Financial FreedomWritten by Roger Sorensen
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*The first thing to do is talk with your spouse. All plans in world won't work unless they are involved and understand necessity of making a change. Explain why you want to become financially free. *The second thing to do is take a look at your lifestyle. Do you routinely spend more than you earn? Do you place some money into a savings fund every payday? Do you willingly give to charity from your paycheck? Simply cutting your spending is a good place to start, developing a budget to track how much you spend where is even better. If you know how much you allow for each portion of life i.e., car insurance, mortgage, food, entertainment, etc., then you will be able to decide where to limit your spending. You don't want to cut your spending so much that you feel deprived, though. Just like a diet, doing a crash change will not produce long lasting results. Gradually change, see results and be encouraged. Oh, you really should do some plastic surgery too. Cut up all your credit cards and charge nothing more. If you have to have one for business or emergency, make sure you and your spouse agree before charging anything and then pay bill in full when it comes due. *Thirdly, even if you don't go so far as to develop a budget that you stick to is to quit using our credit cards. In fact take out all of your credit cards, decide which one has highest interest rate and/or lowest balance and pay it off in full by making minimums on all other cards and paying as much extra as you can on this one card. Even $10 a month extra will pay it down sooner. Do this until card is paid off. Take money you had been paying to this one card and apply it to next card with highest interest rate and/or lowest balance. Repeat this process until all your credit cards are paid off. Then take all money that had been going to credit cards and apply it to your auto loans. After that, pay off your mortgage. After you have done all this, and you are financially free, take money you had been paying on your debt and pay it to yourself. Don't go crazy with it and run rampant through Target, but put money into your retirement fund, your savings account or whatever you choose for your future. Always keep your eye on reason you make decisions like this - to be free, free, free!
Roger Sorensen is a Financial Author and Speaker, and the editor of Money Basics, a monthly personal finance newsletter found online at www.brighterfutures.com. After filling in his own debt pit equal to 150% of his annual income, Roger has turned the experiance into Brighter Futures, a Financial Literacy company. "There is hope for you, no matter how large your debt load might be."
| | THE GREAT STOCK MARKET SECRETWritten by Al Thomas
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it starts down he jumps off looking for another equity that is going up. The wise trader knows he can’t buy bottom and sell top. What he wants is a big bite out of middle. When you make a sandwich most of meat is in center and a professional trader does same with his trading. He wants to take a bite out of middle of move. You can do this too by looking for stocks, mutual funds or Exchange Traded Funds that have a nice upward pattern. As I said before buying is not secret. Then what is? You must learn to sell - for two reasons.First to protect your equity after your initial purchase and second to keep from giving back profits you have made as equity advances. The great Wall Street secret is an exit strategy: knowing when to sell. Unless you learn to sell will not be successful in market. Brokerage companies do not want you to sell and rarely issue sell signals. You must decide how much you are willing to risk before you buy. The simplest way is with a percentage stop loss order of 5%, 7%, 10%, 12%, whatever you can live with. Instruct your broker to place a trialing stop or you can change it yourself every week. Do not lower a stop. Selling is great secret you will never hear from your broker.
F*R*E*E investment letter www.mutualfundmagic.com Author of best seller "IF IT DOESN'T GO UP,DON'T BUY IT!" Never lose money in the market.Copyright 2004 Albert W. Thomas All rights reserved.Former 17-year exchange member,floor trader and brokerage company owner.
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