Getting Ready for a Prosperous New Year
In the next week or so, you’re going to hear a lot about New Year’s resolutions, and I’m not going to suggest that you make any. What I am going to suggest is that you think about what you would realistically like to accomplish financially in the next year and what first steps you might take in order to reach that goal.
People often set unrealistic goals, which is why they procrastinate and avoid taking action. It’s important that the goals you set be congruent with who you are at this moment in time.
Also important is in awareness of your own emotional relationship with money. If you are fearful about your financial future, ashamed of your current financial situation, or feeling powerless to change your situation, those feelings can interfere with your ability to alter your financial position.
So any action plan has to include both what you were going to do to shift your internal and external environments as they relate to your finances.
Here are some suggestions: Continue reading
Prosperity Tip: 5 Ways of Dealing with the Chaos of Change
Recently a woman was recounting her experience of going from having very little to being able to buy a house, something she thought would be impossible. “Before everything turned around,” she said, “my whole life fell apart and I thought I’d never recover.”
What she didn’t understand at the time was the life-falling-apart experience was an essential element on her path to prosperity. People don’t realize that in order to alter their lives significantly, there is often a period where the old crumbles in order to make way for the new.
That’s what’s happening in the world right now. We are going through a major transition that is causing lots of chaos as the old is replaced by a new paradigm. Continue reading
Getting Beyond Not Enough and Into Prosperity
I hear it over and over again, “I don’t have enough money for _____________ (fill in the blank).” The lack may relate to funds for expanding a business, improving one’s wardrobe, fixing one’s house, or perhaps just paying the rent and monthly bills on time.
Many people function at a chronic non-enough level. Although there may be brief periods of healthy cash flow, these are often followed by the familiar state of lack when unexpected expenses seem to appear out of nowhere or income unexpectedly drops.
Interestingly, I hear the not-enough complaint from people at all income levels. I’ve had clients with millions of dollars of net worth who felt they needed more in order to feel successful. It’s not unusual for me to hear the not-enough complaint from people earning six figures a year.
At the same time, I know people who seem to be satisfied no matter what they are earning. I remember reading a story about a school janitor who managed to save enough money from his salary to help fund a college education of a number of students. He perceived his life as abundant and experienced great satisfaction. Continue reading
Get Real about Your Finances
If you want to thrive in this economic environment and prepare for a prosperous 2010, it’s time to pay attention to your finances and create a strategy for the new year. Even if you already keep good records, you can learn to go even deeper into what you can learn from your own numbers so you can get the most value from your money.
I hope that if you suffer from any level of Financial Vagueness Syndrome, you will decide that this is the time to hunker down and get real about your finances. One thing is for certain: Money doesn’t take care of itself. Without care, it’s like a wild child that needs to be tamed.
I’ll have to admit that I avoid talking about this because I know that people would rather have a magic bullet that fixes something and makes their money fine. But without money management, you limit your own prosperity.
Here’s what I suggest: Continue reading
A Container for Your Income
Let’s assume, as I suggested last week, you’ve set an income goal that includes an amount you’d like to earn and you have set a date by which you’d like to reach your income goal. Now it’s important to make sure that you have a realistic container into which the money can flow.
If you are a business owner or practitioner, what is the designated income stream into which the money can come? A coach, for example, needs to have a website to draw people in or some sort of marketing that makes it clear what that coach has to offer. There also has to be a clear way for potential clients to contact the coach as well as an established payment system.
With products to sell, an entrepreneur needs distribution channels for the products and a manufacturing system that ensures prompt delivery. Without these, maintaining an increasing cash flow is difficult.
For those who have a job, have you upgraded your skills or done what is necessary in order to earn more? If you are on commission, do you have a system in place for increasing your client base or selling more to existing clients? Continue reading
The Dangers of Financial Vagueness
In my book, Build Your Money Muscles, I talk about Financial Vagueness Syndrome (FVS) as a key stumbling block to financial comfort. If you don’t know what is going on with your money, it’s difficult to plan, strategize, and make rational financial decisions.
If you have been listening to the gloomy financial news, then you probably know that one of the main reasons the system is falling apart is that no one really understood the sophisticated financial instruments such as mortgage back securities and credit default swaps that were being traded in the markets.
Recently we learned that when billions of dollars of TARP funds were distributed, no one kept track of where the money went and what it was used for.
On top of that, no one was watching the store. When the SEC was warned about Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, for example, the warnings were ignored. No one really wanted to know what was going on.
You could easily conclude that Financial Vagueness Syndrome played a significant role in the global financial crisis. Has it played a role in yours? Continue reading
Another Credit Card Blindside
Recently, I received a balance transfer offer from Bank of America for one of my cards that has a $0 balance. The offer is for 5.9% fixed for the life of the loan.
At first, the balance transfer small print looked like the usual–3% of the balance transfered with a minimum of $10. But it was called a Cash Advance Fee, not a balance transfer fee. Then I noticed some new fine print. Here’s what it says:
"This fee will post to your account as a cash advance fee and receive the Standard cash advance rate. "
I called BofA and asked what that rate is. The answer: 24%. And, of course, payments are applied to the lowest rate part of the loan first.
Let’s assume you transfer $5,000 with this offer. The fee will be $120 and the interest on that $120 will be $28.80 for a year. If you take a year to pay off the loan, you’ll pay that $28.80 plus the 5.9% interest, plus the 3%. At the end of a year, you will have paid around 9% interest.
So would this be a good offer. Only if you are paying more than 9% now on the $5,000 you are transferring.
Take Care of Your Money
If you’ve been working and playing hard, keeping track of your money is probably not something you look forward to doing. But the simple act of writing down what you spend and earn can help you move to a better financial position.
Money, like people, goes to those who love and take care of it. And what money likes best is to be counted. Financial Vagueness Syndrome, which many people suffer from, does not encourage cash flow.
Taking care of your money stimulates feelings of empowerment as well as increased self-esteem and self-trust. Avoiding the task does the opposite and often enhances feelings of shame.
If you’d like to improve your cash flow and can see the benefit of paying attention to your numbers, it can take a while to build up a habit. The decision you have to make is to start and to do something with your money as many days during the week as possible. Five minutes a day is often enough to keep things up to date.
On ProsperityPlace.com, you can download a PDF file with instructions for Basic Money Management.
My book Build Your Money Muscles also has instructions and can help you work through the shame that may be coming up when you think about your financial situation. That shame can be what is holding you back.
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