find prosperity through financial goals

Find Prosperity Through Financial GoalsWriten by Cristopher Fowers

There is a quote by an anonymous writer that says, Goals are as essential to success as air is to life. This statement is especially relevant to financial success and how it relates to financial goals. The way to succeed financially is to frequently set and accomplish personal finance goals.

The problem is when most people hear or read the words personal finance, their eyes glaze over and they immediately begin to think about something more interestinglike whats the function of their keyboards scroll lock button? But, the reality is that learning how to make the most of your finances is really pretty easy and that just a little bit of attention can go a long way.

Where Are You Financially?

It is hard to get somewhere if you dont know where you are in the first place. And with personal finance, its just as difficult to set financial goals for the future, if you dont know where your finances are currently.

The best way to measure your financial standing is to figure out your personal net worth. Personal net worth is basically your personal finance bottom line. After taking into account all of your assets and all of your liabilities, what you end up with is considered your personal net worth.

The Four Types of Personal Finance Goals

As you figure out your personal net worth, ideas for goals will begin to develop, write any of these down on a piece paper and then refer to them later when you are goal setting. There are four classifications for financial goalsthe time limit you set to accomplish the goal will determine what type of goal it is.

Short-Term Personal Finance Goals

These goals typically take less than one year to complete. These goals are usually extremely important, as many of your bigger goals will depend on your success with these short-term goals. These goals are also important because they build moral and increase your financial confidencesuddenly the larger goals dont seem so impossible. Short-term goals might include reading a finance book, beginning to track your finances with personal finance software or even paying off a credit card.

Mid-Term Personal Finance Goals

These goals should take less than five years to complete. These goals can relate to your short-term goals (i.e. a short-term goal may be paying off your Visa card and a mid-term goal is to have all of your credit cards paid off). Mid-term goals, as well as your larger goals, need to be tracked closely as procrastination can often make mid-term personal finance goals very hard to accomplish.

Mid-long-Term Personal Finance Goals

These goals should take anywhere from five to 15 years to accomplish. There are people who have become totally debt-free from perusing a mid-long term goal. These goals sometimes evolve or change completely depending on lifes priorities.

Long-Term Personal Finance Goals

Long-tem personal finance goals may take sixteen years to a lifetime to accomplish. These are goals that deal with your retirement and leaving an inheritance for your children. Many people set long-term personal finance goals to have a personal net worth of X amount of dollars by a certain age. Long-term goals also change and evolve as people grow and their priorities in life change. You should review and evaluate your long-term financial goals at least once a yearmaybe when you do your taxes.

Reward yourself for completing financial goalssmaller goals may be associated with smaller awards, while the completion of larger goals may be rewarded with a family vacation.

Speaking of family, involve your spouse and your kids (if applicable) in your financial goals. They will provide motivation and some financial goals will involve the entire familys help to obtain.

Personal Finance Prosperity

Prosperity is a word that is defined by the person who is uses it. One person may not consider themself prosperous until they reach millionaire status, while another person may prosper because they provide their family with simple home thats completely paid for.

While making financial goals, its a good idea to take some time and think about what you want in lifewhat will make you prosperous. Once this has been determined, set goals that will help you achieve prosperitybest of luck.

Cristopher Fowers



Cristopher Fowers is a Writer/Reviewer for TopTenREVIEWS.com. TopTenREVIEWS features expert reviews for technology and entertainment products and services. For more information and an in-depth review on personal finance software, see the TopTenREVIEWS Personal Finance Software Review. We do the research so you dont have to.

taking little steps to financial freedom

Taking Little Steps to Financial FreedomWriten by Martin Lukac

When you are trying to change your life, tasks can overwhelm you. Change often feels like such a large task. Especially when it comes to money.

Where do you start? The numbers seem to swim. You have no answers. Where will you find them?

Making promises and huge resolutions are easy. You will change your financial situation for you and your family. You can plan and say it all you want.

But the getting there is the actual hard part. Take a breath and dive right in.

If you do it in little steps, it won't be hard at all.

The idea is that you have to break things down. Take it one step at a time. Create goals, a list, a plan. Changing your finances comes step by step. You can't simply make it all happen overnight. You have to give it time and go step by step.

Saving is step by step as well. Dollar by dollar and sometimes penny by penny. It is hard to see that you are making progress. But given lots of little steps and plenty of time, you will see how it all adds up.

The problem is that you have to stay focused and motivated. Simply focus on each smaller step. With each one that is accomplished, you will feel the drive to move onto the next step. Set overall goals that will give you time limits.

I suggest that you never sit down and look at your finances for more than one hour at a time. You will just get overwhelmed and stressed. Some people get on a roll. Work until you are able to take a break and give it a day.

Don't work on your finances before you go to bed. You don't want to be thinking and planning into the night. You want to sleep well. Put your ideas and goals and numbers on paper and leave them there. You are working on it when you are supposed to.

Make yourself goals. Keep them simple enough to be daily goals. You could have the following on your list:

• Call credit card #1 for lower interest rate.
• Close unusued credit card account #1.
• Check credit report.
• Advertise motorcycle for sale.

You should also make a list of all your debts, the payment amounts, balances and interest rates. List from highest interest to lowest interest rate. Start at the top and start paying them off. Items that you will sell to pay off their note, such as the motorcycle above should simply be paid off when they are sold. Any excess money should go to the debt on the top of the list -- unless it will completely pay off a debt somewhere on the list. In which case, you should just go ahead and get rid of that.

Keeping it step by step and little by little will help you from becoming overwhelmed. Remember, it can't be all completed today, so don't drive yourself crazy trying. All it takes is one hour a night. Financial freedom comes with time and dedication.

Martin Lukac represents http://www.RateEmpire.com and http://www.1AmericanFinancial.com, a finance web-company specializing in real estate and mortgage rates. We specialize in daily updates, mortgage news, rate predictions, mortgage rates and more. Find low home loan mortgage interest rates from hundreds of mortgage companies!

kundalini lessons money

Kundalini Lessons - MoneyWriten by Robert Morgen

I've been going through and interesting growth period lately that I thought I'd share, as some of the lessons were pretty profound (at least for me).

I've written before about my awakening and the joys and tribulations since, and I've also mentioned that it's an ongoing process which, as far as I can tell, doesn't really end til you shuffle off this mortal coil. Then you get to come back and start over. :)

The last couple of years or so have been a really interesting period, partly through the guidance and help from both Dr. Glenn Morris and Susan Carlson, and it's interesting how much progress I've made and how far I still have to go.

I've recently come to an interesting new period in my life, thanks mostly to my other half, Anya. Living with her (and my step-son Jake) has opened up new areas and forced me to deal with things that I was always able to avoid before. When you're a modern day gypsy and bouncing around in an old RV it's really easy to have a casual attitude about living in our society, but settling down really brings on the new challenges. Most of what I'm learning now is probably old hat to those of you who've led stable, settled down lives, but it's a hell of an adventure for me, even at my age.

The primary things that I'm dealing with lately are financial. I've always been able to make money, but in the last few months I've come to realize that I've always had bad attitudes about it, and I see the same attitudes reflected over and over from the people around me. It was a big shock for me to realize that much of my attitudes were actually limiting me. It was shocking because most of what I do is about rising above limitations and creating my own realities, then realizing how badly I was doing in this other area.

Susan Carlson mentioned to me several times last year that I could learn a lot from Stuart Wilde's books, and I finally got around to reading The Secret to Money is Having Some and I have to admit that she was exactly right! Thanks Susan! :)

I followed that up with Rich Dad, Poor Dad (actually I'm deep into the series and spending a lot of time on his website) and what I learned there was just as shocking, so in the hopes that some of you learn easier than I do I'll pass on some new revelations (apparently only new to me, but what the hell).

I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina as a poor country boy and most of the time money was a tool that we just didn't have. Our eality was that we had to struggle just to have 'enough to survive'. While the concept of abundance was nothing new to us, we saw our abundance in what we could grow and make rather than what we could buy, and while those skills are definitely valuable, it's a very limiting attitude to have.

So within my 'reality' money wasn't really a tool that was very prominent in my toolbox, even though it was consistently one of the factors that prevented me from doing the things I needed to do.

Many of my attitudes came from the fact that I'm just not interested in money for it's own sake. I'm pretty unimpressed by the people I've met whose primary characteristic seems to be that they have lots of money.
Also it's easy to develop bad attitudes when we see the evils done in the name of money, so for a long time my 'reality' remained that I was working to have 'enough to survive'.

Another interesting factor is that many of us in western society are taught to believe that we DON'T deserve a lot of money. We're taught to WANT it, but not to BELIEVE that we deserve it, which only seems like a paradox til you think about how our consumer culture is driven by desire and want, rather than need.

What I finally realized is that I have to expand my reality and shake off the bad attitudes. Money is a fact of life in our modern world. It's a tool that too many of us are taught to ignore and misuse, and just because many of the world's ills and evils are concieved to get it doesn't mean that we should ignore the fact that many of the modern worlds GOOD things are caused by it also. The fact that I can write this article and instantly send it out to people all over the world is just one example.

I expect the next few months to be a very interesting and rewarding period as I learn more about this 'new' tool and how to effectively use it. Many of the healers and 'new agers' that I know also have similar attitudes to those that I always had, so I thought I'd bring this up here.

I'm sure that many of you may have some interesting feedback. :)

---

Robert Morgen is a Reiki Master who currently holds a Black Belt in Hoshin Roshi Ryu. He's the founder of the Kundalini Awakening Discussion Group, the Druids Circle Discussion Group and the (offline) Druids Circle in Lakewood, CO. You can find more info on all these at;

http://www.robertmorgen.com

Hes also the founder and Executive Director of the Windhaven Foundation for Sustainable Living.

He writes a regular column on subtle energy for Fight Times Magazine and a twice monthly column on Kundalini Awakening at Alumbo.com.

In addition to teaching about energy work and Kundalini Awakening he donates time to teach about Renewable Energy, Alternative Building and Creating Sustainable Lifestyles in various Public Schools.

He travels and teaches as much as possible and you can find out how to attend one of his Kundalini Awakening seminars at his website.

His new book Kundalini Awakening for Personal Mastery (ISBN: 0977380106) is available through his website or at a bookstore near you.

simplify your finances

Simplify Your FinancesWriten by Martin Lukac

The management of your finances should be simple and to the point. If done properly, your money will be easy to manage. It shouldn't be something you struggle with. It shouldn't take hours of your time.

It may take a little work in the beginning, but once you have a plan in place, your finances will take you less time and less stress.

Let's start with the biggest time saver of all. Balancing your checkbook frequently. Have you ever waited a month or more to balance your account? You dread it because it takes hours and still doesn't all add up. However, did you know that it doesn't have to be so hard?

If you balance your account once a week, it will probably take you anywhere between five and 30 minutes, depending on how well you track your spending. Not only does it take you less time, but there are fewer surprises when you balance your account often. Things start adding up better because you are dealing with fewer numbers. If you did miss something, chances are that a few days are not going to hurt you badly. You catch things as they happen.

Take advantage of online statements or automated telephone tellers to keep track of your spending on a weekly basis.

When it comes to your checking account, you need to sign up for overdraft protection. By linking your checking account to a line of credit, you avoid the hassle and cost of a bounced check. But you should never use this line of credit unless it is absolutely necessary. It is just a bad idea for many reasons.

Start with enrolling in direct deposit for your paycheck. This saves you a trip to the bank. Have your savings automatically transfered from your checking into your savings account. This makes the savings payment just like any other bill. You don't put it off because it is already gone.

Electronic bill payments are wonderful. Anything that is a fixed amount should be automatically withdrawn from your account. This saves you a lot of time. You just have to remember that it is coming out. I have a list of what comes out on what date paperclipped to my account log. I take it all out at the end of the month and don't worry about forgetting about it.

If you can consolidate your finances, that is great. Having three credit cards leaves you open to accidently missing a payment. You have to make three payments when you could simply make one.

Have an emergency fund that will take care of any unexpected expenses or accidents. Most advisors recommend three months of expenses be in your fund. Try to set that as your goal, but you will find that as little as $1,000 will really cushion your budget in the case of something breaking down on you.

Managing your money shouldn't be difficult. It is as simple as one plus one and two minus two. Don't overspend and start saving. It really isn't hard to understand.

Martin Lukac represents http://www.RateEmpire.com and http://www.1AmericanFinancial.com, a finance web-company specializing in real estate and mortgage rates. We specialize in daily updates, mortgage news, rate predictions, mortgage rates and more. Find low home loan mortgage interest rates from hundreds of mortgage companies!

cash for annuity payments

Cash For Annuity PaymentsWriten by Eddie Tobey

Every employer offers monetary retirement benefits to employees at the time of their retirement as a gesture of gratitude. Employees may decide to invest in a retirement benefit package to earn an additional periodic income. If an employee decides to take out an annuity, the annuitant has to sign a contract with an insurance company, and the company promises to make periodic cash payments to the annuitant. This gives the annuitant a regular flow of income even after retirement.

If the annuitant decides to withdraw the whole or a partial amount of the invested money, in case of an urgent cash requirement, the contract must be surrendered. This time period is called the 'surrender period.' In extreme situations, when an annuitant does withdraw, a 'surrender charge fee' is charged as a penalty.

Annuitants can opt for provisions that allow selling annuities and receiving immediate cash in return. Various finance companies buy annuities and pay cash to annuitants to serve immediate cash requirements. This option is particularly viable for those who cannot afford to wait for the annuity term period to end. Most people are unaware of the fact that they can actually solve their emergency requirements this way and the insurance companies take advantage of this ignorance.

The monthly installment loses its value due to dollar depreciation and the annuitant may actually be at a loss. A cash payment against the annuity may help in gaining back the control and worth of money. In order to avail of this opportunity, a person can email, call or browse for quotes and information from different finance companies. Once the application and all the formalities are completed, the cash amount is transferred to the applicant's account.

Cash provides detailed information on Cash, Cash Advance, Cash Registers, Cash Flow and more. Cash is affiliated with Online Cash Advance.

your broker isnt a crook he is ignorant

Your Broker isn't a Crook - He is IgnorantWriten by Al Thomas

Why does Wall Street hate me? Because I tell the truth and truth is something they cant abide. The little guy (thats someone with less than a 7-figure account) gets no real help. Every small investor is a Rodney Dangerfield.
If Joe Sixpack happens to make a few bucks they will take credit for helping him, but when he loses his money as he did in the bear market of 2000 2002 that is not their fault.

The little guy with the $5,000-$50,000 account could have been saved and his losses kept at about 10% if the moguls in New York had instructed their brokers how to protect customers funds. It is not done and has never been done.

Dont look to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for help. Instead they are trying to regulate the hedge funds which are playgrounds for the multirich. What nonsense. Let the rich take care of themselves.

Today 50% of all home owners own stocks and/or mutual funds either individually or in a tax shelter such as a 401K. About 80% of these plans have less than $50,000 and no one is looking after them. I mean no one. People at work think they have a money manager and what they really have is a money mangler. They have no idea what to do when the bear returns as it is now.

These manglers have no experience with bear markets and have never seen one. The drop in 2000 of 78% by the NASDAQ was laid to speculation when it was actually the first phase of a 16 year long bear market. Did they protect the guy who was NOT speculating? No. Because they didnt know how and still dont.

Has any Wall Street firm held a single seminar to teach their brokers how to protect customers money? Not one that I know of. You have to it yourself because your broker is ignorant.

During the next major down swing the safest place for investor money is not in the stock market. It is in a U.S. Treasury bond (no other kind) or a big bank CD. Brokers are taught to tell you you cant afford to be out of the market. Of course not because they dont make any money when you are in cash. Cash at zero percent will have a greater return over the next 2 years than any stock or mutual fund. See if you can get that kind of guarantee from your broker. You cant.

You and only you can protect your money. Dont rely on your smooth talking broker. You must now decide before it is too late how much you are willing to risk. If your account is $50,000 would about $5,000 or 10% be as much as you are willing to give back? Whatever amount you set then tell your broker you want a stop loss order entered. He wont like it, but that is his job.

Do not let ignorance steal your money.

Al Thomas' book, If It Doesn't Go Up, Don't Buy It! has helped thousands of people make money and keep their profits with his simple 2-step method. Read the first chapter at http://www.mutualfundmagic.com and discover why he's the man that Wall Street does not want you to know. Copyright 2006 All rights reserved.

retirement strategies

Retirement StrategiesWriten by Milos Pesic

A lot of people imagine retirement as a time when they can finally do all the things theyve been postponing for one reason or another. A number look forward to traveling and exploring exotic places or spending more time with their loved ones. Others plan on starting their own businesses or a new career in a completely diverse field.

Whatever retirement denotes in a person, each and everyone one of them is going to need money to fulfill their dreams. But will benefits from their Social Security, or employer-sponsored retirement plan, or personal savings be adequate to allow them to achieve their goals? When to retire is a critical decision because timing will really affect the amount of benefit they will need and will resolve the options available to them, that is why approaching retirement with the right retirement strategies can help a lot.

People most of the time talk about retiring earlier or later than age sixty-five, which is until recently the full Social security retirement age to get maximum benefits. However, sixty-five is no longer normal retirement age, less than eleven percent of members age sixty-five began receiving lifetime income from their TIAA-CREF retirement annuities in 2001, compared to 1981s twenty-nine percent, the more reason for excellent retirement strategies.

Although with advances and healthier lifestyles, life expectancy is at its peak, however, one usual mistake of retirement strategies is underestimating how long one lives. Unless one has a critical health problem, one should assume that theyll need income for at least twenty to thirty years, while at the same time considering the effects of low levels of inflation on their purchasing power. So as you plan for retirement, use this retirement strategies as a guide:

-Look into your life expectancy, the longer you live the more money needed.

-Approximate how much money youll need in retirement, estimating retirement expenses to about eighty percent of expenses before retirement is suggested, if you plan to travel a lot, then youre going to need an additional ten percent.

-Compute a balance sheet to assess assets and liabilities which you will have accumulated by retirement.

-Make an educated guess on your retirement income sources such as Social Security benefits, retirement accounts and pensions, investments, personal savings, and income earned before retiring.

-Live a modest lifestyle. Working hard today towards saving now will achieve goals of retiring sooner, although it means making a few sacrifices, it will pay off in the long run.

-Make the most of your tax-deferred and tax-free savings opportunities.

-Invest constantly.

-Finance your traditional Roth IRA to its fullest.

-Speak with an experience financial planner about your objective and the best way to reach them.

-Take some risks and expand your stock range.

-Compute for how long your investments will double.

-Get all other paper work in order.

The right retirement strategies will help one to have a better way of living after retirement, a few sacrifices may be made but it will all be worth it.

Milos Pesic is a successful webmaster and owner of popular and comprehensive Retirement
information site. For more articles and resources on Retirement related topics, Retirement Plans, Retirement Communities, Individual Retirement Accounts and
more visit his site at:

=>http://retirement.need-to-know.com