How to Adhere to Your Financial New Year’s Resolutions

by: admin - December 31st, 2008   Filed under: Money Thoughts Add Comment

new year resolution2009 is upon us and with it we ponder some new year resolutions.  Although important goals ought to be a part of your daily life no matter what day it is, new year resolutions do offer an established marker for reminding ourselves of financial goals and ways to actually adhere to them.

Deciding on the resolutions themselves isn’t the difficult part.  When it comes to money matters, we all would like to do better and do not often have to think long and hard to find things that could use improvement.  However, actually implementing the resolutions doesn’t usually last beyond the first few weeks of the new year. Luckily, we can use research in psychology to better understand human motivation behavior and apply it to practicing long lasting financial resolutions:

1. Be Realistic – It’s not realistic to move from middle class to super wealthy within a year, unless you come across a serious windfall or a really great idea. People with reasonable resolutions have been shown to actually adhere to them, instead of just starting and wondering off of the unrealistic goals shortly after.

2. Keep It Simple, Spender – Although the actions that lead to accomplishing each resolution may involve multiple steps, the final goal needs to be simple. Complicated resolutions are more likely to become abandoned and soon follows the balanced budget.

3. Measure It To Manage It – Psychologists have demonstrated that having goals that you can easily track and measure gives you an advantage in accomplishing your financial resolutions. Therefore, keep in mind to always monitor your resolutions so you will know whether you are making progress. As part of this, you can set yourself some milestones to tell you if you are still on track as well as to act as motivators on the way to achieving the goal.

4. Change Your Work – Changing the work surroundings could help you meet your financial resolutions sooner, instead of just making your boss richer. Our work environment has a direct effect on what our bank account looks like currently and its  future growth prospects but sometimes we forget that there could be better career paths, work locations, or second jobs that could help us meet our financial resolutions, and sooner.

5. Spread The Word – Publicly committing to your resolutions has been shown to make it easier in accomplishing them, probably since you then feel more responsible for what you committed to. This is quite easy to accomplish with the help of social networks, by starting your own blog, commenting on your Twitter or Facebook account, sending an email to a trusted friend, etc’.

6. Winning The War – When it comes to financial resolutions, having a few bad days usually should not significantly matter to your overall financial state, as long as such days are interspersed among many good ones. You could say it isn’t the battle, but the war that matters; if you are facing a financial assault, get back and fight!

7. Seek Support – Resolutions are not completed mostly when lack of motivation sets in. That is why it is important to get feedback and support from someone you trust. Research shows that having a social support network can be pivotal for accomplishing your personal goals. So join an investment club or ask anyone you know that has knowledge of money management, to provide you the necessary help for adhering to your resolutions.

Because having money represents such an integral part of our daily lives, financial resolutions may appear to be easier to adhere to than other new year resolutions, such as becoming more physically fit. However, the road to prosperity requires, the sometimes elusive, perseverance and, therefore, it is important to apply the above rules for helping you adhere to and carry through your financial new year resolutions.

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Chew on This – Tip #10. Trade Your Jewelry and Coins for Cash

by: admin - December 16th, 2008   Filed under: Money Thoughts Add Comment

In this recession, with the price of fine metals such as gold going up to $830 an ounce, some may consider selling their unused jewelery to make extra money. For example, the website www.newyorkgoldsilver.com belongs to a business that offers to provide cash for gold, silver, and platinum goods extracted from such items as: old broken chains, bracelets, gold coins, gold watches, etc’.

New York Gold & Silver Exchange has a store in the middle of the Diamond District of Manhattan on 47th Street as well as a second store in Dallas, Texas. The company accepts items from store walk-ins as well as mail-ins, with a promise of a high quality customer service for either. If you can actually come to either one of their locations, you can even watch your items going through the appraisal process, including the melting of the item and the distilling of the metal content of the item.  Notably, the customers can choose whether to receive their  payment in cash, wire transfer or check.

If you are looking for affordable jewelery as holiday gifts, the company also sells such fine items as coins, watches, rings, etc’ at a relatively affordable rate. Besides individuals, the company also offers their services to jewelers, retailers, manufacturers and pawnbrokers who would like to convert their extra merchandise as liquidation of Inventory, jewelry showcase buyout, even dental Gold reclamation. All part of making the most out of a bad economy.

The $50 Billion Reminder for Responsible Money Management

by: admin - December 15th, 2008   Filed under: Money Thoughts 3 Comments

In the last couple of days, the world has received yet another painful reminder of why it is important not to blindly believe “sophisticated investment” offers that you may “luckily” come across. Bernard Madoff, the head of Madoff Funds, was turned in by his own sons for securities fraud. Madoff has admitted to defrauding numerous investors out of what could amount to $50 billion dollars.

What Madoff has done was to create a hedge fund and run it based on a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme is a fraud where investors who join the fund are paid from the investment money of subsequent investors. This works farily well in a good economy, where new investors keep joining and consistent returns can be guaranteed regardless of how the stock market actually does. However, when the economy sours and many investors wish to cash out at once, the scam is revealed.

Madoff was a well known figure within financial circles since he was the head of NASDAQ in the early 90′s, and this helped him draw many rich investors. Over the years the fund grew in reputation due to Madoff’s “secret formula”, that apparently his sons or any of his other employees were not privy to. Some of the many big name investors that got duped are Stephen Spielberg, real estate titan Mort Zuckerman, and the famous humanitarian Elie Wiesel as well as other less famous people who invested much of their retirement money in the fund. Although Madoff will undoubtedly go to jail, this does not help the fact that he devastated the financial lives of many charities, retired people, and other wealthy investors.

Since every major story has some lessons that we can all learn from, do be sure to keep in mind the combination of the following:

1.  Be involved with your money on a daily basis, since it can never be truly left in autopilot mode. If an investment, such as a mutual fund, hedge fund etc’ appears to be involved in something suspicious,  just sell it. Never just set and forget your investments, assuming that it will be taken care of by some financial guru. It is your money, and you make the ultimate decisions on your investments.
2. Conduct your research. If you are not financially savvy or do not have the time, make sure you have a financial advisor and accountant that you trust to help you make financial decisions. But even with the help of others, educate yourself on whether what you are being told has merit.
3. If an investment seems too good to be true, it probably is. In the above case, the fund was performing too consistently, over both times of prosperity and past recessions. This should have raised some red flags for anyone who wished to examine this investment objectively and practice due diligence.
4. Diversify your assets. Many investors forget, or usually ignore, this pivotal rule of investing.

It is an especially sad story because so many intelligent and trusting people were struck by it and, if any money is recovered, it is expected to be pennies on the dollar. We can just hope that people will really apply the above 4 lessons and that more oversight will prevent future fraud on such a massive scale.

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Donate to Charity without Spending Your Own Money

by: admin - December 12th, 2008   Filed under: Money Thoughts 1 Comment

Many of us would like to contribute some money towards charities during the holidays, or any other time of the year. However, due to how the tough financial times affect us personally, we often postpone this action continuously. Since many charities are themselves going through the recession, it is important to know that we can help by donating without actually spending our own hard-earned cash. Here are some of the ways to do so:

- Contribute your frequent flyer miles – Many airlines (including Delta, Continental, and United) permit you to donate unused frequent flyer miles to a various charities.

- There are charity shopping websites which will contribute into a cause with each purchase you make through the site. Take a look at what is offered by The Hunger Site Store, iGive, and OneCause.

- Although you could carry your used clothes and other items to Goodwill or other charitable stores or sites such as Oxfam, you may instead choose to clean out your basement or attic on eBay and give some or all of your proceeds to a cause.

- The time tested method of helping out is of course to volunteer. Whether it is at the local soup kitchen, hospital, or through a community action group. Such websites as the Hands On Network, can connect volunteers with projects in both the US and other countries around the world.

In life, there are few things that bring true feelings of accomplishment and happiness. Making money and donating money, are 2 positive and important ways of making such a difference in your own as well as someone else’s life.

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Consider No Fee Balance Transfers

by: admin - December 10th, 2008   Filed under: Money Thoughts 1 Comment

The current economic turmoil is in no small part a crisis of confidence. Banks and other financial institutions do not have enough confidence to lend to each other, let alone the customers. The result is that for regular folks, the remaining options are becoming increasingly difficult to manage.

Reliance on credit card debt has become a familiar symptom of these tough times. Beyond that, the credit card industry has been raising the fees associated with their credit cards and changing their policies, with little regard for the consumer. Also, there is pending legislation in the congress which would make it harder for people to be eligible for 0% balance transfers. Before this is enacted into law, it is more important than ever to utilize balance transfers from high interest credit cards to lower ones at the optimal available rates.

A plausible online tool to use in order to find the right balance transfers is called SmartBalanceTransfers.com. The site allows its visitors to learn about balance transfer fees and read related news about no fee balance transfers as well as be able to compare a wide selection of credit card balance transfer offers from leading financial institutions. The site also provides a balance transfer calculator and additional articles describing how to minimize your debt.

The website was developed by a company called Credit Card Depot Inc, and you can use their resources to find an instant credit card, as they have purported to have assisted thousands of consumers find new credit cards online. It is a good idea for anyone with credit card debt to check out such a site.