Five Rules To Improve Your Financial Health

The term “personal finance” refers to how you manage your money and how you plan for your future. All of your financial decisions and activities have an effect on your financial health now and in the future. We are often guided by specific rules of thumb – such as “don’t buy a house that costs more than 2.5 years’ worth of income” or “you should always save at least 10% of your income towards retirement.” While many of these adages are time tested and truly helpful, it’s important to consider what we should be doing – in general – to help improve our financial habits and health. Here, we discuss five broad personal finance rules that can help get you on track to achieving specific financial goals.

Do the Math – Net Worth and Personal Budgets

Money comes in, money goes out. For many people, this is about as deep as their understanding gets when it comes to personal finances. Rather than ignoring your finances and leaving them to chance, a bit of number crunching can help you evaluate your current financial health and determine how to reach your short- and long-term financial goals.

As a starting point, it is important to calculate your net worth – the difference between what you own and what you owe. To calculate your net worth, start by making a list of your assets (what you own) and your liabilities (what you owe), and then subtract the liabilities from the assets to arrive at your net worth figure. Your net worth represents where you are financially at that moment, and it is normal for the figure to fluctuate over time. Calculating your net worth one time can be helpful, but the real value comes from making this calculation on a regular basis (at least yearly). Tracking your net worth over time allows you to evaluate your progress, highlight your successes and identify areas requiring improvement.

Equally important is developing a personal budget or spending plan. Created on a monthly or annual basis, a personal budget is an important financial tool, because it can help you:


 Plan for expenses

 Reduce or even eliminate expenses

 Save for future goals

 Spend wisely

 Plan for emergencies

 Prioritize spending and saving
There are numerous approaches to creating a personal budget, but all involve making projections for income and expenses. The income and expense categories you include in your budget will depend on your situation and can change over time. Common income categories include:


 Alimony

 Bonuses

 Child support

 Disability benefits

 Interest and dividends

 Rents and royalties

 Retirement income

 Salaries

 Social security

 Tips

 Wages
General expense categories include:


 Debt payments – car loan, student loan, credit card

 Education – tuition, daycare, books, supplies

 Entertainment and recreation – sports, hobbies, movies, DVDs, concerts, Netflix

 Food – groceries, dining out

 Giving – birthdays, holidays, charitable contributions

 Housing – mortgage or rent, maintenance

 Insurance – health, home/renters, auto, life

 Medical/Healthcare – doctors, dentist, prescription medications, other known expenses

 Personal – clothing, hair care, gym, professional dues

 Savings – retirement, education, emergency fund, specific goals (i.e. vacation)

 Special occasions – weddings, anniversaries, graduation, bar/bat Mitzvah

 Transportation – gas, taxis, subway, tolls, parking

 Utilities – phone, electric, water, gas, cell, cable, Internet
Once you’ve made the appropriate projections, subtract your expenses from your income. If you have money left over, you have a surplus and you can decide how to spend, save or invest the money. If your expenses exceed your income, however, you will have to adjust your budget by increasing your income (adding more hours at work or picking up a second job) or by reducing your expenses.

To really understand where you are financially, and to figure out how to get where you want to be, do the math: calculate both your net worth and a personal budget on a regular basis. This may seem abundantly obvious to some, but people’s failure to layout and stick to a detailed budget is the root cause of excessive spending and overwhelming debt.

Recognize Needs Vs. Wants – and Spend Mindfully

Unless you have an unlimited amount of money, it’s in your best interest to be mindful of the difference between needs and wants so you can make better spending choices. “Needs” are things you have to have in order to survive: food, shelter, clothing, healthcare and transportation (many people include savings as a need, whether that’s a set 10% of their income or whatever they can afford to set aside each month). Conversely, “wants” are things you would like to have, but that you don’t need for survival.

It can be challenging to accurately label expenses as either needs or wants, and for many, the line gets blurred between the two. When this happens, it can be easy to rationalize away an unnecessary or extravagant purchase by calling it a need. A car is a good example. You need a car to get to work and take the kids to school. You want the luxury edition SUV that costs twice as much as a more practical car (and costs you more in gas). You could try and call the SUV a “need” because you do, in fact, need a car, but it’s still a want. Any difference in price between a more economical car and the luxury SUV is money that you didn’t have to spend.

Your needs should get top priority in your personal budget. Only after your needs have been met should you allocate any discretionary income toward wants. And again, if you do have money left over each week or each month after paying for the things you really need, you don’t have to spend it all.

Start Saving Early

It’s often said that it’s never too late to start saving for retirement. That may be true (technically), but the sooner you start, the better off you’ll likely be during your retirement years. This is because of the power of compounding – what Albert Einstein called the “eighth wonder of the world.”

Compounding involves the reinvestment of earnings, and it is most successful over time: the longer earnings are reinvested, the greater the value of the investment, and the larger the earnings will (hypothetically) be.

To illustrate the importance of starting early, assume you want to save $1,000,000 by the time you turn 60 years old. If you start saving when you are 20 years old, you would have to contribute $655.30 a month – a total of $314,544 over 40 years – to be a millionaire by the time you hit 60. If you waited until you were 40, your monthly contribution would bump up to $2,432.89 – a total of $583,894 over 20 years. Wait until 50 and you’d have to come up with $6,439.88 each month – equal to $772,786 over the 10 years. (These figures are based on an investment rate of 5% and no initial investment. Please keep in mind, they are for illustrative purposes only and do not take into consideration actual returns, taxes or other factors). The sooner you start, the easier it is to reach your long-term financial goals. You will need to save less each month, and contribute less overall, to reach the same goal in the future.

Recognize and Manage Lifestyle Inflation

Most people will spend more money if they have more money to spend. As people advance in their careers and earn higher salaries, there tends to be a corresponding increase in spending … a phenomenon known as lifestyle inflation. Even though you might be able to pay your bills, lifestyle inflation can be damaging in the long run, because it limits your ability to build wealth: Every extra dollar you spend now means less money later and during retirement.

One of the main reasons people allow lifestyle inflation to sabotage their finances is their desire to keep up with the Joneses. It’s not uncommon for people to feel the need to match their friends’ and coworkers’ spending habits. If your peers drive BMWs, vacation at exclusive resorts and dine at expensive restaurants, you might feel pressured to do the same. What is easy to overlook is that in many cases the Joneses are actually servicing a lot of debt – over a period of decades – to maintain their wealthy appearance. Despite their wealthy “glow” – the boat, the fancy cars, the expensive vacations, the private schools for the kids – the Joneses might be living paycheck to paycheck and not saving a dime for retirement.

As your professional and personal situation evolves over time, some increases in spending are natural. You might need to upgrade your wardrobe to dress appropriately for a new position, or, with the addition of a baby, you might need a house with one more bedroom. And with more responsibilities at work, you might find that it makes sense to hire someone to mow the lawn or clean the house, freeing up valuable time to spend with family and friends and improving your quality of life.

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Reasons for the High Profitability of MicroCap Stocks

You have, without a doubt, heard of Blue Chip stocks. They used to be very safe investments with high stock prices that remained stable over indefinitely long periods. With the arrival of the internet and the increase speed of information flow, Blue Chip really no longer exist.MicroCap stocks are the complete opposite of what Blue Chip stocks used to be, since they are priced low and are highly volatile. They can gain over 25% in price within just a day. Some positive news on a specific MicroCap stock would make its price jump by over 100% within a day.Since MicroCap stocks are low priced, a small increase in price amounts to a very high rise in percentage. For example, a price rise of $2 on a $1 stock amounts to a 200% gain whereas a $10 rise in price on a $100 stock amounts to only a 10% gain. That is the main attraction of MicroCaps; and why many traders and investors now go for them in a big way.If you wonder what makes MicroCaps gain in price so fast, the answer is that mostly, it is due to some good news pertaining to the  company and also to the fact that this stock was widely followed by investors when this news happen.So, how do the investors and traders find the winners among MicroCaps to get some good gains? The secret lies in the Volume. Lookout for volume surges in microcaps in finding big gainers for you. www.HyperGrowthStock.com is a FREE daily newsletter that alerts investors to such moves.The main trick for real success with microcaps lies in figuring out the possible duration of the buying pressure. To determine that, you should be a top class researcher or be able to hire an expert in the relevant field. Also it is recommended to use newsletter services so that you can learn as you trade, there are many types of newsletters and to read one that has Fundamental information and also Technical Analysis is one method that help learn very fast. www.HyperGrowthStock.com is such a service and you should go register, it's a free service loaded with valuable information and many alerts every week.

Affiliate marketing - a great home business opportunity

Affiliate Marketing Details The purpose of this article is to give you a basic idea of Affiliate Marketing and how it can be beneficial to both merchants and the affiliate marketer who is attempting to promote the services or products over the internet. One of the most effective ways to advertise online is affiliate marketing. It is one of the best ways for a person with a website to make money online and can be a great home business opportunity. Affiliate Marketing Definition Affiliate marketing is not a complicated concept and is basically a simple agreement between website owners and merchants. The site owner or affiliate promotes the merchants products or services by allowing links to the merchant's site. For this service, the merchant agrees to pay a commission for any sales generated through the affiliate's links. Anytime a visitor to the affiliate site clicks one of the links and then continues on to the merchant site to complete a purchase, the affiliate earns a commission. Most of the time, the earnings are completely dependent on the customer making a purchase through the affiliate link. Merchant Benefit Because of the pay for performance structure, affiliate-marketing programs are considered a win-win agreement. The affiliate and the merchant are both reaping benefits through affiliate marketing. For the merchant there is an increased market for their product or service advertisements. Affiliate marketing therefore gives the service or product exposure to people they would not otherwise reach with traditional advertising methods. The more affiliates that sign up with a merchant, the more potential traffic they receive for their products and in turn more possible sales. Basically, affiliate marketing is like having a personal sales team that will promote products and services and only earn a commission when a customer makes a purchase. Affiliate Benefit Since this is a winning situation for both parties, let's look at the benefits for the affiliate marketer. The best part of affiliate marketing is the possibility of making easy profits. Earnings are generated when website visitors click on an ad or link from the affiliate site to the merchant's site and then buy something. These links are specially created for each affiliate so the when a purchase is made commissions can be tracked and paid out. The more customers the affiliate can get to click through, the more potential profit there is for the affiliate marketer. Opportunities for Affiliate Marketing Affiliate marketing is an excellent home based business opportunity. There are few if any operating or initial costs to the affiliate. There is no need to create or develop a product because the merchant has already done so; all that is left for the affiliate to accomplish is generating as much traffic as possible that will convert to customers for the merchant. Both the affiliate and the merchant then can make a good profit. Generally speaking, affiliate programs are free to sign up for, in fact be suspicious of any that are not, so there are no start up expenses. Moreover, there are more than enough products to choose from; there are literally thousands out there. If there is a product or service available on the internet the chances are good that there is an affiliate program to go with them, you should not have any problem finding affiliate programs that are congruous to your site. If all of that is not enough to convince you, consider this: You need no sales experience whatsoever. The affiliate programs themselves often offer you support and marketing material to make the job as easy as possible. Affiliate marketing strives to provide you the best opportunity for generating income with the least amount of cost and effort. These programs are easily created and built in the comfort of your own home. Your main job will be to hunt for as many prospective customers as possible to send to your merchants. You are not responsible for inventory, orders, shipping or even customer service and support after the sale. These are all the responsibility of your merchants. Potential versus Risk The beauty of it all is that with the internet you have access to thousands even millions of potential prospects anytime day or night. Advertising is completely within your control, you can be as aggressive or passive as you wish. You can exploit many possibilities by employing viral marketing. The point is the more prospective customers you can attract the more you can potentially earn. In addition to all the benefits already discussed consider this; you have very little risk to worry about. When a product is not generating an income you can simply lose it and look for another. You never have to sign any long term or strict contract tying you to these losing products. Finally, affiliate marketing is a way to increase residual income and create a handsome profit even if you are only working at it part time. Your affiliate business can be set up in such a way that you are easily making profits; however, you will need to put forth some effort if you want to maximize the potential income. Use your imagination when it comes to advertising or email marketing and you will do well. One of the simplest and profitable businesses on the net today is affiliate marketing.

Time To Work From Home

the growth number of possibilities that would enable you to achieve a sense of counterbalance in your life? If you do, there are so many ways you can make real money online. Remember that there are several things to hold in mind. Are you willing to be you own boss? what are your interests? With the spread and popularity of internet, work at home data entry is certainly not new. There are so many people nowadays who wishes to spend flexibility of their meter and at desame time revel a lucrative source of income. several ways where you can make use of your computer to achieve your goal in your life. Probably you may expect, Is there a special educational background needed to legitimate from home data entry job? My answer is none at all. legitimate from home data entry is one of the almost common ways to earn money. If you know how to type and have an internet link you can perform simple task. Are you a person involved in freelance writing? You could write articles for websites and earn. You could extend your services to other online business owners who needs interesting articles which would increase visitors to their websites. Nowadays there is a huge need for work at home data entry jobs worldwide. One way to make extra source of income is through affiliate marketing. You sell other's product. Just look for a product or services to sell, begin writing your own articles to get traffic. You will soon be selling other's people product thru effective marketing technique, great blogging about the product and then eventually will pay off by having good commission. If you are expert in the field of applied science. whatsoever is that you could do, offer your services to those who need it. There are owners of businesses who require website developers and graphic artists that would help them in their online business ranking. Work from home data entry tasks are great chance for stay home parents who would wish to be with their kids. there is great flexibility and no matter what, there are so many work from home jobs. http://www.legitimateworkfromhomedata.com/

Domain Names Translate to Money & Employment from Home

Back in the mid-19th century, the United States experienced a massive land grab. The Homestead Act allowed anyone to claim title to undeveloped land. All they had to do was file an application, make some improvements, and then file some more paperwork. The result? Over 1.6 million American families were awarded 270 million acres over a four-year period. Today, it's next to impossible to get land for free, but a parallel phenomenon is happening in cyberspace. In the virtual world, domain names are equivalent to real estate. The right domain name can cause a new business to experience a meteoric rise, an existing business to experience a surge in sales and an increase in brand awareness, and private citizens to enjoy a measure of fame by claiming a domain that incorporates a widely searched term. Early adopters realized that businesses would pay for domain names, and bought up any and all .com, .net, and .org names they imagined could later be sold. These folks are the 21st century equivalent of land barons. Indeed, highly prized domain names can be sold for tens of thousands of dollars. While some folks buy domain names to sell, others buy them to keep out the competition. When you think about it, it makes sense. If you had a business selling dog collars, for example, you would want to buy all available domain names with the words "dog collars." That way, potential future competitors would be hard pressed to find an easily searchable domain name pertaining to dog collars. Here's the deal, though: most of the valuable virtual real estate is already taken - at least when it comes to .com, .net, and .org domains. That doesn't mean, however, that opportunities for money & employment in the realm of domains have vanished. Indeed, it's estimated that, in the next ten years, 500 million more domain names will be purchased. While no one knows exactly which extensions will rise to the top, those in the know are betting on the .ws extension, which stands for "website." Again, it makes sense when you think about it: who wouldn't want a website with "website" as the extension. What does this mean for those who are looking for a home business opportunity, or for those who are seeking money & employment? It means that the virtual land grab is on! Forward-thinking people are getting in the game, and are buying .ws websites - whether for business use or as an investment that will pay off when companies and individuals decide that they want to own a certain URL with a .ws extension. Of course, many people are nabbing domain names for personal use as well. After all, who wouldn't want a fully customizable website and ten email addresses that feature his or her name? This means that, with the right domain extension, it's easy to make money by referring people to the domain and making a commission on your referrals. Best of all, it doesn't require personal selling, it doesn't require an investment, and it doesn't require a long-term, ongoing commitment. Basically, you just need to point people to the domain and start collecting income. In the current economic climate, who couldn't use a new revenue stream and an easy-to-implement home business opportunity?

Through Innovative ideas make a good income from home based business.

Definitely,there are many ways to make money working from home. But there are some I would rank as the best work at home ideas that are not generally talked over. Here are a several ideas you can use to make money working from home that you may not have thought.There are quite a few ways to work from home and make money. After looking at a variety of methods to make money online, I will showcase great ideas below, from which you make quick cash. 1. Making Money With Twitter Twitter is what YouTube.com used to be. While it is in its infancy, it is a great vehicle to ride to the top of your online career. Twitter provides a great platform to build quality business relationships, which can lead to more money in your pocket, as well as in the pocket of your fellow business associates. Those who want to work from home simply need to know how to build a group of followers, who are hungry for what you have to offer. Some of the pros of using Twitter to market yourself and your business include: You may have heard of taking surveys, answering calls for a company from your home, and even selling books via amazon.com. However, these are not the only Internet ballgames in town. 2. Start a blog with the sole purpose of selling advertising on it. You will not be worried about looking products to sell. You will not be worried about generating your own products. All you need to worry about is creating the best blog so you can produce a large volume of traffic to it. As your traffic reaches a certain number you can start to sell advertising on it. There are many companies today looking for places to spend their advertising money. They can not afford the overpriced advertising that they have been spending on the radio, on television, in magazines, and in newspapers. As more people get their information from the Internet and this is a big opportunity for people such as yourself to make money selling advertising. A high traffic blog is one very useful content and is very large in scope. Your long term goal is to get those advertising dollars and this would be one of the best work at home ideas. 3. Start an Online lead generation company. Each business needs to get more visitors to their websites and many of them need leads to follow up with. You will be familiar with cost of the programs. You also can join who will pay you to get leads from affiliate networks. However an idea that is not normally thought of is to bypass the affiliate networks and go directly to the companies. There are a lot industries that need leads and they would be happy to pay you for them. You could make a contract with a mortgage loan company to sell them leads for people who are looking to refinance their home. You can get a percentage of the sale by setting it up so you will get so much for each lead that you generate. This would make it possible for you to earn a six figure income generating leads. Another angle is offer to find people looking to buy or sell their car from local car dealers. If you understand how to develop leads by local search this strategy would actually work for just about any business in a local market needing leads. Other ideas besides car dealers is plumbers, basement refinishing companies, carpet cleaners, HVAC contractorsHealth Fitness Articles, and more. This is the only two of what I would say as the best work at home ideas. These are not usually talked over on the internet but you can make money doing them. Get productive and find out how many work at home ideas you can come up. Another way to make money while you work from home involves The Forex Currency Market. This is business model which involves the trading of currency. It is wise to learn various methods of trading, so that you can use them as your trading tools depending on what type of market climate you are in.