Building The Foundation For Wealth
You wouldn't build your home on anything less than a solid foundation.
Similarly, you can't build wealth and financial independence without first having sound foundational principles to build upon. I have found that many people are working on wealth building strategies such as maximizing their 401K returns, aggressive stock trading, and real estate investing without such a foundation. Most of my clients are coming from a "one step forward, two steps back" cycle of wealth building that gets them nowhere in the long run. There are steps you can take to make sure that you are maximizing and protecting your gains at the same time. Without these steps, you are destined to experience the gain-loss cycle which, in the end, is like spinning your wheels in the mud. Discover how your employment circumstances affect your wealth building strategy and have more of the things you want by identifying your biggest expense and managing it without having to make more money. Most people take gains in their cash flow to mean they can spend more on things they don't need. It is human to want to surround yourself with the things you want to match how you feel about your new income from investments or a raise at work. But what happens here is that you lose future earning power and you rip out pieces of your wealth building foundation because you are not putting new income to work by investing in your debt. People talk a lot about returns on investments. Think of the return on a 13% credit debt that you pay off in 5 months aggressive debt investment. It's NOT just 13% you are saving by investing in your debt! Once that debt is paid off you can turn the payments you were making toward a larger debt, sometimes doubling the rate at which you are able to pay off that bigger debt. Combined, the return on your investment here is massive compared to regular stock investing! Wealth building, in the beginning, is actually started with debt reduction and strict management. A change in attitude about your debt, from "liability" to investment, is the first step in true wealth building. Today you should sit down and find the monthly expenses that truly don't mean as much to you as building wealth does. See how you can eliminate some of your spending to invest in your debt in order to maximize your cash flow faster, giving yourself a raise! Take most of what you now have available per month and turn it toward the next debt ? raising the regular monthly payment by as much as you can while rewarding yourself with a little thing to note your accomplishment. Before you take on another investment, think about the wealth you can build with the money that currently goes to debt. Once you have mastered your debt, all that money can go toward investments, savings, and living expenses that far outstretch what you are able to experience now. The only aggressive investment strategy that has absolutely zero risk is debt investment. You cannot lose and the gains are always tremendous compared to any other form of investing. Live your retirement years free of financial stress, relaxed and enjoying life due to automatic income streams you create through the powerful investments you can afford AFTER investing in your debt.
C.C. Collins is a respected financial strategist and
investing expert. His
NetWorthPublishing family of sites offers information and help with stocks,
mutual funds, retirement planning and wealth building.
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Protecting the Tax Advantage of Your Deferred Compensation
The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 imposed strict new rules on non-qualified deferred compensation plans. Beginning in 2005, deferred compensation programs that are not in compliance with the new rules may be taxed as wages, slapped with a 20% excise tax, plus charged an interest penalty.
How to Setup a Profitable Trading Business
In my opinion trading is the most exciting and best way to earn a living in the world. With just a small amount of equipment and space you can do it from anywhere on the planet.
Making It Second Nature
Not long ago I was laying on my son's floor throwing one of his toy balls back and forth in the air to myself and I had a strange revelation. I noticed that as I threw the ball up in the air my left arm automatically started to move to where the ball was going to come down. At the time I was pretty amazed at the fact and decided to experiment a little.
Penny Stock Investing
The Nature of Penny Stocks
Investing for Retirement - Not an All or Nothing Play
In 1519, Hernando Cortes, beached on the shores of unexplored Mexico, made a fateful decision: he would burn the ships he and his men arrived in and attempt to overthrow Montezuma and the mighty Aztec empire. The decision was risky. The Aztecs were meant to possess large numbers of brave warriors while Cortes had only a handful of men. If Cortes had the slightest setback there would be no escape. On the other hand, Cortes had no choice. The powerful Governor of Cuba wanted his head. Cortes had defied the Governor time and time again and his best option for getting out of the situation was to win favor with King Charles by conquering a civilization rich in gold and other treasures. Since Cortes' men might get a little antsy if the going got rough and decide they would prefer going home, Cortes decided it would be best to completely align their incentives with his. He did this by burning the ships. Anything but success would now equal death for Cortes and all of his men. Thus began the famous march from Vera Cruz to Tenochtitlan.
Direcway & Wildblue Set to Square Off this Fall?
There is a cat fight brewing between Direcway LLC, Starband and Wildblue Communications for the large number of people in the U.S. who can't get some type of broadband internet and are willing to pay $50 or more to get better speeds. The combatants are telling investors there are 20-30 million "potential users" out there in rural or underserved America...true, but the historical fact of the matter is that up to now, only 500,000 or so have been willing to pay as much as $50-$100 a month for the "so called" high speed services offered by Direcway, Starband and now Wildblue.
What has changed to stir all the press and advertising hubub by the companies? The claim is that both the Wildblue ka band and new Direcway 7000 offerings will finally give consumers a more DSL/Cable-like internet experience...ie lower latency and higher upload speeds. They expect that tens of millions of rural Americans will flock to their doors to pay over $50 per month to be "connected". To a degree they are right. It has become virtually impossible to funcion as a business without broadband internet and it is more and more difficult as a consumer to do without it. Even retailers (who obviously target consumers) are building sites that are very difficult to navigate unless you have a fast connection to the net. Pictures chew up bandwidth.
Trading Expert Discovers Ways To Beat Stock Market Odds With Money Management
The first point to mastering money management is that you have to understand when you're trading on the stock market is that you are playing the odds ? but unlike many forms of gambling, you can make money. The key to making this money is to respect the risk that is part of the market, and manage it. Money management is a set of rules and guidelines that enables you to turn a profit. By being triumphant with your money management skills, you can keep your risk at a level at which you're comfortable with, keep from making poor trading decisions, and ensure you don't loose your trading capital. This is why it is so important to follow money management rules.
How Do I Start Investing Online and What Are Some Basic Tips?
If you are new to investing online, don't put your entire life savings into an online account. Start with a smaller sum, which will be easier to handle and keep track of. Once you feel confident, you can then decide to add more money to your investing online account.
Invest or be Pink Slipped
Firing an employee seems to be easier and easier for corporations. Up until now you allowed them to set your clocks. Now its time to fight back! Beat them at their own game. They had your future pegged. Now your certainty is in your own hands.
Quit and Retire Three Years Earlier!
For most people, there is a direct correlation between how worried they are about retirement income, and how much they can actually do about it. This is because the more worried you are, the closer you probably are to retirement, and the less time you have to do anything ? like save up. Effective 'saving up' requires time. Time so your money can grow. Save an extra $200 a month, three years before retirement (at age 62), and you'll amass a grand total of $7,887 (averaging 6% growth). Not likely to have a big impact on your retirement lifestyle.
Why the Rich Keep Getting Richer
Rich people: fortunate, lucky, selfish, and arrogant? Or highly educated, caring, brilliant individuals? Becoming rich isn't hard, but it does require a bit of time and knowledge. Having time to get rich, educating oneself, and buying assets are the three key factors in attaining untold wealth.
Waiting 20 Years Can Cost You Millions - Dont Wait Start Today
Many Young people live for Today. They really don't fully understand the power of compound interest. The Difference between investing as little as $20 a week at age 20 or waiting until age 50 can be over $3,000,000 (yes 3 Million). Don't wait start today!
Brain Snappers and Other Wall Street Nonsense
The last time you spoke with your broker did
he use any of the following words? Diversification,
Price-to-earnings ratios, discretionary trading,
lifting a leg (he's talking to you not your
dog), leverage, divergence, fee-based
compensation, escalator clause, tactical asset
allocation and other mesmerizing words to place
you in stupefying shock.
Learn How to Lose and Risk Management
One of the leading traders on Chicago Mercantile Exchange, because of a single trade lost everything!
Bad News - Why The Financial News Media Can Cost You Money!
The communication innovations we have around us today like the internet, financial newspapers, and special interest television channels focused on investing like CNBC are a high speed pipeline of nonsensical chatter. All these sources of information mean that there is no shortage of media people trying to answer our questions about the stock market and specific stocks. You have to remember that the news media are constantly competing to survive against other stuff you can watch. If they don't always sound like they know exactly what is going on then you won't watch their presentations. If you don't tune into their show then their ratings go down. If their ratings go down they get fired and their show gets cancelled.
Justify Social Security ... Dont Save for Retirement
It is a common question when investors review their retirement plan-should we include social security benefits into our retirement income projections?
Poll Names Coin Laundries Best Investment For 2005
According to Morton Pollack, CEO of PWS, The Laundry Company and editor of the newsletter, "Historically, laundry owners have been a quiet group. Knowing they are onto a good thing, they've been pretty reticent. However, many now agree that it's time for respect to paid to this powerful investment vehicle and we hope the poll will play a part".
Online Trading Options Strategies - Rolling
Rolling is defined in options online trading as moving a position from one strike to another either vertically in the same month, horizontally to another month or some combination thereof.
Short Selling for Investors
Shorts. Let's see. If there are shorts there must be longs. Which is best? Longs or shorts?
The Truth About Real Estate Investing - Is It Right For You?
You have probably been hearing, seeing and reading that real estate investing is the best thing since sliced bread. There are many late night cable television infomercials spewing out sales pitches for courses that teach you how to buy residential real estate no money down or for next to nothing. Furthermore, polished pitch men on the advertisement emphasize that it is so easy that anybody can do it. They smugly show you that it is simple as they pencil out on the back of a napkin how you will supposedly make a fortune in real estate. Then these real estate investment course promoters show "actual" interviews of people who have reportedly made gobs of money with the course system.
|
