your kids lack of attentions. To some people it may end buying their kids attention by giving more money allowance.

Maybe then you doubt about when, how much and how often your kid will need allowance. But remember that it’s more to keep an eye on how he is using the money.

So here are some issues you ‘d better know about your kid’s pocket money:

Do you need to give allowance to your little kid?
When your kid is still a little boy and stay around you, actually he does not need allowance. What you need to do is only telling him that you will try to fulfill what his needs are, he just has to ask. When he is older and often left alone at home, you might need to give him some allowance to buy extra food.

What happens if your kid play with the ‘rich’ kids ?
It will bring you headache when your kid play around with the ‘rich’ kids on the neighborhood whose parents might earn a lot of money. If this happens, you should explain to him that although he does not have much allowance comparing to his friends, he still can have fun and play with them, also teach them that money has nothing to do with the value of a person.

When is the best time to teach your kid about savings account?
For a kid under 5 years old, it is best for him to use the “Piggy Bank’ at home. When he is 8-12 years old, you might need to open a bank savings account under his own name. At this age, you can start to teach him about the interests he will earn. This lesson might give him the idea to cut his expenditures and put the money into his account.

What else should you teach your kid about his savings?
Well, you can tell him that on the money he saves, he has the right to use it to buy something he needs, maybe he wants to buy a personal gift. This lesson will teach him the freedom to manage (use) his own money.

As your kid grows older, you can add his allowance, until he can manage to fulfill his own needs. What you need to achieve here is to train him to have a balance between what he has and his expenditures, between his needs and impulsive shopping.

A kid can be ridiculously mad at his parents when you refuse to buy what he wants. On the other hand, you might buy expensive clothes for your spouse as a present. In this case, you can tell him that what you buy is an exceptional, and next time there will be another family member who will be granted the special items for a special occasion.

As good parents, you often need to give your kid a punishment when it is needed. It is advisable for you not to cut his allowance as a punishment. The impact of your punishment may create a new problem for your kid. Your kid may have a plan to buy a present for his birthday friend, and he will feel ashamed as he has to broke his promise, he will feel worry and maybe afraid to be rejected by his friends. It is better for you to think of another punishment.

How much should you give your kid for allowance?
It depends on what he needs. The allowance should not be too little or too much. When you have an extra income or salary increased, you should not be obligated to give him more than it should be. He should understand that his allowance is a part of flexibility you give as parents.

What should you do when your kid ask you for more allowance?
You can say yes if he has a logical reason of why you should give him extra. You need to tell him that the special case should not become a habit. Instead of asking you for more, he can make a choice next time he needs something.

How about giving your kid extra money for doing housework?
Actually, be a part of housework is a must for the family members, However, you should be careful for this issue. Your kid may refuse you next time you ask him a favor when there is no money involved. It is better for you to give him a chance to earn money only once in a while, do not make it as a habit.

The final question every parent might ask is…. When can you stop giving him allowance?

Well, in this case, you should wait until he is an adult and can earn money for him self. When this time comes, you can stop giving him allowance, and change into giving him support to save and manage what he earns wisely

Tips for working at home moms

2008-03-14T20:11:00.003+07:00

working woman

Often moms choose to run a home based business for extra earning, so they still can have quality time with their children & family.

However, business is business to be run although often moms can’t make a business time alone. It needs extra effort to work without children annoyance.

So, I want to share 5 tips for working at home moms:

Give your children something to do. When you needs concentration, better to do it when children go to school or have somebody play & watch over them.
Make yourself a working space, better if you have your own home office. But if you don’t have extra room, a corner space of your own would be enough. Explain to your kids that this is mommy office and mommy should not be bothered when she is working there.
Make yourself a schedule. It’s important as without a schedule you will tend to working around on so many things but not achieve much. And the most important thing, do your schedule without any excuses.
Be professional, although you might be used to wear whatever you like at home, you should look at yourself as a businessman. This will improve your business attitude as well.
Give your spouse understanding; ask him to help you with the children especially when you are busy. But please however family comes first as the main reason you are running home based business is for having quality time with your family.
Make list to do for your household activity as well, so you can be sure that it’s well taking care of.

Hope that list helps you working better at home.

You won’t be perfect at the beginning, but as the time goes by, I am sure you will be a better and efficient working at home moms. Don’t worry.

And if you have more opinions, suggestions, please feel free to write to me on the email below, Perhaps I would put it in this blog to be shared with other as well.

Working Moms

2008-03-03T20:24:00.000+07:00

Working woman

Today I read my friend’s blog, and she tells her story as ‘working moms’. It’s very interesting, when she said that what challenge her to work from home is because she can not get up early in the morning, so wake up and go to the office is so not her.

Also that she want to be with her kids most of the time give her no choice than working from home. She can continue her sleep after the kids go to school. And then she can work at her own flexible time.

So, how about you? How about your wife? Are those 2 reasons gives enough reason to start a home business? Maybe you are interested in the growing up of internet business?

My friend said that it’s not easy at all to start work at home, to leave all the comfort she got from her monthly salary and benefit. But she has no choice. She wants quality time with her family.

And when it comes to the times of troubles, she keep on fighting, she stop to rest before she continue to fight the problems. What a mom she is.

She started as a freelance on the internet with USD 10 per article, and then she sold her friend product with 10% commission, and here she is now…. She can live well from her income (so sorry that I don’t mention her name here, as her blog is in Indonesian language only).

When you ask her whether she is satisfied with her achievement, she humbly said, satisfaction is not only about money, but family quality time also counted.

Talking about her dream, she dream to help others, not only material help but also motivate others to start a home based business.

What a woman and what a mom she is. My full respect for her.

Don’t you want to be like her? It must be great to work at home, give more choices of being a mom and working at the same time.

Imagine, by being a working mom, you not only achieve something for yourself, but also you are leading an example for your daughters that being a mom is not meaning all you career is over. A mom could be as productive as before and even more.

Please have a thought to be someone you want to be, someone who could bring good thing to her love ones.

How to Start a Retail Business

2008-02-23T20:06:00.001+07:00

Also I find this interesting article for you….. hope could be useful for all of you.

How to Start a Retail Business... Even If You Know Nothing About Retail
By Michael Masterson

Lots of people who want to get into business for themselves come up with the idea of opening a store. They hope it will provide them with income and, presumably, some equity that they can "cash in" or perhaps leave to their children. This is a common entrepreneurial dream. It seems pretty simple. People come in. You help them shop. They buy stuff. You make a profit.

Of course, it's not that easy.

Kristie Parks knows that, and that's why she wrote to me recently. She's a 48-year-old woman who doesn't have any business background. But her plan is to open a shop where she can sell clothes and other related products.

"Something went wrong when my husband and I purchased a house. I have less funds now. But I was just about to rent a shop and fill it with clothes and start to sell," Kristie wrote. "Then I read something in ETR that made me think I might go wrong again."

My first recommendation for Kristie - and anyone else who wants to make a living with a retail operation - is to buy a copy of my newest book, Ready, Fire, Aim. (It will be published in January.) It explains what I know about launching and growing all kinds of entrepreneurial businesses.

As I point out in the book, most retail businesses fail. The main reason they fail is because they are opened by people who have no experience. They don't know which products will sell and which won't. They don't know how to price their merchandise. They don't know anything about the management side of the business. But most of all, they don't know how to get enough customers to walk through their door.

That's the biggest problem. Not knowing how to bring in prospects and turn them into cash customers. There are many examples in the book that will give you ideas about how to do that. There are also some important rules and principles to follow during the first, critical stage of your business's growth. But rather than have you wait till the book comes out in two months, here are a few steps you can start taking now:

Step 1. Figure out how many dollars' worth of products you will need to sell in order to pay all your expenses every month. Not just product costs but overhead as well. Let's say that number is $10,000.

Step 2. Find out how much the average customer spends on a purchase in similar stores in your local area. You can do this by making friends with shop owners and asking them. Let's say the average customer spends $25.

Step 3. Divide the total dollars you need by the amount of the average sale. That will tell you how many paying customers you need to bring in every month to survive. $10,000 divided by $25 is 400. So you need to bring in 400 paying customers every month.

Step 4. During the start-up phase of your business, you should be spending most of your time on advertising. So now develop a marketing plan that will attract that many customers. Run this plan by anyone you know who has retail experience to make sure it is sound.

Step 5. Make any needed revisions to your marketing plan, and then get to work implementing it.

There are plenty of other things I talk about in Ready, Fire, Aim that may be helpful to you. Among them:

Don't sign a long-term lease or buy a shop during your first year. In fact, try not to get yourself into any sort of debt.
Choose a strong retail location with good pass-by traffic - traffic that would be interested in the type of products you will be selling.
While you are still testing your marketing plan, keep your advertising expenses as low as possible. It may take several years to arrive at a strategy that works. Make sure you have enough money in the bank to last until you can figure that out.
Come up with a USP (unique selling proposition) for your store. What can you offer customers that nobody else in the neighborhood can?

Those are just a few ideas to get you started. You'll find lots more in the book.

Why Would Someone Want to Buy What You're Selling?

2008-02-19T21:46:00.001+07:00

Today, as I am looking for ideas, I find this interesting article by my favorite writer on my collection.

I think this article could be useful for you who looking for something to sell, at least you have to find out what kind of product are you going to getting involved with.

Why Would Someone Want to Buy What You're Selling?
By Michael Masterson

There are two kinds of products: need-to-have products and want-to-have products. Knowing which kind you are selling is critically important to your success.

Need-to-have products include houses, furniture, food, water, and electricity. Selling these products is usually a matter of providing good value. The great thing about need-to-have products is that customers keep on buying them. The difficulty is that you are usually competing against a host of like products - so the pressure to keep rates low is enormous. (Think airline travel. Think coffee.)

Want-to-have products include jewelry, perfume, draperies, and art. To sell these products, you need to create a perceived value for them. You also need to create the desire in your customers to own them - and that takes a great deal of skill. What's great about want-to-have products is that they tend to be viewed as being unique. So if you promote them properly, you can charge a lot of money.

Most products are not clearly one way or the other. In that case, you need to make a decision as to which way you are going to push your marketing.

Take coffee, for example. If you want to sell your coffee beans to the need-to-drink market, you'll have to accept very small profit margins. You'll have to cut big deals and move a ton of beans. Once locked in with vendors, you might enjoy very good ongoing business and very nice (though small, percentage-wise) profits. But you won't have to keep on selling very hard.

If, on the other hand, you want to position your coffee beans to the want-to-drink market, you will have to come up with a good reason why people should pay a premium price for them - and you'll have to keep the creative process going to continue to support your argument.

Am I ready to be an Entrepreneur?

2008-02-15T21:01:00.001+07:00

Becoming an entrepreneur

Do you sometimes have that question in mind? Feeling doubt about your ability or maybe even thinking whether you need to have your own business. I am telling you it is normal, very normal.

When you are thinking whether you need to have your own business, I will strongly say, “Yes you need it, and you will realized the advantages later on.” I don’t think you will be happy going to office 9 to 5 everyday when you are 52 years old. I think you will prefer to stay at home arranging everything from home because you have to attend your daughter’s rehearsal in the afternoon. And you will enjoy many family times when you are doing your own business.

I am an optimist, I always believe where there is a will there will be a way. If you decide to have your own business, you just have to dig your own ability and develop it to the best stages.

Being an entrepreneur, meaning you have to be optimist, positive thinking even in troubles, be creative and have a problem solving orientation. Everybody has the undiscovered ability to be independent, including you, maybe you just don’t realize it yet.

So don’t doubt on yourself, you can do it. Maybe it takes a while for somebody and longer time for you. But it’s only about time, not about what you can or can not achieve.

When you decide, “Okay I will try my best and start taking action to be an entrepreneur.” You will find that your brain start making steps…. Figuring out ideas what are you going to sell, who is your target market, how you can promote the items, how much money you need to start with, etc….

Decide what you want is the very first step. Once you decide to be an entrepreneur, you already take your first step towards financially independent. You are ready to be an entrepreneur as you dare to make decision for your future.

If you decide to take your first step after you read this, I will be more than happy for you. But if you still doubt, I believe your time will come….. maybe only take longer days….

Have a nice day, God bless you all…..

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY

2008-02-14T10:32:00.000+07:00

Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you; May the spirit of sharing of love colors your day not only today, but everyday throughout the years.

Today is not about a gift, but sharing love, attention and caring to everybody around you.

Don’t Give Me a Fish on Valentine’s Day

2008-02-08T19:59:00.000+07:00

My Valentine Present
Have you ever heard people saying “Please don’t give me a fish today, because I will only eat fish one day; but teach me how to fish, so I can eat fish everyday”

The very first time I heard about that was on university, someday my lecturer just teach us that philosophy. It’s very interesting and sounds so true to me, that’s why I memorize it until today.

Okay, back to our topic. Are you going to give your love ones present on Valentine’s Day? Or maybe you were asked what do you want for present?

If you still don’t decide any present yet, let me give you some suggestions. How about if you teach your spouse, kids, family to fish on Valentine’s day? And you don’t even have to bring them to the river, lake, or even sea that they may don’t like.

Let me bring the idea closer to you, imagine if your kids grow smarter, your spouse become wiser, nicer and more self confidence on themselves. Doesn’t it beautiful?

What you’d better do is just to stimulate them (teach them how to fish). I will give you example to make it simpler.

Your wife maybe has a dream on having a home based business, she like to cook and can cook very well. So what can you do? There’s a lot you can do, you can give her a ticket to have a cooking course, so she can cook professionally, or give her ticket to attend home business seminar that may teach her how to build and manage a home business.

And if your husband like to gardening on weekend; you can give him a new invented gardening tool. But don’t stop there, ask him to improve his skill and talk about the possibility to sell some of his flowers & plants to neighbors. Not only your husband could have fun, but there will be extra income for the family. Even if you don’t want to sell plants, you could give it as a gift for friend who is moving home, having birthday, etc, so you don’t need to spend money on buy a present. It must be a special gift, I will be more than happy if my friend gives me his own breed plant, it’s more than a gift, it is attention.

For your kids who must like to play or to read, give something they need and can help them develop better. You could give puzzle to challenge their brain, after they finish the puzzle, put it on frame and hang it on their bedroom or even your living room. They must be proud of it; and you know such thing can boost their self confidence also at the same time.

Hmmm…. Talking about parents may a little bit difficult, what can we give them? Maybe a full day just to be with them? Sure why not? You may be busy almost everyday, so they will appreciate your effort to spend your time with them, both of you can have a really good time together.

And talking about ‘fishing’ with parent, maybe you can give them some tools or anything that can help their daily activity. If your mom like cooking, why don’t you give her a slow cooker, so she can cook and doing household at the same time. And believe me, a slow cooker can cook very well itself (My mom often use it when she is too busy to cook).

Buy your dad a table lamp; I think he will like it. Usually old people like to read but they don’t have good visibility, a good lamp will help them.

You could give anything to your love ones, but it must be better idea if you could give them something that not only bring joy, but can add a value added to their life. It’s love, attention, and a gift at the same time.

You don’t need to buy an expensive present; price is worthless comparing with love, attention and sincerity.

Let your love ones know how much you love them today, don’t wait until tomorrow for you don’t know what will happen tomorrow.

Earning Money on Valentine’s Day. Why not?

2008-02-01T19:35:00.000+07:00

Valentine's Day

Beside the spirit of love, don’t you think that it’s a good idea to put a little pocket money during Valentine’s day? I mean, you can earn some pocket money for your piggy bank. Don’t you think so?

Looks around, I think many people including you might go shop around for flowers, chocolates, gifts, anything to surprise their love ones. Don’t you think it could be a chance for you to earn money?

Okay, let me give you a little idea about how you could make money. What you have to do is fulfill the demand of those shoppers around you.

To be more specific, I will give some steps:

Find an idea. Meaning, such as you have a friend who has flower shop and he could give you some discount, or you can make chocolate based on your grandmother’s old recipe (you could name it Chocolate of Love, if you want) or anything else you can do that work on Valentine’s day.
Is it enough? Well not yet, a plain idea won’t bring you anything. Do some research, whether there’s any market for your product. And don’t forget to look around for your competitors (this is also important to make your product unique, different from them).
After those brainstorming, you could decide what do you going to sell. You could sell product or services (maybe nanny service, during Valentine’s day, why not?
Make a packaging, it can make your product unique (everybody could make chocolate, but maybe you package your chocolate in a bouquet together with a rose and not only that you offer a romantic delivery service). And make a fair affordable price (nowadays as we all realize, economics is getting harder that make people more careful on their spending, why should pay more if you could pay less?)
Promote your products or services, make brochures (and make samples if needed, so people sure about what kind of chocolate they are going to give to their love ones)
And after you sell those things, please don’t forget to make a follow up, ask them whether they are satisfied with your services. This is important, you could build your customer list and offer them your service on another occasions (Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc).

I believe there will be more you can do except that simple steps, what you need only creativity. And if you feel you can not do those business things alone, you could consider working together with your friend, and share the profit with him. Everything is possible, where is a will, there is a way.

Valentine is Getting Closer

2008-02-01T19:31:00.000+07:00

Time runs fast, without our notice Valentine’s day getting closer. Not more than 2 weeks the world will be talking about Valentine, especially teenagers and youngsters.

Valentine is about love, about giving. You can give attentions, gifts, nice surprises, whatever more than usual to your spouse, family, friends, whoever around you, even to strangers.

The spirit of Valentine is what we should bring everyday, not only once a year. Imagine if everyday of your life is full with love, no envy, hate, or any negative feeling, I believe the world would be just beautiful.

So please, take time to think what do you going to do on this Valentine, make it just different from before. You don’t have to change the world, but you can try to make your day brighter, and put smile on others.

Accelerating Your Retirement: Start Your Own Business (2)

2008-01-24T17:03:00.000+07:00

By Michael Masterson

8 Important Things to Know About Business

Apart from starting (and sticking to) a what is already working (and not getting too fancy), I've discovered eight secrets to making a start-up business work.

Business doesn't happen until you make the first sale.Buying office furniture and printing cards doesn't make the business go. Selling product does. Yes, there are some initial preparations you need to make - but until you have that first check in hand, all you're really doing is spending money.
The single most effective way of entering a new market is to offer a popular product at a significantly reduced price. In every industry, there is a good market for specialty and high-quality product producers - but capturing a reasonable share of those niche market segments takes money, time, and experience. When starting a new business, you are usually short in these three essentials. That's why it's better to resist the allure of high-priced, prestige products in favor of selling the most desired products and services at ludicrously cheap prices. If you can figure out how to undersell the giants, you will be in a very happy starting place.
It's ultimately about selling. Conventional business wisdom says you make money when you buy, not when you sell. I disagree. Great businesspeople make their fortunes by increasing the perceived value of their products, thus inflating prices and measurably increasing profit margins. (Think Chanel, Rolex, Range Rover.)
When choosing a business, select one that can be grown without your personal involvement. Many businesses - especially those built around the personality or drive of a single person - depend for their growth on the commitment of the founder. Avoid this type of business. It severely limits your growth potential. Make sure your business can expand with the addition of more money, property, or people - but not more of you.
Have an exit plan.Before you invest your time or money in any business (or anything else, for that matter), know exactly how much you are willing to lose - and get out if you hit that stop-loss point.
Focused effort is more effective than a diversified approach to business building. Ambitious people tend to fall into two groups: those who focus on one project at a time and those who spread themselves out on many projects. The focused approach allows you to acquire mastery faster. The diversified approach gives you more balance. I've done both. And although I'm naturally inclined toward diversification, I've had the most success and made the most money from the focused work.
Let your winners run and cut your losses short. Most business ideas or ventures that begin poorly, fail. This is a very important to learn. It's easy to get emotionally attached to projects/investments we believe in. But, when the marketplace tells you that your great idea is a loser, you shouldn't keep pushing. Close the project and minimize your losses. If you really have a good idea, it will come back to you in the future in another, perhaps better, set of clothing.
Pareto's Principle (the 80-20 Rule): 80% of your success comes from 20% of your resources.Most of the success/income/satisfaction you will get in your career will come from a small portion of your skills/projects/efforts. Make it a habit to ask yourself, "Where am I getting most of the benefit here?" and compare that to where you are putting in the most work.

Having your own business is the fastest (and most satisfying) way to a happy, wealthy retirement. So if you don't already have a good idea for starting a side business spend some time thinking about it.

To give yourself the best odds of being successful, either start a business that is already very close to the work you do now, or get a job working for a business in the industry you want to enter.

Accelerating Your Retirement: Start Your Own Business (1)

2008-01-23T08:51:00.000+07:00

By Michael Masterson

How to Make Your Start-Up Business Profitable in Year One

You can invest a small amount of money (and a lot of hard work and well-spent time) in a small business and see it grow into a business that is worth a million in seven years. And you'll greatly increase your chances for success by having a plan - by knowing exactly what you need to do.

A typical start-up business that's close to what you already know should break even or lose a little money in year one, make a decent "salary" for you in year two, and provide a substantial bonus for you - in additional to a good, arm's-length management salary - in year three.

To make your business profitable in year one, figure out what you need, in terms of new customer revenue, to bring a profit to the bottom line. Then devote at least 80% of your resources - your time and money - to achieving that new customer revenue goal.

The key is to follow a program that breaks long-term goals down into shorter-term objectives and finally specific tasks. Each individual task should be something that can be accomplished fairly quickly. In terms of your marketing objectives, for example, individual tasks might look something like this:

Stop by three offices and leave brochures.
Call up such-and-such group and see if they would like to have you give a talk.
Buy a quarter-page ad in the local newspaper.

Put all of these small achievements together and you can achieve remarkable success in a very short period of time.

(continue)

Accelerating Your Retirement: Start Your Own Business

2008-01-22T11:50:00.000+07:00

By Michael Masterson

While many people fail in business, many more succeed. If you subtract the foolish failures - restaurants being the most foolish, followed by any sort of glamour business (think travel, bed & breakfast, sports, celebrity) or retail business - the number of successes far outweigh the failures.

When starting a business, you can drastically reduce your risk of failure by becoming an expert in two areas:

First you must understand everything you can about the products and/or services you will be selling.
Second, you must become competent (and eventually masterful) at the specific marketing skills you need to sell them.

How do you become an expert in two things simultaneously?

The best way I know is to get a job working for the type of business you want to start.

Think of your employment as a paid training program. Work fifty or sixty hours a week (even if they don't pay you a nickel extra) absorbing everything you can. Pay particular attention to people and situations that help you understand how the business works.

By learning "on the job," you'll develop skills and accumulate ideas that will make starting your own business a hundred times easier. Some of these skills will be of a more general kind, like writing effective memos, pitching ideas at meetings, handling troublesome people, etc. Some of them will be more targeted: such as how to write persuasive copy or how to select lists of names to send promotions to.

The same will be true of the ideas you get. Some will be small - a clever way to run a meeting, a useful technique for following up on delegations, etc. And some will be big, powerful and very exciting.

The more you learn, the easier it will be to add to your knowledge and the more eager you'll become to start your own business. Try to resist that temptation until you've invested at least 600 hours in learning the product/service side of the industry and another 600 learning the marketing.

Remember, any complex skill takes about 1000 hours to learn and even if you have good teaching, you still need at least 600 hours before you know enough to avoid the obvious mistakes.

When it comes to launching your business, don't reinvent the wheel. Come up with a product and a marketing position that is 80% to 90% the same as what your most successful competitors are doing.

Remember, there is a good reason that they are successful. By investing 600+ hours into learning the product/service part of the business and another 600+ hours on the marketing, you should already have a good idea about why things work. But you aren't yet an expert. It takes much more time (about 5000 hours) to do that.

And that's why you have to proceed with caution - one small step at a time. Yes, you should try new things, but as I said they should be only 10% to 20% new. Taking this sort of conservative approach will not limit your growth because you will be able to "catch up" later. If you aren't careful and try something entirely new and different, chances are it will fail - however good you think the idea is. Remember: the key idea is this: until you've had 5000 hours of experience, you are not an expert. Don't act like one.

(continue)

2008-01-22T11:35:00.000+07:00

Now, I am going to share one of my favorite article from Michael Masterson’s Newsletter.

I will plainly put what he wrote without any editing, and I will post it into 3 times, because the article is quiet long, so I hope it will be better and easier to be read in pieces.

Hope you can find something useful for your own “Financial War”.

6 Reasons Why Moms should Work

2008-01-22T11:30:00.000+07:00

Financially Independent
Today, I read a magazine that reminds me once again about how important for Moms to have their own ‘bread’, not only for themselves but also for the family.

And herewith, I will say the 6 reasons:

By having personal income, Moms can help their husband to fulfill the family needs. Two is stronger than one, anyway.
Minimize the Risk of Family Financing, if something unwanted happened to their husband (accident, fired, etc), Moms still have incomes, that hopefully can run the family.
With more than one source of income, means more money. That makes the whole family can live better and have more choices on doing the savings and investment.
Working moms will have more self confidence, instead of the chance to explore themselves. They will be proud of what they’ve done.
Moms who are entrepreneurs are even better. Who knows that someday when their husband retired, together they can develop the small business into a family business?
By having their own income, Moms can buy whatever they want (of course within their own financial range); it means Moms don’t have to have a disagreement with their husband if they want to buy something that might be considered “unimportant”.

But like I mentioned months ago, a working woman (Moms) should not forget their family. Remember that Moms working not for competing with their husband. Family comes first.

Maybe Moms have more reasons to work?

2008 Financial Goals

2008-01-15T09:29:00.000+07:00

Review

So, have you already make a review on your 2007 Financial Condition? I mean, have you taken a look at your deposit amount, your house value, your business growth, your job review? What do you achieve actually on 2007?

Congratulations if you made it, but it’s still not too late for you to make a review now. It’s very important for you, based on that review you can see whether you are on the right track towards your financial goals or on the other hand, you are losing your tracks.

Your 2007 achievement can be good or not so good, but the point is the review can give you clues on what you should do on 2008.

If your deposit is too little comparing to your incomes, well might be you should take a close look at your spending, whether you spend too much at useless things. And if your business doesn’t grow, try to find the cause, so that you can perform better this year.

I am sure nobody wants to work for nothing. Nobody wants to live just to breathe the air without achieving much. Are you? It’s like going to nowhere land.

It’s still on the New Year’s air, so it will be a good idea for all of you to write your 2008 Financial Goals, and please be specific; like “I want to save USD 10,000.00 by December 2008, my business will earn more and grow 25% this year, and so on”. Just be specific with what you want.

After declare what you want to achieve financially, try to make a plan on how you can get it. Let’s say that you are going to put aside 10% of your income on time deposit, you are going to launch a new promotion plan by March, you are going to learn about investment, etc…… brainstorming on what you can do, see the possibility, and make your action.

Review all your effort on certain scheduled, so you can be sure whether you are still on track, and make changes when it’s needed.

Good Luck guys, Let’s make 2008 your best year. God bless you all.

Be Specific

2008-01-09T10:30:00.000+07:00

A Plan (strategy) is like guidance. Can you give direction by just telling turn left, then right, then left again; go straight, and so on? Well, I don’t think I am going to understand that kind of direction.

It’s more acceptable by my brain if you just say, “You can turn right on the next block, then walk along for 2 blocks, turn right again, walk for another 4 blocks and you will find a blue painted building, and on that point please turn left, walk along until you find number 24, the house you are looking for.”

See? It’s easier to get to the house number 24 with the more detail directions, and by that I am sure you will get there sooner without any delay.

By that story I am trying to say that the more details your plan is, the easier and the sooner you can achieve your goals. Be specific in you plan.

New Year Resolution

2008-01-03T14:04:00.000+07:00

Everyone around you maybe discussing the 2008 resolution, and I believe everyone has their own personal goals this year, including you :)

Maybe you want a better job, a better health, get more incomes, everything on a better condition, even best achievement.

But the thing is…… how to get it? It’s only one simple answer….. Make your Actions. You can not achieve anything if you do nothing. More specific, make a plan of how you are going to achieve your goals.

Let me give you an example: You are going to have a party. Okay….. a party, so I am sure you have to make a certain list for going make that party come true. Your check list might be like this:

What’s the theme of your party, whether it’s just a casual dinner, a cocktail party, standing party or else. Is that certain dress code to make the party well remembered?
Who are your guests? Family, friends, best friends, neighbors?
What are you going to serve? Or you are going to make everything simple by telling your guests to bring something for everybody (pot luck)?
When is your party going to start? And for how long?
And so on….

See, you have to make a plan just to have a 2-3 hours party. So don’t tell me you don’t have any plan for your life J I think your life is much-much important than a party.

So, my point is, make a plan if you don’t have one. And work on your plan when you already have it. But be flexible, everything changing, so sometimes you have to make some changes on your plan. Have a blessed year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008

2008-01-01T10:06:00.000+07:00

Happy New Year to all of you,

May all of you be blessed with good health, loves, happiness & success....

May all your dreams be completed on 2008

And thank you for reading my blog, I hope I can give you more this year.

Privacy Policy

2008-01-01T08:42:00.002+07:00

The privacy of our visitors to this site is important to us.

At this site, we recognize that privacy of your personal information is important. Here is information on what types of personal information we receive and collect when you use visit this site, and how we safeguard your information. We never sell your personal information to third parties.

Log Files
As with most other websites, we collect and use the data contained in log files. The information in the log files include your IP (internet protocol) address, your ISP (internet service provider, such as AOL or Shaw Cable), the browser you used to visit our site (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox), the time you visited our site and which pages you visited throughout our site.

Cookies and Web Beacons
We do use cookies to store information, such as your personal preferences when you visit our site. This could include only showing you a popup once in your visit, or the ability to login to some of our features, such as forums.

We also use third party advertisements on this blog to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geo targeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

You can chose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.

Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on this site.

Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to our users based on their visit to our sites and other sites on the Internet.

As a user, you may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google Ad and content network privacy policy.

Time Management

2007-12-18T09:51:00.000+07:00

time management

When you already have one fine car for your daily activity, will you still want another car? Will it be a family car or sports car?

I am sure everybody wants to have more on cars, houses, shoes, money, anything. Maybe it’s for fun, maybe to show who they are. Whatever the reason, it’s always feels great when you have something to be proud of.

But why is that not everybody want a second job? Are you too tired? Are you too busy? Maybe both, but you should understand that time is in your hand, everybody has the same 24 hours a day, but why is that somebody else can do more activities than you? For my opinion, it means that although you are busy, you are not productive.

Time management will be a good solution for you. Write down your daily tasks, write it in priorities. Do what is important first.

On a time management, you should differentiate “urgency” and “importance”. What is considers urgent doesn’t always mean it is important. I will give you an example. Your cell phone is ringing while you are driving home. Pick up the call sounds like urgency. But does it important? How about if it’s only a call from your neighbor for talking about newest gossips in the neighborhood?

What is consider as urgency or importance is on your own privacy. Nobody knows more than you. My point is that you should put priorities on your tasks. Or you will mislead yourself, you will do lots of tasks, but at the end of the day you find that nothing is achieved.

My goal of writing this issue is to tell you that it’s possible for everybody to have another jobs or businesses. The key is on time management and commitments. Maybe you will live in scheduled, but it is only temporarily.

Often happened people just do not want to leave their comfort zone. They don’t want to change their habits. People prefer have a “beauty sleep” in the afternoon than using that time to learn something new.

What you can do is all about a choice. You may say you can’t do it, you are not able to do it, don’t have enough time to do it. It’s all about choices, you can learn, you can make time, you can do anything you want if you put your mind into it. Like Nicky, “Just Do It.”

Christmas Holiday Ideas

2007-12-15T22:26:00.000+07:00

Christmas would have the same meaning with holiday and celebration. People, including you would like to have a certain plan to celebrate the special event with spouse or family, whether just having a family gathering, or vacation somewhere in the country or going abroad.

But somehow, you don’t have enough budgets to do what you want, or don’t have the idea about where to go, what to do, etc. Actually it is not a problem, as the event itself should be taken as a chance to build your relationship closer, no matter where you go, what you do, as long as you enjoy and being together with your love ones, I think it’s what its count.

However, here’s some idea for you to celebrate your Christmas holiday:

Stay at home, renting nice VCD and DVD, then enjoy the films together with your love ones.
Exploring places of interest on your neighborhood, either it’s a lake, garden, forest garden maybe you could have a picnic there.
Going abroad to a new place you never went before. You could browse the internet to make the whole plan, as it very easy now to book everything (tickets, hotel, tours, and other accommodations) from the internet. And sometimes you would get special internet rate or a special early booking discount. (You could try to get Interesting Vacation Tips Offers)
How about visiting your parents or grandparents that you hardly to visit on working days? I believe they would more than happy to have you there with them. Elderly people sometimes feel lonely and useless, make them feel precious, pamper them on this Christmas, be a blessing one another. They will be happy to see you and your family.
Have a traveling by car together with your best friends and their family, Friend is a jewel, you should take a good care of them. Sometimes when you need help on your hard days, do you remember who stands by you? Have a good time with them. You don’t get best friends everyday, you should appreciate what you have.
How about making your Christmas holiday productive? Actually you can re-arrange your home interior if you want. Or you can do some changes on your garden. It would be fun to have a new environment for the whole family. It will like have a new house without moving anywhere.
Want to earn money on Christmas? Why not? You can sell Christmas cake, help your neighbors taking care of their pet when they are on their trip, sell items for busy people that have no time to shop for their Christmas gifts. It’s plenty of things you can figure out.
How about make a difference on this Christmas? You could join the nearest church or other organization to be one of their volunteers. You will feel good if you could be part of the humanity, part of the neighborhood. Maybe you only doing a small action, but it mean a lot for they who need it. Maybe they will take you to nursing home and have a Christmas celebration there, but could you imagine how happy those elder people having all of you together on Christmas? You could make a difference on somebody else life if you want.

I believe besides all of that idea, there are still lots of things you can do on this Christmas. Let this Christmas be different, not only for you but also for your surrounding. Don’t only let your Christmas be a hip celebration, make it to be a meaningful and unforgettable Christmas for everybody, especially your loves ones.

Teaching Your Kids about Money

2007-12-09T10:02:00.000+07:00

pocket money

I believe as parents you want to give all the best things in the world to your children. That is why you work so hard during weekdays, even doing overtime on weekends.

You want them to have a lot of toys, attending good schools, having higher education. It is not enough if you cannot give them holidays, presents and satisfactory pocket money.

What should be underlined is, do not you ever spoil your kids. Spoiling them now will only bring suffering to them in the future.

Teach your kids that money has to be earned and it is not just coming like Santa Claus putting Christmas presents for them. They cannot always get what they want, not because you do not love them.

Nowadays, a lot of parents are busy with their careers and businesses until there are not much time left for the kids. This fact make them feel guilty and they give too much pocket money, so the children can have fun with themselves.

I want you to see it as a problem in the future as:

You cannot always give them all the things they want all the time. When giving (spoiling) becomes a habit, it will be hard to teach your children about controlling their desires.
You are maybe rich now, but can you guarantee for the rest of their life that they will always live in wealth? It will not be easy to change lifestyle extremely at once, and if you do not want to hurt your children, better you teach them a standard lifestyle that can make them survive during hard times.
Your kids someday will have a family of their own. If you teach them wrong, the bad habits might be passed to them later.
It is important to teach your children how to survive (financially) when they are young.

Here for those reasons, I would like to give you some tips on what to teach kids about money:

You can occasionally take them to your office and let them stay to see while you are working. Later you explain to them why you have to work. What is expected here not only their appreciation to their parents, but also their understanding about money matter.
Give them enough pocket money (enough value as needed by the average kids at their age).

Teach them to make a budget, giving them the understandings they need to have their own savings to be useful in an emergency.

Give them pocket money on daily basis as a starting point. After they manage it well, you can change into weekly basis and then to monthly basis. Let them learn how to stick to their budget. It is also important to train them to control their temptations to shop around when they have “some” money at once in their pocket.

Give them a piggy bank for the first step. Later on when they have some deposits of their own, take them to your bank and open an account for them under their own name. Let them know that by saving money in the bank, they will get some interests. (you can teach them about administration fees and taxes later on)

Offer your kids to help you with some housework to receive some extra pocket money. It also can bring self confidence to them that they can do something in the family.

Do not give extra pocket money out of their schedule. When your kids are out of money and ask you to give them again, you should ask them about their journal, where did all the money go. After knowing what happened you can decide whether you are going to give them extra. You have to tell them when they make mistakes they have to be responsible. Maybe it is an idea that they have to use their savings instead of asking some extra pocket money.

Do not teach them to owe you by offering them earlier payment of the following week pocket money. You should not teach them such a habit, but teach them how to live with what they have. They should be responsible for their mistakes and learn how to control their expenditures.

I am sure there are still other ideas you can figure out about teaching your kids the value of money.
It is very important to teach them some knowledge about money and let them learn to manage it.

Remember, action speaks louder than words. Try to be a good role model for your kids

2007-12-09T09:59:00.000+07:00

After talking for quite long time about stock market, I would like to change into a lighter topics.

And I hope you still get "something" from these coming topics

Stock Market Investment Newsletter Research

2007-12-04T00:19:00.000+07:00

It’s important for an investor to have reliable information on Stock Market Investment.

Investors should take full advantage of every unlimited opportunities offered in the stock market. The best way to invest in the stock market is to get hold of important and essential information. An investor should know the company, stock, records and trends of his investment.

However, various sources of information out there offered stock information made available by most commentators and analysts. The reliability of such information still remains uncertain, considering the subjectivity of the ideas submitted. This is not helpful to stock market investors for making any decisions.

It’s also important to have a relevance of stock market investment research information

Stock market research provides the basic and technical overview of the analysis made on the stock. A stock market investment research allows evaluation of actual value of the company. It investigates upon the records and history of the company. The research also aims to predict the future trends of the stock. Serious investors will make use of the information to build an excellent system to set up the investment.

Conducting ordinary stock market investment research

In doing stock market investment research several factors have to be considered. Primarily the stocks are evaluated based on the following:

Price

Earnings

Yearly Profits and Revenues
Company Ranking
Future Plans

The data gathered will then be evaluated. From the evaluation, a conclusion will be made, providing an evaluation of the company’s stock value and foreseeing the direction the company is compelled to make.

When stock market research was done by ordinary analysts and brokers, the research is subject of being influenced by bias and financial interests of them who evaluate the stocks and the market.

Stock Market Investment Newsletter Research

The existence of stock market investment newsletter research is welcomed as it makes accessible for investors to have crucial information.

Conducting investment analysis done by unbiased researchers will provide investors the reliable, understanding, and most of all, independent information about the stocks and the stock market. Ideally the stock market investment newsletter research is conducted by researchers with no financial interests in the stocks or markets being evaluated. The goal is to give feasible and profitable investment opportunities.

Stock market investors who have reliable, understanding and independent information will be empowered to make his investment decisions, with a clearer perspective of what is in store for them. The upside aspects of the specific industry will be carefully laid out there before the investors.

Stock market investors do not only create wealth for themselves, the success would also give benefits to the nation and public. This proves the relevance of stock market investment newsletter researches in helping investors make sound decisions

Stock Market Investment Software

2007-11-23T10:25:00.000+07:00

Computer already became a valuable tool for people who have learned how to use it, it become part of their everyday lives. Many people turn to various types of computer software to suit their needs, and most of these softwares are made specifically for certain clients to accommodate their special needs. With stock market investment software, it becomes a helpful trading tool for investment business.

Nowadays, people can access their bank accounts online. From this single account, they can enroll other accounts which may include bills for credit cards, utilities such as electricity and water, and even schedule payments for their insurance premium. These advances in the financial world have helped assist better, safer, easier transactions which always bring lots of benefit to the consumers.

The fact that stock market investments shifted from person to person trading into nowadays more advanced process of online stock market trading, companies began putting their websites to support their clients to do most of the transaction online. This effort is usually done using stock market investment software.

An investor may subscribe for free or pay a certain amount for an account through his trading company’s website. As he does this, he is required to download and install the stock market investment software that the company is using. This is mostly done so that the subscriber and the trading company use the same investment software.

There is a number of stock market investment software available in the software industry today. They can go from the simple to the highly advanced one. Most of these application softwares offer the same basic features of a graphical user interface (GUI) to help a user perform one or more specific tasks. There are types of these stock market investment softwares that are intended for large scale use and there are types which accommodate for more personalized usage, such as in the case of users installing and using personal financial managers in their personal computers and digital assistants.

Investors mostly use the software of their choice to manage their accounts, and check the value of their stocks. This is very helpful to online investors as the software’s GUI facilitates the tasks that they want to perform for their need.

Stock market investment softwares are purchased separately by the trading companies that use them to deal with their clients. They usually have agreements with the company that developed the software so they could make use of their product at a lower price. Some companies hire stock market investment software developers to design their own software so that it is easier to fit their particular needs.

The Stock Market Investment Newsletter

2007-11-21T00:11:00.000+07:00

A newsletter is a publication by clubs and business companies to provide their clients with a company’s relevant information. It’s distributed on a regular basis and discusses one main topic for the benefit of its readers.

A stock market investment newsletter is published to provide its investors with insights on the current trends in the market and distributed by trading companies to their subscribers and clients.

A stock market investments newsletter provides news, analysis, interpretations and commentaries that are related to the market developments and which are relevant to a trading company’s subscribers and potential clients. It’s meant to help to the stock market investors choosing the right investment opportunities and how to invest sensibly.

Stock market investments newsletter usually contains:

Company profiles. They are: the company’s description, trading history and its recent stock charts.
News articles. These articles inform the stock market investors on the current trends in the market and the company’s recent developments and milestones in the stock market.
Stock portfolio Includes. The features of the company’s stocks, bonds and other investment related resources.
Features articles. These articles may include features about the trading company, hits and other helpful hits about the stock market.
Monthly top gainers and losers. This part of the newsletter is very helpful as it shows and compares the price movements of stocks over the previous month. It could also be done on a quarterly or annual basis
Stock performance tables. An investment newsletter can feature and compare all the stocks which are related in type and provide financial and other useful information.

The stock market investments newsletter are printed and usually are published online through the trading company’s websites.

When subscribers can get a free copy for their own personal use, the potential clients can view and download from the company websites, which also provide archive or past copies of their previous stock market investments newsletter.

Some people say that stock market investments newsletter provide both, subscribers and investors with investment tips and present them with all possible styles and methods, to make investors see which stocks to buy, which companies to buy stocks from and what kind of particular techniques could work for him.

It all can be done with the help of a stock market investments newsletter.

Stock Market Investment Tools

2007-11-16T10:00:00.000+07:00

There are many different stock market investment tools today that can help investors maximize the availability of information for their investment trading activities.

Internet is a rich source of information about different publicly listed companies. There are also many websites that provide free research information of the stock market, although the information maybe only a general knowledge for investors.

There are also stock market investment research reports published in detailed, contains detailed information for investors. But this report only available on a per subscription basis which may cost from a hundred to a thousand dollars, depending on the quality of the research. This kind of reports are somehow too expensive for a retail based investor to subscribe to.

Other sources that provide essential information about a company are news articles, research reports and analyst reviews. This fundamental information can be review of the current news events about a company’s activities or analysis of their formerly published financial reports. Investors then can make more ultimate research and analysis from the information and data they gather, that can assist him to decide his investing strategies.

There are also tools from software companies that can be installed in PCs that available for helping gathering, processing and analyzing raw data such as current stock quotes, historical price data or index performance available for making valuable information that will be useful for investors.

From raw data containing the historical closing prices of specific companies, these can be run through investment tools to come out with information. Such as, historical price trend of one company as compared to an index of companies its being compared with. Or probably have a report of the volume of stocks traded on these companies on a specific period of time. The reports generated through these investment tools will help an investor in making more effective trading strategies from the raw data initially available.

Some stock market investment tools are purchased from software companies and they would usually cost hundreds of dollars which may not be practical for a small scale individual investor. There are analysis tools available on the internet from online stock market trading companies that they are accessible online and are made free to their clients. These tools are made available to their online investing clients as this also helps encourage them in their trading strategies.

While the stock market investment tools (information and research products) are available around the internet, careful planning, data gathering and interpretation of analysis made from these tools are equally important to ensure successful trades and long term investment growth of an investors’ portfolio.

Stock Market Winning Attitude

2007-11-12T17:30:00.000+07:00

Not every investor wins in the stock market investment, some of them lost their money. That makes people wonder, what happen, is it based on luck? Is luck a significant factor of success and failure in the stock market game, as some people say that stock market trading is similar to gambling, both of them include a great deal of risk. To be successful or not in the stock market is not only depending on luck, but also it has something to do with qualified information and attitude.

Qualified stock market information has much to do with success or failure at the stock market. It’s the information that make stock market trading more than just guessing. By analyzing trends of the market and investment, investors can make an educated estimation of the future of their investments.

The proper attitude an investor must have towards investing often goes unseen. Investors often fall into the wrong investment attitude, which then leads them to the wrong decisions and make them doing impulsive buying or selling.

Understanding that reality, investor should take deep consideration about the winning attitudes and realize what attitude they should be avoiding :

1. Many Investors Present an Impatient Manner

Many investors get under the impression that they could get rich overnight by doing few stock market investments. They don’t realize that stocks need time to mature and appreciated. They become unfortunate because of their own thought to make quick money so that at last they make themselves discouraged or sell their shares for a lower price than it supposed to be.

2. Many Investors Look to Take the Risk to Be Millionaires Overnight

Warren Buffet, the Wall Street Tycoon share his secret that he has built his wealth over stocks that are stable and demonstrate continued growth over the years, these stocks are preferable over volatile stocks that could crash at anytime. He also advises investors not to bet all of their money into today's skyrocketing stocks.

A smart investor should split his portfolio into low-risk, medium-risk and high-risk investment and invest in such stocks depending on how much risk they are willing to take. Some investors fail to diversify their portfolios. Some of them take such a risky investment by putting their money on a high risk stock market investment. What is necessarily to consider is investor’s own risk tolerance to make the investments.

How to Avoid Stock Market Scams

2007-11-08T19:07:00.000+07:00

Stock Market
As the prices increase fast nowadays, people would instantly like to grasp any opportunity that will make them money. This is a chance for deceitful people to take advantage of them.

There are many uncontrolled scams today that make people become so alert of them. Even when they realize that there is a constrain to be scammed out there, they still could not differentiate what is a scam and how they can avoid it.

Now, one of the proliferating scams is the stock market scams. A lot of people are getting tempted to join these, simply because their offer seems so hard to resist.

Why? Because who would refuse to accept a “get rich quick” strategy? These are just little things but are actually bigger problems than what you thought they are.

Here is a list of the common stock market scam lurking mostly in the internet today:
This is important for people to know what stock market scams are and how can they avoid them.

1. The “Pump and Dump” stock market scam

This type of stock market scam is mostly spread in the Internet. Here, people usually get to see messages posted in the Internet advocating them to purchase a stock at once. This type of scam also urges those who have stocks already to sell their stocks immediately before the value depreciates.

These misleading scammers claim that they have reliable sources about a bullying development. They even claim that they utilize a foolproof combination of the stock market and the trade and industry data so as to get some stocks.

The bottom line is that this type of stock market scam is harmful especially to those who are starting small. In reality, people behind this scam would want to manipulate the stock market through small businesses because small businesses are easier for them to manipulate.

2. Pyramid scam

Just like its motherboard, this pyramid scam in the Net tries to accumulate money from the consumers by letting them invest their little amount of money and grow it really big, provided that they recruit more people into the company.

These two are the most common stock market scams lurking in the Internet today, and the only way to avoid them is information. It’s a must that people should be aware of them, know their styles, and how they recruit people. If in case, they cannot determine if it is a scam or not, they should verify the claims from the right people. That’s the simplest thing to do to avoid getting trapped.

Minimize Your Risk in Stock Market Investing

2007-11-03T09:20:00.000+07:00

Nobody wants to lose in trading on stock market. It doesn’t necessarily mean that to achieve good profits one has to invest heavily and risk greatly, although people say that investing money entails a great amount of risk.

A well-informed investor will make a good decision on how to make profits with minimum loss. The tips is to determine if the profit is worth the risk . Don’t ever take risk that will bring away your everything. This is not gambling. In stock market investing, people should ask themselves whether they want to take the risk.

And that’s why, before you start trading on the stock market, you should ask yourself about:

What is your goal? What do you want to achieve by investing in the stock market?

Are your investments going to lose money?

Are you willing to take bigger risk for better profits? How big?

By deciding your own achievement goals, you will know how long you are willing to wait for a stock to gain profit. Also consider your own limit on how much you are willing to lose. It will bring you idea on how are you going to invest in stocks, to determine your stock investments strategy.

If you choose to invest in low return stock, it means to gain a considerable profits, you have to increase the amount or increase the length of time invested.

To complete your knowledge on stock market investments, here are some tips to minimize your risk:

1. Know when to invest
The best traders don’t trade everyday and all the time. Don’t get excited when your stocks go up or fall down, stock prices go up and down all the time, use 50% of the time for waiting and studying how a stock performs. Don’t make decisions based on a whim and factors that don’t usually affect a stock in the long run.

2. Try to be discipline
Wait for the best stock to come along. Don’t get over excited to trade on a stock that looks half-decent enough.

3. Watch out for big stocks and concentrate on a few
Don’t waste time by dabbling in so many small stocks with minimal profits. Make small moves but with big payoffs.

4. Don’t be emotionally involved
Losing money can get you depressed and making money excited. That’s why in stock market investing you should detach yourself from your emotions to make yourself looking at things objectively.

Trading stocks could be a high risk high return scenario.Take your time to study, research and be patient.
Don’t take unnecessary risk, it’s your money, your loss

Getting High ROI (Return on Investment) in Stock Market Trading

2007-11-01T09:53:00.000+07:00

ROI (Return On Investment), expressed as an annual percentage, is the profit an investor make on the sale of a security or other asset divided by the amount of the investment.

ROI (Return on Investment) in stock market trading includes all the income one earns on the stock, also includes any profit that results from selling the stock. If the sale price plus any income is higher than the purchase price, it means you have a positive ROI, and on the other hand, if sale price plus any income is lower, then your ROI is negative.

People always look for high ROI (not only just positive ROI) while trading in stock market. And to get a high ROI in stock market trading, here are some tips for investors:

Always know what you buy
To ensure a high ROI in stock market trading, investor should acquire as much information as possible about the company they are planning to invest in. do some basic analysis to find out whether the stock is worth the price or else (because if it doesn’t, you will be likely to gamble on it).
Ask consultants for the research if you don’t have time to do it yourself. Major brokerage houses, finance publications and mutual fund companies are reliable sources.
Don’t confuse smart investing with a bull market (differ smart marketing from bull market)
You could get a high ROI in stock market trading when you are investing smartly.
Although sometimes you can make money with almost no effort, because you be in the right place at the right time.
When the market is going up, you shouldn’t feel extra smart and then were tempted to trade more frequently and taking riskier positions.
Avoid active trading
There will be temptation for investors to trade frequently when they are gaining. Especially with online stock market trading where investing is only a few clicks of the mouse away.
But beating the market consistently to make money is tough. Better using buy and hold strategy to ensure a high ROI in stock market trading.
Mind the taxes
Frequent trading could be very costly with high income taxes triggered by your profits. It could reach as high as 40%.
To get a high ROI in stock market trading, it’s advisable to buy and hold for a period of at least a year so you would qualify for the lower capital gains rate of 20%

Sustaining The Future Of Investor’s Stocks Market

2007-10-25T22:06:00.000+07:00

Stock Market

By investing money into the stock market doesn’t mean the investment has a life on its own and would produce return money for the investor every month.

As an investor, you are the most important factor of the success of your investment, whether you are investing your money using stock broker or you do it yourself individually.

Here are some few investment tips that could preserve the money you are making from the stock market and prevent future losses:

Ø Stock listing.
To make the investment grow promptly, investor should have their own list of companies they have interest to buy shares on. This list make them be able to check up the profit of each company's earning every month.

Ø Proper timing.
Knowing the general market’s condition would play a critical role in the profit and lost of money invested. Although investor has invested on a company with stable earning sales, they are still not safe; investor can lose their money at anytime. When the market moves into the opposite direction, investor would not be making money. It is now their decision to buy or sell their stocks.

Note: Never be too emotionally involved with investments. Remember that stock market is a game that needs high mental capacity and less emotional burdens. Meaning, investor should begin to move on when they have been proven wrong with their timing. Accept the losses and try winning the money back.

Ø Buying and selling.
When investor has lost money from the companies they have invested on, don’t hassle. It is still in hands whether investor would continue to trust the company’s competence or not. Many brokers advice that cutting down the losses in investor’s list of stocks is significant for the future of their investment.

When buying for new stocks, it is reasonable to analyse the stocks first by investing a smaller amount of money. By doing this, investor would be able to analyze the market condition and if losses occur, it wouldn’t be too much of a load in their part.

Ø Balance.
To know which stocks are suitable to buy, investor should scrutinize the price, volume, and daily highs and lows in the environment of the stock market. By doing so, they would be able to know the market trends and analyse the prospect companies.

To provide investors with high ROI stocks, know the environment and trust their own judgment in deciding the right timing to buy and sell. By doing this, investor would ensure that the future of your investment would be in safe hands.

How Stock Market Trading Happens

2007-10-22T15:27:00.000+07:00

Stock market trading is the buying or selling securities or commodities specifically in the stock market trading, also known as a market for the trading of publicly held company stocks as well as associated financial instruments such as stock options and stock index futures.

Each share of stocks represents a small piece of ownership in a company. The more shares somebody holds, the more part of the company he owns. And then it translates to the more dividends he can earn when the company profits.

Two basic methods of doing stock market trading:

1. Traditionally
Stock markets open while trading happens on the stock exchange floor. In which when it’s open, lots of people are seen rushing around, shouting and gesturing to each other on the exchange floor. Traders often seen talking on the phones, keeping a close eye on the consoles and entering data into terminals.

2. Modern Way
Here stock market trading happens through electronic exchanges where everything occurs online real time in the networks. This electronic market employs a vast network of computers to match buyers and sellers instead of human brokers. It’s faster and more efficient, investors get an almost instant confirmation on any trades done.

However, to get a stock market trading works, investor needs to get an investment broker first.

On traditional exchange floor, the broker orders the department to send an order to the clerk on the floor, after being asked to buy shares at the market. This clerk alerts a trader to find another trader who is willing to sell the shares the investor requested. When two traders agree on the price of the stocks, then the deal can be closed.

Notification is sent back the same way until the broker calls the investor to inform him on the final price. This process may take a while depending on the market and stocks. Days later, the investor receives the confirmation mail.

The electronic counterpart is less complicated because the stocks buying and selling are matched by computers in real time. And investors get instant updates on what happens to his stock trade.

The Danger of Online Stock Market Trading

2007-10-22T15:18:00.000+07:00

Reading the title above, maybe you become curious why an online stock market trading can become such a dangerous transaction?

Almost everybody, from novice investors to expert day traders, can participate in online stock market trading, as online stock market trading has made it possible for millions of individuals, especially those who are not keen or experienced on investing in stocks the traditional way, to play in the risky stock market game.

Online stock market trading has many dangers for those inexperienced and if you are not so careful you could find yourself end up losing money instead of earning large sum of it.

Online stock markets trading allow individuals to participate in the stock markets at greater speed. But this flexibility also make it easier to make investment mistakes. Therefore, the fundamentals of smart investing should still be applied in online stock market trading to avoid falling into traps.

One of the most common problems with first-timers in online stock market trading is they think they can make a lot of money online even without any investment skills and knowledge. This is probably brought by stories of overnight successes. They must keep in mind that for every ten investors that makes lots of money from online stock market trading there are at least ten who lose money.

The reason why new online stock market traders think that they could survive in online stock market trading without any investment skills and knowledge, is because markets have been bullish recently. For the past six or seven years, common investors made significant profits from any buy and hold strategy. Investors only start to realize the importance of being financially savvy when markets show bearish signals. That’s the only time they employ smart financial planning through diversification.

What potential online stock market investors need to realize is that online stock market trading is really no different from traditional stock market trading. The web hasn't changed the fundamentals of smart investing, The flexibility of online stock market trading only has made it easier to invest for investors. Individuals – like most professional day traders - should still have a set of rules and guidelines to help them avoid the dangers of online stock market trading.

Like in traditional stock market trading, the first thing you have to do is to prepare yourself with basic information about the company you’re investing into, so you could avoid “gambling.”

Investors should do some research in performing some fundamental analysis to determine if the stock they want to buy is worth the price. There are good source of information such as websites of major brokerage houses, finance publications and mutual fund companies.

As online stock market trading is easier, it becomes more tempting for individuals to trade often. But investors must realize that it's tough to beat the market on a consistent basis. For the long term investment, a buy-and-hold strategy is the best way to invest even in online stock markets trading.

Stock Market Trading System

2007-10-06T09:36:00.000+07:00

A novice stock market investor should be familiar with how the stock market trading system works. It’s important for him to know what is he getting into.

The definition of stock market trading system is the choice you would make on what method to use in entering or buying and existing or selling the stocks. For an investor, choosing the suitable trading system is the most vital part of his investment.

In choosing a trading system, it’s important for investor to research and find high opportunity companies when buying stocks. Knowing the fundamentals in the price signals and when to sell his stocks when some losses occur, would maintain investor’s money to grow.

The stock market trading system has been divided into several groups for investors to know which company they would buy shares:

1) Blue chips.
This refers to the shares of huge companies. These companies have a trace of profit progression and usually have at least 4 billion dollars in returns yearly. Although entering into blue chips would provide a large capital in the investor’s part, the payment from the shares would be consistent.

2) Growth stocks.
This refers to the companies that grow quickly. The management of these companies invests the profits from the stock for the development of their company. Companies with growth stocks seldom pay dividends to investors. And if they do, the payments are lower than other companies.

3) Income stocks.
This refers to the companies’ stocks that have high earnings. Income stocks are stable and pay a large dividend or payment to the shareholders. These kinds of shares usually make use of mutual funds for senior citizen plans.

4) Defensive stocks.
This refers to the companies’ stocks that always remain stable even if the market falls. These are the kinds of stocks that could easily regain its place in the market when it losses. Since these companies defend their stocks, the investor would lessen the risk in losing money. Defensive stocks are always appropriate to purchase because it is suitable in an unstable market and when the economy suddenly falls.

But before entering into one of these categories, investors should analyse the risks and dividends of the company. Plus, they should think outside the box and thoroughly examine the company’s accounting flow, distribution of the profits to all investors, and other profile of the company.

When investors have established the trust on a company’s stock, it would be easy for you to buy or sell in the trading system

The Stock Market System

2007-10-03T20:27:00.000+07:00

stock

As a corporation is formed, its initial shareholders are able to acquire shares of stock from the point of subscription when a company is created. The stock market system is an opportunity for the trading of shares of stock of listed corporations.

When a company starts to be traded to the public, the primary market comes in where those who subscribe to the initial public offering (IPO) takes on the shares of stock sold from point of IPO. When investors who bought into a company at IPO point of view decides to sell their shares of stock to other people, they can do so by going to the stock market.

The stock market is a secondary market for securities trading wherein original or secondary holders of a company’s shares of stock can sell their stocks to other individuals within the frame work of the stock market system.

The stock market has buyers of stocks or those who want to own a part of the company but weren’t able to do so during the initial public offerings made by the company to the public when it has decided to list itself as a publicly listed company.

The secondary market or the stock market allows other individuals to sell shares of the company when the initial shareholders may have realized that they want to sell their shares after gaining either significant profit or realized significant loss from point of acquiring a company from its IPO price.

As the stock market has developed and progressed over the years, the way stock shares are transferred from one individual to another has become more complex and more challenging to be regulated. Technology has aided in providing more efficient ways of transactions. Front and back end solutions are put into place that helps direct the exchange of shares of stock in timely and secure manner.

Public education over how the stock market works is one of the primary concerns of the investing public in order to promote the trading activities of the stock market to other individuals who may also benefit from doing transactions over this secondary type of equities market.

With the large quantity of relevant company information on performance of publicly listed companies, this information will help the investors to become more aware of the directions of the companies where they have share of stocks on and this will also aid them in directing their investment strategies.

Another Friend of Mine

2007-09-28T09:39:00.000+07:00

Multi Stream of Income

I have a friend who I admire so much, he is still at young age (not more than 35), but what make me admire him is his financial vision.

He worked as a marketing staff for a middle class company, paid in a good salary. What he get actually more than enough for his lifestyle. But after his office hours, he runs his own business.

Maybe you wonder what kind of business that gives so much time flexibility? Most of businesses have to be run on certain time with certain commitment. His business of course needs commitments; business is not a business unless you make it run.

Okay, back to his business, yes, he runs an internet marketing business. He owns websites and blogs. His internet marketing business gives him passive income, while he only lives from his salary.

He invests the profit of his business back on the internet marketing. When I ask why he doesn’t invest on financial products, well he said that he prefer to invest it on a business he knows so well (he has more than 10 years experiences in internet marketing, he learn and practicing internet marketing since he was in college).

As a financial products self learner, of course I advise him to put some of his income on mutual funds, stocks, and others. But maybe later he will be interested on that.

Well, my friends, it always good to have multi stream of income. Not only you can shop more, but the most important thing is that you could be retired rich sooner. Don’t you want to retire in a satisfactorily financial condition? Or you prefer to decrease your lifestyle on your retirement days?

Internet marketing is a good business. You don’t need to quit your job to run it. You don’t need lots of capital to start it. Actually in this business what that is important is your commitments and your own will. There will be lots of difficulties (just like another business) but sure you can pass it if you try, it’s only needs time. Business is a process.

I will give you a picture to imagine. By having websites or blogs that sell something, actually you could earn passive income. Why? Because even when you sleep at night; your computer doesn’t sleep at all. It still makes money for you. Imagine if you have 10 or 100 websites and blogs, doesn’t it like you have 10 or 100 stores? And these stores are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Wouldn’t it sound good?

Maybe you can try Domain Parking Program or Google Adsense, or become an affiliate somehow. It’s so many options on the internet; just use your search engine.

Stock Market Risks

2007-09-25T17:39:00.000+07:00

investment risk

Although you have heard a lot about risks of a stock market, you can’t avoid the temptation of it when you have your own money. It’s natural when you want to see your money grow larger than the percentage you got from your saving account interest from your bank.

And while saving money in a bank doesn’t satisfy you as it only offers too little growth potential. You might then turn to other investment tools that could give you much larger financial returns, that is when you turn to the stock market.

But are the risks involved in investing in the stock market worth your money? Investing is a good financial tool to increase your money, but you have to keep an open mind and know what to look for. It’s needless to say that investing in stocks is a risky business.

Do not worry, there are some risks that fortunately you can control.
For example, you must watch against investing in "hot" stocks. True, some investors get wealthy in investing in "hot" stocks such as the "dot-com" bubble in the 1990s, but when the initial buzz around these stocks begin to slide, so does your investment. Once they fall, they really fall hard in a short period of time. This includes your money and others like you who invested in these “hot” stocks. If you really need to invest in these stocks, you have to keep a constant eye on them and try to sell them when they start to level off or drop.

To be safe with your investment, you must diversify your portfolio that makes you possible to distribute your investment’s risk. Basically, it means buying a little bit of many different types of stocks and bonds. In that way, if one stock gets down, another one of your stock might be up and will help you recover some of your losses.

It is a good idea to have some stocks in the technology sector, telecommunications, biomedical, and consumer corporations. In time, you could add your portfolio with precious metal and diamond indexes, and some other general investment funds.

There are also companies that offer "safety stocks". It will be a sound decision to have several shares of companies such as this in your portfolio. This is because such stocks rarely fluctuate and most often offer a slow and steady growth, the stocks is quite stable, thus giving you an assurance in your investments.

As a smart investor, don’t you ever rely on tips saying that this stock is "going to be big" and the like. These tips are often speculative, and these stocks are almost worthless. Investing in these stocks might give you a higher return but in the long run, these stocks will just give you worries.

As an investor, you should read the Wall Street Journal or watch the stock reports on news networks to know more about your stocks. Also check relevant websites to see how your stocks have been performing in recent weeks.

It’s your money, your investment, your risks.

A Friend I Met

2007-09-21T09:30:00.000+07:00

Today I meet a happy and interesting man; He is a husband with 3 kids. Let’s say his name is Mr Lucky (I think better not to mention his name here). He works as an insurance agent with 11 years experiences.

Not only that, he say that he has a harmonious family and his income is good, he not only gets commissions but also salary. What a good insurance company, right?
Last month when his oldest son got sick then company paid all the expenses, in which is around $1,500 for 10 days on the hospital.

But he misses his children 5 days a week, as he works in another town. Yes, he is a weekend husband. After office hours he just stays at his rent home reading a book, watching TV and calling his family.

You know guys, I feel sorry for him. He is a nice guy, he always smile and he has a positive mindset.

What is lack on him is that he doesn’t get the financial independent mindset yet, which will be important for his family.

Can you imagine if someday he can’t work anymore because of sickness? How can he afford his children to college? Especially he is the only bread winner in the house. And when I asked whether his wife is a working mom, he answered me plainly, that she can’t work as she has to take care of 3 kids at the same time.

On our conversation I asked him whether he has another income stream, such as investment. He said he has money deposits with enough amounts to live without work for 2 years. That’s good for him, but still I worry as he maybe doesn’t realize the danger of inflation.

Then as we still have to be in the same trip for 2 more hours, I introduce him to a good book which will bring benefit to his insurance business, and at the same time I hope he can opened his eyes to an understanding of how important to be financially independent.

I introduced a book from Michael Masterson, Seven Years to Seven Figures the Fast-Track Plan to Becoming a Millionaire. “This is a good book I said, It won’t only open our mind, but also teach about sales and else. There are lots of people experiences here”. (Well, I hope he get the book now)

I also mention how important to have a multi streams of income. At least doesn’t he want to give a better life for his family? Get a bigger house, a vacation abroad with the whole family? I said to him it’s all possible without he is leaving his job.

He can have another job after his office hours, and I suggest him to try internet marketing, it’s a good business with flexibility of time. And it offers him unlimited income at the same time.

Or actually he can try another shot, like open a street café at night, be a copywriter, anything else he can do after office hours.

Sometimes it is only about mindset, about how are you going to pay now for the advantages in the future. Some people don’t want and not eager to leave some of their comfort. And these people really have to pay for their choices later.

And how about you guys? I really hope that you are an optimist person who is willing to try a shot for getting your financial freedom.

Stock Market Investment Strategy 2

2007-09-18T20:17:00.000+07:00

stock market

With the advance of information technology, people from all over the world go crazy over stock market investments. It’s all because of the convenience of information technology are found its place in the world of investments and computing.

Although some financial experts often say that jumping into a lucrative but challenging world like stock market investment isn’t made for the faint hearted people, today stock market investments are selling like hotcakes.

For those people who want to get the best stock market investments, they should look into the following advices:

Don’t gamble, stock market is a risky business
Buying stocks isn’t as easy as 1-2-3, although it does for some people who are capable of doing it. Not many people know when to wait or when to sell. That’s why it’s best not to gamble everything you have on stock market investments. It’s better only to lose a little and only as much as you can afford.
Know your own strength, the exit strategy
Where liquidity of their stock market investments is extremely vital to people’s business, they should know that whatever liquidity they have can be easily converted into cash. Many stock market investors ride their stock prices high and maintain an exit strategy when things get out of their hand.

Be comfortable with the sum you invest in
Even if the stock market investments offer once in a lifetime opportunity return, just make sure only to invest in with the sum you are prepared to lose. Don’t take unnecessarily risk that you can’t afford later on an attractive IPO (Initial Public Offering) of a huge company.

By paying attention to the advices above, hopefully people can invest wisely in stock market investments. Know how to play is as important as know when to wait and when to stop.

Stock Market Investment Strategy 1

2007-09-09T16:05:00.000+07:00

Stock market investment is a risky business, but it can’t stop any aspiring investors from jumping into it, taking his first step in the investment. How the investor will try to work on the investment lies upon themselves, therefore they need to know and equip themselves with stock market investment strategy, which are:

1. Knowledge

Smart investors would take a deep view of the past records, current performance and future plans of the company they want to invest their money in. They will learn about all the necessary and crucial information about the company.

Wise investors must know the fundamental value of stocks they are going to buy. Considering some difficulties in locating the right stocks that going to give big return, sometimes investors should consider looking for stock market investment advice from the expert.

It’s a smart step to invest in a company which belongs to a familiar industry for the investor. Investor supposed to have a good understanding of the business in order to realize more about the real value of the stocks. This understanding will make investor less dependent to analysts and advisers.

Investor should avoid investment tips that offered by people with vested interests, therefore they must carefully choose the sources of information they can rely upon.

2. Long-term goal

Investors suppose to consider a long-term goal in making stock market investment. This long-term goal would determine the approaches to be taken and influence the decisions investor should make.

The keenness to that long-term goal would ensure regularity in instances of uncertainty when the stock market twirl comes to play. It would avoid capricious decisions unfavorably disturbing the finances. A long-term goal could result to a more stable financial future through steady purchases investments. The investment key word here is consistency.

3. Calculated Risks

There are some risks in any business accomplishments. However, this must be calculated to minimize the probability of loss and to increase the probability of profits. Speculating or gambling is not an option.

It’s very easy to buy stocks but your lost money would be difficult to gain back. Investors are supposed not to afford costly mistakes. They are not expected to take unnecessarily risks.

The established system in realizing the long-term goal must be strictly followed to reduce the probability of putting too much money just to sustain big losses.

4. Discipline

In making stock market investment, investor must have appropriate determination and discipline.

Investing in the stock market, the investor himself must have the appropriate determination and discipline to constantly continue in realizing the long-term goals.

Today’s stock market investment requires enthusiasm and courage to come out as a winning investor. The stock market gives the opportunities; all that is required of the investors are being careful and sensible.

Pros and Cons of a Stock Market

2007-09-04T22:45:00.000+07:00

stock market

Pros and cons of the nature of the stock market don’t have to be confusing to us, as many people who are interested in investing in stock market are afraid that they have to understand a complete range of stocks and marketing terms

But some people could saw behind the appearance of all these economic nonsense, and saw the potentials of what they could get from investing in the stock market.

In simple way, the stock market is the market to buy and sell stocks and shares. This is where company stock gets traded. The term is also used to describe the totality of all stocks in one country. That is why we hear reporters talking that "the stock market was up today" or that "the stock market went down after the poundsterlings fell to the dollars."

So what are the pros and cons of the stock market?

We need the stock market because it is an important factor for the country economics system to operate. Through the stock market, companies will improve their financial feasibility and expand their operations by raising funds from selling their stocks. Without the stock market, our companies become slower in their growth and might stagger in the increasing competition in the US as well as against international companies.

Another reason for the existence of the stock market is that it also has a role in personal financial planning, because many individuals buy stock shares as part of their personal financial strategies. More importantly, most people, especially Americans have a stake in the stock market because retirement programs invest in stocks. It has shown that retirement programs earn a lot more by investing in common stocks than other options such as saving the funds in banks.

Of course, the stock market also has its downsides. Remember that the stock market is not a tool for immediate success. True, there are stories of one getting wealthy by investing in the market, but this involves investing shares in various company stocks, which means a lot of research, time, and money. Investor also gets rich when some stocks become "hotter" such as the "dot-com" bubble in the nineties, but when the initial buzz around these stocks stagger, the value of these stocks tend to crash.

Basic Facts to Know Before Buying Stocks

2007-08-29T18:45:00.000+07:00

buying stocks

To succeed in a complicated stock market game, investor should learn the basic facts of the company they want to invest in, before they are risking their money.

Here are some basic investors should know about the chosen company’s stocks:

Learn on how much REVENUES the company makes
Although still in the early development stage (in which there’s maybe no revenues to offer), some companies have been in the market for years. That makes them have a sum of revenues to cover some losses and costs.

Learn how much EARNINGS does the company makes
Earnings are the extra money the company makes. That wouldn’t be used in covering expenses. Companies with large earnings have an advantage in the stock market.

Learn if the company has BAD DEBT, if so, how much?
Buying stocks from bad debt companies would be risky. Paying the debts plus the interest will put the company into instability.

Learn how much ASSETS the company owns
This means how much cash, receivables, inventory, property, businesses and other assets owned by the company. Knowing all those facts will give investor an understanding of the company’s position in the industry. Investor can safely trust a company with significant assets.

Learn how much is the FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY the company have
Investor should know how much is the payables the company need to pay out. When the value of their financial obligations is low, the company isn’t in danger of becoming in debt. Comparing the company liabilities and assets could help investor determining if they need to buy the company’s stocks. Make sure that the assets of the companies are always higher than their financial responsibilities.

At the end, just remember, unlike gambling, investing means investor should learn and do research on the company they want to buy its stocks. Make sure investor knows the company’s background to ensure that the money being invested is in the right hands.

Stock Market for Beginners

2007-08-24T23:08:00.000+07:00

Stock market for beginners, every beginning is difficult like the saying say, the same as investing in stock market for the new investors.

When you feel you want to play and try your luck in the stock market, and don’t know how and where to begin. What will you do?

The first relevant thing the new investor should do is asking the basic question of what a stock is and its implication.

A stock is a symbol ownership of a company. Some people view stock as certificates. Actually the more stocks people own of a particular company, the more share of the company they own. And the more the company they own, the bigger the influence they have in running the company. This is called equity investment.

The next thing to do is familiarize newcomer investor with financial terms such as ‘price-earnings ratio’, ‘margin’, ‘option’, ‘earnings per share’ and ‘leverage’.

After that, it’s on to knowing where and how to actually buy stocks.

There are two ways to buy stocks:

brokerage service
online exchanges.

Brokerage services are rendered by brokers. These middlemen do all the work for the investors. They do research in the stock market, give advices, also buy and sell stocks according to the wishes of their clients. These brokers earn a commission from the stocks bought or sold.

Exchanges are services that allow investors to access stocks all over the world. Here, investors can buy and sell stocks without the need for a broker. Certain banks allow you to set up your own stock portfolio and buy and sell stocks online using the money you have in these banks.

Once you have chosen how to buy and sell stocks, the next thing to do is to open an account. As stated earlier, exchanges allow you to monitor and control your stock portfolio personally. If you choose to enter the stock trade with a bank, then ask your bank the specifics of setting up your own account.

If you choose to trade stocks via a broker, find a reputable broker and ask them to open and manage an account for you.

After investors have successfully set up an account, it’s time to study the stock market and plan your strategy: will you be conservative in investing your money? Or will you be aggressive? Are you in it for the long term? Or are you a day trader (short term investor)?

After you have identified your plan, it’s time to do some research on the stocks offered in the stock market. Having a broker will significantly make it easier for you as they will do the research and give you advices. But, it is still best to study the stock market yourself.

Remember that the stock market is volatile. Be prepared for a roller-coaster ride.

Stock Market Investments Mechanism

2007-08-22T23:08:00.000+07:00

stock market

Each time the stock market investment hits a high or a low, people hear about it. Daily statements are also issue the activities of the stock market and its relevant economic implications. People hear about stock market everyday. But what are stocks? What is a stock market, really ? And why people want to do stock market investments?

The stock market is a market place where trading of company stocks happens. Stock market investments allow companies and private individuals to get a share of ownership in large corporate. It’s also a way to gather large sum of investment capital which is difficult to produce if the business is solely owned. The large capital comes from the stock market investments.

Stocks are shares of a company or business which gets on sale in the stock market. Stock market investment happens when a person or institution buys a share of a company’s stocks that were put on sale in the stock market. And this investment will give the investors an equal share of profits by the end of the year and an equal vote in the company’s business decisions.

In the past, stock market investments were done by individual buyers and sellers, but nowadays the market participants evolved from individual investors to large corporations. This change in the stock market investments activities has also helped to control movements in the market.

To encourage stock market investments, a business that wishes to sell its stock to individuals and corporations should become corporation first.

The individual investors and big corporations who buy the shares of a business or corporation are called shareholders. They own the new incorporated business. Their stock market investments give them the authority to claim ownership of the business, they can now decide whether to privately or publicly hold their corporation.

In privately held company, the shareholders are few and probably know one another. And in the publicly held company, the shares are owned by a large number of people who do stock market investments on the public stock exchange.

Free Travel Miles from Your Credit Card

2007-08-15T20:53:00.000+07:00

Credits cards are very convenience for everyday purchase usage. This makes lots of people in United States to get the services offered by credit cards, as it’s also offers more security, flexibility and manageability.

People don’t have to walk down the streets carrying lots of cash when they go to an appliances store to buy things that cost thousands of dollars. They just have to bring along their credit cards.

By proper management of credit cards finances, people can buy the necessary things they need now and pay off the balance in installment in the short term. But of course, there will be some interest charged in financing their purchases.

As the users of credit cards increase, credit cards companies now offers reward points in the form of air travel miles. When a card user makes regular purchases, an equivalent point in the form of air travel mile is awarded for every dollar spent. Awarding of points may vary depending on the items they buy, the special features of their credit cards.

The air travel mile points accumulated over credit use doesn’t necessarily equal to the actual miles require to make the travel. Usually depends on the destination, the card company offering the travel programs and the airline companies that the credit card companies are working with. People can obtain this information from the credit card company’s hotline numbers, their consumer websites or from their promotional brochures sent to their customers.

By opts to redeem the accumulated points into travel miles, a frequent traveler can benefit lot from the usage of his credit card. They can redeem their points for travel promotions of their card companies or use those air travel mile in a planned vacation in the future.

The credit card holders just need to monitor their accumulated points in order to determine how many more points they will need in order to get the vacation they’ve planned or even they can use the points as an additional help in purchasing tickets for sudden travel plans.

Using Credit Card on the Internet

2007-08-12T18:55:00.000+07:00

credit cards

It’s very common using credit cards on the internet, as today’s technology and E-commerce makes it so practical for consumers and online business alike to use credit cards on their transactions. It’s favored by both parties, the consumers and the seller.

For some people who are not so familiar with shopping on the internet using their credit cards, there are some pros and cons that make them proficient with, before considering using their credit card in the internet for transaction.

As a buyer and owner of the account, there are pros and cons in using credit card on the internet:

Because it’s online, you don't have to wait on a queue in purchasing anything in the internet with credit card. But on the other hand, you might get ripped off since you don't know the seller.
Shopping in the internet with credit card gives consumers a wider selection of products with low prices. But in contrast, shopping in the internet would not give consumers a chance to examine the product they buy more thoroughly.
Using credit card online gives consumers the advantage of purchasing products anywhere in the world. However, some sellers may not be trustworthy enough to really deliver what you bought.

The 24 hours a day shops could be provided for consumers when they are using the internet for shopping. But also, 24 hours a day somebody out there could just be lurking waiting for you to key in your credit card number for him or her to use.

And as a businessman using the internet to sell products and services, there are pros and cons by using credit card on the internet:

By using internet to sell to consumers that use credit cards to buy, the company’s market sales would increase. But, to equip these internet transactions, the seller has to purchase hardware and software to support these transactions that would cost them a large amount of money. Plus the cost of regular maintenance that would be required to ensure that all internet transactions happen smoothly.
Because consumers using credit cards through the internet, the company would be able to expand their sales globally. But on the other hand, the seller must make sure that the stocks available are enough to supply the global market when the demand suddenly spikes.
The large numbers of consumers using their credit cards online make the company’s profits increasing smoothly. But this entails also keeping up with the competition since there a lot of other companies competing to get the most out of the credit card phenomenon.

How to Invest in Property

2007-08-07T20:08:00.000+07:00

Investing

Investing in property means you have the chance of getting passive income from renting and capital gains when you sell your property on a highly appreciated price.

To get a profitable property investment, you should do research and investigate on:

Location; whether it will be a housing cluster, an office area, or something else. Every area has its own price class and different return of investment. An exclusive residence area will have a higher price compared to a remote housing area in the village that will be developed into a factory later on. You need to know about the location now and future plan of that particular area.

Rate of return; so you will understand how much you will get paid on your return of investment.

Interest rate; you may need to owe some money from your bank. You need to calculate carefully whether you can pay the interest rate or it will affect your daily cash flow.

Therefore, it is recommended for you to have professional advice from a credible property investment agent. What you need is not only profit when you sell your property later, but also knowing your advantages (such as undervalued properties) when you buy your property now.

A reliable property investment advisor will help you to have a good deal when you buy your property. You may get a good location with a very competitive price and some tax benefits.

Jewellery and Precious Stone as an Investment

2007-07-31T18:09:00.000+07:00

Jewels

Every woman will love diamonds, rubies, safirs, and other precious stones, as well as gold and white gold.

Actually, this is a very good advantage for them to have those jewels and stones as savings and investments.

Jewels as savings may not give enough liquidity on bad days. You should first sell your precious things to get money for paying your urgency such as hospital bills. Maybe it is easier to put your savings in terms of money.

As savings, you can wear your jewels to attend a fancy dinner with style. Of course, you should be aware of your own security since you may get robbed at the same time.

Precious stones and jewels as savings could bring you capital gain when your items being highly appreciated later, and the profit you get maybe higher than your bank interest rate, that is why you can use your jewels as an investment.

What you should be aware of having jewels as savings and investments are:

You should get a certified jewels and stones.
It is easier to sell a certified item, usually it has its standard price, so your item will not be undervalued by other party.

Make sure you know where to sell it on a fair place.
It is important when you are in needs so that you do not waste your time in looking for a buyer.

Choose good quality items.
High quality jewels and stones will be easier to get rid off compared to under quality items.

Having jewels and precious stones as savings and investments can bring you some memories by giving them as family heritage to your kids and grandkids.

Financial Tips For Women

2007-07-26T01:54:00.000+07:00

Financial tips

For security reasons, it is important for women to have the knowledge about how to make financial decisions.

Facts that many women choose to be single, and the divorce rates are getting higher should underline the more important for women to equip themselves with complete financial knowledge to survive in their life.

Women need to know that:

They should not live from paycheque to paycheque. It is important to save some portions of every income they get, whether they are from their husband or from their own salary.

They should have their own personal account instead of a join account with their spouse. It will increase their self confidence as well.

Having a personal account will be useful when something happens to their spouse, as personal account will give more flexibility and authority than joint account.

They are advisable of having their own investment and retirement account. This will help protect their financial when the breadwinner of the family turns his heart against the family.

They should have their own credit card. The best time to have a credit card is when you need it the least, when you can pay on time. Credit card will be very useful under urgent circumstances, when you do not have enough cash on hand. Although some women may not need a credit card, it is recommended to have one for urgency.

They should get involved in monthly family finances. Almost all of us have something to eliminate, by working together with your spouse, the family could save more than before.

Having enough money in their savings will give women the courage to leave an unpleasant job or a horrible marriage.

What should always be remembered is being able to manage a family and personal financial does not mean they can forget their destiny as a woman. To build a happy and harmonious family, women and men should understand that they are in the same boat, so they should not compete against each other.

The Difference between Cost and Expenditure

2007-07-16T20:13:00.000+07:00

cost vs expenditure

For some people, including you, cost and expenditure may have the same meanings, both are an outflow of cash.

It is true that both are an indication of a cash outflow, but there is a difference in the inflow they brought to you.

Cost will be a cash outflow that may bring you benefit. What is considered as cost: gasoline for delivering service to a customer by Pizza Hut delivery service.

Expenditure is a cash outflow that will only cost you money but not giving you any feedback, for example: your taxi fare to a shopping mall for window shopping, it only cost you money but do not bring you financial benefit.

You do not have to be stingy to yourself that you have to differentiate every cash outflow as cost or expenditure, but you need to be careful of your cash flow if you want to develop your personal wealth.

You will not get any richer by spending your money for nothing, you may have fun now but you should pay later by doing so.

This kind of habit should be earned since you were young, but it is never too late to develop your thoughts now. It is better late than never.

Shopping Behaviour vs Wealth Building

2007-07-08T23:03:00.000+07:00

shopping

Anybody can turn herself to be a shopaholic, a person who is in love buying everything at any price whenever there is an impulse to do so.

You sometimes do not even realize that you are only wasting your money for a slight moment of happiness.

There are 2 symptoms of shopaholic you can see for yourself :

Do you feel being pressured to buy? Are you sure about your expenditures? Or is it just an unplanned purchase triggered by your sudden desire to buy? You suddenly feel that you have to buy ‘an item’ and do not know why. You feel that it is better for you to buy it “now” than have to think about those special items all day long and you cannot think nor focus on doing something else.
When you feel such a ‘strong desire’, the only way to save your money is by maintaining your discipline. ‘DO NOT BUY’ if you do not have any plans to buy. Try not to think about it by doing something else persistently.

Is this expenditure really necessary?
People often buy things they do not need. They just want to buy and later do not know what to do about it. A shophaholic seldom uses a lot of items they buy. They just enjoy buying things.

When you decide on building your personal wealth, you may feel that your shopping behavior brings so many difficulties to you.
You really need to take control of your excessive expenditures.

Here, I will give you a thought from a successful wealth builder regarding his spending:

A successful wealth builder will only buy things they need. They will not spoil themselves for useless items, even though money is not a problem.

A successful wealth builder will think of getting a cheaper substitute that will give them the same personal effect for what they need. They will not dedicate themselves into a certain luxurious known brand, they may not buy Rolex for a watch, but they buy a good quality and long lasting watch.

A successful wealth builder will categorize his expenditures on whether it is going to contribute to their wealth or is going to cost them. A business trip is contributing to their wealth, while a first class vacation trip is only going to take out some of their wealth.

Knowing your weaknesses is one thing, but the most important thing is to do something about it. Being a shopaholic is not forever, you have a choice to be what you are, whether you want to continue your way or you want to start building your personal wealth NOW.

HOME-BASED BUSINESS

2007-07-04T18:36:00.000+07:00

women in business

Women nowadays will not give up their children for working outside, although they still need the income to help their husband running the household.

What these women do to solve this problem is by running a home-based business, or doing freelance job as now a lot of companies are looking for outsourcing to do some details for them.

The question now is, what home business are you going to do and how do you start it?

Experts will suggest you to start with something you like as the based idea. If you like children and have the ability to handle them, you may consider opening a day care at home.

If you like animals, you can run a pet centre at home. Even you can do business from your kitchen by selling cookies and other specialty foods to other people.

There are a lot of home business opportunities, and what is popular now is doing internet marketing. You can sell things in the internet for a company and you will get commissions if you succeed.

For you who are doing home business as a part time job, it is recommended to do something different from your everyday job to avoid getting bored as you will deal with the same things all day.

You can start your business from your passion. What are you interested in? Are you interested in sales, writing, gathering people? Multi Level Marketing is a good business but you may sacrifice some family time as you have to go out to get down lines.

You can look for a forum to learn about some possibilities. There are a lot of cooking forum, writing forum and others in the internet.

An idea is still an idea unless you run it into practice. Get started as soon as you make your decision.

Why many women cannot earn much doing home business is because they forget that a business is a business. They need to do it consistently. Having a home business does not mean that they are going to have plenty of leisure time.

You can earn as much as you want because you are the one who takes control on everything. Do not give up on your first failure, keep yourself motivated, focus and continue your business until you get what you want. Business is a process.

Doing a home business will challenge you to beat the temptation of losing your own schedule. This can be your biggest challenge. Your kids may ask you to take them swimming, going to the zoo or just playing with them. That is why it is very important to have a schedule on when you spend time with your kids and when to work on your business.

Entrepreneur Spirit 3

2007-06-27T01:17:00.000+07:00

being entrepreneur

Some people think becoming an entrepreneur is so difficult. They often think that to be an entrepreneur, money is the main factor. Actually, there is something else such as mental preparation that plays an important role.

Some people choose to be entrepreneurs because they do not want to suffer tight competition in the workforce, to have the desire for unlimited earnings, to have the freedom to determine their own destiny, and to be more independent or to have extra satisfaction on their personal achievement.

In the early stages of becoming entrepreneurs, however, people should realize that their income can be less than before, no more company allowances. Not mentioning that they have to work harder and longer hours, with the responsibility of employing their workers.

Moreover, they should cope with critics from their environment about how stupid they are for letting go such a good job with good payments and benefits.

People should have more than one income source, but by being entrepreneurs, they are working for themselves, and they alone will determine how much they want to earn and how.

Tips for new entrepreneurs:

Start with a low working capital, so people can minimize their potential loss that may occur. The other advantage is to train to survive in the new business with minimum facilities.
Be flexible; entrepreneurs should revise their business concept with current trends and economical conditions.
It is recommended to have a mentor who can share knowledge and give advises on critical points.
Start with your hobbies. By doing so, hopefully they can cope with the frustration and do not give up when they have to deal with difficulties.
Sometimes it is a good idea to do a completely new business idea that might bring less competitors.

Starting a new business needs capital. It is a safe way to use their own savings, because they do not have to pay interests or risk their assets when taking business loans from a local bank.

Avoiding interests should be considered since it is hard for a new business to gain profits during its first months of operation. It can take their breath away to pay high interests.

For people with a strong network, they can look for partners to cooperate with, so they also can share the capital.

Having a business does not mean that people will earn profits right away. Entrepreneurs should think about getting loyal customers and give them competitive services.

After a business has been developed, entrepreneurs might need employees. it is important to put honesty as the first criteria. It is a fact that honest people become rare nowadays, and you do not want to be cheated by your employees.

Last but not least, entrepreneurs should understand that running a business is a process. There will be some critical moments before they can earn a stable profit.

How to Deal with Your Retirement Plan

2007-06-22T10:10:00.000+07:00

Your Retirement Plan

Retirement Plan is playing an important role in everybody’s life. Everybody wants to enjoy a comfortable retirement in his old age. To achieve your best retirement plan, you cannot depend only on company pension scheme.

Reasons why you should not depend on your company retirement fund as the only pension scheme are:

Risk of major illness and disability, you may need more funds if this happen.

Risk of longevity, that you might live over your prediction.

Risk that the inflation will erode your savings/pension plan in a higher inflation rate than your predicted rate.

Of course, you may still have to deal with the decreasing market price of your assets that might deplete your net worth.

The Retirement Plan you need should be a personal financial portfolio that can give you passive income you needed to let you live in a comfortable retirement.

You can calculate what you need to achieve in your retirement funds by deciding your long term needs, inflation rate and other factors that may interfere with your life, such as a possibility to create a trust fund for your kids.

For making a portfolio of your retirement plan investments, it is highly recommended to seek professional's advice. There is no uniform financial plan that can solve everybody’s pension scheme.
By hiring a professional you will know exactly how much of your income should be put into your portfolio to get the needed passive income in your retirement days, and what kind of tax benefit you will have.

Here are several factors to be considered in creating your retirement plan:

Calculate realistically what your needs are in the future, you should consider the worst inflation rate against the worst scenario that may happen.

Put enough cash reserve in your bank account for your emergency needs. Do not consider this particular cash as part of your retirement fund. This cash reserve can be 6 to 12 times as much as your monthly cost of living.

Browse for a competitive return of investments. Look around for mutual funds, obligations, and other financial products. You can even consider on making a direct investment in a business that will give you a considerable passive income. You may also consider investing in property that can give you capital gain (when housing market rise significantly, you can sell your property and get a capital gain) as well as rental income.

Ask your financial advisor for tax benefits that you may have from your savings and investments.

Take an insurance to cover for your family. It should be part of your retirement plan. Insurance that might be needed such as: Whole life or Term Life insurance, disability insurance, home insurance, or others depending on your situation.

Review to make sure you have a healthy and balance investment portfolio. Sometimes you have to make changes on your investment policy to get better returns and keep up to date with inflation rate.

When you ask, when will be the best time to start your own Retirement Plan? It should be NOW, as soon as possible. The younger you start planning the better. It is your extra advantage if you are still at young age (please read about How strong Compound Interest is on article Savings as Your Income Management Tools on Archive May,25th, 2007, it will give you inspiration on financial matters).

TIPS FOR TRAVELING ABROAD

2007-06-19T19:37:00.000+07:00

vacation

Having a family holiday abroad will put you away from your daily routine. The new environment will refresh your energy, renew your vision and remake your family bonds.

Having a holiday abroad can cost you more than it should be if you do not make a complete plan for your trip. You must realize that sudden booking on tickets and hotels can cost you more than buying long before your departure. Especially when you are not in a hurry, you can take a look for special discounts offered by your travel agents.

Meals and transportation can be a problem in your destination since you may not know much about them. Moreover, you can have more problems when you find out that your kids and spouse may have different interests. Your spouse might want a spa treatment, your kids want to visit the biggest zoo in town, and you want to visit the museum.

You have a choice to join a tour package held by the travel agency, but such a tour may bring you seeing and visiting what is out of your interests and you are tight to the group schedule even when you are bored and tired.

Another alternative is for you to make your own group tour package, but of course it is going to cost you a bit more expensive.

That is why several people like to travel abroad individually with their own plans and join the local tour on their own schedules.

For you who like to travel abroad individually with your own family, here are some tips you can do:

Decide which country you want to visit. Find out what you are going to do there. You need to know information about sightseeing, zoos, museums, gardens, local shows, shopping places and other tourist attractions, including when it is open and close. This information will be useful for arranging your daily schedule.

Look for competitive price for hotels and tickets. Early bookings will cost you less, also if you can get a special offer by travel agents. Only use a credible travel agent to accommodate your trip.

Look for information about local transportation, including how much it will cost you from place to place (from airport to your hotel or to downtown), how much for renting a car, rate for trains or other public transportation.

Look for weather forecast information during your visit, so you can bring proper clothes. Bringing the wrong dress code might end up in wasting your money to buy new clothes that suitable with the weather.

Make sure you and your family will be accommodated by clean and acceptable meals, you should know where is the closest food centre (restaurant). It will be interesting if you could taste the local cuisine. Food can also show the culture of the local people.

Look for recommended malls or markets to shop souvenirs and gifts, check whether bargaining is allowed there. It would be fun to do some bargaining to get a competitive price instead of wasting your money unnecessarily just because you do not know that bargaining is allowed.

If it is possible, you should bring your family to attend cultural shows (dancing, opera or other specialty shows)

Looking for a local tour guide. Usually there will be a tourist desk in your hotel’s lobby, you can ask your concierge about it. Or you could make an order by email before your departure, so when you arrive, everything is ready.

Make a budget based on your plan and information. Sometimes you must cut some unimportant expenditures if your budget is not enough to accommodate the whole package.

Bring enough cash in local currency with you.

If your destination is not safe for tourist, it is better to use your credit cards and traveler checkques. Please be careful with your expenditures. Using credit card will tempt you to go over your budget.

By having a complete travel plan, you can avoid wasting time in your destination to scroll what to do. You must realize that when you are abroad, time will cost you money. You must enjoy your trip effectively.

Happiness doesn’t depend on how much you have to enjoy.
But how much you enjoy what you have.

Personal Budget Planning

2007-06-15T19:49:00.000+07:00

personal planning

Many people do not like to make their personal budget planning.

They are so frustrated of becoming penniless before the end of the month. They do not realize that it is not difficult to reach their financial freedom using personal budget as a tool.

It is recommended to take time to make review of their expenditures journal. Softwares can be used to assist them to see how their money was spent.

It is strongly suggested to take a budget course. There are a lot of free budget courses in the internet as well as in the neighborhood.

Spend a little time reviewing and managing personal budget, this will be a step towards financial freedom.

People need to understand that small expenditures such as parking tickets or a cup of coffee will influence their personal finance. Do they ever multiply that small expense by 30 days or by a year period? They can see how much it will be.

It is important to have a clear review on the average monthly expenditure. They can sum the total of 3 to 6 months expenditures (fixed costs such as rent, mortgage, insurance, and variable costs such as medical bills, groceries, credit card expenses), then divide it by the total period of time.

By knowing the average monthly expenditure, they can realize whether they are overspend. Are their monthly spending higher than their monthly income?

It is sometimes necessary to get help from a counselor if they are in the edge of debt and cannot protect themselves. It is better to spend on counseling fee than to have a never ending problem on debts.

For making a budget they will need to:

Realize their financial position

Sacrifice some luxuries, such as taking a cup of tea from café while they can make it themselves at home. Cut some of their weekly magazine, bring lunch from home instead of take out.

Look for substitutes of luxurious items. There are a lot of good quality items within their budgets.

Deposit regularly on their savings accounts.

Promise themselves that they will stick to their budgets and keep themselves away from any debts.

But do not get depressed when something unexpected happens. Sometimes they have no choice but breaking their personal budgets. Health problems, home maintenance, wedding gifts can mess up their plan. What they need to do is being flexible and restructure their plan.

How to Make a Wedding Budget

2007-06-13T23:35:00.000+07:00

Wedding Budget

Getting married with someone you love will be a wonderful experience. Each couple would like to have an unforgettable wedding ceremony with their family, friends, and relatives to celebrate this special occasion.

Sometimes holding a desirable wedding party as you dream of can cost you a lot of money. It is important for you for not ending up on a debt (loan) after the party is over.

You actually have a choice to hold your wedding party special but on a budget. What you need to do is to negotiate and compromise with your spouse and underline the love you have now (and in the future) is the most important thing than the wedding party itself.

It will be very important to have your wedding party on a good budget.

Here are some tips to make a Budget on your Wedding Party:

Decide the maximum total amount you can afford for the whole ceremony.

Allocate the maximum amount of each items needed, such as how much you are going to spend for meal for each guest, how much you are going to pay for photography? Plan the maximum amount for every expenditures.

Make priorities of all your wedding items. If photography is very important to you, then you should consider to pay more for photography than for the Wedding Venue or other thing that can be substituted.

Make a list of guests. It is crucial to make this list to avoid ordering too much food, invitation cards.

Make a detailed list on every item needed to minimize a sudden expenditure that occurs just because you forget to write it down.

Make a survey and research to find competitive price for your wedding dress, cakes, band, venue, flowers and other items on your list. Use you internet to help you do the comparison and find the best price.

Consider hiring a wedding planner to create an idea on your budget. You have to pay some fees, but sometimes it helps when you have no time to make a comparison yourself.

Overall, you have to stick to your budget, be discipline to yourself.

Having a wedding party is to announce your wedding and share your happiness with people close to you. It is not to show off your ability to hold a big party and do not let yourself become trapped into what people might expect your wedding party supposed to be.

Put, as a priority, your love and commitment to one another in building a happy and harmonious family.

Cheers…..

Working Woman

2007-06-11T18:03:00.000+07:00

Women and Family

A lot of women ends up their careers as being a plain housewife. This happens especially in Asia, where husbands are highly respected in the family hierarchy.

Now as things have change, women prefer being a housewife without sacrificing their potentials. Women like to work in the office, becoming a freelance, or running a business and a home at the same time.

For these women, being a freelance or running a home business is a good choice, because they can have the flexibility to manage their time, they can choose when to work and to stop. They can work from home most of the time.

Being freelance or business women make them have an opportunity to earn money, doing what they like the most by running their hobbies professionally.

There are some reasons why women prefer to work than just being a plain housewife:

Women like to express themselves. They need to be recognized that they can do something important for the family.

Women want to take part in family earning. They want to help their spouses in order to fulfill the family needs.

Women want to have a safety belt for the family. Although their husbands can earn much, it does not mean that there is no threats. Husbands can get fired at any time, business can be in danger. That is why if women can earn money themselves, they can support their husbands by being the safety belt.

Women want to feel secure themselves. It is a fact that many marriages failed by all reasons. Being independent financially can secure women when their marriages do not work out anymore.

Some women are well known as a money spender. By experiencing the difficulties of earning money, women can understand that it is unwise to spend their husbands' earnings on unnecessary things or luxurious items. Working women usually become wiser in managing money.

From those points above, it is recommended to have your spouse working. It will bring a lot of good things for the whole family, as long as they can put the family on the top priority.

What should always be remembered is that they are working not to compete with their spouses but to support each other in building family wealth.

Practical Tips to Get Out of Debt

2007-06-09T20:27:00.000+07:00

get out of debts

Do you ever think of how much is your expenditures? Do you spend more than you earn?

If the answer is yes, maybe these practical tips can help you to get out of debt:

Take a note of all your income, how much it is and where it comes from.
Write down all of your fixed costs, make a list of all your bills, such as how much you pay for your mortgage (rent), insurance, transportation, groceries, phone bills, everything.
Trace back where the rest of your money has gone after you paid all your bills.

By doing those 3 important steps, you will find out what you have done to your money recently.

If your expenditures are over your income, you are at the edge of debt, whether it is credit card debt, personal loan, or others.

By doing all those steps will not make you get out of debt. You have to act, a real plan to work out.

Here are some steps you can do :

When you receive an income, please make a top priority of paying your debts. You can start from paying debts with the highest interest rate.

Try to live with the rest of your money. Maybe you have to cut some unnecessary expenses, less dine out, even lower your quality of life. Cutting excesses of living expenditures will not do you any harm as much as your neck chocked by your debts.

You should not worry, because all of those expenditures will be cut only temporarily. When every debt is paid, everything can go back to normal again.

You look at the bright sides. A little walk to the office will make you healthy, less dine out will lower your cholesterol. Thus, at the end of the day, when you are out of your debts, you can start creating your financial safety.

Moreover, by discipline yourself, you will earn new habits. You may not be much interested in shopping luxurious items or fine dining as much as before, but instead you will be more interested in building your personal wealth.

What Everybody Should Know About Debt Problems

2007-06-08T11:29:00.001+07:00

debt problems

Are your creditors reminding you about your outstanding payables? Do you have a huge problem making monthly payments to them? If you do, it means you are in a “Debt Problem”.

Living in debt will put you and your family in distress.

Human desires are growing endlessly every day. It seems satisfaction has no limit. People tend to fulfill this by borrowing money from other parties in the form of personal loan from a local bank or using their credit cards. Their spending not only exceed their income, but also they tend to borrow a certain amount of money that is hard to be repaid.

Debt is a serious problem. You cannot just ignore or run away from it. You have to deal with debt problem as soon as it occurs, the longer you ignore it, the sooner the situation will get worse.

To get yourself out of debt problem, you need to use your knowledge to manage it and a strong commitment to really get out from the mess.

To overcome debt problem, here are some steps you can do:

Take a note of how much exactly you owe and to whom, and write down the interests you should pay to creditors. It is important to first clear your debts that have high interest rate.

Review carefully your spending. Do you spend on luxurious items you do not need or cannot afford? Do you overspend?

Cut your expenditures by doing less shopping, less hanging out in coffee shops, less dining out. Use public transportations that are actually cheaper than driving your car.

Motivate yourself by completely paying off one small debt. This will give you confidence in focusing and paying the rest of your debt.

Get support from your family members; ask them to remind you to keep on track in paying debt.

Ask for professional advices
from a third party, such as a consolidation company in order to manage your debts effectively by making the monthly payments more affordable at better terms. The consolidation company will deal with all your creditors for your behalf.

Negotiate with creditors to make a
revised payment plan, which involves the amount to be paid back and the new interest rate at which debts are repaid in the near future. Debt negotiation is important to borrowers who are struggling to avoid bankruptcy.

Debt is a tool in financing your personal needs when you use it properly. However, it will cost you more in the form of interests and repayments of the credit amount. That is why when you borrow money or use credit card, do it wisely.

The misconception in personal finances can become a habit, and just like every bad habit, it can be difficult to erase, but difficult does not mean impossible.

Credit Card Debts

2007-06-06T22:48:00.000+07:00

debts

Owing money to credit cards can turn your good life upside down. It happened to many people that they had to struggle to make payments and to balance their books.

There are some suggestions on what to do when you are trapped in your credit card debts:

Cut down on your credit card usage. You can remove your credit cards from your wallet (or purse)and leave them at home, or maybe you can go to extreme by cutting your cards.

Debt, however, must be paid. Make sure you are paying more than the minimum monthly payments, and concentrate on making payments on the highest interest rate cards. When you fail, you may consider talking to people in the credit card company, telling them your situation and asking whether they can help you making a revised payments plan.

Make a budget of your spending, especially your credit card usage, if possible use cash only.

A successful revised plan will allow you to make less monthly payments.

The unpleasant reality is that most people end up owing more debts than they begin with since they choose the wrong revised plan.

You might turn to a company you are familiar with, such as a debt consolidation company. But you should choose the company carefully, as it might reduce your monthly payments, but it will extend your repayment time, with extra fees for every hundred you owe to use its service. You change your personal loan into a costly mistake. The more you owe, the more you risk yourself, the more you have to pay high interest rate.

Credit Cards and Their Rewards

2007-06-06T08:45:00.000+07:00

credit card rewards

Credits cards are convenience for everyday purchases. Using these cards offer many people in the world more security, flexibility and manageability.

People do not have to walk down the streets carrying a lot of cash when they go and buy home appliances worth thousands of dollars. They just need to bring along their credit cards.

By proper management of credit cards finances, people can buy their necessary things now and pay off the balance in installment in the short term. Of course, there will be some interests charged to their accounts.

As the number of users increases, credit cards companies now offer reward schemes (such as bonuses and incentives) to people with large debts when they spend on their cards.

There are usually numbers of schemes to choose from:

Cash back rewards. This scheme offers a refund of a certain percentage of amounts spent on a credit card per month (or per year). There is usually a limit on the amount of money refunded.

Earning points for every dollar spent. These points can be used for other shopping occasions, or be used to claim discount vouchers.

Air mileage scheme. This program allows credit card users to earn mileage linked to the amount they spent on their cards. By opts to redeem the accumulated points into travel miles, frequent travelers can benefit much from the usage of their credit cards.

The credit card users need only to monitor their accumulated points in order to get the reward schemes they want.

Be careful with your credit card

2007-06-05T16:26:00.000+07:00

credit cards

Nowadays, credit card is a common money substitution in the world.

Financial institution has so many offers on credit card terms, like:

Standard credit cards are usually offered by banks with low interest; reward program credit cards or balance transfer credit cards.

Cash back credit cards that will offer you some percentage on cash back purchases. You can be tempted to use more frequently for getting more rewards.

Prepaid credit cards that will protect you against credit card debts, as the amount you can spend is the amount you made a deposit in your bank account.

Business credit cards for separating between business expenses and personal expenses.

Student credit cards to be used for students to protect them when they are away from home

And others.

Whatever credit card you are looking for, just make sure that it suits your needs, and you should read carefully the terms and conditions offered. Also, find out which institutions offer you the competitive terms. Today, you must compare the terms carefully before applying a credit card as there are so many choices out there.

Do not be tempted by the rewards they offer, remember that to get those rewards, you need to spend more. If you are not careful enough, you will find yourself trapped.

You should check the effectiveness and reliability of the credit card before you jump into commitments of having one, be sure that you make the right choice.

Credit Card company will not offer you a favor, it is a business for them. They are making profit by taking fees and charge interest on your debt.

When you already own a credit card, always check the print out, make sure that the advantages are over the pitfalls of having credit cards.

Always try to pay all your credit card usage. In wealth building, you should remember that it is what you keep that make you rich, not what you earn, so that try to have zero debt.

Try to have one or two credit cards only. Having many credit cards only bring you headache later, as there will be some bills you have to pay, and remember that the fees will be multiplied by the numbers of credit cards you have.

Do You Need a Credit Card? Pros and Cons

2007-06-04T20:56:00.000+07:00

credit cards

There are good reasons why you need a credit card. First, it is easier for people who travel frequently to have easy access to money, and as a method of paying for things at all times and at different currencies.

Secondly, it is used for shopping on-line. Paying for goods bought online is fast and convenient. However, credit cards also cost money and create the risk of overspending. Credit card holders wish that their credit cards were interest free at all times. If you pay off your full balance on time at the end of every month then the cards will be interest free. Most of us cannot come up with the money to do this.

There is a credit term call ‘grace period’, which is a period within which they can pay their bill without being charged interest (usually the period given is 25 to 30 days)

Many credit card merchants recently offer a low fixed interest rate instead of eliminating grace period. The question is, which one should you choose? A credit card with low interest rate or with grace period?

It is a pros and cons. For you who can pay all at once at the end of the month, to use a credit card with grace period. For you who can afford to pay the credit card bills only partially, to use a credit card with low interest rate.

There are good and bad sides about using a credit card. It will be a useful tool for you who can control it and will become one of the worst enemy for you who cannot control yourselves while using it.

If you do not want to end up in credit card debt, please use your credit card wisely, pay the balance on time and control your spending

Entrepreneur Spirit 2

2007-06-04T11:57:00.000+07:00

Entrepreneur Spirit

As mention before, you really need to take a serious consideration as being an entrepreneur. Serious thoughts of how you want to spend your retirement days might motivate you to take your first step.

Try not to think too complicated, just make up your mind and take your first step, maybe you make some mistakes, but you will learn and get more experiences.

When you are looking for idea, you can always start from your hobby. Something you like the most and willing to spend times to do with a happy heart. Something that even when you are in difficulties and problems you may find will not make you give up and stop doing it.

If you are a housewife who loves to cook, you can start selling something from your kitchen… either pudding, cakes, soups, whatever your specialties are. Even when you do not want to make your kitchen dirty, why not selling your recipes and tips on the internet?

If your hobby is gardening, you can sell flowers, vegetables, seeds, whatever related to garden activities. You can even sell them through the internet, either the products or just the tips from your gardening experiences and knowledge.

When you like to read, you can promote e-books to others. In brief, any hobbies can make you money if you can find the idea to sell it. Be creative…. It is good when you can earn money from your hobby.

As a matter of fact, the internet business is growing nowadays. It gives you the opportunity to work at home, or wherever you are. You just need your computer and an internet connection.

Explore your potentials, anybody can be an entrepreneur, you just have to think and take your first step…. And go on.

Being an entrepreneur is all about a will and a commitment to work for it.

Entrepreneur Spirit 1

2007-06-01T21:28:00.000+07:00

Entrepreneur Spirit

Earning money nowadays is not as easy as in the old times. In fact, looking for jobs is harder for lots of average fresh graduates. Due to oversupply of workforce, the salary is not meant to be as they expect.

Therefore, we should be thinking of being entrepreneurs, being self-employed which also raises one's self confidence.

For some employees, although they are in a good management level, they are still fragile with the issue of getting fired or being placed in early retirement program by their company. When the company they are working for is in a bad financial situation, well…. it is always possible to lay off somebody to reduce cost.

An employee can be fired because of company’s financial issues, old age (think slower, not competitive anymore, while his/her salary is too high compared to a fresh graduate), and many other reasons that result in the word “fired”.

Being an employee can never be safe, because you depend on other people called “Boss”. It is not bad being an employee, but it is better if you have your own business. Maybe it is only a small business, but it is yours, you are the one who takes control.

It is very common to hear when we were kids, “Study hard, be diligent, get good grades in school and so on…... so that you can graduate and work in a great company that grant you good salary plus all the benefits you deserve” But do you see what I see? That lots of us (including me actually) were grown up to work for somebody else, to be employees. We are just looking for good paychecks and benefits…. Not a financial freedom opportunity.

Maybe it is a better idea if we work for somebody else to get enough work experiences, and after that we should think of working for ourselves, being an entrepreneur.

In social terms, being an entrepreneur will give you a chance to employ other people, meaning you can help them find employment.

There will be lots of thoughts to challenge you when you are thinking to become an entrepreneur. Such as, low self-confidence that makes you think that you cannot do it. You do not have enough skills, knowledge, experiences or money to start. It seems impossible to see yourself as an entrepreneur.

Please, try to think of bad days you and your precious family members have to deal with when you are fired or you just cannot work anymore for any reasons.

Those thoughts will give you the spirit to learn skills, knowledge, experiences needed to start your own business. You will have ideas where you can get enough capital to create a small business. You might also consider the idea to cooperate with somebody else who you know well to be your business partner.

Just think like an entrepreneur, that you cannot wait for somebody to think for you. You are the one who takes control, it is your life, and it is your business.

Put your future in good hands, your own ……………(Anonymous)

Do You Enjoy Your Job?

2007-06-01T21:07:00.000+07:00

your job

When you get up in the morning to work, how do you feel? Do you feel challenge, a new day has come and challenges are waiting for you in your office…. Solving work-related problems is a self achievement, you enjoy doing those things. Or you just feel….”Oh my God….. I have to go there again…. I wish today was Friday”.

What you feel indicates how you take your job, whether you enjoy it. Or you just feel it as an obligation you cannot avoid.

One thing you should know, when you do what you like, is that you have the possibility to improve yourself. Difficulties are challenges that give you experiences. Doing something you like can make you earn credit from your employer as you perform well.

On the contrary, doing something you do not have passion on will not get you anywhere You just stay the same person as you enter the company’s door. You will not get credits as your performance is just ‘so-so’ or even worse.

Take time to realize what you are doing right now. Does your job bring you satisfaction? Are you going to do the things you always do in the coming years?

Some people may be thinking of changing their job. They have the heart to be self-employed; they never feel comfortable receiving orders from a boss. They have their own idea to lead the way to do things… The very best thing for them to do is considering being self-employed or being entrepreneur so that they can fulfill their emotional needs.

People do not fulfill life by their basic needs only, but also by their emotional needs.

How to Earn Passive Income

2007-05-31T12:21:00.000+07:00

passive income

How can you earn your passive income? In a very simple way you can earn interests from your bank deposits. To have enough interests to cover all your expenses, you need a huge amount of savings. Not to mention that you should still be aware of inflation that is eroding your buying power.

So, what else can you do? Why do not you think of investing? There are many choices about where are you can invest your money. You can look for them in the internet, to an investment company, or even your bank, where nowadays banks also sell investment products.

I will give you some common idea of investing:

You can invest in property
You can buy a land with a low price in a strategic location and hold it. When the land’s price increases, you can earn some capital gain (the percentage of gain depending on your location and the property market price at that time).
Even you can grow something in your land while you wait for the price to increase providing the soil of your land can support farming. You can grow tomatoes, potatoes, whatever you want and sell the products to the market, by doing this not only you receive some money, but I’m sure it would be fun for the family also to visit there during the holidays.

You can invest in stock market
Some stocks in stock market is a very aggressive investment tools, but remember “High risk – high return”. To be a smart stock market investor you must keep yourself aware the difference between investing and gambling.
You can also invest in bonds
Bonds is a quite stable investment tools. By putting your money into bonds you receive bond interests, but at the same time while the bond price increases, you could have some capital gains. When hold to maturity; bonds are paid back in full, that is, 100 % return on capital. As an investor, you should learn some facts before putting your money into it.
You can do house or room rentals
You can invest in houses and rent them or just rent some rooms to tenants. While waiting for your property value to increase, you can earn some money from renting.

There are still so many other ways in businesses and investments that can give you passive income on your retirement days.
What you need to do is to think, to look for it and to be creative.

“Sometimes it’s more risky when you choose to take no risk at all”

Understanding Passive Income

2007-05-30T19:07:00.000+07:00

Passive Income

Passive income is an income you earn even when you are sleeping. For example: bank interests for deposits, dividends for investments.

Passive income can be an important part of your retirement plan. Imagine you have enough salary to live with and still have some leftovers to put into your bank deposits and investments. These leftovers give you passive income that yields extra money for you.

When passive income covers daily expenses, you can retire comfortably without lowering your current lifestyle.

Growing old can also mean increasing in medical expenses. It is like an old car needed to be maintained and repaired more often and more costly. Will it be a problem? Well, make sure your passive income on that day can cover your medical expenses, instead of only depending on your insurance coverage.

Imagine you are in your retirement age and suddenly you have to work again just to cover your daily and medical expenses. You might not be competitive enough in the job market, compared to the youngsters and fresh graduates who are still full of energy. They can do overtime more than you do and as a matter of fact, they are cheaper than you.

That is why you need to plan and manage your passive income now so that you can retire with comfort and without worry.

Put your future in good hands, your own ……………(Anonymous)

Your Debt Payment Plan

2007-05-29T22:43:00.001+07:00

debt payment

When you have current debt, what should you do first? Pay off your debt or focusing on your investment or savings plan?

To make the correct decision, you can consult with your credit card customer service whether they can help you with a lower interest rate or another restructured payment plan when you have a significant amount of debt.

If you are offered by a good debt-repayment plan, it can be the right thing to pay your debt first.

In most cases, some experts will recommend you to use 10% of your funds for debt repayment and another 10% for your wealth accumulation.

The advantages of simultaneously savings and paying off your debt at the same time are:

It is important for you to see the growth of your wealth; it will motivate you to make your financial plan as well as your debt payment plan successful.

It will make you be discipline in life, improve your lifestyle and not fall into the same debt again.

Remember not to create a new form of debt by using your credit cards while you pay your old debt. It would be like digging another hole for you.

Shopping Tips to Save Money

2007-05-28T22:20:00.000+07:00

shopping tips

Do you ever think about the way you shop? How is way you spend your money? Most of us shop daily, weekly or monthly for things we need (or want). What triggers your buying attitude? Is it what you need or what you want that brings you the desire to spend all your pocket money?

Many people go shopping when they are on stress; it is like a therapeutic treatment for them. They think they would feel better after they went shopping, without realizing that what they brought home were things they did not need or sometimes even they did not want when they were in good mood.

Some other people go shopping for lifestyle, for fun. Whatever your reasons are, when you buy something you do not need, it can be considered as wasting your money.

Do you want to make over? Do you want to avoid wasting money?

Here I will try to give you some tips before you go shopping:

Shopping tips 1
Do not go to the groceries when you are hungry, because you tend to grab anything within your reach (everything looks delicious)

Shopping tips 2
It is better to write a shopping list before entering a shop. Check what you need, including the quantity you plan to buy for each item. Avoid overbuy.

Shopping tips 3
Keep your eyes straight. Only buy what are listed in your shopping list. Discipline yourself. If not, you will start to buy unnecessary things you do not even need.

Shopping tips 4
Pay with cash only. When credit card is used, you are tempted to use it since you realize that you can have it now and pay later. You are also tempted to buy more, as long as you are still within your credit limit.

Shopping tips 5
Make a budget for your shopping expenses.
It is somewhat stressful to shop in a very strict budget so that you can give yourself a bit tolerance that will not hurt your saving’s plan.

Shopping tips 6
This is the key to the other tips. Keep your shopping attitude well planned.
It is about commitment what to buy, when and how much.
It is all in your hands to shop wisely or just shop until you drop (be a big spender).

Sometimes it only takes commitment to shape your shopping attitude.

Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have
(Rabbi H. Schachtel)

What You Should Know About Your Money

2007-05-26T22:40:00.000+07:00

money

When you have money, no matter how much it is, you have “that” limited power to do what you want, what you need to do. That makes it important to really know everything about the money you have. It is better to control your money than the money controls you.

Calculate everything you own, like your cash, deposits, property, cars, and other assets, then subtract them by the amount you owe to another party (your payables, your debts, credit card payables, etc). The amount left is your net worth, the money you really own.

You also need to know where those money come from, whether it comes from your salary, bank interests, royalty, dividends, heritage or others.

By knowing where these sources come from, you can think of what you can do to increase your wealth. If you spend to much time on something that only give you a small return then you can figure out something more profitable for you.

You can also make a policy about how your money should be used. For example, your monthly salary should be used for your daily expenditures. When you receive yearly bonuses, you can use it for vacation and heritage money can be used to educate your kids or another one-time expenditures. Just try to balance your book.

After you keep track on what you own and where your sources come from, it is about time to realize how you use your money. It is the way to control it. When you find a leak, you know you can plug it soon.

By tracking your expenditures, you will know how much your spending is in details. Sometimes, we just forget and spend on unnecessarily things.

You can track your expenditures by making notes; how much you pay for social donations, your loans, your grocery expenditures, clothing expenses, etc, just write down everything.

You can imagine when you waste $10 per day for unnecessary expenditures, it will be $300 at the end of the month, and when it happens every month, and the deposit’s interest rate is assumed as 6% per annum, actually by the end of the year you will waste $ 3,700.67

End of month	End of month SAVINGS	End of Month Savings plus 6% interest
January	$ 300.00	$ 300.00
February	$ 600.00	$ 601.50
March	$ 900.00	$ 904.51
April	$ 1,200.00	$ 1,209.03
May	$ 1,500.00	$ 1,515.08
June	$ 1,800.00	$ 1,822.65
July	$ 2,100.00	$ 2,131.76
August	$ 2,400.00	$ 2,442.42
September	$ 2,700.00	$ 2,754.63
October	$ 3,000.00	$ 3,068.41
November	$ 3,300.00	$ 3,383.75
December	$ 3,600.00	$ 3,700.67

note: On the table above, I’m not calculating taxation on the brief calculation

When you waste $10 per day, actually you will lose $3.700,67 in a year, don’t you feel sorry for that? Imagine if you keep doing this for the next 5 or 10 years.

Remember that most expenditure will be followed by another one.
When you buy a car, you not only pay for the car itself, but you also have to pay taxes, insurance, maintenance, etc. Do you really want to pay for those? Can you really afford those extra expenditures without risking your financial plan?

On the article "How to Double Your Money" you will learn that time and rate of return of an investment can grow your wealth. Your money is working for you. You must keep an eye on it. Make a record, so you can figure out what is going on and how it is going to be.

It is your money, your responsibility, by taking control of it, you may earn more than just the monthly salary you receive.

By controlling and managing your money, you actually can improve your wealth, your quality of life.

How to Double Your Money

2007-05-26T10:37:00.000+07:00

Money Formula

Formula to double your money, do you believe that? Well, I do.

There is such a formula and what you need for doubling your money are: time, rate of return (%) and of course ‘patience’

Here, I will give you the formula in which actually I found in a Financial Books a year ago:

X = 72 : Y

X = years needed to have your money doubled
Y = rate of return of your investment (in percentage)
72 = is constant, always use 72 in this formula
Actually this formula is known as Formula 72

In example, you deposits $10,000, with 9% interest rate annually, so you can have your money doubled in 8 years time.

If you want to test the calculation, you can take your calculator and calculate :

($10,000 x 1..09) x 1.09 x 1.09 x 1.09 x 1.09 x 1.09 x 1.09 x 1.09

You will have $ 19,925.65 in your calculator, which means with compounded interest you will double your $10,000 within 8 years if the interest rate is 9% annually.

Isn’t that great? Imagine if the rate of return of your investment id 12% annually, then it’s only going to take you 6 years .How about if it is 15%, 20%, and so on…..

But to use the formula, you need to be patient. You should keep the money in your investment accounts and let time and the compounded interest work for you, just co-operate with the formula and you will have your money double with time.

As a matter of fact, you can use this formula to plan your retirement funds. After you calculate how much you need for your retirement days and how many years before you retire, then what you have to do is to choose the right investments.

Of course you still have to keep an eye on your investments whether they grow as you plan or you need to switch to other investments that give you the returns you want.

There are lots of great investments out there and they are still improving, so keep you up to date with the financial (investment) issues.

2007-05-25T12:48:00.000+07:00

savings account

Savings as Your Income Management Tool

You will get paid for your efforts of doing your job in the workplace. The income earned is going to be used for paying your daily expenses, such as housing, foods, clothes and vacations.

Before you pay all those things, are you going to pay yourself? Are you going to set aside some of your income into your savings account? If things need to be paid, why do not you pay yourself first?

Are you going to pay yourself 5% of your income or 10% or 20%? This is YOU that we are talking about here. YOU are the one who do the hard work. Do you want a satisfactory payments in your savings account?

Believe me, by paying yourself first, you will not feel poor. Someone will not be poor just by deciding to live with 80%-90% of his monthly income. Do not try to make excuses later to change your mind just to fulfill your higher standard of living.

If others are willing to eat in an ordinary restaurant, why you are so spoiled by eating in a fancy restaurant every time you feel like dining out? Before you buy some nice clothes, shoes, sandals, please double check how many of each item you already had in your wardrobe?

What I am trying to say here is, we have most of the time the tendency of buying things only because we WANT them and not because of NEED. That will hurt your savings, consider yourself lucky when you do not use your credit cards to buy the things you “Want”.

It takes a big commitment to discipline yourself in doing your income management plan, filling your savings account. It is hard to live under budget but not necessarily impossible. To convince this case, please realize how much you actually waste by reading the illustration below.

Assuming you put $5.000 per year, and you have a return of 5% annually by the end of each calendar year ( with compounded interest), you can see how much you are going to have in a 5-year period:

Year	End of Year SAVINGS	End of Year Savings PLUS 5% interest
1	$ 5,000.00	$ 5,000.00
2	$10,000.00	$ 10,250.00
3	$15,000.00	$ 15,762.50
4	$20,000.00	$ 21,550.63
5	$25,000.00	$ 27,628.16

Note: taxes not included.

By making a commitment of saving money per year, you can improve your savings account into $ 27,628.16 at the end of the period.

With time and compounded interest, you can save a lot more.

It is a saying: It’s not what you earn but what you keep that makes you rich

2007-05-24T13:26:00.000+07:00

Family Budget

FAMILY BUDGET

A husband or a wife has the same responsibility on family savings, investments and expenditures. In short, both are responsible on making the family budget and make sure it works.

They need to calculate total income they earn and to plan the expenditure. Especially when they have kids….. They need to prepare tuition fees besides their own retirement plan.

What usually happens, a spouse hold his/her own income and keep secret from another, even he/she is lying about his/her expenditures avoiding the other spouse to get mad of his/her shopping habits. When the real financial problems come, they will blame one another for not taking the responsibility.

Marriage is about 2 persons in the same boat, going towards one direction; they have to cooperate well to reach their destination while they enjoy the journey. This includes financial goal.

Both have to negotiate about how they want to use the money, how much they will spend on grocery, tuition fee, cars, gasoline, make up, loans, vacation, and others. And work on those commitments, they should not break the rules and making excuses….

Please, do not blame your kids when you buy expensive sport shoes for them. You are the adult; you are the one who takes control. Do not make excuses that are for them, sometimes it is just the parents themselves that cannot stop the impulse purchases. Maybe the sales promotion girl was persuasive, or maybe there was a sale going on with 50% discount for buying the hot items.

Making a budget is a must, but making commitment on it is the most difficult part. That is why you should co-operate with your spouse to remind each other.

Sometimes to make sure you run well on your family budget, you can make some rules like:

Delay buying expensive items for 3 days, and if after 3 days you still want them, you will discuss your intention to buy with your spouse.
Only buy what are needed, only buy grocery for 3 days stocks, so you can avoid overstock vegetables and meat.
Make a shopping list of what you need, and when you overbought yourself, cut your leftover money as much as you overspent, and put it on a ‘Piggy Bank”, but please keep your Piggy bank as far as you can, so it will not tempt you.
Make a budget on gifts. Gifts are presents, a way to show that you care. When you care a lot does not mean you have to give something extremely expensive. Make a promise on each other that the maximum for a gift is.$ 30, or another amount, depending on your agreement.
Celebrate birthdays and anniversaries on budget, both spouse have to understand that the most important thing is the meaning of the celebration, not the event itself.

I am sure all of you can think of many other ideas to keep your family budget works.

2007-05-23T08:00:00.000+07:00

wealthy

I Want to be Wealthy, How About You?

It is important to know your destination where exactly you want to go financially. To state what our financial goals are.

Do you feel satisfied if you just can live day by day like you do today? Or you want something more, such as a vacation abroad once or twice a year? Buy lots of toys and books your kids want; send your kids to the best college? Get the best medical service when you are sick? What I mean is do you want to be financially wealthy? A situation that makes things possible to run the lifestyles you want.

Here, I am trying to stress out your financial commitments. I want you to decide what exactly you want in your life and then make a commitment to reach it with discipline. One cannot just say that he wants to be wealthy. He needs to work for it, it is a commitment.

Have you ever heard that you are what you think? I try not to explain how psychology works, but it is true that you may lose if you are thinking of losing, and you may win if you are thinking of winning and you really want to win. So why don’t you take advantage of your own thoughts? You do not have to do something extra; it is all in your head. You just have to think and make a commitment to it. Just think what you want and make it go through your blood, say that YOU want to be WEALTHY.

Do you need any reasons why you should be wealthy? Here I am going to tell you some of them:

The ever-increasing standard of living makes what you earn as an average people not support the lifestyle you want. It can be worse later on as everything goes more expensive while your earnings stay stagnant.

Would you retire in a certain stage in life that you do not need to worry about your expenses in running the lifestyle you want? Maybe retire in a warm place with beautiful view around?

Would you like to give your family a comfortable life, send your kids to the best schools?

There are so many other personal reasons that only you can think of.

And by realizing all those reasons, don’t you want to be a wealthy person?

2007-05-22T11:47:00.000+07:00

The Importance of Financial Planning

The Importance of Financial Planning

Nobody can fulfill their financial planning only by working and savings. They can work hard, spend a little to save a lot (or they thought they were) while inflation is going to eat their nest eggs money. Moreover, medical expenses have gone through the roof as well as the increasing cost of college education.

What can you do to solve these problems? What is your Plan B? All of us should take deep breath thinking about this matter.

Work hard like a horse? Marry a rich spouse? Or try to keep your healthy lifestyle (eat well, sleep well) with the hope that you never get a serious disease? Is your plan going to take you through a comfortable retirement without worrying about financial matters? Remember inflation is still eroding your money in the golden years.

In this case, what you need is a sound financial plan. You cannot invest your money only by following your heart or what people or newspapers say. You need to have your own financial plan that suits your needs.

Here are some aspects you have to consider before you make your financial planning:

How old are you now? Are you single or married?
How many children do you have or do you plan to have?
Are you planning to send your kids to college?
At what age are you planning to retire? At your retirement, how much money do you need to live as comfortable as during your pre-retirement?

Above questions might sound simple but take serious considerations. You feel good to continue your current lifestyle as long as you are happy. Are you planning to be happy just for today and tomorrow? How about later?
I believe, there will be some detailed aspects that only you are able to analyze on your own in building Financial Planning.

By acknowledging what you want and how much it is going to cost you, have you reached your GOALS? Can you afford it? Congratulations if you do. If you do not, please do not panic. There is still time. What you need to do now is to figure out your Financial Plan B, Your Revised Retirement Plan.

One way to achieve independence is to prepare for everything in advance.