I see it ahead of me, seemingly out of reach – my dream life – the one I yearn for.  I knoiw youa re within my grasp.  But first, I must do one thing:  believe I can have it, believe I deserve it, believe you are coming – soon!

Many of you, as consumers and investors, are not only puzzled about what to do with your money today, but you may have no confidence that any choices you make will be the right ones at this time.  Fear pervades the investment markets whenever volatility prevails. 

If you hear about your neighbor losing a job due to corporate downsizing or having his or her house go to foreclosure, you may start to feel the fear creep in. You may even ask yourself, "Am I next? What will my financial future be like in five or ten years?"

As I tell my audiences and students, confidence about financial security is largely an "inside job."  In working with hundreds of people like you, I’ve seen how designing a life plan, with a funding financial strategy, works.  There are mental habits you can put in place that will reduce your fear and increase your confidence.  Try making these "inside" choices that will profoundly affect the "outside" circumstances of your life as well as your ability to conquer the greatest financial challenge today – fear for your future security. 

There are four "inside" habits that will serve you well:

1. Decide to believe that times will be better and that your personal situation can improve.   Think back to people you have known, or perhaps even stories you heard from your parents about the Great , or subsequent recessions. Eventually the tide turned, and the economy improved.  Many people who lost jobs discovered a new kind of work for which they had greater passion and opportunity once they decided to take stock, do their research homework, and go out and market themselves, either to a new employer, or even in a business they started at times like these.  This can happen to you, too, today.
2. Accept in your heart and mind that you can face anything, make any changes necessary, and adapt to every new challenge in your life today.  Remember other times when things were tough, and you just kept going, determined to make lemons out of lemonade.  And you did!  Remember how it felt when you had overcome fate and not only survived, but even thrived.  If you’ve done this once, or many times, you can do it in this economy, too.
3. Have gratitude today for every blessing in your life.  Right now, most of you have good health and loving family members who care about your future.  These are priceless possessions in the worst of moments.  Untapped business opportunities abound.  There are plenty of "problems" to solve, and you can help solve them with your talent, your generosity of spirit, your creativity, and your commitment.  Luck does not find you – you create your future luck every day that you feel gratitude for the true wealth your blessings comprise.  Be grateful.  It is essential to your sense of well-being in the world.
4. Decide to be an inspiration to everyone else in your life.  Encourage them.  Support them – both emotionally and even financially if you can.  When you face life’s vagaries with inner courage, faith, and the compassion to help others along the way, good things start to happen because everyone likes to be around and help someone who inspires them.

Realize this truth: security of any kind, financial included, comes from the way you perceive your world.  Your sense of safety and calm about the future have everything to do with the kind of energy you put out to everyone you meet and the way you take on every circumstance you encounter.

Choose confidence over fear.  Then, when things start going your way and the future looks brighter, you can be grateful that you had the courage and the commitment to face tough times with a tough attitude.  You’ve had what it takes all along to be confident about the future, and now you’re using that confidence tool to build your faith and your fortune in the years ahead.

It is this principle of compound return on one’s investment that is at the very heart of the basic banking model. Most banks will in almost in all cases lend out money under a compound interest regime. In fact, this one process can clearly demonstrate the power of compound interest. Depending on the tenure and interest of the loan, one can eventually pay 2 or 3 times in the absence of in duplum legislation. Of course, the interest rates used by banks during lending are usually significantly higher than that used by the bank in paying interest on ordinary savings account. That is why it is recommended that you put the money into the often better paying time deposit especially where you do not intend to sue the money in the short term but may need to liquidate the time deposit in the medium and long-term deposits.

Let us look at a hypothetical example to demonstrate the distinction between simple and compound interest and the power of compound interest. If for instance, you save $100 now at an annual interest rate of 8%, then after one year your $100 saving will be equivalent to $8. Under a simple int6erest calculation, the value of your money at the end of the second year will be the $108 + $8 = $116. Thus, going forward, the $100 will continue to increase by a static $8 each year.

Now, the same amount placed under compound interest would have a different value at the end of the second year i.e. (1.08 x $108) = $116.64.  In other words, unlike simple interest calculation is based on a non-varying principal throughout the life if the deposit, in compound interest, annual growth calculation is based on both the principal and the interest earned up to the point of calculation. Thus, the interest for the following month is then calculated based on this balance. Using this example, after 10 years, the value of the funds under a simple interest regime will be $180 while the amount under compound interest will total $215.89.

The above example demonstrates the higher growth of a single deposit of $100 over a 10-year period at 8% compound interest per annum. Now, imagine the return if one saves $100 each month and applies an 8% compound interest rate per annum on the principal and interest for 10 years. That is the power of compound interest!

Plan, plan, plan

Planning is the key to having the best retirement possible. Take time to make a list of things you would like to do once you retire. Look in to your future, how would you like it to be? Other than meeting your basic needs of food, shelter and clothing, you might have plans to travel around the world in your later life. Whatever your plans are, remember that you won’t be working at the time, so start to set aside the cash early. Make a realistic plan of what amount of money you will need vis-a-vis your current financial position is. Be very specific when making the plan and allow for unexpected eventualities. The costs of your future plans will most probably be very different from what they are today due to inflation; therefore, make sure that whatever financial instrument you use for the savings factors in inflation in its interest and dividend payout.

Start saving now

It is never too early to start saving for your retirement. The earlier you start, the more money you can have at retirement and the less strain it exerts on your current income. Of course one must not stop to enjoy the finest things in life today; however, do not do it at the expense of your future financial security. You would like to enjoy both your youth and your old age so save up accordingly. Make a budget that includes a section on entertainment that you should not overshoot. The budget will help you identify and cut down on unnecessary expenses. Part of the savings you realize from cutting out unnecessary expenses should be channeled to your retirement savings.

Stay informed

Many people often consider the services of a financial planner the preserve of the super rich. On the contrary, it is important for you to get one that can help you come up with a suitable investment plan. If you cannot afford one, do not shy away from getting advice from relatives and close friends who may be experienced in matters of personal finance. That said, go out of your way to learn as much as you can on the different alternatives available. Note that what you invest in may change over time as you balance between risk and return. As you advance in years, you appetite for risk must decline and your investments must change accordingly.

The different objectives among investors are what spurned the cliché ‘high risk, high return’. There are investments that can provide with a relatively high rate of return. The catch is that these types of investments usually carry the highest risk of going either way- up or down.

Contrary the approach sometimes used, it is important to remember that investing is not gambling. There are certain things you must know if you are to get the most return while managing risks appropriately.

For example, if you do choose to invest in the stock market, either directly or through an equity heavy unit trust, you must seek to understand the extraneous factors that might have an impact on the kind of stocks your money is invested in. In broad terms, macro factors such as growth of the economy, prevailing rates of interest and currency exchange rates can drastically affect the value of stocks.

However, each stock also has certain other factors unique to its industry niche that influence the direction the price takes. Note that even with these factors, some stocks demonstrate more price stability in the short, medium and long term and are normally referred to as blue chips. Conservative investors often opt for blue chips die to their almost guaranteed rate of return.

Your investment objectives also come into play when making a decision on what you would like to invest in. Whereas in any stock market, there will always be speculators that buy and sell stocks quickly with the aim of making a fast buck over a relatively short period of town, retail investors are advised against trying this approach.

It is true that you can make a lot of money in a short time; but you can also lose a colossal amount if a stock you had bet heavily on goes deep-south indefinitely or worse still (if the company did not have strong fundamentals) goes belly up. You would rather make smaller but steady steps in your investing goals than to aim for a one-time hit and lose everything in the process.

As you invest in stocks, it is important that you understand the companies you invest in. A strong and visionary management team coupled with healthy and realistic growth projections in the medium and long term should help provide a measure of confidence. In addition, put more emphasis on cash flow rather than on reported earnings. When looking at each company’s financial reports, the cash position should be of great importance to you as an investor as it provides an insight as to whether the company is really a vibrant business.

Lastly, when investing in stocks, patience is a virtue you will need. Research shows that investment in stocks often outperforms return on money market instruments. So if you have studied the company and have verified the strength of its business model, do not panic when the price fluctuates. Hold and you will reap the rewards.

The truth is, the best way to supplement your financial situation is by creating multiple streams of income and increase your income now. This way you aren’t dependent on one source, because if something goes sour you have other areas to fall back on.

We want to go over several ways people are enhancing their finances through the Internet. The best part is it doesn’t matter if this is your first time trying to find extra money online, or you’ve tried in years past with no luck. Keep in mind, choosing your online business path is only part of it, and there are many other facets to making extra money online.

Selling your Personal Assets

One of the first places people turn to is Ebay and or Craigslist. Each one of them offer ways for someone just like you to take something you own, place an ad, and wait for either bids or a call about purchasing your item. While this can help bring in a little money, eventually you would run out of things to sell. However, there are many people who use these same places to buy things at inexpensive prices and sell them for more.

Selling Information Products

Places like Clickbank and other companies that are similar, offer a way for you to promote their products and receive a commission. There are tons of different categories ranging from help with the Internet, losing weight, working online, or several other scenarios. These are built around promotion, and in order to be successful in this arena you should get a better grasp for promoting products online. It will help you to understand how to increase your income now.

Supplements and Other Nutritional Products

The health industry online is always huge, and whether you’ve heard about the Acai berry products, Xtend-Life anti-aging supplements or anything else that offers natural ingredients you have the opportunity to be a part of the action. These are set up through affiliate programs, but there are other companies who are positioned as multi-level marketing businesses where you can sell both on and offline.

The Promotional Side

There are many others just like these and its possible that you’ve even created your own item or informational product to sell. Whatever the case may be, you have to understand how to promote them if you want to increase your income now. You can do this through article marketing, ppc campaigns, utilizing forums and social networks, as well as videos, blogs, and basic networking strategies.

You will find that these are just a few of the many opportunities for you to promote whatever product or service you choose. In the end, the best way to increase your income now is by focusing your efforts on an online business. Just remember that trying to do it alone could take forever, so if the help is there we highly recommend taking it.

By making a budget, you set yourself up for financial success. It is very easy to make a budget if you know how to begin and some of the shortcuts you can take.

One of the first things you need to do is to figure out how much income you have, and how much you are spending. Look at how much money you are spending on certain things such as food, housing, and other bills.

To make this easier you should use financial software. There are a few highly recommended brands that you can find in just about any store that sells computer programs. These can take your spending and turn it into graphs, making it easy to see how much you spend on what each month. Something else many of these programs can do is sync with your online bank statement. This will give you a quick start.

Once you see how much you are spending each month and what you are spending it on, you can evaluate everything. If you discover that you don’t have some money left at the end of each month, you need to cut back somewhere.

In today’s world, having a saving account that you can fall back on if times get tough is crucial. You may need to cut back on some things in order to put away some money at the end of every month. If you can get 10% of your total income in a savings account this is great, but any amount is better than none.

Before you start cutting spending do some prioritizing. What do you absolutely need? Things such as your mortgage or rent, groceries, gas, and bills will go in this category. These are generally the same from month to month, so you can easily figure out how much you have to set aside for these each month. When it comes to groceries, figure out if you can cut back a little here. Think about buying some things off-brand or in bulk to save a little money.

Then you can look at everything else. How much money do you spend eating out? This is something that can almost always be cut back on by preparing more food at home. If you need to start saving more money, you may also need to shrink your entertainment allowance. Have nights at home more, or find some other inexpensive fun.

By doing these things, you can put away some money, but not necessarily have to give up things that are important to you, such as classes. You don’t want to wait to make a budget until you have to cut out the things you love just to keep the bills paid.

As you can see, there are many reasons for making a budget. Look into some of the different methods of budget-making that are available and see which is right for you. Then sit down and start making yours!

There is good news, however, that there are ways of dealing with the issue of earning money when at retirement age. And some of these methods can pay quite well. In fact, it is not out of the question that you could make more money via retirement income that you ever did during the period of time when you were working. How can this be achieved? The process of using the internet as a means of earning money is popular these days. There is no reason why you should not avoid looking towards the internet as a form of income.

If you are already earning a pension or dividend income when you retire, the ability to procure additional income during retirement will certainly boost your ability to live quite well in your retirement. In fact, you could say your retirement years would be among the most comfortable years you will ever experience. When you add your social security checks to the mix, you would probably not have to worry about financial issues. Once again, it is the internet that will open the doors to be able to do this.

This does raise the question what would be the internet process for actually earning income. There are several ways to earn money via the internet and information marketing would probably be the best out of all of them.

For those wondering what information marketing is, it simply entails selling material that informs, instructs, or teaches people things. For example, if you are an avid fisherman, you could produce an ebook on how to be a successful fisherman. Then, you could sell the ebook through a number of online venues.

Here is the greatest benefit to information marketing: there is a great time commitment that is involved with producing information marketing. The financial costs are relatively minimal. Many of the promotional venues in which to sell the information products do not even cost anything to affiliate with. Yes, this is a great deal!

There is another aspect to information marketing that many will agree with: it is fun. You get to share your lifetime of experience with someone through an informational marketing strategy. You probably have a number of popular hobbies and interests and you assuredly would enjoy sharing your experiences with those that would greatly love to hear about your experiences.

But, never lose sight of the prime directive here. Your goal is most assuredly to make money. With information marketing, you most definitely make a lot of money and you can completely enjoy the process as you perform it. Consider that a great recommendation for this brilliant way to make money in retirement.

Some may be wondering how to go about the process. They might point out the fact that they do not have the lump sum amount of money needed to make a balloon payment. Well, you really do not need to make a complete lump sum payment to pay the mortgage off. You can take other steps that can expedite your ability to pay off the mortgage completely.

For example, if you were to pay an extra $300 per month on your mortgage, you would be paying an extra $3600 per year. In ten years time, that comes out to an additional payment of $36,000 that goes straight to the principle as opposed to the interest. Needless to say, this would be a huge plus for those looking to cut down on the amount of time they need to pay off their mortgage. Yes, those little changes to your monthly payments can add up to a lot over time.

Then, there are more ‘drastic’ steps you can take in order to pay off your home. If you have a 30 year mortgage, you can always refinance it to a 15 year one. This means you will have a much higher monthly mortgage and this higher amount will lead you to paying off your mortgage in half the amount of time it would take if you were paying off the 30 year mortgage.

And, of course, no matter what your monthly mortgage is you will always want to pay a little extra towards the balance. The more you pay, the quicker you can knock down your mortgage. It is as simple as that.

This does not mean you should do anything dramatic and try and pay off the mortgage. You probably would not want to liquidate all your assets to pay off the home. Some people may do this but it really is not all that common. Liquidation could make making your regular monthly budget a little difficult to handle which is why it is not recommended.

Some may say that if they pay off their mortgage early they would lose their mortgage interest deduction on their income tax. This is true and it is also not the wisest plan to keep paying interest on a mortgage solely to get a tax deduction. You would probably be a lot better off looking towards paying the mortgage off and outright owning your home. Remember, when you own your own home no one is going to take it away from you.

And besides, getting rid of the mortgage eliminates the strain on your budget that having to make monthly payments can cause. Do the right thing: pay off the mortgage as soon as possible. This is just a much better way to approach your finances.

For those that might be curious as to what their actual net worth might be, the way to arrive at the answer is not a tough one. In fact, you can usually figure out your net worth in seconds since there are not all that many components that go into figuring out your net worth. If you have a curiosity regarding what your net worth is, here is a look at how to figure it out. And, once again, the process is certainly not a difficult one.

The first step here is to look towards all the financial assets you have. This means you need to look at everything you have that is of value.   This includes all liquid cash holdings you have; any stocks or bonds you own; real estate holdings; and even valuable collectibles. Basically, anything that you can sell for liquid cash would go into your financial assets.

The other side of the coin here would be those debts and financial obligations that you owe. This would include car loans, home mortgages, line of credit debts, and, of course, credit cards. When you add up all these debts and monies owed, the figure that you arrive at will be your liabilities. Needless to say, the less liabilities that you possess, the greater your overall net worth will be in relation to what financial assets you possess.
 
So, how do you figure out your net worth? It is a simple matter of addition and subtraction. Take the figure of your financial assets and subtract the liabilities/debts from it. This will then yield either a positive or negative number that will reveal your net worth.

Here are two examples: If your financial assets are $200,000 and your debts are $50,000 then your net worth would be a +$150,000. If your financial assets are $10,000 and your liabilities are $15,000 then you would have a net worth of -$5,000. Needless to say it is better to have a positive number than a negative one. But, in any event, you would want to know where you stand in terms of your finances since this would greatly allow you to have a clear idea as to your financial health and well being. You can only venture forth confidently when you know exactly where you stand
 
Of course, you will want to do whatever you can to boost your net worth as much as possible. By having a clear idea regarding what your financial situation is, you can certainly increase the chances of increasing positive net worth and equity.