I was walking through my favorite grocery store yesterday and couldn’t help notice all of the merchandise on display for Valentine’s Day. The greeting card aisle was stocked with every type of Valentine’s Day card imaginable. And the intoxicating scent of chocolate wafting from the candy section was enough to make my mouth water.
Although I didn’t buy any V-Day goodies, I began to think about the real significance of this holiday. For those of us already in a relationship, February 14th is typically a day to exchange tokens of affection. But for those of us who are looking for love, Valentine’s Day may be the perfect time to begin the search for your personal finance soulmate.
What does finding your sweetheart have to do with how you manage your money?
If you consider that many of the sources of relationship and marital discontent stem from a couple’s inability to communicate about and resolve personal finance issues, then finding a partner with whom you are financially compatible makes a lot of sense (or cents.
Using ‘SOULMATE’ as an acronym, here is my eight step guide to attracting your money-wise partner and charting a course to financial freedom:
S - Spend your time as if you were making an investment. Make sure you’re getting growth and the best return possible. Many people are afraid to be alone and just want to be with someone. Why settle for less than you really want when there are dozens of other choices you could make? Make sure you are getting what you need and that the relationship is progressing in a direction you both want.
O – Owe your partner nothing … except honesty. Do not mislead, lie or cheat. Nothing good will ever come of it. If you ever borrow money from your partner, make the terms of repayment crystal clear and follow through exactly as promised.
U – Understand your money type and that of your partner. People who have excellent credit and little or no debt are rarely compatible with partners who are chronically late on their bills and have huge credit card balances. S/he may have a great body and a six figure income, but if you spend more than you make, it doesn’t matter how much money you earn. Financial freedom will elude you.
L – Learn about strategies for creating wealth, eliminating debt and saving for retirement. Read books, attend seminars, listen to experts, talk with other people you know in your situation, get solid recommendations from trusted advisors and create a plan to help you achieve your personal finance dreams.
Continue reading "How to Attract Your Personal Finance Soulmate" »
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Do you understand what a credit score actually measures? Do you know what a good score is? What’s the best way to improve your credit score?
The Consumer Federation of America reports that most consumers do not fully comprehend how these mysterious three-digit ratings are used.
Those of us who have purchased a home know that mortgage lenders utilize these numbers to determine risk; how risky it is for them to lend us money. But only a minority of consumers are aware that electric utilities, home insurers and landlords frequently use credit scores to decide whether to sell us a service and at what price.
Let’s look at this FICO score-driven mortgage loan pricing scenario…
According to Fair Isaac, the company that guards their FICO credit score formula more closely than Coca-Cola guards its soft drink recipe, a homebuyer with a 720 credit score would be charged 5.72% on a thirty year fixed rate mortgage. That would result in monthly principal and interest payments of about $868.00.
Continue reading "How a Credit or FICO Score Can Affect More Than Your Mortgage Payment" »
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We’ve all made personal finance decisions that we later regretted. How many times have you said, “… if I had only known then what I know now, everything would be different …”
About twenty years ago I sold my electric guitar. I hated to part with it but I needed the money to pay bills. I also felt that someday I would be able to replace it. I knew the guitar was a collectible when I sold it.
The buyer paid me nine hundred dollars, which was a lot of money back then. Today that same guitar is worth more than ten-thousand dollars!
Do I regret my decision? Absolutely! The choice to sell was made out of quiet desperation because I had no savings and I was doing a very good job of personal finance mismanagement.
Continue reading "Why a Personal Finance Emergency Fund is so Important in Financial Planning" »
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Do you remember hearing the clerks at many of the mall stores offer you 10% off your total purchase by opening a department store credit card with them?
Those hard to resist offers were tempting, especially during the holiday rush. But you might be suffering from self-inflicted personal finance injury if you took advantage of too many of those in-store special promotions.
Here’s the problem …
Retailers love to tell you that you can save an extra 10 to 20 percent by opening a store card account. The problem is interest rates are typically very high for these credit cards. So the 25 dollar savings off the $250 leather jacket could quickly turn into a 40 dollar interest payment, if you carry the balance for even one month. And if you opened several of these store accounts, your credit score most certainly suffered as the result of multiple inquiries over a short period of time.
Continue reading "Is That a Credit Card in Your Wallet or Purse or Are You Just Happy to See Me?" »
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One of my best friends owns a gift store in Pennsylvania. He is a very successful businessman who, along with his wife, has built two profitable retail outlets from the ground up.
His current venture has less than 1,500 square feet of selling space, yet my friend has been able to send his children to expensive private schools, save at least fifteen percent of his income and pays off his credit card bills every month.
If you walked past my friend on the street, you wouldn’t think he ‘looked wealthy’, yet he has a net worth of a million dollars.
How did he achieve financial freedom at the ripe old age of fifty?
He didn’t inherit it. And he doesn’t wear his wealth on his wrist or park it in his garage.
Instead, he and his wife were fanatics about saving, and built their seven figure personal finance balance sheet with shrewd investments.
My friend realized from a very young age that the real price of an item isn’t just the out-of-pocket cost. It is the forgone wealth that money compounded over time can earn you.
Noted business author Michael LeBoeuf offers up five reasons why saving is your key to financial freedom. The following examples are based on an index fund investment averaging an 11 percent annual return:
Continue reading "Are You Driving Your Financial Freedom?" »
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Just imagine yourself as a young child standing at the end of a diving board hanging over the deep end of a swimming pool. Your heart is thumping in your chest. You’re terrified because you’ve never been in water over your head.
You think the worst is going to happen and your body will suddenly plummet to the bottom as soon as you hit the water.
Your swimming instructor is standing at the side of the pool reassuring you and urging you to take the plunge.
You have a decision to make. Will you allow fear to prevent you from being successful at something new? Or will you listen to the ‘voice by the side of the pool’ and jump in feet first?
That is exactly the determination I had to make when I was seven years old. It taught me a valuable lesson which was:
Sometimes the best way to face and, ultimately, conquer our fear is to ‘get wet’.
As you are thinking about this story, ask yourself what is preventing you from ‘taking the plunge’ to financial freedom?
Continue reading "Why Are You Afraid of Financial Freedom?" »
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Picture yourself five years from now … what do you want your personal finance picture to look like?
How much money will you have saved? What will your children have learned from you about financial planning? Where will you and your spouse or significant other be on the path to financial freedom?
These are all wonderful questions to ponder.
As you’ve probably figured out by reading several of my previous Keyboard-Culture blog posts, I’m a big believer in being the architect of your own reality. That’s how I’ve been able to achieve many of the things I’m proud of today.
Let me share a technique that has been proven to help people reach incredible levels of success. I call it creating a prosperity picture™.
Continue reading "The Fifth Financial Planning Step to Achieve Financial Freedom" »
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You’re intelligent enough to know that one of the easiest steps to financial planning is to get an accurate picture of where your money goes. Simply keep track of your spending for a month. That’s right. Grab a notebook or create a spreadsheet and put in everything that you’ve spent money on. Be honest, don’t be ashamed and do it.
After you’ve created this thirty day personal finance ‘lookback’, ask yourself this question:
“Where can I find money so I can get out of debt, invest and build wealth?"
If your answer is, I’m already maximizing my investment opportunities, then congratulations!
But if your answer is, "I’m living paycheck to paycheck and I don’t have extra money", allow me to introduce you to some of your money ‘thieves’.
Continue reading "The Fourth Financial Planning Step to Achieve Financial Freedom" »
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You probably already know this, but most of us use expressions that we’ve picked up from authority figures such as parents, celebrities or sports figures.
My mother had an interesting saying that I heard countless times while growing up. It was, “ … that is an up with which I will not put …”
Translated, it means: that is not acceptable to me and I won’t tolerate it.
As you sit there and read this blog post, ask yourself what you are allowing into your life that is not acceptable.
For example, are you tolerating:
• Too much credit card debt and not enough income?
• Too much job and not enough fulfillment?
• Too many personal finance arguments and not enough collaboration?
Continue reading "The Third Financial Planning Step to Achieve Financial Freedom" »
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I’ve always been fascinated by people and their perceptions of the world because their concepts and thoughts are reliable indicators and predictors of how they might be creating their realities.
For example, when I’m in the checkout line at my favorite grocery store, the cashier always greets me and asks whether I have found everything I need.
I’ll respond appropriately and then ask the individual about himself or herself. Often the answer I get is something like,”… I’ll be better in and hour and a half because that’s when I get off work …” or “… I can’t stand the weather … I wish it would stop raining …”
Since my life mission speaks to helping people achieve financial freedom and prosperity, I will generally offer a nugget or even a question in response.
Continue reading "The Second Financial Planning Step to Achieve Financial Freedom" »
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In my previous blog post I promised to teach you the steps to help you reprogram your Prosperity DNA™ so you can override the messages that will keep you stuck in wealth-reducing habits.
Throughout history many great thinkers have written and spoken about the mental maps, pictures and thoughts that ultimately determine the life we create for ourselves.
Here are but a few examples:
• “The mind is everything; what you think, you become.” – Buddha
• “We become what we contemplate.” – Plato
• “Change your thoughts and you change your world.” – Norman Vincent Peale
So what does this have to do with helping us to achieve our financial planning goals for financial freedom?
Continue reading "The First Financial Planning Step to Achieve Financial Freedom" »
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Yesterday I walked into a Barnes and Noble bookstore. I headed straight for Many of these printed works feature terrific suggestions about paying As I watched this human shopping frenzy grabbing personal finance books from Since eliminating credit card debt and building wealth for a millionaire
the personal finance section and started to count the different titles on the
shelves. I stopped counting after 73 because there were too many people in the
aisle and I couldn’t see the books clearly.
yourself first, spending less than you earn, investing, getting out of credit
card debt, building a millionaire retirement portfolio and more.
the shelf and leafing through the pages, several questions popped into my head.
retirement can be taught as a process and a system, why do so many people
continue to choose stress and vulnerability over happiness and security?