Here’s a good article on the need to prepare for the unexpected. We just never know when we’ll lose a job, have illness or death in the family, or get hit by a natural or man made disaster. This article covers some of the basic things we can do to mitigate the devastating effects these events can have on our families.

http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/starting/archive/2008/st0730.htm

Planning for retirement for many people can be an intimidating task. There are so many questions that need to be answered. Questions like how much will you need to retire on? What type of lifestyle do you plan on living in retirement? What expenses will change in retirement? How will inflation affect my retirement plans? While there are many questions that will not be answer until we retire. We must start now to think about retirement and taking the steps to achieve our financial goals. One goal on everybody’s list should be to get out of debt as quickly as possible. This will allow an increase in cash flow in retirement and allow you to withdraw less money from your retirement accounts.
Where do you go to start estimating how much you will need for retirement? You can go www.dinkytown.com and start running the numbers. You can also find a good financial planner to help you with your retirement goals. The important thing is that you start now. One of the biggest reasons people are failing with retirement in America is the lack of planning. There are so many people that work long and hard to provide a good life for their families only to wake up at age 65 with nothing in savings or retirement. Don’t let this be you! Decide now that you are not going to be like everybody else and ignore your finances. Decide that you are going to do what it takes to improve your situation now. Remember the millionaire mindset: Live now the way most people won’t so you can live the rest of your life like most people can’t. What does this mean to you? Look for way to reduce your expenses. Look for ways to increase your income. It may take some sacrifice now to achieve your goals. The sacrifice will be well worth it! Create a financial plan and stick to it. Use the power of focus and persistence and good things will happen. Planning for retirement should be a top priority for everybody and not just wishful thinking. If we are persistent in our efforts to educate ourselves about retirement planning, we will greatly diminish the intimidating factor that can prevent many from starting.

Enjoy this classic SNL skit

Goal setting is perhaps one of the most important tools we can use to help us get to where we want to be. Setting goals give purpose to what we are doing each day. It is important that we break our big goals into smaller more manageable goals. Set your goal and work backwards. By doing this we set out a specific plan that could be followed each day. Writing out your goals can be an important step to success. By writing down our goals we organize our thoughts and we make it more manageable. Often we hear people say things like I want to lose weight, or I want to have more money in my account. Stating these things are not goals, it is a wish. What is the difference between wishing and true goal setting? The key is the detail that we put into the goal. The SMART acronym for goal setting is one of the best ways to do that. Saying I want to lose weight is not a goal, so what is? You would need to write out how much you want to lose. By when do you want to lose that much weight? What are you going to do daily? You might write out the type of exercise you will be doing daily. You would also write out the duration of your exercise. You would want to write out what types of food you will be eating. What plan and system are you going to put in place to make sure you stay on track? This could be hiring a coach or a friend that will hold you accountable to reaching this goal. If we set goals properly and we add the ingredients of desire and persistence we have a much great chance to accomplish what we set out to do.
What happens to those that do not set goals? If we elect not to set goals in our lives we give up a powerful tool that we have. That power is the power to choose. Many times when we put off goal setting we do so at our own peril. We do have a limited amount of time to accomplish what we set out to do. We can get to a point in our lives when it is too late. We do not want to wait until we are retirement age to set our financial goals. Let’s start today to use the powerful tools of goal setting and take control of our financial lives!

I thought this was a very relevant and interesting article. In it Knight Kiplinger, Kiplinger’s editor in chief states that our current economic woes are our own doing. “The nation’s perennial overconsumption and undersaving lie at the root of our economic challenges today.”
It’s our own addiction to consumption that has brought us to this point. “Most of our economic wounds are self-inflicted, stemming from our inability to live within our means.” We spend spend spend and save nothing. “America’s household savings rate hovers at just about zero and has occasionally dipped into negative territory.”
Of course our government is a major cause of the problem with their constant calls to spend! spend! spend! and it is the biggest spender in the world. “America’s biggest overspender? Uncle Sam. Perpetual federal deficits force Washington to borrow from its own citizens and, increasingly, from foreign lenders. Repayment will put a terrible burden on our children and grandchildren. Shame on us for abetting this.”
This is our fault too, we elected them and we can un-elect them if we chose to do so. “We citizens say we want Washington to reduce the budget deficit, but we continue to elect congressmen from both parties who apparently think we don’t mean it.”
We here in the Prosper Financial Coaching Division are doing something about it. Our mission is as follows “As Coaches in the Prosper Financial Coaching Division, we are committed to saving this country from financial disaster one family at a time, by teaching our students the proper principles of personal financial management, debt elimination, and wealth creation.” You can help solve the problem too by implementing these sound financial principles in your lives, and then vote for true statesmen, not these crony politicians who have been bought and sold so many times that they’ve forgotten who they’re supposed to represent!

Read the Article:
http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/archives/2008/09/knight_kiplinger.html

One of the most popular ways to make money from home is setting up an online business. The problem that many people run into is getting started. The first step to setting up a successful online business is to get you feet wet. Some great websites that can help you do just that are eBay and craigslist. EBay is the largest online auction website in the world and craigslist is a free online classified ad website. You will want to familiarize yourself with these two websites. It might be a good idea to purchase something from these sites so you can see what your customer is going to see before you try to sell something. After you have sold the items that you have you can continue to work through eBay or you can go into building your own website. A great place to go to get a website set up is sitecreatorplus.com. This website has all the tools you need such as auto responders and merchant accounts.

We also need to decide what goods or services you are going to provide. This is another area where I see a lot of people getting stuck. Remember that is extremely important to do what you are passionate about. How can you know what your passions are? Ask yourself the question, would I do this even if I was not getting paid. If the answer is yes, then chances are you have a passion. If the answer is no, you might want to keep looking. I see way too many people chasing the dollars, and this is the wrong way to go about this. If you do what you love the money will follow.

In setting up an internet business it is important to remember that the heart of your business is the advertising. Think about it. With a retail business it is all about location, location, location, so the key to your success online is marketing, marketing, and marketing. A huge percentage of those online buyers will find your website through search engines like google.com. Your key will be to keep up on the ever changing search engine optimization tools so you can keep your site on the top of the list when people type in keywords. For more information on how to make money online listen to my conference call under the e-library on the success center website.