Archive for the 'Financial Resources' Category

The United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing offers fun online games that will give you an opportunity to talk about money with your kids and help them learn while enjoying the games. Together you can design a personal “family bill” and forward to friends and relatives. Play trivia games or try to catch a counterfeit bill. Tour the Bureau of Engraving and Printing virtually. Expand your knowledge of currency while playing–it all adds up to good financial sense for your whole family.

When the finance company providing your mortgage threatens closure on you, then its time for action. Being evicted from your home and losing everything you have put into it is and extremely stressful experience that may well affect the rest of your life.

From time to time we here at Financing Wealth get asked to review websites and recently this mortgage foreclosure site asked to discuss their site. It got me thinking about mortagage foreclosures and what people should know even if their house isn’t facing foreclosure.

Its not just the loss of your home and savings, its also the damage to your credit history which will make it far more challenging to get financing in the future. However there are ways to avoid property repossession. If you are unfortunate enough to be in this position there are businesses that can help to stop repossession of your house. And also teach you warning signs to look for if you are close to it.

Such companies will also give you options to sell and rent back your home , enabling you to clear your financial debts and keep your home to live in. Some of the companies specialising in this area will also give you the right to repurchase your property at a later date once you are in an improved financial situation. Thus creating possibly the best option for you, getting your home to live in whilst you keeping the right to buy it back.

That little bit of information was really interesting to me because people who file for bankruptcy (which is more difficult now than before) can avoid filing and sill keep their house. Even though you may pay an arm and a leg in interest, you still have the option of owning your house in the end.

Good resource to learn from to prepare you for any situation that might arise in your financial world.

The most solid route to wealth is by acquiring financial knowledge. Everything that you can learn about money aids in your quest for financial independence. The following books are recommended reading on your path:

The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course in Accounting by Robert L. Dixon and Harold E. Arnett

Own Your Own Corporation by Garrett Sutton

Courage to Be Rich by Suze Orman

The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley

Guerilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson

More Wealth Without Risk by Charles J. Givens

If you are in the market for a financial planner, here are ten questions that you may want to ask your candidates before you choose an advisor.

• How many years have you been in business?
• Can you describe your typical clients?
• What is your ratio of support staff to professional staff?
• What is your reputation in the field and in the community?
• Can we meet at your office? (You’ll learn a lot about his or her personality)
• Do you understand what the advisor tells you or does he or she talk over your head?
• Do you have a clean record?
• What are your investment methods?
• May I get referrals from other clients you have?
• Do I have to sign a contract?

The History Channel includes a fascinating section on the history of money. You can see videos of the production of currency, the Gold Rush, and Black Tuesday. Be sure to check out the timeline for little-known money facts and my personal favorite, coined phrases.

“A fool and his money are soon parted.”
~A Defense of Government, by John Bridges (1587) ?

If you think finance is rather dry and boring, check out Feed the Pig and enjoy the videos. These hilarious skits focus on interruptions in spending and may cause you to consider a few of your own spending patterns. Are they perhaps a bit, errr, greedy? Focused on the short term? The U.S. Commerce Department of Economic Analysis reports that Americans spend $1.22 for every $1.00 they earn! 

If this is you, be sure to try Feed the Pig’s collection of tools and tips to help you save. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and state CPA societies partnered with the Ad Council to create Feed the Pig to encourage younger Americans to save as a key step in building a solid financial future. 
 

Did you resolve to become financially healthy this year? Here is a list of tips to get you and your money in shape. Act on your financial plan today, it will pay off tomorrow. You can do it!

Do a reality check Assess your net worth using this handy browser based balance sheet. Get into the habit of checking your net worth monthly and resolve to increase it each time you check.

Watch what you spend Get a small notebook and write down every penny you spend for the next month. Your spending habits may surprise you. While shocking, this exercise can help you decide where to make changes.

Plan to be rich Now that you know what you are spending, make a written budget and follow it. This is the most effective way to live within your income and learn good spending habits. Review your expenses against your budget weekly or monthly.

Clean financial house If your bank account is unreconcilable, open a new one and resolve to keep it clean, meaning record every transaction in the register and reconcile it when the statements come. At a minimum, use online banking to keep an eye on your account and never give the bank the satisfaction of charging you a single overdraft fee.

Check your credit score Get a free report at freecreditreport.com. If it’s low, take steps to improve it. Always pay parking tickets and library fines, if left to amass fines and penalties these can actually negatively impact your credit score. Even if you aren’t looking to use credit yourself, potential employers and landlords may run a credit check on you before making a final decision.

Make a habit of recordkeeping Don’t scramble at tax time -– or miss a deduction -– by organizing your records early in the year. Save receipts, cancelled checks, pay stubs, bank and investment statements, and proof of any other deductions you may want to claim. Folders and spreadsheets are handy tools to keep order.

Reduce your debt The less money you owe, the less interest you pay, and the more money you can funnel into future investments. Figure out which of your credit cards has the highest interest. Pay the minimum monthly charge on all of your debts except the one with highest interest. Throw every extra cent you have at that debt until it is paid off. Continue in this way until you are debt free. If possible, consider switching high interest balances to a 0% APR credit card.

Start saving Set aside a percentage of your monthly income as savings. Ten percent is a good rate for investors in their twenties and thirties; if you are behind in your retirement planning, adjust to a higher percentage. Keep it simple, set up an automatic investment plan to pay yourself first monthly.

Plan for retirement Contribute to an IRA or your company’s 401k plan. Your company is likely to match a portion of your contribution, check with the plan administrator at your place of employment for more information.

Pay with cash This is the absolute surefire way to stay out of debt. If you don’t have the cash for a purchase you are considering, decide not to buy it right now. Then make a plan to come up with the cash to make it happen. Remember, there are two things you can do with money: save it or spend it. Saving money increases your wealth, spending money leaves you poorer.

Exchange Traded Funds made quite an impression in 2006 and ETF’s look to make and even bigger splash in 2007.

The ETF is a great thing if you want to get into many a mutual fund but don’t want to deal with going through a management firm. Most management firms make you join with a lump sum and only allow you to buy with a certain amount. This can put a lot of restrictions on your investments.

With ETF’s you can buy and sell shares of “funds” just like a stock on any stock market. You can use your online discount broker to buy the shares and sell the shares. You can get into funds like SLV which trades silver or FXI which trades china related companies.

To find the most traded funds in one place and get into the funds look at iShares.com. It’s the company that’s putting ETF’s on the investment map and will be your single resource to find an ETF on everything.

If you’re looking for a good investment vehicle that’s as safe as some mutual funds but as easy to day trade as stocks then ETF’s are the thing for you.

Contributing to a 401K plan but not sure how it works? Well, the great site HowStuffWorks.com has a great “how article” on How 401(k) Plans Work.

The site, known popularly as a great book from the early 90’s has thousands of articles on how everything works, not just those mechanical devices you always wondered about before. The article called “How 401K plans work” points out the basics to 401K plans and compares them to straight-up old fashioned buying of stocks.

Some of the key elements of the article that make it worth your look are:

1. A list of 4 things that make 401K plans different from other retirment plans.

2. A great chart, pictures always work better, on how the 401K process works.

3. 401K vs. Stocks, your tax advantages and differences

Overall it’s a great article and if you’ve ever wondered where you money is going I would head over to that article to find out.

technorati tags:401K, Roth, IRA, Traditional, Retirement, Investing

The market is going down no matter how bad you want to deny it. Commodities are selling of, gold in particular, stocks are moving back below 11,000 and the housing market is seeing it’s share of downturn. Most people who look at this type of market see nothing but bad news and want to get all their money in a savings account ASAP.

Those people are also the people who think investing is risky and buy a lot of poster child mutual funds. People can win in a down market, and most of those people are the rich. Not because they’re rich, but because they know what to invest in. They’ve learned over the years, taught themselves, taken their blows and can now come out smelling like roses no matter what way the market turns. The trick they have is they took the time to learn how to invest and took the risk out of investing in an up or down market.

You’re probably now saying, “But I don’t have time to learn to invest in all those rich investments.” Well you’re reading this and probably 20 other blogs and financial advisement sites out there so I say bully to you. The problem is you may not know where to look or what to look for. It’s a big deal sifting through all the crap that’s out there especially on the internet but we’re going to give you a couple places to start looking.

First off, we find Yahoo Finance to be a great resource. On their homepage they usually have featured articles from investing guru’s like David Bach, Suze Orman, and Robert Kiyosaki. Start here and begin searching the archives for articles about what to do when the market goes south. We found this article to be a helpful starter, are looking for, DEALS. Some stocks are dropping based just on speculation and investors (aka gamblers and speculators) worries. Look for the deals and look for stocks that are slowly becoming great deals.