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August 22, 2018 by Greg Underwood

Tips On Saving and Investing Money For Your Retirement

The formula for accumulating enough wealth to retire comfortably is fairly simple: Learn how to earn more, spend less, save consistently, and invest wisely.

But just because something is simple, it doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Even those who have learned how to earn more struggle to control their spending. Then, only the few who manage to control their spending can begin to save. And, finally, it’s only those who have sufficient savings who have enough capital to invest in commodities like gold bullion.

Since the road to wealth consists of navigating across four roads—earning, spending, saving, and investing—let’s take a closer look at what toll price you have to pay for each road.

Earning More

The way to earn more is to learn more. When you know your job better, when you understand its breadth and scope, its pitfalls and potentials, you can add more value.

If you work for someone, your learning adds more value to your employer. As a result, you are likely to be promoted and advance in your company. If you work for yourself, then you add more value to your business. As a result, you are likely to get more customers and make more sales.

Learning more can be done in a number of different ways. You can learn on the job, noticing what works and what doesn’t work, then decreasing what doesn’t work and increasing what does work.

You can also learn through formal and informal ways. Formal learning consists of taking professional classes. Informal learning consists of self-study.

Spending Less and Saving Consistently 

Spending less and saving more usually work together. There is no point in spending less if you’re not going to open up a savings account. Spending less starts with noticing where your money goes and finding free or cheap ways to achieve the same goals. The next step, of course, is to control your spending by budgeting. This, you should be warned, is not easy. With the ever-increasing cost of living, it’s always difficult to live below your means.

Still, with effort and persistence, it’s possible to finally figure out how to create a realistic budget, which is one that works most of the time. Of course, your success with spending less will automatically leave you with surplus money, which you can then start socking away into a saving’s account.

Investing Wisely

At a certain point, you will have enough saved to begin investing. This, the last mile of your wealth-building journey, is usually the hardest.

Here are four major difficulties you will encounter:

  1. Deciding what type of investments to specialize in. For instance, should you buy commodities or American gold eagles? There are numerous ways to invest and it can be a little bewildering figuring out where to start.
  2. Let’s say you decide to learn how to trade in the equities market, then the next question to ask is where you can learn how to trade. While some stock market training courses will be taught by people with a genuine interest in sharing their knowledge, others will be taught by charlatans.  How do you avoid getting scammed? It may be difficult to decide who is telling you the truth.
  3. Yet even after you’ve found an honest teacher and become good at paper trading, you’re not entirely out of the woods. You now have to figure out what brokerage to trust. Again, you’ll find some fair and honest people and others who are just pretending to be interested in your success.
  4. You have one last obstacle—your own emotions. It doesn’t matter how much you know about trading, you will still have to deal with strong and conflicting emotions. One emotion is the desire to avoid the pain of loss while the other is the desire to rush toward pleasure. Over time, you must gain sufficient emotional intelligence in investingto make increasingly better decisions.

In conclusion, think of wealth as a journey. Navigate each sector of the road well to get to your final destination. The toll you have to pay along the way will be worth it.

April 26, 2018 by Greg Underwood

A Quick Guide to Saving For Retirement

Saving for retirement should be a priority in everyone’s life. Here’s a quick guide to help you learn how to get started and stay with it.

Rarely do you start thinking about retirement until much later in life, but experts say you should start planning as early as possible. If you start saving for retirement around the age of twenty five, you’ll be set.

Being prepared is wise, and when you’re much older, you’ll be glad you thought ahead and continued to read this guide for tips and ideas to start saving for retirement.

How to Start Saving for Retirement

The easiest way to start saving for your retirement is to open a 401(k) with your employer. And in some cases, employers will match the amount that you put into you 401(k).

It’s simple because once you’re signed up for one, the money is automatically deposited into the 401(k) before taxes are taken out of the paycheck.

You can contribute as much or as little into your 401(k) as you want, but remember it’s your future you’re planning.

Another solution to consider for retirement planning is a Roth IRA. While the money you may contribute to a Roth won’t be matched by an employer like the 401(k), and you’ll use your taxed dollars, when you retire you’ll be able to withdraw the money tax-free.

Investments and Emergency Funds

Aside from saving money for your retirement, you can do a few other things with your money that will ensure you have plenty of security and savings for your future.

Investments are another great way to set up for your retirement and can contain three different forms of “asset classes”:

  • Stocks
  • Bonds
  • Cash

In some cases, you can even keep all three of these. Investing in stocks and bonds can be done individually or through a mutual fund. Real estate and gold are also options for those who want to keep it varied.

Using an investing tool is going to help you navigate the world of stocks and bonds while you start building your investment portfolio, and this blooom review has valuable input for investors who are just starting.

It’s never too early or too late to start an emergency fund. You never know when something unexpected could happen, like job loss, car repairs, or an accident. With an emergency fund, you wouldn’t have to use a credit card to live on.

Opinions differ on how much you should save for an emergency fund, but it should be an amount that you could comfortably live on for an extended period of time. However, having enough saved to feel safe is what counts.

You can start by calculating your expenses for each month. Say you use $2,000 a month and you want to save for a three-month emergency fund. You’ll need to start setting aside money until you’ve saved $6,000.

A standard home loan may not help you during retirement because you may already have difficulty paying your bills. Adding a mortgage payment may make handling your financial issues much harder. Lenders have developed reverse-mortgages to combat that issue. If you are of retirement age you qualify for that special loan type, which will provide you with money on an ongoing basis throughout your retirement. The terms a reverse-mortgage lender will set will not involve any need on your part to repay the loan immediately. They will be based on amounts determined by specific formulas, but you can use a reverse mortgage calculator to get a rough estimate. Unlike a standard loan, when you take out a reverse loan you will be encouraged to continue living in and owning your home for as long as you wish and spending the money allotted as you see fit. The balance will be owed when the home is no longer yours through death or a voluntary change of residence.

Financial Security and Peace of Mind

Financial security will never go out of style because it affords everyone the ability to live their lives without fear of what the future holds. No one can predict their future, but you can be as prepared as possible.

Check out our blog for more financial information and more lifestyle hacks!

April 2, 2018 by Greg Underwood

How to make your money work harder for you

Tired of trying to get ahead financially, only to end up back at the bottom of the hill like Sisyphus? Know this: true wealth creation, like anything worth achieving in life, does not come easy.

Stop chasing ‘get rich quick’ schemes and embrace the harder road – it may take longer and you’ll expend virtual and real sweat along the way, but you’ll end up with real wealth at the end of your journey.

Let’s delve into a few of these ‘get rich smart’ strategies below…

Open a high-yield savings account

The historically low interest rates of the past decade have made saving money a challenge for those holding traditional savings and checking accounts. Fortunately, some financial institutions now offer accounts which offer a higher rate than the laughably bad 0.01% that many of us get presently.

With banks like UFB Direct and FNBO Direct offering rates of 1.6% on balances as of 2018, returns are still anemic compared to historical highs enjoyed during the 1980s. However, with the recent rise in direct rates by the Fed, you owe it to yourself to get a better deal for the money you choose to lock up in savings.

Invest in the stock market

Think the stock market is a scam? Tell that to investors who kept the faith during the lowest parts of the Great Recession – after hitting bottom in the 6,000s in the dark days of early 2009, the Dow Jones rebounded dramatically, rising to a peak of 26,000 earlier this year.

While there are jitters at the present moment, the forces of the economy always re-balance themselves in accordance with the challenges which confront them.

Still scared? Stick the investment portion of your paycheck in an index fund and carry on with your life. However, if you are willing to learn a bit about how markets work and are prepared to take on greater risk, you can achieve gains far above what the average investor earns.

Get familiar with a segment of the economy you know well, and then learn how to make money on eToro. Through trial and error and continuing study, you can achieve gains that will allow you earn lasting wealth.

Develop streams of passive income

Think ‘making money while you sleep’ is nothing but a scam pushed by multi level marketers? Despite its overuse by slimy businesspeople, it is possible to build passive income streams which pay you whether you are actively doing work or not.

The most tangible example of this arrangement can be found in investment real estate – an investor buys a house, cleans it up, renovates it, and rents out bedrooms and the basement at a monthly rate which exceeds the cost of the mortgage and property taxes.

Another old school method: stocks which pay dividends. This is a class of stock which pays out a set percentage of a corporation’s profits at set intervals – the more you own, the bigger the payout. By taking your dividend and re-investing it in more stock, you can build a nice passive income as your ownership percentage increases over time.

In the modern age, tech savvy entrepreneurs are earning a passive income online by doing things like setting up niche sites with Google AdSense ads, or by making compelling YouTube videos. As the number of sites and videos build up over time, the compounding income that results can reach a point where you can free yourself from the 9-5 grind.

Apply for a rewards credit card

If you are like most people these days, you probably run many expenses through a charge card. Ask yourself this, though – what perks do you get in return for your annual fee, or any interest you pay when you ending up running a balance?

The credit card industry is an insanely competitive one – get the most perks you possibly can. With benefits ranging from air miles you can redeem for flights to cash back incentives which can add up to a tidy sum, taking a couple hours to read over the latest offers could yield you thousands of dollars in free perks per year.

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