Addressing the Financial Disease, Not Just the Symptoms
.Addressing the Financial Disease, Not Just the Symptoms
By Trent Hamm 10.15.19
Getting Started
When Sarah and I first hit our financial bottom, our natural response was to deal with the immediate problems.
We simply didn’t have enough cash on hand to pay our bills. At that moment, the money in our checking account wasn’t enough even to pay the bills we owed that were due before our next paycheck, even assuming we spent $0 on food or anything else in that timeframe.
We had a lot of debt – multiple car loans, a pile of student loans, a bunch of credit card debt, and some other loans, too.
We had an infant who had just added a bunch of additional expenses to our life – child care being the biggest, of course, but far from the only thing.
It was a hefty list of challenges, but we tackled them head on. I took charge of selling off a bunch of items from our closets, including some vintage sports cards and Magic: the Gathering cards and DVD box sets and video games, and used that to rapidly eliminate the worst of the debt.
We started eating all of our meals at home. We started engaging in a bunch of intense frugal “money free weekends” and 30 day challenges to curb our spending. I threw myself into freelance work and side gigs and other opportunities to make a little more money – in terms of work, there were a few years that were basically just a blur.
Unsurprisingly, we hammered a lot of that debt really quickly. We got ourselves back on track with our bills, with a nice little emergency fund to boot. We blew through paying off all of our debt in a little over a year – we were debt free a little over a year after hitting that financial bottom. Things seemed good.
My Thoughts on Gold and Silver.
My Thoughts on Gold and Silver.
By Muhammad Ali
I have had several people contact me about my opinion on what will happen to Gold and Silver. So this article, in a way, is a follow up to my previous one, titled "Precious Metals - My Plan B".
First, let me just give you some of my background so you know that I have a bit of experience on this. I've started trading Forex, since 2000, while I was living in Canada. My first Forex course was Steven Nisson's candlestick training on VHS. I still have it and autograph books of his.
I spent a small fortune on training courses and books and from live trading experiences. I continued trading when I shifted to Malaysia in 2004 and around 2009 I opened my own Forex Company here, taught courses on Forex and trading for people as well as providing online signal services.
I have had my own traders and I did all the management for the company. I had a 15,000 square foot office in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. I had clients subscribing to my signal services from over 100 countries. I had professional services charging $500 US per month for signal services.
I've truly gone thru a lot in Forex, experimented with hundreds of robot software, known as E.A. (Expert Advisors) and trading systems and indicators. Then I just had enough of it all and stopped, but God had his own plan and brought be back to Forex via the Dinar, so now I just deal with the physical currency, less stressful.
Precious Metals - My Plan B
.Precious Metals - My Plan B
By Muhammad Ali
You may have heard me refer to precious metals as my Plan B, in several of my articles. If you haven't read any of my articles you can read them on my website, unless of course, you're on my website right now reading this article, therefore, just ignore everything I just said. ;)
OK back to the subject, precious metals and why do I consider them as my Plan B. The reason for this article clarification came about because someone emailed me, asking why do I consider precious metals as my Plan B.
Before we get into that, let me just clarify something else, what do I refer to as precious metals? Gold and Silver are the obvious, but I would also add in there stones and other metals as well. For stones, one may debate the risks involved as the purchase and re-sale values may be far apart, especially in the case of diamonds. Well for general purposes we'll just stick to gold and silver.
We can all agree that a Plan B is a back up plan, there's no question about that.
Preparing Our Children to Inherit Wealth
.Preparing Our Children to Inherit Wealth
By Muhammad Ali
“The future depends on what you do today” Gandhi
Now this is a vast subject and a complicated one as there are many factors involved as to the amount of wealth transfer that will be left behind, the number of children involved and their age levels.
When you google the topic, you will find many websites related to preparing children for wealth, however, I believe there is a difference between preparing our children for wealth and to inherit wealth.
As I said in a previous article, one of the first things we should do, after RV, is setup our Team and once our children reach the age of maturity (usually around 25 years of age) we will introduce them to the Team.
So our estate planning attorneys and financial advisors are ready, willing, and able to help prepare our children to inherit our wealth. Yet many of these plans will fail even in cases where all the documents are in place. Failure does not mean that our children will not receive the money.
It means that the money may create stress and resentment among siblings and other family members instead of the benefits we may have intended.
5 Financial Tasks To Tackle Now
5 Financial Tasks To Tackle Now
5 Financial Tasks You Should Tackle by the End of 2019
Posted by News Team | Nov 23, 2019 | Personal Finance
A task without a deadline is just wishful thinking.
Sometimes, you can get away with procrastinating. If you never get around to alphabetizing your spices, no one’s life will change. But putting off some tasks could have a huge impact on loved ones.
The close of the year is a good time to set some firm deadlines to make sure you won’t leave a financial mess for people you love if you unexpectedly die or become incapacitated. Consider putting these items on your to-do list with a Dec. 31 due date:
1. Check Your Beneficiaries
If you need convincing that updating beneficiaries is important, consider the case of David Egelhoff, a Washington state man who died two months after his divorce was final in 1994.
Because he had not changed his beneficiaries, his life insurance proceeds and pension plan were paid to his ex-wife rather than his children from a previous marriage. The children sued, and the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 2001 that the beneficiary designations had to be honored.
Your Life or Your Money
.Your Life or Your Money
By Anna Von Reitz
We all need to understand that FRN's are not your money. Never were. Federal Reserve Notes are I.O.U.'s that belong to the Federal Reserve. They are private script, just like when you (might) give someone an I.O.U.
They are responsible for paying it, but with what?
They haven't used actual money since 1933.
They've just passed debts around "as" money, and passed off their debts as your debts, as the "presumed" co-signers purportedly backing it.
They've inflated this currency 98% and this whole past month, they poured another trillion "dollars" of debt into the stock market, to prop it up at "your" expense.
This serves to further in-debt your family and bail out the corporations and banks at your expense. It also devalues whatever serves as currency yet some more, which shows up as inflation of prices at the gas pump and food stores and everywhere else.
We've seen close to a 30% price increase for many food items here in Alaska in the past three months alone. Nobody is talking about it, but, if you are paying attention or living on a limited income, you are feeling it and your discretionary income is evaporating. Worse, the value of any savings or retirement you have is evaporating, too.
Their excuse for propping up the stock market at your expense is that they have invested heavily in all these corporations "for" you, using your money. So now they are throwing more of your money at these corporations and at the stock market, also "for" you, when in fact those stocks are grossly overvalued already and the money markets and pension funds --- which they also invested in "for" you --- are based on "derivatives" and phony electronic titles and so-called "mortgage backed securities"---which are also bogus.
We have, unknown to us, been living in the Land of Oz for almost a century.
So, here's the picture: we are the actual, factual primary creditors of these banks, but they are pretending that we and all our earthly assets are instead "donated collateral" backing their debts in a commonwealth (communist) system of government that is in fact foreign to us.
How to Protect Your Finances in Case of a Recession
.How to Protect Your Finances in Case of a Recession
By Emily Guy Birken November 12 2019
According to the financial news sector, it seems probable that we're headed toward a recession. Grim-faced economists think our current historic economic expansion is headed for a fall, and the news of a looming recession couldn't feel scarier.
There's good news and bad news about these opinions. The good news is that no one has a crystal ball, which means even the savviest of economic forecasters can't possibly know what our economy will do in the future. However, we do know that certain financial trends cannot go on indefinitely. (Remember in 2007 when we all thought housing prices could only ever go up? We learned the hard way in 2008 that nothing keeps growing forever.)
So how can you prepare for a recession that may or may not happen in a time frame you can't predict? Thankfully, there are a number of actions you can take today to protect yourself, and your finances.
Bolster Your Emergency Fund
Financial experts recommend that everyone build an emergency fund that could cover three to six months' worth of expenses. Your emergency fund can get you through a period of unemployment until you land your next job.
The 3 Things To Build Wealth
The 3 Things To Build Wealth
By Steve Adcock
In December, I celebrated my two year anniversary of early retirement from full-time work. In 2016, I quit the rat race at 35 to pursue projects that I actually cared about (imagine that!).
Without the relatively comfortable full-time paycheck.
It’s been an amazing ride. I’ve learned a ton about freedom and what it really means to control every second of your day. Believe it or not, it’s not quite as cut-and-dry as many people believe.
I’ve written about my story a lot, and I’m as transparent as I can possibly be. We’re not your rags to riches story.
Both my wife and I enjoyed a solid upbringing as children. Neither of us struggled through college or to find a job. We both earned highly-marketable degrees and made good money in the technology sector.
In fact, we pulled down a combined $250,000 in our last years working.
We know how to build wealth, and those techniques enabled us to quit full-time work pretty damn early. We’re both in our 30s and we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished.
How did we manage to build so much wealth? It’s simple, though not necessarily easy. And, it generally takes a lot fo time. Let me explain.
How to build huge wealth in 2019
First, let’s set the record straight about high incomes.
If you believe that earning a big salary is the only way to build massive wealth, then you’re wrong.
Just. Plain. Wrong.
The Five Scary New Rules Of Upside-Down Capitalism
.The Five Scary New Rules Of Upside-Down Capitalism
Notes From The Field By Simon Black
November 20, 2019 San Juan, Puerto Rico
Roughly 23,000 years ago in modern-day Israel, a small tribe of ex-cave dwellers built a tiny village near the Sea of Galilee that may have been one of the earliest agrarian societies in human history.
Archaeologists discovered the site more than thirty years ago.
And they found tens of thousands of well-preserved seeds and agricultural tools, suggesting that the people who lived there planted a great deal of food in the fertile lands nearby.
As historian Will Durant once wrote, “the first culture is agriculture.” And he was right. Civilization as we know it has its foundations in agriculture.
When human beings came out of caves, stopped roaming the wild, and began planting seeds to feed their families and tribes, they were able to produce more food than they consumed for the first time in the history of our species.
And because it only took a handful of people to feed an entire village, everyone else was able pursue other vocations like architecture, science, mathematics, medicine, etc.
The Seven Deadly Sins Of Personal Finance
The Seven Deadly Sins Of Personal Finance
By J.D. Roth —03 June 2019
I've been reading and writing about personal finance for more than thirteen years. In that time, I've consumed a lot of books about money. Lately, I've found that it's fun to revisit old favorites.
Recently, for instance, I've been re-reading Brett Wilder's The Quiet Millionaire [my review]. It's different than most personal finance books. It's targeted at those who are farther along their financial journeys rather than at those just starting out. Still, there are bits and pieces in The Quiet Millionaire that are applicable to everyone.
...
Ten years ago, I wrote that I particularly like Wilder's list of the seven enemies to financial success (which is my phrase, not his). I still like them. He writes:
If you want to become and stay the quiet millionaire, you must plan and manage your financial way of life…You must be proactive in order to obtain the financial life you want. By doing this, you will overcome the seven major obstacles to financial success.
Wilder is saying that we know there are certain common barriers to wealth. These obstacles arise for everyone. Because of this, it's possible to plan in advance to cope with them. First, however, we have to be able to name these enemies so that we can prepare the proper weapons to fight them.
What Does It Take To Get Rich?
.What Does It Take To Get Rich?
Hillary Hoffower Dec. 29, 2018,
A researcher who studied more than 600 millionaires found the same 2 qualities helped them get rich
According to a researcher who studied more than 600 millionaires, to build wealth, you need two qualities: resilience and perseverance.
These qualities are characteristics of those who can afford to retire early and entrepreneurs who become self-made millionaires.
It takes conscious effort to develop resiliency and perseverance.
What does it take to get rich?
It may seem like building wealth is impossible, but it takes two qualities that anyone can develop to do it: resilience and perseverance.
That's according to Sarah Stanley Fallaw, coauthor of " The Next Millionaire Next Door: Enduring Strategies for Building Wealth" and the director of research for the Affluent Market Institute.
A follow-up to the 1998 bestseller " The Millionaire Next Door," written by her father, Thomas J. Stanley, and William D. Danko, the book provides updates and new studies on Stanley's original research on millionaires. Stanley Fallaw's findings are based on a survey of more than 600 millionaires in America conducted between 2015 and 2016.
"To build wealth, to build one's own business, to ignore critics and media and neighbors, you must have the resolve to keep pursuing your goals past rejection and pain," Stanley Fallaw wrote.