By Micah Richards

Our main focus is to get out of debt, and take the next step in building our own financial independent. These are some huge goals, and will not be something we can do in a week, or even a month. We may even need to wait a month to see any results.
A good idea is to write down ten short time goals you can accomplish in one week. We need to focus these ten goals on items, habits, or struggles we are currently having with our personal finances.
Here are a few sample goals that will hopefully give you some more ideas of what types of goals we are looking for:

1) I will bring a sack lunch to work all week.

2) I will walk to any location I need to go, that is within 1 mile.

3) I will bring breakfast each morning to work.

4) I will go to the grocery store once!

5) I will avoid vending machines, and coke machines.

6) I will eat before I go shopping.

7) I will go through my fridge, and eat all the leftovers.

I will read one book on how to achieve financial freedom.

9) I will watch one program on how to achieve financial freedom.

10) I will listen to a financial guru, either on the internet or on CD.

The above examples are once again to get your mind thinking of what personalized goals you can use.

I have also included a very simple document to use. It is so simple, you do not need excel or another program to run. You can cut and paste it, and even print it. After you have completed the goal for a week, you check it off. You will see a difference in your spending habits, and also see a psychological difference that you believe more in yourself, and that you can achieve the longer goals of getting out of debt. Good luck, and have fun! After a few weeks, if you feel confident, change your goals to a month.

Number CHECKLIST OF 10 Weekly Goals Check when Completed

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By Brice Hogan

I want to take some time and really delve into the problem that we have as a nation in wasting the money we spend and how to avoid it and gain real wealth. I want to start out with an observation that most people make including myself on occasion. I grew up in Michigan in a fairly affluent area. My family was not rich by any stretch of the imagination but we knew or thought we knew some family’s who were, and another family who appeared to be relatively plain but was not.

I will refer to the affluent gentleman as the Mr. Jones and the other gentleman as the Mr. Smith. Mr. Jones owned a beautiful home in an affluent neighborhood where you expect to see million dollar homes. He owned a high profile consulting business. Not only that he had a membership to a country club that was fairly exclusive, drove the nice BMW, had a boat all the nice expensive toys that you could dream of. His appearance was impeccable he wore a nice Armani suit, and had really expensive shoes. He exuded that persona of being wealthy.

On the other hand the Mr. Smith was relatively plain. He owned a window washing company. He owned a minivan for transportation that he used to carry his equipment. His appearance was neat but not extravagant. He really looked like the average Joe. The one thing you would not think about Mr. Smith was that he was wealthy or had money.

Eventually I found out that even though Mr. Jones made a lot of money ($300,000 a year) but he also spent a lot, and eventually he went bankrupt and had to get rid of everything. His marriage crumbled and he was reduced to nothing.

Mr. Smith on the other hand, I found out, did very well. He made a decent living but his wealth was in the millions. The reason behind this was because he did not waste his money on frivolous things.

The word that might best describe Mr. Smith is frugal. Now when I was a kid I thought frugal meant cheap. So I really didn’t want to be frugal, however the real definition of frugal is “behavior characterized by or reflecting economy in the use of resources� (Webster’s dictionary)

Day to day we observe the flash bulb lifestyles of our favorite pop star or sports star. The fact of the matter is that a relatively small number of people are able accumulate wealth. Most of the time they throw it away on lavish expensive stuff. That is why year after year we see these people end up filing bankruptcy.

I was talking to a client the other day and she was explaining to me her displeasure with not making any progress with her financial plan. I asked her what she was doing to work on it. She paused for a moment and said “Now that I think about nothing.� I asked her what her spending habits were like on a day to day basis. She said in matter of fact way, “Well I go to Starbucks every day and get 2 coffee’s� I clarified “So you do that what 5 days a week.� “No�, she said, “I go every day.� I was flabbergasted I couldn’t believe it. I asked her how much she spent on coffee each time she went. “About $7� “So basically each month you waste $210 on coffee while you languish in debt.� “But I need it� was her excuse. So I wanted to get her attention. I said, “Well let’s take that $210 (which translates into $2400 wasted on coffee every year) and invest it year after year for 10 years in an account that yields 10%. If she did that in ten years she would have over $500,000. She right now is making the choice to sacrifice a cup of coffee for a half a million dollars, and her reasoning behind it was because she needed that coffee everyday to keep her going.

It is amazing the stuff we will waste money on for the sake of appearance. We do it every day. When people ask us out lunch we feel the social pressure to go and spend the money we don’t have. We spend money, really, because of the social factor. We want to appear that we are keeping up with the Joneses. But as I illustrated in our real life example the Joneses are sinking and those who choose to live frugally are not.

Living frugally is all about opportunity cost. It is what we choose now that will affect our wealth later. A great example of this is Warren Buffet. I you don’t know if you know who he is, but he happens to be the 2nd richest man in the world. His net worth is somewhere around $30 billion. For a man this rich he still likes eating at McDonalds, he drives a Cadillac and lives in the same home he bought over 30 years ago. His philosophy is really the definition of frugal. He would rather buy a $15,000 car than a $50,000 car and use the $45,000 to invest and grow his money.

So how can you develop a frugal mentality? It really comes down to 3 things: Know where your money is going, understand value based spending, and discipline.

To be Frugal you need to know where your money is going. A habit of wealthy people is know where every dime is being spent. If you know where it is going you can stop leaks in you finances. Something to consider would be to start a monthly way to track all of your expenses and then review it at the end of the month. By doing it at the end of the month you can see where your money is going.

Develop a value based spending philosophy and not a social peer pressure philosophy. What I mean by that is buy what you need not what you want. When you purchase something ask yourself is this something I need and at what expense am I getting it at. Do not buy something because you feel pressured to by friends or family.

Be disciplined. When you get into the situation where you are feeling pressured by friends or family exercise discipline which means not folding in to the pressure. As you develop that discipline, you will see that you will be able to save yourself a lot of money which you can then in turn reinvest in something that will grow your money.

Being frugal for people who are wealthy is a way of life. It is something that is engrained in their DNA. These people do not waste money. They use every single dime that they save to grow their wealth. Be like MR. Smith, Warren Buffet and you too will frugal your way to wealth.

by Micah Richards

I was talking to a friend of mine who was struggling with her finances. She was frustrated, and did not have any self confidence in working with her finances. I gave her a few tips, and talked about her finances with her. She really did not have a lot of debt, and was good with her money. She was just not confident in her spending habits.
Today I just want to talk to everyone about having the confidence in yourself to achieve your financial goals. Why set goals you can not achieve? Or why have goals at all, if you at first feel you can not achieve them?
A couple years ago, I had a take a test. It was a very tough test. The test took seven hours, and had over 300 questions. The questions covered math equations, laws, definitions, and other financial information. Before I even started to study for the test, I told myself, there is no way I will pass the test. And as you guessed, I did not pass the test. I had no confidence, and I set a goal I knew I would not complete.
Remember to set financial goals which you believe you can achieve. You can get out of debt, and have the freedom of such debt. You just need to believe you can do it. We need to get rid of all negative thoughts, and clear our minds with positive thoughts of achieving our financial goals.
There is no trick, or great secret to self-confidence. You can not snap your fingers, and have it. You need to build it with-in yourself.

“The tragedy is that so many people look for self-confidence and self-respect everywhere except within themselves, and so they fail in their search.” Dr. Nathaniel Branden

From Mich Richards

A question I have been getting recently is what is a money market fund, and why would I want one?

Most people assume money market accounts are only for banks or credit unions. Brokerage firms also offer money market accounts. They are often called: Money Market Funds. If you have extra money in your brokerage account, like for example in between trades or you are decided on what to purchase, the money market fund will earn interest on the money you have that is not invested.

The interest rates will vary between different companies. It is highly recommended to call your brokerage or even your bank and see if you can get a higher rate of interest. You can also ask them for information on sweep accounts.
Also when you sell a stock, the cash will automatically go into the fund you select. It makes it really easy to earn a little extra each month. Plus when you purchase stocks or options, the money will be withdrawn from the sweep account.

There are multiple tricks of earning a little extra cash, here and there. We just need to do the research, and find out where and how to get the extra income coming.

Many studies have been taken on the millionaire population in the US. The numbers vary. Some wealth surveyors suggest that in the US alone there are 8.4 million households worth between 1 million and 10 million dollars. I personally believe the number is half that, at around 4.5 million household whom have managed to accumulate that wealth. The larger number is probably accurate for the entire world. Allegedly, the number is growing rapidly.

So who are these newly minted millionaires? What are their tastes? Do they suddenly become snooty and hang out at the most exclusive enclaves for the rich? Hardly.

These new millionaires adhere to middle-class values, earning their money rather than inheriting it. They work 70 hours a week, and prefer neighborhoods based on the quality of schools.

They spend their money on all the things that tie back to family values — on the health and welfare of their family, career development, and as you move up the ladder they spend on leisure and luxury activities.

Many of these so called “middle class Millionaires� believed anyone could attain wealth through hard work.
Middle-class millionaires are almost three times as likely as the average middle-class person to choose a career based on its likely earnings, three times as likely to belong to a networking group, and five times more likely to say they are always available for work by phone or email.

Nearly eight out of 10 — or 77 percent — choose their neighborhood based on the quality of the school system.
The four main characteristics of a millionaire were that they are hard working, they network, are persistent even in the face of failure, and put themselves in the flow of money.

One discouraging aspect of this growing demographic is that the newly wealthy are upping the bar when it comes to consumption. Many people in this group are wanting to distinguish themselves with their spending. In other words, what was once exclusive is now available to a larger group of people. This has created a vacuum of sorts in that other income groups are spending more to keep up.

The super rich are especially vulnerable to this and are looking for very expensive things to set them apart. Like going into space for example.

by Brice Hogan

I talked to a friend of mine recently who has a brother who he talked to over the Christmas season. They were chatting over how much he overspent for Christmas. He had mentioned to my friend that he had a lot of pressure to buy the coolest new thing which happened to be a video game for X-box and some other things to accompany it for his son. I cooked some dinner for my wife’s family and my brother in law was going out to dinner later that evening with his in-laws at the expense of a buffet a dinner which he admitted that he did not have the money for, he could have just stayed and not spent anything.

We are all often caught in this trap of appearances. “I need to look good for the neighbors.� I need to spend X amount of dollars for my son on the newest toy for him to play with that will eventually get shelved. We do this a lot in our society. It is a society of appearances and that is what gets many of us into financial trouble. The keeping up with the Joneses Syndrome.

How in the world do we avoid this? It is very simple but for some very difficult to put into practice. You must decide to be wealthy. It is as simple as 4 words “decide to be wealthy.� The mindset is the most important thing. Without it you will go nowhere. Most wealthy people have a certain set of habits that they live by I will share 2.

1. Track Your Spending (know where you money is going)
Few wealthy people live extravagant lives, but the fact is they are pretty normal. They don’t drive expensive cars, or own expensive clothes they drive used cars and wear discount clothing. They also know where their money is going at all times. A family is much like a business. At the end of the day your family wants to make a profit have more money at the end of the month then they did at the beginning. There are a number of different ways of tracking your spending. The simplest is to write down everyday what you bought, from what store or what it was for, if you used cash, credit, check or debit, and the date. Also keep track of you income. So at the end of the month you know how much you have left over or how much you have spent over. You can use a spreadsheet to enter this information or a ledger book what ever is easiest for you to use. Just be sure to track everything you spend.

2. Live Within Your Means.
Once you know, and this will usually take a month or two of tracking your expenses, where your money is going you can start to cut down your spending in those areas in which you were over spending. These places are usually easy to identify. Usually the following areas where we over spend are:
Eating Out everyone does it, however most people do it more than they should and spend enormous amounts of money that they could be saving or using to pay down debt.
Other areas most people are guilty in overspending are; Entertainment, Groceries, Insurance (Life, Home, and Auto). You can usually tell where you spend too much in. Just follow the money. The main thing here is to live with in your means try to live on 15%-20% less than what your actual income is. Generally this is called the 80/20 rule which says that your spending should consist of 80% of your monthly expenses and the other 20% of paying yourself and charity causes.

If people would just follow just these two rules, less people would be in bankruptcy and have more saved for productive purposes. The most important thing is psychological don’t let appearances convince you to spend more than you have if you follow this rule you will always come out on top with your money.