This weeks tip is brought to us by Dan Christiansen.

These days it seems like every time we turn on the TV there is more bad news. This article is dedicated not to what is wrong with the economy but what is good about the US economy and hopefully your personal economy as well. Gas prices are well off its highs of 140 dollars a barrel, now it is trading around 60 dollars a barrel. The price of gas affects the price of just about everything. Interest rates have gone down again by another half a percent. That means lower interest on things like credit cards and home equity lines of credit. Mortgage lenders have stopped making toxic loans. It seems that they have return to a more wise approach to lending. Stocks are on sale. The saying on Wall Street is when there is blood in the street it is time to invest. Remember the whole name of the game is to buy low and sale high. There are a lot of really good companies that are trading low because of fear.
With your personal economy, the biggest hope that you can have in this economy is to make sure that your own personal economy is thriving and doing well. A huge part of this is controlling your spending. The more I coach people around the nation as well as internationally the more that I realize what most people are after is peace when it comes to their finances. Financial peace does not come with how much you make. We gain financial peace by learning to control our spending. Remember you can be broke on a high income. I often ask my students, if you had a million dollars in the bank at this moment, would you be wealthy? Without a doubt my students will say yes. Then I ask, what if your monthly expenses were one million dollars? Would you still be wealthy? I have never heard even one student say that they would be wealthy if that were the case. Therefore, we see that wealth is really relative to the amount of money that is going out the door each month. Real wealth is when you can maintain your current standard of living for the rest of your life without working. There are good things that are going on with the economy and hopefully your personal economy too. Building long term wealth is a marathon it is not a sprint. Living these wealth building principals will give you and your family hope in the midst of fear.

This week's tip is provided by Charlie Machinski.

Back to the Basics

Getting back to the basics and refocusing on what we are trying to accomplish should be a regular routine. Sometimes we can get to the point where we are trying to do so many things at once that we end up doing a poor job on everything. Focus on the things that are going to give you the greatest returns like tracking your expenses. Looking for ways to reduce your expenses and looking for ways to increase your income. If you keep your financial freedom plan as simple as possible you are bound to accomplish more without as much wasted time. Setting goals and keeping those goals is also one of the basics that we should be working towards. If we take the time to zoom out and look at what we are doing we are bound to be more efficient in accomplishing what we set out to do. Allow me to illustrate my point. Joe’s and Tom’s goal was to be financially free. Joe started to look for ways to reduce expenses and before he could find all the areas money was leaking he started to look for ways to make more money. He decided he wanted to make some money on ebay. He made one sale and then he started to look at ebay and stock market investing. He started to really look into the stock market and he spent a few months working on it when he decided that the stock market was not his thing. He started to look into real estate investing and before he could succeed with it he started to look for ways to make money online. He was constantly trying to do too many things without dedicating enough time to succeed at anything. Take the time to take a step back look at where you are headed. It does not hurt use to get back to the basics of what makes us successful.

Lessons from Millionaire Mentors

One of the most memorable lessons from my millionaire mentor was when he told me to “live now the way most people won’t so you can live the rest of your life like most people can’t.� My mentor said when he first heard of this concept he was so excited he told his mother of the plans he had to live now the way most people won’t. When he told her this she told him that he was wasting his time and that money was meant to be spent. He told her that he believed in this principle and he started to live a very frugal lifestyle. My mentor said that he has living as if he was still in college and that he was making a six-figure income. He continued to live this way for seven years. At the end of the seven years he had a very large nest egg saved up. He ended up investing in some high end storage units. The first month after opening his business he cash flowed about 50,000 dollars. He was so excited he called up his family and told them that he was going to pay for all of them to come to Hawaii with him. During their vacation they did just about everything there was to do. As they were on one of the nicest golf courses in Hawaii his mother came up to him and said, “you know son, I really like this live now the way most people won’t stuff.� There are so many people that do not delay gratification. They give up their future incomes to impress their friends and family. My mentor taught me that you can either be poor or you can be rich, both are equally hard. Make the decision now to live like nobody else so you can live the way that most people can only dream of living. Learning from a mentor is the fastest way to get you from point A to B financially. Find someone that has been successful financially and pattern your financial life around theirs.

Over the last couple of weeks I just have to laugh. I know it’s not funny to see the market like this but it is incredible to see the swings it is under going. We are seeing market swings in the range of 500 point or more and mostly in the down direction. That is what is incredible I have never seen volatility like this ever.

That Being said the sky is not falling, if you are invested right. I have talked to a lot of my friends who have said to me this is a bad time to be in the market. No, No, No. This is a great time to be investing if you are allocated properly. The people that have lost money are those who are not allocated properly.

If you are younger this is a great time to buy in because you have the longest time to see your investment grow. Give this market another 2 to 5 years and we will see it bounce back. If you are young enough you will go through a number of periods like this.

For those heading into retirement it behooves you to be in a more conservative asset allocation such as bonds cash and treasuries. Those who have done this at this time have not felt the impact as those who are currently in stocks.

The main reason now is a good time for an investor to invest is dollar cost averaging. It basically is a sale on stocks everything is marked of more than 40%. Will it stay that way probably not. So if you buy a bulk of stocks at 50% off when it goes up you are going to be in an enviable position. Because your sale prices are now replaced with full market prices and your investment has just increased.

So never fear the doom and gloomers are always out in force at this time but the tried and true strategy’s always work when it comes to long term investing.

Brice Hogan

This week's tip is by Darren Hardy.