Why You Should Do It NOW

If you are as yet questioning why you should save up for your retirement, perhaps the realization that you can’t work forever will be enough encouragement for you.
Like it or not, you will reach a point in your life where you don’t have a lot of money coming in, and you will somehow have to get by with whatever money you have squirreled away. Hopefully you will be covered for any eventuality by this point, and will have some money set aside for any unforseen emergencies as well.

What about Social Security?

Don’t think that you can rely solely on your Social Security pension to live on when you retire either. While your Social Security will give you a fairly respectable base for your retirement savings, you will have to augment this in some way, whether with a job related pension, or with a savings plan offered by your company or one that you will start up on your own using your own funds. Either way, you will want to have some money set aside for a comfortable retirement.

Living Expenses in the Future

It can be quite disheartening to realize that living expenses don’t necessarily go down when you retire. There is always the threat of inflation to worry about, and the rising property taxes could result in a corresponding increase in your housing costs as well. In addition, advancing age comes with it a host of health issues, all of which may result in higher medical costs or at the every least, a jump in your health insurance premium.

Can You Work Your Way to Retirement?

Don’t automatically assume that you will be able to work for as long as you are able to either. A 2007 study showed that as much as 37% of all retired respondents have had to retire earlier than they would have wanted to either because of health issues or company lay offs. In order to make sure that you are protected for any eventuality, it would be best to start planning for your retirement as early as possible.

You Need To Live Without an Income for a Long Time

Here are some figures that may drive the point home a little more clearly. If like most people you plan to retire upon reaching 65 years old, you have a 50% chance of living 15 more years, and even longer if you are a woman. There is even a 25% chance that you will live to 90 years of age, and a 10% chance that you will live to be a hundred years old! That can be quite a while to go between retiring and kicking the bucket, and going through those years can be quite a challenge indeed if you haven’t planned your retirement properly.

One of the most valuable tools to have at your disposal is the 401(k) plan. This retirement plan is paid for with funds that are deducted by your employer every payroll. These funds can be invested in a number of ways offered by your employer, or you could get a broader range of investment options with the 401(k) administrator. In any case, the 401(k) plan gives you an easy and convenient way to use money you are earning today and earmarking it for your use when you will need it the most.

Are you doing anything to save money for your retirement?

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Forex trading takes place 24 hours a day and it basically involves all the currencies in the world. This means that Forex currency trading is bigger than all the stock markets in the world combined.
Thanks to time zone differences the currency markets are always open – when trading ends in Asia it starts in Europe.

Thanks to the incredible size of the Forex Market and its continues hype there are 5 things everyone should know before starting Forex Trading.

1. It is incredibly difficult

Forex traders agree that 90% of all traders lose money. 5% of traders break even and only 5% will make money.

2. You can make a lot of money

Forex brokers usually allow for a maximum leverage of 500:1. This means that with only a deposit of $1000 you can make transactions with up to $500,000 dollars.
If you make 1% profit this means that you make 5000 dollars.

That is a very nice sum when you started with only $1000.

3. You can lose everything almost instantly

High leverage means high risk. To continue the example above – If you have $1000 in your account and you are allowed to make transactions with $500,000 dollars and you lose 1% – this means a loss of 5000 dollars. This means that you will lose your 1000 dollars and will owe another 4000 dollars!
Thanks to the efforts of your broker your account will however most likely be closed as soon as you lose the 1000 dollars (that is -0.2%)

While there is potential for large gains there is an even larger likelihood of losing everything you have!

4.  No one has a working system

There are tons of people saying they have found a magic formula that helps to make money trading currencies 24/7. These people are usually selling their secret for a small sum because their biggest wish is to help you get rich! NOT!

This is marketing bullshit!

In reality these people have realized that they will never make any money with Forex. They are better off selling partially working systems and robots to people who want to get rich fast.
In reality these systems will always lose you money.

5. If someone has a working system he will keep it secret

If someone actually has a working system and makes money on trading currencies he will never reveal his secret.
This is true because of the way forex trading works – if enough people know of a certain way to make money the method will cease to work simply because a lot of people are trying to use it.

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Most people who are looking to cut costs don’t think to look at their utilities bill. In most cases, it is the shopping and leisure budgets that get the axe instead. While such actions are certainly commendable, focusing at least part of your attention on your utility bills can result in considerable savings off your monthly expenditures.

Sounds easy enough to be sure, but you may just be surprised at how much money this simple action can shave off your utility bills every month.

Check out these tips to see how you can cut costs in specific areas.

Cutting Electricity Costs

Fans can do a lot to cool down your home if you set them up properly. In order to provide the maximum cooling effect, you will want to set up your fan to pull in cool air into your home and direct it into the warmer parts of the house. If possible use fans instead of air conditioning- fans use more than 10 times less energy than or regular air conditioning unit.

Tell everyone to turn off ALL the lights that aren’t being used in the house! It is easy enough to just leave the lights on for mood or atmosphere, but get into the habit of turning off unnecessary lights and you will be rewarded with a generous cut in your electric bill at the end of the month.

While you’re at it, turn the TV off when it is not being used as well. Studies have shown that a TV left on is one of the biggest wasters of electricity in the world. Shut it off when no one is around, and make sure that you set the timer to turn it off if you have the tendency to fall asleep while watching!

Putting A Stopper On Your Water Bill

Do periodic checks around your home to find out if any faucets or pipes are leaking. Every drop wasted is just a little bit more that is added to your monthly water bill, and as insignificant as this amount may seem, it does have a way of adding up over time. In fact, even a tiny drip can add up to more than two gallons of water in as little as an hour!

If you absolutely have to water your lawn, do it according to a schedule, and do most of your watering early in the morning so as to reduce the amount of water lost to evaporation.

Keep Things Warm and Cheap

In the winter, you may consider lighting up the fireplace or wood-stove instead of turning up the central heating. Not only does this add a bit of charm to the room, it is also a bit cheaper than using up gas.

Keep warm as needed. Get used to wearing the appropriate clothing for the weather. In the winter, sweaters and pants are recommended, and wearing these even while lounging around the home will help reduce your dependence on your gas-powered central heating unit.

What other ideas for cutting utility costs have you pursued?

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Saving money is something that everyone will have to learn at some point in their lives or another, so it makes perfect sense to get your kids familiar with the idea as early on as possible in their lives. The good news is that most kids will take very well to the idea of saving and you should be able to get your young one into the habit with very little trouble in your part.

Teach Children the Basics of Saving Money

One of the keys to teaching your children good saving habits is regular reinforcement. The good news is that money matters usually have to be considered numerous times every day anyway, so there are a lot of opportunities for you to teach your children some valuable lessons in the art of saving. As soon as your children are able to understand basic concepts such as getting paid for work rendered and how money can be used to buy necessary things and so forth, it is probably a good time to bring up the merits of saving and how they can go about it.

Weekly Allowance and Chores

An ideal opportunity to discuss savings is when you are discussing your child’s allowance. Try to determine certain tasks around the house that your children can do and that you will pay them for. These should be tasks that go beyond their normal chores but have to be done anyway. The point is not that they will have to be paid to do their chores – an approach that may well backfire on you when your young entrepreneur demands a fee for making his bed – but rather: that money doesn’t come for free, and that he will have to work to get it.

Shopping and Saving Money

Shopping is another great opportunity to introduce the concept of saving. You can start off by putting together a grocery list and cutting out coupons you can use. Ask your kids to find out which items go with which coupons, and discuss the merits of buying generic products versus branded products. You could then let your kids have any money that you save by using coupons, as a way to illustrate the potential savings they can realize.

Comparison Shopping

Also explain the value of comparison shopping and waiting for items to go on sale. Of course you will also want to teach your kids the true value–as opposed to the apparent value–of certain products, and that buying essential foods such as milk and eggs is a lot more cost effective than buying non-essentials such as soda and candy.

Encourage saving. Make sure that your child has a piggy bank of some sort, whether it is an actual piggy bank or even just a milk bottle. Not only will this get your child into the habit of saving regularly, it will also give him an encouragement boost as he sees the bank get heavier and heavier everyday.

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Let’s face it: almost everyone goes through a financial crisis at some point or another, and finding ways to deal with such situations is essential if you want to come out unscathed. If you have ever wanted to know what to do in the event of a financial emergency – whether it is due to a sudden illness or car trouble requiring immediate and costly attention–you have come to the right place! Here are some ideas on how you can weather the worst of the financial storm and come out none the worse for wear in the end.

1. Evaluate Your Financial Situation

The first thing that you should to when faced with an impending financial crisis is to sit down and think about your situation. Failure to identify the problem and pinpoint areas that need to be worked on will likely result in a more stressful situation, and that is the last thing that you need when short on cash. Going head on into fixing your financial troubles without making a plan first can result in even more confusion and the eventual failure of your attempts to get yourself out of a financial mess.

2. Determine The Nature Of The Financial Emergency

Is your emergency caused by a sudden illness of a family member? Have you been rendered broke by a natural calamity? Or have you lost your job like so many other people in the country? All of these different scenarios require different approaches, and identifying them will better enable you to formulate a clear plan of action.

Whatever problems you have – there is probably someone in the world who has already gone through the same thing. Use the internet to find these people and ask them what they did to survive.

3. Prioritize Your Spending

While you will ideally want to make sure that all of your outstanding debts and monthly bills are paid up, you do have a bit of leeway in terms of prioritizing your payments.

Top on your list of priorities should of course be food and shelter, with utilities coming in a close second. You will also ideally want to set aside some money for medical emergencies. Such expenses are the first things you have to take care of when budgeting for your expenses, and you may have to sacrifice less essential expenditures such as cable TV and broadband Internet in order to be able to pay the more essential bills.

4. Negotiate a better deal with your creditors

This piece of advice may go against every grain of your being, but the first person you should get in touch with in the event of a financial emergency is your lender. Lending companies only stand to gain from you paying your debts, so they will be surprisingly willing to help you find a solution, whether it entails lowering your interest rates or extending your terms of payment. Waiting too long before you get in touch with your lender is definitely not a good idea, since the company may be far less likely to help you out than if you had approached them early on.

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Today I am launching a new website – Money & Shit (www.moneyandshit.com).

It is a website featuring funny pictures that make me laugh – I hope they have the same effect on you!

Over the time I have collected a bunch of funny pictures on my hard drive and I have always wondered what to do with them – I am now going to share them with you!

How it Works

I first started playing around with the idea of creating a funny pictures website about a year ago but I never got it finished.
Now that it is ready to launch it takes up very little of my time and automatically posts 3 pictures every day – at 8 in the morning, at 12 noon and at 4 PM.

The website currently only has the essential functionality and I am not trying to monetize it but I am quite pleased with the design, especially since I am usually not very good with graphics.

The Future

In the future the website will probably have some additional functionality but it will eventually stay the same.

In the near future I am going to launch a number of additional websites intended to make me some money.   I will let you know when I launch!

Visit Money and Shit at www.moneyandshit.com and sign up to get notified of funny stuff.

Money and Shit

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• Blog Income Report – February 2009
• Blog Income Report – October 2009
• The Difference Between Good Debt and Bad Debt
• I’ll be away, but you will still be amused

Almost everyone has dreamt of getting rich at some point or another, and why not? Wealth after all comes with a few privileges, not the least of which are financial freedom and the chance to do what we want.

That being said, wanting to become rich and actually becoming rich are two entirely different things, and the gap between those two can be quite difficult to bridge.

Nevertheless, there are a few things you can do to help you achieve your goals, and while doing these may not guarantee a surefire path to wealth, they may at least get you part of the way there.

1. Get a well paying job

This is the first thing you should do in your quest for wealth – it is the single most important thing you can do to make more money. Depending on your particular goals, you will ideally want to land a job that can get you $100,000 or more every year. Finding a job that pays that good is not an easy task but a large monthly income is essential for getting rich quick.

2. Sort out your taxes

No matter how much money you make and how you make it, a large portion of your income will likely go toward paying your taxes. However, there are ways by which you can cut your tax expenses considerably and in a legal manner. The best bet is to find a qualified tax accountant for consulting. Such a professional will show you effective ways by which you could cut your tax costs legally.

Keep in mind that the rich pay considerably less taxes than the poor – that is because the rich like money, they don’t want to give it away.

3. Save as much as you can

This is another important aspect of getting rich, and most financial experts recommend setting aside 20% of everything you earn for savings. It may seem difficult to do but once you have gotten used to setting aside this amount every month, it will soon become second nature. In some cases, you can set your bank to deduct the desired amount automatically and place it into a separate account.

Setting aside 20% of everything you make can seem difficult but keep in mind that in China it is common that you put aside at least 50% of everything you get. This is the main reason why they have such huge cash reserves at the time when America is getting more and more into debt!

4, Invest money conservatively

What you will want to look for are investment opportunities that allow you access to a broad range of assets and charge you comparatively low fees in the process. It is also a good idea to invest equally in a few different assets so that you have reduced financial risk in case things go bad.

You should also take your money matters into your own hands – don’t just trust your money to sit in a fund recommended by a CPA or a salesman but do some research and decide for yourself where your money should go. Stick with the things you know best – if you go shopping a lot buy the stocks of your favorite store. If you are a construction worker – buy the stocks of the best construction company you know.

Remember – when you do something a lot then you automatically become a specialist in that field. Why should you listen for someone working in a cubicle to say what the best construction company is when you yourself are dealing with such companies daily.

5. Forget that your savings exist

Now that you have gotten into the habit of saving money, your best option is to forget about it…yes, all of it. The biggest mistake a lot of beginner investors do is that they spend too much time watching their stocks rise and fall. It is common knowledge among professional money makers that watching your investments too keenly will usually result in emotional decisions losing you money.

You should also resist the temptation to dip into your savings or your investments, and you will be rewarded with a healthy nest egg for your retirement or for future investments.

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• How to Calculate Your Net Worth? With Examples!
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There are dozens of different airlines and it seems that each of them has their own credit card. Although they all claim to be an excellent way to earn frequent flyer miles they rarely live up to that promise.

Truth About The Reward Miles

Virtually every airline card out there gives you the same reward – for every dollar you get one mile. When you calculate it out, you start to realize just how unrewarding this really is. Usually to get a domestic round-trip ticket in the continental United States, you need 25,000 to 37,500 or more miles. That means you will need to spend at least $25,000 to $37,500 to get one round-trip (and that’s only for “off-peak” itineraries).

Meanwhile, a simple 1% cash back credit card would give you $250 to $375 for that same amount of spending… money you could use to simply buy a plane ticket yourself and you’d even have a hundred or more dollars left.

Why Annual Fees Don’t Make Sense

According to an American Airlines credit card review, the annual fee is $85.00. So right off the bat you are $85 in the hole after you apply for the card. Then on top of that, they have additional fees. For example, if you redeem your miles for an American Airlines flight that departs in six days or less, they charge a hundred dollar fee.

Unfortunately, pretty much every airline card carries an annual fee of some sort. It just doesn’t make sense to pay for these cards that have such inferior rewards.

What’s Your Best Bet?

Most cash back credit cards give at least 1% to 1.5% and have no annual fee. You’re probably better off using that rebate to buy plane tickets yourself.

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I am mainly keeping Financial Jesus as a hobby but as a nice side note it also brings in a little money.

In 2009 it made me an extra 851,97 dollars.

Where I Got My Money From

Google Adsense – $519.31

Amazon.com referral program – $1.93

CPALead.com – $3.71

Direct Sales - $327.02 (101.4 dollars in December)

Total Blog income in 2009 – $ 851.97

As you see from the numbers, Google Adsense is still my number 1 earner – I am having a difficult time coming up with something more profitable. In December however I looked into direct sales and managed to pull in a rather decent income of 170 dollars. That is almost twice what I made in November.

Goal for 2010

My Blog income Goal for 2010 is 5000 dollars. That’s $416 per month on average!

I have a number of things in my mind to achieve this:

• More articles – Write constantly more articles to get more traffic. Maybe even pay someone to help me write more stuff. A poll on the website seems to suggest that people want at least 1 new article per day.
• Sell my own products – I will come up with my own digital products that I can sell on the website. This way people that are interested in some topics can find out more and at the same time they will help me to keep the site going.
• Online store – put a store on the site that would enable people buy books and other things I recommend.
• A forum – I’ll probably add a forum to the website. That way I will get more traffic and find a way for my readers to engage with each other.

• Blog Income Report – November 2009
• Blog Income Report – September 2009
• Blog Income Report – January 2009
• Blog Income Report – October 2009
• Blog Income Report – February 2009

In the beginning of January last year we made a post about what we predicted will happen in 2009.

2009 is now over. Here is a look back to the predictions and how well we did.

1. The dollar will fall 20% or more against the Chinese yuan.

Verdict: WRONG! The Chinese yuan has staid on the same level in regards to the dollar thanks to the Chinese policy of keeping it fixed to the US dollar (+ some other currencies).

2. The price of gold will be up 10% by the end of the year.

Verdict: WRONG! The price of gold is up 23.4% in 2009. This means that jumped well over the 10% we predicted.

3. The price of oil will stay between 40 and 60 dollars for the most of the year and will rise to as high as 75 dollars/barrel by the end of 2009.

Verdict: CORRECT! The price of oil climbed gradually throughout the year but managed to stay in the 40 to 60 dollars range all the way from January to July. The end of the year saw oil prices rise as high as $79.

4. The Dow Jones Industrial Average will be up about 15%.

Verdict: CORRECT! The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 19% in 2009. That’s close enough!

5. The world economy will not recover from the financial crisis by the end of 2009.

Verdict: CORRECT! Unemployment rates are the highest in decades. The real estate bubble has not bounced back. The economies of the world are still weak.

6. There will not be any more major bank failures. We will possibly see governments taking proactive steps to save banks and other major companies before they are in actual trouble.

Verdict: CORRECT! Following the failings of 3 major banks in 2008 we have not had any major bank fail in 2009. All the large banks and insurance companies have been saved by the government before they went under. There have however been a large number of smaller banks that have failed and that have not been saved that remain mostly unknown to the public.

7. None of the three big US auto companies will fail in 2009.

Verdict: CORRECT! Despite fears in 2008 and the beginning of 2009 – Ford, General Motors and Chrysler are all here!

8. The housing market does not bounce back.

Verdict: CORRECT! The housing market is down and it doesn’t look like it will bounce back any time soon.

9. Inflation in the US rises.

Verdict: WRONG! According to official figures the inflation plummeted from 3.8% in 2008 to 1.8% in 2009. The USA has however changed how it used to calculate inflation. Using the old method it should be around the 10% figure.

10. Obama’s stimulus package passes in his first months in office.

Verdict: CORRECT! The controversial 800 billion dollar stimulus package was passed in February 2010.

11. More bailout money will be needed by large companies.

Verdict: CORRECT! Bank of America received an additional 20 billion dollar loan  in January 2009 in addition to the 25 billion dollars that bailed them out in October 2008.

12. US economy will not come out of recession.

Verdict: FALSE! The 3rd quarter of 2009 was the first quarter in more than a year that saw economic growth in the US. That means that officially the recession is over. In reality however unemployment rates are highest in decades, consumer fears are still rising and people are saying that it is still a recession.

13. There will be an assassination attempt on Barack Obama. If you won’t hear about it, it is because it will be kept secret.

Verdict: CORRECT! Obviously! Could it have been any other way?

14. Apple will launch a smaller version of the iPhone.

Verdict: FALSE! Although we saw the iPhone 3G S, we are still waiting for a smaller and cooler model. Odds are that we will be waiting for a long time…

15. Financial Jesus will end the year with more than 1000 subscribers.

Verdict: FALSE! 2008 started with a whopping 119 subscribers and ended with 469. We were about 500 users too short.

Total Score

9 out of 15. That is pretty decent if you ask me!

• Predictions for 2009 – Financial Jesus
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