The Financial Edge

Well I am currently going to another seminar. This one is for 3 days and is run by John Hyland of The Financial Edge. Today was mostly an overview of what we will be learning: Real Estate, Stocks, Forex, Options, and more Real Estate. I got invited by a friend and they are also giving away Metastock software and some Real Estate software for free. So I figured why not, learn something and get something for free. Win, Win situation. Turns out I am actually picking up a lot. John Hyland is a very good speaker and motivator. He says the keys to success are:

1) Own and operate your own business
2) Residual Income
3) Multiple sources of Income
4) Asset Protection

He also told us that 82% of people who try something new will succeed at what ever they do. So far I am enjoying the class, but really want to work with the software. Tomorrow we will talk about stocks and options, so that should be very interesting. I will post some of the things that I learn tomorrow.

Tags: seminars, education, stocks

Skip A Payment For Christmas

We have a loan that we are paying for some work we did on our house. We got a letter in the mail the other day saying that we could skip a payment for Christmas. Yeah right, that's all I need to make my debt longer. I thought this was pretty weird, but I have been seeing that other bloggers have been getting the same letters, some from auto loans. The Consumerist has an article about VW, and I will teach you to be rich has the original post for VW and it is very interesting. So skip a payment now and get the shaft later. Nice, I think I will pass. I have enough debt to pay off.

So Maybe I Missed A Few Steps

Okay so as I was setting new goals or revisiting old ones, I may have missed a couple of steps according to CNNMoney.com. Money 101 has a list of Top Things to Know [about] Setting Priorities.

1) Narrow your objectives. My objectives are two spread out and not really focused, which was the idea to begin with.
2) Focus first on the goals that matter. Getting out of debt should be my number one goal, and I need to focus on that.
3) Be prepared for conflicts. I have conflicting goals, one I want to get out of debt and two I want to invest. I need to work more on getting out of debt.
4) Put time on your side. I know I have time to get out of debt and to invest, but I feel like I am rushed to do both, especially the getting out of debt part.

These are just the first couple of ideas that they have. Check out the whole article if you are interested in more. Personally I need to work on getting out of debt and setting goals with my wife, so that she is more involved. I also need to work on my spending and budget. I've been using Money 2006, but it looks like I might have to go to something a little more simple for budgeting.
I may have to check out Mvelopes or some simple form of budgeting. We aren't behind on any of our bills, but I would like to get them paid off faster. If anyone has any budgeting ideas, I could use all the help that I can get.

Time to Get Serious: Goal Setting Time Again

I figured now would be a good time before the Holiday's hit and things get out of hand to refocus on my goals for the year. If I do it now and not at the end of the year as a new year's resolution, I will probably have a better chance of not only reaching these goals, but also not giving up on them like I usually do with my new year's resolution. So here are some short term goals.

1) Finish the website I am having built for work to bring in more leads. Maybe increase some income.

2) Get focused on bringing in some more income to pay debt and invest.

3) Start bird-dogging, not just talking about it.

4) Get our house organized and give up my office space for the babies room. By the way it's a girl, so it looks like I will be painting again.

5) I need to really get going on this REI if I am serious about it.

6) Get in shape, so not only can I keep up with the baby, but they say staying healthy can save you money in medical bills and make you more money. (Less calling in sick).

So this is the short list, but I will come up with some more. What goals do you have and what resolutions are you planning on making?

Tags: Goals

Rule #1 Update

Well I've been using Phil Town's Rule #1 method and in five months I've made 10% on my investment. Not bad in my book, I still have 7 months to go. I probably would have done better, but I make a couple of stupid amateur mistakes second guessing myself and the technical signs. So I hear ten percent is kind of the market average, so everything else from here is gravy. As long as Phil Town's method keeps working I will continue to use it, anyway I said that I would give it a year. We will see what happens and I will keep you posted on my Amateur investment progress.

Tags: Investing Rule #1

Happy Turkey Day!!!!

I know it's a little early, but I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving Day. No posts tomorrow, so Happy Thanksgiving's Today.

Carnival #75 Is Up

Thanks to Everybody Loves Your Money for hosting Carnival of Personal Finance #75. Also Thanks for including my article on Rules to Get Rich By. Definitely check out the carnival the set up is very interesting. Don't you love used car dealers? I will pick out some of my favorites from the front and back lots and post their links here later. So don't miss out on the Carnival, you may get some good deals. Okay here is one of my favorites from the Front Lot - Rule #15 all or nothing by My Open Wallet. A lot of times we forget to look around and smell the roses. Here is another good one by Geniustypes.com called See Money Differently to Attract More. Only a couple for now will add more later.

Forex 101

So since I am starting to get interested in Forex, I figured I would write about some of the basics that I've picked up. First of all Forex or Foreign Exchange Market deals with trading currencies with other countries or other countries currencies. The Forex market is also highly liquid, you can get in and out fairly quickly because there are always willing buyers. The Forex market is opened 24 hrs a day from Sunday afternoon to Friday afternoon. So you can pretty much trade anytime day or night you get the urge. "There are two reasons to buy and sell currencies. About 5% of daily turnover is from companies and governments that buy or sell products and services in a foreign country or must convert profits made in foreign currencies into their domestic currency. The other 95% is trading for profit, or speculation"(KingCommodities.com). In the Forex market you can also buy on margin or leverage. On Forex.com for a $250 account you have leverage of 200:1. That means basically that you could trade for up to $50,000 with a $250 account. This is the part that sounds like trouble to me. I think buying on margin could be a little risky. Anyway here is my disclaimer. I know absolutely nothing about trading on Forex, so I am not giving out any advice, I am just commenting on some stuff that I have learned because I would like to get into Forex trading. Please leave any comments if you can give me some advice on Forex Trading or if you know of a book that I could buy. Thanks.

Discipline and Determination

From reading other blogs and personal finance articles I've found that to be successful you have to be disciplined and determined. First you need to have discipline, stay away from buying stuff that you don't actually need. Also try to get the best price for the things that you do need. Discipline and Determination will also get you plugging away towards what ever goals you have set for yourself. This works for Personal Finance, Debt Reduction, and Investing. From just reading other peoples blogs I've found out that there are a lot of determined people out there, which is good because it helps me stay determined to reach my goals. So to all of you personal finance bloggers, keep up the good work and Thank You.

Rules to Get Rich By

This month's issue of Money Magazine has 25 Rules to Grow Rich By. I am not going to list them all, but am going to list a couple that caught my eye. One of the rule's is to save 10% of your salary. I am actually hitting that mark this year and plan to continue each following year. It also says to keep three months worth of living expenses in a savings account (Emergency Fund). I am currently working on this one but am no where close to where I need to be yet. You need life insurance to cover at least 5 to 10 years of your salary in case you pass away. Some other interesting points are don't spend more than 2.5 times your salary on a home purchase. We are OK on this point, in fact we are under. If you don't understand how an investment works don't buy it. This is me with Forex investing. I want to get into it, but just don't know anything about it. Resist the urge to buy new electronic gadgets. This is the hard one for me I always want to keep up with the Jones' on this one, but I will have to give it up. There are a lot of other great points. Check out November's Money Magazine. Also Free Money Finance has written some interesting things about the same article, I will post the link here.

Pay Off Your Debts Fast

So I was reading an article by Liz Pulliam Weston on Huge debts, paid off fast, which I realized didn't tell me much more than all of the other articles or books that I have read. It basically says to pay yourself first, spend less than you earn, be frugal, etc.... One thing that was different is she says that it helps to have a dream, mine is Financial Freedom. The article also says to do what ever it takes, cut out luxuries, pick up a part time job. I myself am going to start bird-dogging during my spare time (Hunting out potential investment homes for investors). I am also going to try to pick up some extra cash by cooking or bbqing. A couple of other good ideas are taking your lunch to work, cut out the stuff you can live without, about the best thing I got out of the article was to check out Dave Ramsey's book "The Total Money Makeover", which I plan on checking out. If anyone has any info on this book, any comments would be appreciated.

Out of Town

I will be out of town for the next couple of days, so you won't be seeing any posting for a couple of days and I haven't gotten big enough yet to have guest writers, so sorry. Will be back Sunday, and will be posting to make up for lost days.

Cutting My Dish Network Bill

In an effort to cut our costs and to pay more on our credit card bills we have cut our Dish Network bill and package in half. We were paying $125 per month for every channel imaginable, and now we are paying around $49 for half. With the money we are saving we can invest more or pay more on our credit cards. Forget the latte factor, cut your cable/satellite factor. Anyway I know you are thinking that $125 is pretty crazy, but it was something I thought I could not live without. Now with work, school, and blogging. I don't spend a lot of time watching TV, except sports. So maybe when my contract is up I will drop it all of the way.

Tags: debt reduction

This Weeks Carnivals

The Road 2 Riches is in two carnivals this week. Thanks to City Girl's Financial Blog for posting my article on "Do you want to be rich" for The Carnival of Personal Finance. Also thanks to AllFinancialMatters for posting my article on "Real Estate Riches Part 2" for the Carnival of Investing. I haven't had a chance to read any of the articles yet, but I will post some of my favorites later. Great job to both hosts for great carnival set ups. I will also be giving away a David Bach CD to a random post on the Do you want to be rich article.

My First Contest

I will be giving away a CD from David Bach on the Finish Rich Series to someone who posts a comment on my Do you want to be rich post, all you need to do is answer the question on why you want to be rich and I will randomly pick one of the comments to win the CD. Forgive me if this is lame, but this is my first contest. So leave a comment, what do you have to lose.

Tags: contest

Do You Want to Be Rich?

Who doesn't, David Bach the author of The Automatic Millionaire says that he can tell if you are going to be rich by asking five questions. I am only going to talk about the first one because it caught my interest. It was do you want to be rich and what are your reasons. If you say to have a humongous house or to buy an expensive sports car, chances are you may not make it. He goes on to say that your values are what will make you rich. If your motivation to get rich is for retirement, a child's college fund, financial freedom, and such, chances are that you will meet your goal. So why do I want to be rich? Well for starters, we will need a bigger house eventually once the baby gets here, then we need to start thinking about college funds, and retirement. My main reason is financial freedom, I want to be out of debt and not have to worry about it any more. I don't want to miss out on family, friends, and life. These are the real things that make you rich.

Why do you want to be rich? I will give the Dave Bach CD to someone randomly who leaves a comment on this post and answers this question. So this will be my first contest give away.

Real Estate Riches Part 2

In the book Real Estate Riches by Dolf De Roos, Dolf states that there are eight golden rules to property investment.

1) You Make your money when you buy. So you want to buy a property that's worth more at a much lower price.

2) Always buy from a motivated seller. Or a desperate seller, divorced people, homes on the market too long, someone looking to get out fast, etc....

3) Fall in love with the deal, not the property. Don't get attached to a property, it's an investment to bring in capital.

4) Never be the first to name a figure - that person always loses. You want to have the leverage when bidding.

5) Be counter cyclical. Like with stocks buy when the market is selling low, sell when the market is high.

6) Always try to buy with zero or little down. Put less down so you can get more properties.

7) Seldom Sell. Hold on to your properties, let their value increase.

8) The deal of the decade comes along about once a week. Put in the work, look for houses, find your deal.

Though I know absolutely nothing about REI, but am trying to learn, I found this book very educational for the beginner. Check out part One if you get a chance, Real Estate Riches.

Real Estate Riches

I just finished reading Real Estate Riches by Dolf De Roos, Ph.D. One of the Rich Dad's Advisor series books. I had a lot of doubts and thought that it would be very vague, but it turned out to be an excellent book for a beginner or someone interested in getting into Real Estate Investing. The book was very easy to read and motivational. It shows that REI is not rocket science, but it does take some work. I will be talking more about the book in other articles, but I wanted to include some of the thoughts he has on REI rentals. Whether to choose Commercial or Residential properties to rent out. Here are his pros and cons.

1. Residential Rentals are quoted monthly or weekly, while Commercial Rentals are quoted annually. Here he is talking about rental payments.

2. In rental property tenants don't have an interest in fixing up your property, while commercial tenants do have an interest in not only fixing the property, but also improving the property.

3. Leases are short for rental property, leases are long for commercial.

4. Capital required for rental property can be minimal, while commercial can require a large amount of capital.

These are just of the few pros and cons. I still think I would be interested in Residential Rentals, just to get started.

Tags: Book Review, REI