#‘my money has potentially also been going toward my parents paying off their tax debts’

[reikunrei]

things just keep getting worse. and I’m not even sure if I’m surprised. but I am profoundly upset about it

[relationshipsandpolitics]

How I Alienated My Potential Readers Part #2

And we’re back.   Here’s how we are looking after Part 1:

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Beto O’ Rourke, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney, Pete Buttigieg

Well, some things have changed so we can just go ahead and remove Beto, which is a shame because I had a good rant about him sucking.  Alas, my genius will have to wait.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney, Pete Buttigieg

I debated where to put climate change in this breakdown.  For me, climate change is issue #1b for me.  If a candidate denied it, that would be an automatic disqualifier. It should be for every voter.  But I am surprised about how we all agree this is a dire issue that needs to be dealt with immediately, but the only candidate who made it their chief issue, Governor Jim Inslee, got virtually no support and was one of the first to drop out.  We really talk out of both sides of our mouth on climate change.  We all agree it is going to kill us, but we don’t seem to prioritize it, do we?   I have some thoughts about that, but I digress.  

The good news is all remaining candidates agree climate change is happening and that we need to act. The bad news is many of the candidates do not appear willing to take those drastic steps needed to stave off the worst outcomes. This is a problem.  Even the remaining candidates who are best on this issue leave a lot to be desire.  As it stands, I’m not removing anyone because no one is Republican levels of awful on the issue, but also no one meets the bar that needs to be set on genuine change. But seriously, we are all awful on this issue, me included.   We need to be taking steps in out personal lives to cut back on carbon emissions, and we need to be willing to pay more to save our planet.  The truth is if the leading scientific minds announced that to save our planet, we needed to raise taxes by 2% on everyone, we’d instead spend double that to buy front row seats to the end of the world.  We as a people truly suck.

Now let’s finally get into the issues that differentiate the candidates. This is really the whole game for me.  Because there are certain issues I care about tremendously, issues that I feel we need to address if this country is going to survive or if we will slip fully into the oligarchy we seem destined towards.  I’m talking about corporate power and workers’ rights.  Look, we all know the stats.  Income inequality is worse now than at any time since the Gilded Age.  That preceded the Great Depression.  Billionaires and corporations hold more power than the bottom 95% of the population combined. They can write a measly $5,000 check and get face time with the most powerful politicians in the country, and another $5,000 check gets them their full support.  I know this because part of my job is to write those checks.  I don’t try to get into too much about what I do, but suffice it say I work within politics very much behind the scenes. I don’t like what I do, even if I believe in the interests I advocate for.  People like me should not exist, but our corrupt political system not only enables me, but empowers me.

We all want a candidate we can trust to act in the average American’s best interest.  But we so willingly elect people who knowingly fuck us over in favor of the rich and corporate interests that it’s a wonder they even bother going through the motions trying to appease us.  And what have we got for it?  Unions have been decimated as lawmakers pass corporate-sponsored Right to Work laws.  Wages have stagnated while wealth for the top 1% has skyrocketed.  Americans are more productive than ever but seeing a smaller share of that productivity.   Compared to all other industrialized nations, we offer no guaranteed paid vacation, family leave, or health care. This is despite being the richest nation in the world.   College is a necessity to obtain a well-paying job, yet it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to obtain, meaning anyone graduating with loans will be paying them off until they retire. Or die.

These developments are not a coincidence.  They are the results of deliberate efforts by monied interests.  Next, they will come after Social Security and Medicare, claiming we need to reign in the deficit.  And both Republicans and Democrats will heed their call, and we will buy their sudden concern about deficits.  They’ll vote to raise the retirement age and cut benefits, we’ll get mad, and then re-elect them anyway.

How does this rant relate to the upcoming 2020 elections?  It relates because the next decade will mark the point of no return, in my estimation.  Either this country will wake up to getting screwed and finally vote to do something about it, or it will cement its acceptance of the status quo.  Our descent into oligarchy has been relatively gradual because even the Democratic administrations have done little to stem the tide.  They’ve just slowed it down by promoting policies benefiting the rich while throwing tokens of support to the working class, which is everybody else.  They bump up the income tax rates slightly while ignoring the ways the rich really make their money.  They threaten anti-trust lawsuits but never follow through.   They bail out the banks and refuse to prosecute the heads of those banks.  Then they appoint them to run the Treasury Department. Republicans do these same things; they are just more brazen about it.  Whereas Democrats will announce tighter regulations on businesses but include weak enforcement and huge loopholes, Republicans simply get rid of the regulations. Republicans cut the taxes of the rich, Democrats keep them at the status quo.  

The next president has a unique opportunity to finally right the wrongs of decades of neo-liberal fiscal policy.  They can bring the country in line with the rest of the democratic world by pushing policies that help the poor, working and middle classes.   Young parents would be able to afford to have a child.  College graduates would be able to afford to buy home and have a crazy thing called disposable income because their college debt was wiped out and college itself became affordable.  People would stop fucking dying because they don’t have health care. Seriously, on this last point, what in the ever-loving fuck is wrong with people for not being willing to raise their taxes to fund universal health care?

We need to begin assessing potential candidates by what they want to accomplish to fix this issue.   And we can best determine if they will remain mired in the status quo of empty gestures and corporate checks, or if they will fight for us, by their words and actions.  With that in mind, I’m going to base my choice on whether the remaining candidates can be expected to support the fundamental restructuring of government and wealth equality.  I think you all know where I’m going with this one.

Corey Booker, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney – The Technocratic Legislators

Here you have some good moderate Democratic legislators.  Booker, Harris and Klobuchar are sitting U.S. Senators while Delaney is a former Representative.  I don’t really have an issue with any of them, save maybe Delaney.  They all are effective legislators, even if they may be more moderate than I’d like.  I particularly like Booker and Harris as people if not politicians.  But at the end of the day, I can’t really rely on them to push the things that need to be front and center.  I don’t exactly know what their broad policy even is.  Sure, they will come out with a good sound bite or a good proposal on some smaller but still important issue.  Booker is doing great things on tackling issues facing inner city youths.  Harris is good on gun reform.  But Booker is way too closely tied with Big Pharma.  Harris has an awful record on criminal justice and did nothing to help homeowners defrauded during the housing crisis.

They both illustrate a major concern we should all share.  When you have a record of being too cozy with some terrible industries, it shows that the voters can’t truly trust you to have their back.  Campaign contributions are par for the course.  You need them to win elections.  But when you take a disproportionate amount of money from very specific industries, it means you are probably bought by them.  Don’t be surprised if Booker nominates a Pharmaceutical lobbyist to head up CMS.  And when private equity managers donate to Harris, as Blackstone’s Tia Breakley did in March, 2019, they are doing so because there is a reasonable belief that Harris and others won’t come after them.  

Again, I think Harris and Booker are good people and good legislators.  And the critique about money is not limited to them, as I plan on thoroughly ripping into Buttigieg and Biden on it.   But when you take these facts along with the truth that neither candidate is pushing the sort of structural reforms needed in this country, I think it’s fair to say their presidencies would be rather unremarkable.

Amy Klobuchar and Jon Delaney share the money problem, but they have so much more going for them!  Klobuchar treats her staff like absolute shit, which only matters when you remember that we are relying on her to protect all low-level workers.  She clearly has contempt for people beneath her on the career ladder, and a wise woman once said “when a person shows you who they are, believe them.”  

Klobuchar and Delaney have spent their entire campaign advocating not for what they believe, but for trashing other candidates who dare to dream. Klobuchar and Delaney come from the school of Democratic politicians who believe things are too hard to try, and we might lose Republican voters by trying to be Democrats.  The Klobuchar’s and Delaney’s of the world would be happy to adopt every major Republican fiscal position if it meant they got to be President.  Also, Delaney is the moron who thought it was a good idea to trash Medicare for All at the California Democratic convention.  

I would vote for Harris and Booker and not feel bad about it.  I’d feel weird about voting for Klobuchar, and Delaney has as much chance of the nomination as Scott Baio.   They are out.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Pete Buttigieg

We’re going to go after the young guns now.  The candidates we all secretly wish were just a bit better so that we didn’t have to choose from three candidates in their 70’s.  But these candidates are ultimately empty shells of better candidates who seem too concerned with appearing like the rational voice in the room to have a vision for our country.

Let’s start with Mayor Pete Buttigieg.   I was talking with my mother about who she was going to support in the primary.  Let me be clear that I did not initiate this conversation.  I’d literally rather talk to my mother about our respective sex lives than politics.  But my mother has a bit of a control issue, and this blog was cheaper than therapy.

Anyway, my mother said she was supporting either Biden (shocking, I know) or Buttigieg.  She said she liked that he was young, and it was great he was gay. I asked my mom what positions of his did she support, and she couldn’t really name any except that he didn’t support Medicare for All.  This was a selling point for her.  See, my mother represents a huge segment of the Democratic base that is upper middle class, socially liberal (except Kaepernick should’ve stood) and fiscally moderate (aka conservative but they swear they have homeless friends).  What this really means is they are Democrats when it doesn’t hurt them to be.  They think what’s going on at the border is abhorrent, but they know someone who was mugged by an “illegal” and we need a wall.  And they support the idea of everyone having health insurance, but no way will that mean they have to pay more in taxes.   They agree housing is too expensive, but then they’ll oppose affordable housing development in their neighborhoods because they attract a “bad element.”  For these people, Buttigieg is the ideal candidate. They get to keep their money and nice gated communities, but because he is gay they can call themselves progressive.   Plus, we know Buttigieg won’t do anything monstrous like keeping refugees locked up or denying basic rights to LGTBQ people, so how could anyone not support him?

Well, let me be the first to say that Pete Buttigieg is awful.  First, keep in mind this guy is the Mayor of South Bend.  That’s less a city and more a place for Notre Dame fanboys to “romance” the gold helmets in a sleazy motel.  He won his last election with 8,500 votes.  And he still managed to piss off a sizable number of his constituents by botching police relations with the black community.  And now people think he can run a country.  But he’s taken seriously because he raised a boatload of money and the pundits (also rich white people generally) like him.  Never mind where that money is coming from and what favors he now owes to those people, right?

Mayor Pete came out for Medicare for All but decided when it was political opportune to trash it using Republican talking points.  His actual healthcare plan is truly awful.  Pete Buttigieg is the darling candidate for voters who don’t want anything to change, like my mother. They have good health insurance.  They own their house and see it as an asset, not a noose.  They don’t have any student debt, mainly because they attended college when it cost the equivalent of an iPhone.  Buttigieg is a technocrat with a nice haircut. He is a lot like Obama, minus the everything. But his message is one of comfort to the people who own vacation homes in upstate New York and tie rainbow bandannas around their dog’s neck for Pride Week. Under a Buttigieg administration, civility will return and nothing else will change.  If the biggest criticism of Sanders and Warren is they have pie-in-the-sky ideas, then Buttigieg’s biggest critique is he has no ideas.  It’s just sad how little that matters to the people who will decide this election.

Julian Castro: you’re next. Here’s someone I kind of like.  He is great on housing, one of the core issues keeping Americans from feeling secure.  I live in an area once considered cheap for housing.  But that’s changing.  They keep building and building but rents still shoot higher and higher.   Sometimes I feel the laws of supply and demand don’t work with housing.  I mean, it works when there is low supply and high demand like in Los Angeles and San Francisco.  But where I live, there is plenty of supply, yet rents are increasing as much as 10% year over year.  Likely this is because demand is still high to live near an urban center.  It doesn’t matter if there are tons of vacant units. Renters are willing to pay the cost and don’t do a good job shopping around.  Also, as rents continue to soar while jobs continue to navigate towards major cities and people continue to need to live near those jobs, our commutes will get longer and longer.  This means more cars on the road, more pollution in the air. Solving the housing crisis means putting a huge dent in climate change. No one seems to understand the impact of not having affordable housing, but Castro comes fairly close.  I think I would go for him if he wasn’t so milquetoast on every other issue.  He gets completely lost in the shuffle.  I think Castro supports Medicare for All? I mean, I do know where he stands because I follow this stuff closely, but it should be clear to the average voter.  Castro is young, attractive and is relatively progressive compared to the field.  But he isn’t charismatic.  He doesn’t articulate his message clearly enough, and my big concern is whether he can create a narrative that gives his administration a chance to pass meaningful legislation.  It’s not that I can’t get on board with Castro based on policy, but I just don’t think he has the chops to get it done.  Castro’s other problem is he doesn’t speak to workers’ rights issues enough. He pays them lip service, and I’m sure he believes in increasing union membership and raising the minimum wage. I just can’t envision him fighting hard for those issues once in office.  I, quite frankly, see him as another politician pushing incremental change on some areas and tackling the low hanging fruit issues of the Democratic base rather than swinging for the fences.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders

And then there were three. I think we all knew it was coming down to these three.  Let’s not kid ourselves here.  We know who is getting the next ax, but the bottom line is these are the three true contenders and until things change, they are the only horses in the race.  So we will tackle them together in Part 3, which is hopefully coming soon.

[vices-aand-virtues]

Today I finished The Year of Less by Cait Flanders and it really resonated with me. One of my goals for 2019 already was to downsize, partially because I was feeling overwhelmed by how much stuff I own; partially because I was running out of space; and partially because I was anticipating moving this summer, and I wanted to haul as little as possible. I purged my closet, my bookshelf, and my DVD collection. Granted, I still have what many would consider A BUNCH of items in these categories, but as Marie Kondo would say, they really do “spark joy.”

I want to clean out other areas of my home, but due to having roommates, this is a challenge since with some things I’m not sure whose is whose. But this summer, they will be moving out, and my boyfriend and I will be living alone together for the first time in 4 years—for the first time since we graduated from college (me with my MA and him with his BS). I’m looking forward to cleaning out the kitchen and our closets.

Another reason I want to binge clean is because we will have two spare rooms in our house, but I don’t want them to become what they have been in the past: junk rooms. Typically these rooms serve a primary purpose (usually our music room), but they also serve as a dumping ground for anything we don’t know what to do with or things we don’t want in public view (ie junk). I want these rooms to be no more than they are: a guest room and a music room/office. We are only two people; we don’t need three rooms full of just stuff.

But until we can get started purging and cleaning our house, there are some steps I can already start taking to work towards my year of less. I’ve been saving money for a few months now because I thought I might owe money on my taxes. Luckily it turns out I didn’t thanks to some very helpful deductions, so I have a very small “influx” of money.

Which leads me to my next reason for doing this.

I’m in debt. By a lot. Getting a bachelor’s and master’s degree did not come cheap. My parents only paid for 2 years of my undergrad degree, and I was on my own for the next 7 years of school (yeah you read that right—my undergrad took 5 years and grad school took 4). As a result, my student loan debt is astronomical. Not only that, but because of my light class load my last year in school, I didn’t qualify for financial aid, and had to use 3 different credit cards to pay the rest of my tuition. So all that gets piled on top of my K2 mountain of debt.

With what I make now at my job, I can make it by. I’ll be able to afford rent, bills, and debt repayments. But that’s about it. And that’s not the kind of life I want to live. I’m not even talking about traveling the world or taking vacations. I just want to hang out with friends or go visit my family. I want to buy gas for something besides work. I want to treat my friends when they need a pick me up or need to celebrate. I want to be able to get my haircut when I need it.

So I decided I could up my weekly savings and see where that would lead me 4 months from now. By doing that alone, I could pay off half of my credit card debt by this fall, and finish the rest of it by next summer. That frees up nearly $500 for me to put towards extra student loan payments. Just by saving more money each week.

After calculating that, I looked at where I’m spending money during work hours. I am a contract music therapist, so I drive all over my area to my clients homes for sessions. Sometimes I knock the sessions out one after the other, but sometimes I have some time to kill inbetween. Since I started my job in June of 2018, I chose to go to a coffee shop (Starbucks or a local brew) to get a drink and work on paperwork or read a book. I looked at my expenses for just the last 2 months, and I had spent $150 on coffee alone. Thats $75 a month I’m spending to have a coffee for an hour or so once or twice a week. Then I added up any time I ate a meal between sessions. Almost $75 more. $150 a month on food and drinks. That’s almost $40 a week. I easily can cut those things out of my routine. Instead of going to a coffee shop, I can find somewhere else to kill time between sessions. If the weather is nice, I can go to a park and walk for a bit. If there’s a bench or a table, I can do my work there. If the weather is bad, I’ll give myself some grace and allow for a coffee. If I lived closer to work, I would definitely just spend my time there.

My next step was to look at any expenses that were truly unnecessary. I use Spotify regularly for work, so that’s not something I could give up. But I do have some months subscriptions to some other services that I really don’t need. By cutting those out, I save almost $50 more.

That means I potentially have nearly $200 extra to put to better use, and I didn’t even look at how much I spend on eating out for dinner or on just shopping. One step at a time y’all!

So if I save $200 a month for 4 months, I’ll have an additional $800 to put toward something. This combined with my regular savings will put me in a good position to reduce my credit card debt more quickly, which in turn will help me pay off my student loans faster.

Once I pay off the credit cards, I’ll have almost $500 a month to put elsewhere. That plus my $200 savings from spending during work hours is nearly $700 extra I can put toward my student loans each month. That’s half of what I will already be paying. And if I keep putting money into my regular savings...that’s even more. I could potentially reduce my payment time by YEARS and finally really start saving money for better things.

Financial freedom is something I never thought I could attain. But Cait’s book made me feel that it WAS possible, I just had to make it a priority. It was odd to realize that with as much anxiety as I had about repaying all my debt, I haven’t really been taking a lot of steps toward lessening my anxiety. But my making it a priority, not in terms of worrying but in terms of taking action, I have already lessened by burden significantly.

Usually when I do challenges like this, I lose motivation. But this is something I feel good about deep in my bones. And not only that, it’s easily doable. I’m not upping my savings significantly. I’m not even banning shopping like Cait did or cutting back on my eating habits (although I imagine this will start to happen organically once I’m really saving and realize how frivolous it is). I’m only cutting out unnecessary spending during work hours. That’s it.

Anyway I don’t think anyone will have read this all the way through, but if anyone has, thank you! I’m gonna try to post sometimes and talk about how it’s going :)

[talabib]

The Paths To Financial Independence And Wealth

Fear of society’s disapproval prevents us from leaving the “rat race” and growing wealthy.Most of us know what the phrase rat race refers to, but if asked, how would we define it? 

One definition is “The endless routine of working for everyone but yourself.” This means you do all the work, while others – the government, bill collectors and your bosses – take the majority of the reward. 

We usually talk about the rat race as something we’re all a part of. At the same time, we also talk about it as something we hate. So why do we keep racing? 

Because most people’s lives are dominated by their fear of society’s disapproval.. For example, consider the mantra “Go to school, study hard, get a good job.”  

We still teach this mantra, even though it’s outdated advice founded on the ideas of our parent’s past. Back then, you were likely to land a job right out of college, work for the same company for decades, and retire with a cushy pension. Today, this is no longer a guaranteed recipe for a life free of financial struggles or poverty. 

The truth is that you can study hard, get into a good school and graduate into a high-paying job without ever seeing financial growth, because you’re still stuck in the “rat race.” Your bosses – not you – are getting rich from all your hard work. 

Nevertheless, we still believe in and follow the above mantra out of fear of violating the expectations that have been drilled into us since birth. The result? We may be avoiding poverty, but we’re certainly not growing any wealthier. 

Fear and greed can drive financially ignorant people to make irrational decisions. 

When it comes to money, everyone – wealthy or not – experiences two basic emotions: greed and fear. If you have money, you are likely to focus on all the new things it can buy (greed). If you don’t have it, you worry you might never have enough (fear). 

People who are ignorant about how to manage their finances are especially prone to letting these emotions drive their decision-making. 

For example, let's say you just received a promotion and a hefty pay raise. You could invest the extra money into something like stocks or bonds, which would earn you money over time, or you could gratify yourself with new purchases, like a car or house. 

If you’re a financially ignorant person, this is where emotion takes the wheel. The fear of losing money is so powerful it prevents you from investing in stocks or other assets because of the perceived risks, even though such investments would bring you wealth in the long-term. 

At the same time, greed inspires you to spend your increased salary on a better lifestyle, for example by buying a bigger house, which seems a much more real and safer option than buying shares in a company. 

However, this upgrade also means a bigger mortgage and higher utility bills, which effectively negates your raise. This is how fear and greed hinder the financially ignorant from becoming wealthy in the long term. 

So how can you counter these powerful emotions? By building up your financial knowledge about things like investments, risk and debt. This will place you in a better position to make rational decisions – even in the face of greed and fear.  

Despite being vital for both personal and societal prosperity, we receive no training in financial intelligence. 

Most people think that to become rich, it’s enough to be talented and capable. But in fact, the world is full of such people, and most of them are poor. What they are missing is financial intelligence, a comprehensive aptitude for financial subjects like accounting, investing and so forth. 

Unfortunately, we’re raised without this intelligence. Our school systems are set up to train people in a variety of useful subjects, but financial intelligence is not one of them. 

Children aren’t taught about subjects like saving or investing, and as a consequence are clueless about topics like compound interest – as clearly evidenced by the fact that, today, even high schoolers often max out their credit cards. 

This lack of training in financial intelligence is a problem not only for today’s youth but also for highly educated adults, many of whom make poor decisions with their money. 

For example, politicians are generally regarded as the brightest, most well-educated people in a society, but there’s a reason why countries end up in staggering national debt: most of the governing politicians have little or no financial intelligence. 

Ordinary people, too, can be astonishingly bad at handling their money matters, as evidenced by their lack of retirement planning. For instance, in the United States 50 percent of the workforce are without pensions and, of the rest, nearly 75 to 80 percent have ineffective pensions. 

Clearly, society has left us poorly equipped in terms of financial knowledge, and so it is up to the individual to educate him- or herself. 

When we find ourselves seeking wealth in times of great economical change, it becomes even more necessary to independently pursue a good financial education. 

Financial self-education and a realistic appraisal of your finances are the building blocks of growing wealthy. 

You can start the journey toward personal wealth at any point in your life, but the earlier you get going the better – if you begin at 20, you’re far more likely to become rich than if you begin at 30. 

Regardless of age, the best way to get started is by appraising your finances, setting yourself goals, and then acquiring the education necessary to reach them. 

First, take an honest look at your current financial state. With your current job, what kind of income can you realistically expect now and in the future, and what kind of expenses can you sustainably handle? You may find, for example, that the new Mercedes you’ve been drooling over simply isn’t affordable. 

After this, you’ll be able to set realistic financial goals. You could say, for example, that you want that Mercedes to be within your reach in five years’ time. 

The next step is to then start building your financial intelligence. Consider this an investment into the greatest asset available to you: your mind. 

You can do this in any number of ways, but one good approach is to shift focus: work for what you learn, not what you earn. 

For example, if you’re afraid of rejection, try a short spell working for a network marketing company. While you might not get an amazing salary, you’ll gain a lot of sales skills and self-confidence, which will be very useful in the future. 

You can also improve your finance education in your spare time. Enroll in finance classes and seminars, read books on the topic, and try to network with experts. 

If you base your financial foundation on these building blocks, there’s a good chance you’ll become wealthy one day. 

To become wealthy, you must learn to take risks. 

Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. By this logic, if you’re looking to change your current financial state, you’ll need to start handling your finances differently. 

The biggest change you most likely need to make is learning to take risks. All financially successful people have taken risks to get where they are, and they are successful because they manage rather than fear these risks. 

Taking risks means not always being balanced and safe with your money, which is what you’re doing when you put it in basic checking and savings accounts at the bank. 

Instead of playing it safe, try investing your money in stocks or bonds. While these are considered more risky than typical bank accounts, they have the chance of generating much, much more wealth – sometimes (as with stocks) in a very short period of time. 

Or, if you don’t want to commit yourself to the stock market, there are a variety of other investments that will help grow your wealth in the long run, like real estate or so-called tax lien certificates. With tax lien certificates, interest rates range between 8 percent and 30 percent. 

Of course, the higher the potential for return, the higher the risk. With stocks, for example, there’s always the slight chance you could lose your entire investment. But if you don’t take the risk in the first place, you’re guaranteed not to make any big returns. 

So you see that taking those bigger chances and handling the bigger risks they present is necessary in order to start making a bigger income. 

The road to wealth is long, so you must keep yourself motivated. 

The journey to wealth is long and trying. It’s easy to lose heart when you hit a hurdle such as seeing the price of a stock you invested in suddenly tumble. In order to achieve your financial goals, you’ll need to find ways to stay motivated even in the face of setbacks. 

One method to boost motivation is to create a list of “wants” and “don’t wants” for your personal reference. For example: "I do not want to end up like my parents" and "I want to be free of my debts within three years." 

Pull out these lists any time you need a reminder of why you must persevere on your journey to wealth. Another good way to stay motivated is to spend money on yourself before paying your bills. 

Though somewhat counterintuitive, this way you’ll see exactly how much extra money you need each month to satisfy both of your objectives: fulfilling desires like buying that vintage guitar you’ve had your eye on, and meeting your bill collectors’ demands. 

This doesn't mean you should rack up lots of credit card debt, but do keep “paying” yourself first; the extra pressure of paying off your bills afterward will inspire you to find creative ways to make enough money to satisfy both. 

This method will also sharpen and develop your financial self-discipline, which is a key trait of all financially successful people. 

For outside inspiration, research the life stories of wealthy people like Warren Buffett. Reading about how they overcame struggles to achieve triumphs will help keep you ambitious

Put these tips into practice and you’ll be sure to find that staying motivated on the road to wealth isn’t that difficult. 

Laziness and arrogance can drive even financially knowledgeable people to poverty. 

Even after strengthening your financial intelligence, personality pitfalls may still threaten you and your money. 

Laziness and arrogance are two such pitfalls, because they can work against you in less-than-obvious ways. 

We often think of laziness as slouching around and doing nothing, but in fact laziness does not necessarily mean inactivity; it can also be avoiding things that should be done. 

For example, imagine a businessman who works over 60 hours a week. To the outside observer, he is not lazy at all. However, by working such late nights, he has alienated his family. He has already seen the signs of trouble at home, but, rather than addressing them, he buries himself in work. In short, he is being lazy: he is avoiding what he should be doing, and will likely suffer the consequences in the form of a costly divorce. 

Similarly, arrogance can be a devastating weakness. Contrary to the usual definition, in the case of financial ruin it can be defined as “ignorance plus ego”; a combination of poor financial knowledge and an ego too proud to admit it. 

Arrogance is a particularly dangerous flaw when you make investments. For example, some stock-brokers will try to feed the arrogant side of you to sell you more shares and maximize their own commission. They’re like dishonest used-car salesmen; they boost your ego with the positives of an investment while keeping you ignorant about its negatives. 

So even if you become a financial genius, keep these personality pitfalls in check. This way, you are much more likely to avoid financial ruin. 

Only invest in assets, which put money in your pocket; and avoid liabilities, which take money out. 

Knowing the difference between an asset and a liability is necessary to ensure you’re making strong investment decisions. 

Quite simply, an asset is something that makes you money, while a liability costs you money. Clearly, then, it’s more likely you’ll become wealthy if you mostly invest in assets. 

Assets include businesses, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, income-generating real estate, IOU notes, royalties from intellectual property, and anything else with value that produces income, appreciates over time, and can be sold readily. 

When you invest in assets, your dollars become employees working to create income for you. The more “employees” you commit, the better. The goal is to get your income as high above your expenses as possible, and then to reinvest the excess income into your assets, employing even more dollars to work for you. 

Unfortunately, many investors continually mistake certain liabilities for assets.  For example, a house is often considered an asset, but it’s actually one of the biggest liabilities you can have. Buying a house often means working your entire life to pay off a 30-year mortgage and property taxes. 

This works against you in two ways: First, you’re guaranteed to have a massive expense taken away from your income every month (a tell-tale sign of a liability) for the next 360 months. Second, those 360 payments could have been invested in potentially more lucrative assets, like stocks or real estate you rent to tenants. 

Ensuring that you know the difference between an asset and a liability means you’ll be able to soundly judge what to invest your money in and what to avoid. 

Your profession pays the bills, but your business is what will make you wealthy. 

Most people consider their profession and their business to be one and the same thing. When it comes to personal finances, though, there’s a difference: 

Your profession is whatever you do 40 hours a week to pay the bills, buy groceries, and cover other living costs. Usually, it gives you a specific title such as “restaurant owner ”or “salesman.” 

Your business, on the other hand, is what you invest time and money in to help grow your assets. Because a profession only covers your expenses, it’s unlikely that this alone will make you wealthy. To achieve wealth, you must build a business while working at your profession. 

Take, for example, a chef who’s gone to culinary arts school and knows all the tricks of the trade. Although her profession – cooking – provides enough money to pay rent and feed her family, she’s still not growing wealthy. 

So she invests in a business: real estate. Whatever extra money she has each month, she puts towards buying income-producing assets – apartments and condos she can rent to tenants. 

Alternatively, consider a car salesman who invests each month’s leftover income into stock trading. 

In both cases, the professions provided enough income to survive on a monthly basis. However, by putting their extra income into their businesses, these people are also growing their assets and making strides toward wealth. 

Your profession often funds your business initially; therefore, it’s wise to keep your day job until your business starts to show sustainable growth. When that starts to happen, your assets – and not your profession – become your main source of income. 

 And that, indeed, is the sign of true financial independence. 

Understand the tax code to help you minimize your taxes. 

Everyone knows that taxes detract from personal wealth, but most people don’t bother to find out how they can minimize the taxes they pay. There are many ways this can be legally achieved. 

One way to reduce taxation is to invest your money through the coverage of a corporation. If you invest through your own corporation, the money you make is taxed much more leniently than if you invest in your own name. 

In the United States, corporations come with other benefits, too. For example, debts and liabilities are placed in the corporation’s, not the owner’s, name, which insures against limited losses on investments gone awry. 

When you’re an employee, you earn, get taxed, and then try to live on what’s left. When you’re protected by a corporation, you earn, invest or spend as much as you can, and then get taxed on what’s left. It’s no surprise, then, that corporations can help people get rich very quickly. 

There are other ways you can minimize your taxes, too; it’s just a matter of educating yourself on the many loopholes and benefits of the tax system. 

For example, because of Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code of the United States tax system, if you sell your current real estate assets in order to buy more expensive ones, the government delays taxing your new real estate until you liquidate the property. 

This means your capital gain increases, while the government refrains from taking anything from you until later. 

By becoming aware of how the “system” works in your country, you may be able to legally reduce how much money the government takes from you. 

Because we’re not trained in financial intelligence in school, it’s up to us as individuals to develop this trait by ourselves. We are only likely to become rich or financially independent once we have both a strong financial IQ and a firm, ambitious mindset to support it. In the end, what you invest in your mind is what brings you success, because your mind is your most important asset in any financial situation.  

Action plan: If you want to see results, start right now. 

Although this post lays out the paths to financial independence and wealth, these ambitions can only be fully realized if you start moving toward them now. 

This means researching to find the best books on your area of interest (e.g. real estate, or the stock market). Where can you pick them up locally? Which ones are best for beginners? Also, try to discover the “who’s who” of the markets you want to join. Do they have websites you can follow? When is their next publication coming out? Other general websites, like Investopedia.com, have great information for beginners who aren’t sure where they should start putting their money. In any case, staying actively informed will help keep you afloat and give you a better understanding of your markets. 

Make a column sheet that tracks your monthly expenses and income, as well as your current assets and liabilities. 

One of the main points throughout the post is to ensure you have an income greater than your expenses. 

The only way to do this is to keep an eye on your money. Use a program like Microsoft Excel to create a worksheet you can update on a monthly basis. Chart your income, which includes any money coming your way each month, and compare it with your expenses, which include bills, rent, lifestyle expenses and taxes taken out of your paycheck, as well as any other costs. Also, start keeping track of how much your current assets are generating for you each month as well as how much your liabilities are taking away. This will help you gauge what you can afford to cut out from your life in order to start widening the gap (in a good way) between your income and expenses. 

Introduce yourself to people who do what you want to do. By networking with people who are already active in the markets you’re interested in, you can form valuable connections that will benefit you in the long run.  

For example, find someone in a local tax office who knows a lot about tax lien certificates. Offer to take them out to lunch – your treat. Make sure, though, that they understand you want to learn from their experience and knowledge, and that you aren’t just asking for help to get rich. If you’re honest about your intentions and willing to listen, chances are most experts will be glad to give you a few pointers. 

[funnydove-blog]

Mergers and Acquisitions

Now, let’s talk about you: how to get you—and keep you—financially independent or wealthy, doing what you love to do, what you’re good at, and what you were put on this earth to do. (If you’re lucky, you know what they are and they’re the same thing.)

Your first step is to maximize the ‘merger’ of your education, credentials, experience, and skills in order to market yourself and your abilities. You merge these to the best of your ability in order to make the ‘acquisition’ of money easier and to make the possibility of making more money in the future more likely. Many times, at the start of this quest, you interview for and are offered a job. At this point, you may experience the pervasive gender gap that women around the world face every day. According to a 2017 report from the National Partnership for Women and Families, women of color earn 25-40% less than their white male counterparts. Caucasian women fair a little better, but the difference in pay for women when compared to men remains a serious problem.

The reality today is that women work longer hours to make the same pay as men. Women also do more ‘unpaid labor’: taking care of husbands, children, in-laws, and parents. I don’t know of any statistics that support this assertion. It’s just something I’ve seen my entire life, and it’s an experience that has never been denied by anyone— male or female—that I’ve spoken to in my entire life.

I’m uncertain about how to change family dynamics, but you as a woman can definitely change workplace dynamics. Go to your library, and your librarian, and find books and resources to help you negotiate more effectively for equal pay when you are offered a job or seek a promotion. You’ll also find resources online, but talk to other women (and men) when possible. Human interaction gives you the best chance to receive inside information that isn’t found in search results. It offers the opportunity to speak with someone who may become a mentor, ally, colleague, or friend. However, the truth is that the responsibility for earning and acquiring money rests mostly with you. To maximize your earning potential, consider the following:

Think like an entrepreneur, even if you work for a company;

Be willing to do the jobs your peers don’t want to do;

Search for a ‘niche market’, an under-serviced or specialty area within your chosen field that you can focus on, dominate, and be ‘the expert’ in;

Be willing to relocate—even to another country—if there are opportunities to earn more, do more, and be more;

Know your ‘pain centers’—points of dissatisfaction or discomfort—that motivate you and use them to find solutions that can be profitable to you and others;

Master the fundamentals of your chosen field and obtain any necessary certifications or training so you can always earn money and take care of yourself. In your current work position:

Be a problem solver for your company, as problem solvers are ‘golden nuggets’ for business owners who always face a myriad of daily challenges;

Come in a little early, leave a little later, and do a little more; Consistently go ‘above and beyond’ what your job requires as you look for opportunities to learn more;

As you do, keep a detailed list of the extra responsibilities you’ve voluntarily taken on, or have been given;

Consistently calendar your performance, so you can document—for yourself and your boss—that you’re doing these extra tasks on a regular basis;

After a period of time (6 months or so) of day in, day out competent performance of your assigned duties and handling of the ‘above and beyond’ responsibilities you’ve taken on, set at appointment to talk with your boss; Detail your performance modestly but evenly, and politely ask for a raise;

If you are given a raise, thank your boss and continue to do all of your work; If you are not, assess the reasons given for the refusal;

Begin a concerted effort to look for a new job;

Always be the hardest worker in the room;

Do not settle.

WILL POWER

Another way that you may acquire money or things of value is through a windfall or an inheritance. A windfall may be a winning lottery ticket (don’t bet on it), or a settlement from litigation in a civil case. An inheritance is far more likely.

I’ve discussed this important issue in The Old Money Book, and I suggest you read about it there. Nevertheless, I’ll cover it briefly here, as it presents an incredible opportunity to improve your life and move you toward financial independence.

Let’s say that you’re invited to a lawyer’s office for an important meeting. Dear me, what could this be about? Well, as it happens, your Uncle Chester has kicked the bucket. And? And…there’s the issue of the will. You throw on a respectable ensemble, give your hair a lick and a promise, and take the train into the city. Shortly thereafter, you’re sitting in a wood-paneled conference room that’s larger than your apartment. The courtly, aging lawyer is straight out of a Charles Dickens novel. In short order, he informs you that Uncle Chester, the old codger who lived in a two room cottage in Vermont, had actually socked away a tidy sum…and he’s left it all to you.

Gulp. As the blood returns to your head, Uncle Chester’s lawyer congratulates you in that very Great Expectations kind of way and asks you to sign on the dotted line. He then asks where you’d like to have the funds deposited, and wishes you the best of luck. At this point in time, you don’t need luck: you need to manage that money wisely. So, my suggestion would be to immediately contact a reputable certified public accountant (CPA) and assess any tax liability that the inheritance may present to you. (Pay your taxes fully and promptly. You want no issues with your Uncle Sam.)

The second thing you might want to do is buy a bottle of champagne and toast your good fortune. Alone. As I strongly suggest in The Old Money Book, I would keep the inheritance a secret. Note that a ‘secret’ is not something you tell one person at a time. You don’t need your inheritance affecting your relationships. Deal with the change privately. Then, later, decide how to share it with others, if at all.

Don’t do anything different with your daily routine or your life. Don’t quit your job, even if you don’t like your boss. Don’t purchase anything. Instead, make a list of everything you could purchase and do. Travel, paying off debt, new car, bigger apartment, fur coat, limousine rides for you and your friends, and shoes, shoes, shoes. Call that the Crazy List. The list with things on it that, once you hand over your money, you get nothing of value in return. That’s crazy, right?

Now make a Smart List. This is a list of everything you could invest in. This list is everything you could put money in that would, once you hand over your money, increase in value and pay you back over time. Start the list with income-producing real estate, dividend-paying stocks, annuities, tax-free bonds…things that produce that ‘passive income’ we spoke of earlier in the book. No, it’s not as much fun as renting a limousine, but it is more rewarding in the long run. You might also consider investing in yourself with education.

I’m not telling you what to invest in. I’m not telling you to invest. I am telling you not to spend. And only consider investing after a ‘cooling off period’ of 3 to 6 months after you inherit the money. Again: as the euphoria wears off, brew a cup of hot tea, curl up on the sofa, and assess how much this inheritance can help you achieve your goal of being financially independent. If you spend it all in a week, it doesn’t help you at all. If you spend it all in two years, it may help you a little. If you invest it and make it work for you—and pay you dividends or interest every month—it may benefit you for the rest of your life.

Consider the amount you’ve inherited, how you can best use it, and look at where you are. Is this going to give you Intermediate Independence? Optimum Independence? View this inheritance not as money, but as an opportunity. Then use it wisely. As you know, math has no opinion. Do the math when you get an inheritance. Make it work for you in the long term.

[thewul]

Predictive Dialer

Would be the Random Memories maybe

Hello boys and girls, which makes for a book that is somewhat disorderly, the work of an amnesic hacker. We can tell it like it is here, people who know about me also know that legally I don’t really exist, everything about me is shielded by secrecy, the last thing that you will know about coming from politics if you’re high up is my identity.

Of course I forgot what is it we spoke about last time which doesn’t make it the least important of course it is but there are other things that are important and that we need to go over. Because I don’t exist legally I am also beyond the pale of law, unlike army types who’s business it is to kill under the pale of law even if the law say don’t kill it becomes legal when your government tells you to. 

Which you need to be in a state of war or be on a mission to protect national interests, everywhere there is the scent of law. It doesn’t mean that what I do is not legal, it means that both legal authorities and the public are not entitled to it nor is anybody else but the people that employ me.

Of course I have to eliminate people who want to disturb operations that’s how we call them operations, by getting nosy or inconsiderate and I eliminated plenty of people, it says in my job description that I have to do that. Protect national security. Protect national strategic interests. Secure assets and personnel. I kill people for that. Its not far sighted really to think that because you live in a democratic country your government will not employ people like me to eliminate you if needed, its a varnish they put on things to make them look pretty.

You can eat, drink, smoke weed and do all you want without getting in the way of certain people, agencies and agenda’s that the simple truth about it. That life is a big attraction park where you can be silly all you want. The government likes silly it won’t mind as long as you don’t cause any problems and they have the necessary resources to manage our modern age debilitating lifestyle made of smoking, drinking, drug use, partying and paying credit card fees.  Make you turn old and grey with that, while a new generation is following on the same footsteps which lead always to more of the same.

Your government is the only institution that will put smoking kills on tobacco packs yet sell them everywhere because you’re as worthwhile for them as a dead rat.

To make that even more fucked up you’re up to your eyes in debt the moment you’re born, because of mismanagement by the very same people that your parents put there with their votes and soon enough yours, and I am not blaming everyone there are many politicians who do a fine job. What I am saying and that you should clearly understand is that they themselves are piling under the situation that is the planet. 

We’re trapped in a situation made of individual solutions, global challenges and collective collapses. That’s why your government employs people like me, to keep fixing this mess, and the solutions won’t come from the ballot box, its an empty box to start with. Its the same thing that everyone is going to keep promising, jobs, security, the economy and you have those journalism goules who keep sucking the blood out of this situation by making it look worse than it already is. TV sets everywhere, watch TV, its a conditioning tool that we grew up with do not disturb, and if you question authority do it as a teenage rebel.

Hey you should have a word with the finance and banking types explaining to you that if you’re this and that you’re going to make that much in your lifetime generate this much in profit and pay that much in taxes. You’re already swallowed whole the moment you step into this game called society and people who hate on me they’re hating because I gamed it all. I am filthy rich, famous but not known nor a daily victim of paparazzis and the press, and very powerful, nobody I know has it quite like me. 

Regarding this book its not an agent fuck it if they don’t like it high up situation, the world needs to know what we’re doing, it’s because we’re doing it for the right reasons and beyond everything there lies the collective interest. I sold collective interests to dozens of security agencies and we formed Nakashimura. The corporation that doesn’t exist. Well it does, its a tax payer number in Japan. And not much else.

Nobody is perfect you know and this not meant to make a superhero out of me, people know that I am no superhero, I am rather selfish and egoistic, my real smarts have been selling that to people, that the fact that I am selfish and egoistic is something they have use for. Everything I do is for personal gain, they let me manage the corporation where they have shares and so do I. We’re almost Jimmy Hoffa.

We covered the financing intelligence agencies by holding armament concerns, 60% of it through offshore corporations, which are owned by Nakashimura in the end. So its that much money the taxpayer doesn’t need to fork out and it’s the necessary leeway to do much more. However we can’t have the taxpayer back all of the time and we regularly take money out of his pockets by presenting Generals with new weapons systems and bankrolling their budgets at high up, higher up strings. Which Nakashimura is holding.

We need to go back to my resume out of respect for the book’s structure which we have put in place, and I think it mentioned spying. I am also a spy, a closely watched one. I steal state secrets, and I know plenty of them as a life insurance. Spying is something you do everyday, you spy on people they spy on you, you spy on the street on prices on traffic lights on celebrities, nice cars, plane passengers you spy on everything. 

Its an innate activity in life that starts with childhood. I know I used to spy on ants for hours. Society is not much different if anything it is more diverse, you can still look at it from that perspective where people do have to tell you about them by what they look like, what they say and what they know. I think that as a baby you spy on titties.

Both sexes do it actually which stays as a mechanism for men to gauge femininity and thus reproductive potential, and for women as a body type and an evolution vehicle to go both ways towards a more pronounced femininity or a lesser pronounced one. That in itself serves to further their permanence as a specie, to take both options and it translates at the genome level.

I am athletic but not bulky, I have to be able to run fast and to jump into a speeding vehicle, out of it as well as in a hostage situation. What you want to do is to protect your head while sliding flat on your back on the asphalt for as long as you can regrouping to the side a little bit when you loose speed . Which sums up my attitude regarding women, I try to protect my head while sliding as long as possible. Motoko does it quite well and so do I. Relationships in general are a hostage situation.

We are conscious of these mechanisms yet we wont admit it but practice it carefully that relationships are based on interests both conscious and unconscious, expressed and not expressed, and that interest is the prime motivation. Like Gekko said greed is good, greed is the reason why you're here with us, our ancestors survived countless situations, we did as a specie, we still do with tens of thousands of nuclear warheads operable at the turn of a key. Greed is you my friend, you and I.

Greed nurtures it sure pays your bills, we are all attached by the invisible strings of capital and duty.  Our duty is to the people,  I am myself a product of globalized society and I sold myself as such. I told them that I could further their interests by making them my interests and when it was done I told them that we finally succeeded in having real and tangible shared interests that I now represented. And they smiled at my bizarre globalized patriotism where I sell both arms for Russia, the U.S and Iran. Making profit important. Which it is it puts food on the table.

We can argue that it is a fabrication that Nakashimura put 60% of the worlds armament industry under one hood. There exists no more secretive corporations than arms makers. I know that people will try to find out which they must its their job, but like for anything I wrote so far it is impossible to prove. And that too is one of my talents, I leave nothing behind usable in the shape of proof. My friends at the FBI are brandishing this under the nose of some judges and they won't stop doing it for as long as I exist. I am the only proof that they have.

They're telling the judges that I steal proofs and tamper with them and that it should mean the world to them but no the judges know that I work for the government. As you guessed its mostly espionage related cases where the goal is that it doesn't snowball into one. There is that window to get the case thrown if you mess up the evidence from the get go, called hot evidence, screwing up a DNA analysis result, magnetizing disk drives and such. 

The judge will ask for a second analysis which the case already looks shaky because the first one failed, and even a third. Spoofing them three times on computerized and highly secure systems is a hat trick. Case gone. Magnetizing disk drives happens by having other inconsiderate ones placed next to them, not your everyday magnets too, they have some of my gear they do, they call it piling evidence, I call it lost and found. I could argue that it belongs to the government and have it returned.

Supreme Justices how did you guess, and also high up at the FBI, making the hot potato a VP maybe took the burden off their back over there and made them confident that they could prosecute me at least internally, which is the first thing I shielded myself against when signing their contract, my contract. I gave a raise to everyone, better cars and working conditions, more personnel, more IT people and facilities, more training, more time flexibility, even nicer planes. Which they keep using against me, it is the monster that I feed. Costs me a fortune that I obtained in the shape of an undisclosed budget.

Who do I spy for well mostly for myself, I have to know in my line of business what you don’t know can be harmful. It’s better to know and to know beforehand, the more insight you can gather about a situation not its aspects but its roots you can start finding the right actions to take to resolve it.  

I made a reputation in being expeditive with problem makers and people thank me for that. And of course a lot if has to do with spying. The planet faces a wide range of issues which are complex and demanding, perhaps my greatest achievement has been in convincing everyone that we don’t need to add to it, it started with a few hundred individuals we knew everything about and they became tens thousands. And you know what life is better without them to put it plainly.

Human trafficking for sexual slavery is less of an issue, we killed dozens of ring leaders and their people. We did it legally with the help of legal authorities, mostly military intelligence, and an international police agency we’re not naming. Its tens of thousands of lives saved each year.  And its that much work offloaded from the judicial and police systems.

The list goes on I am ruthlessly lethal with people, because leaving any of them behind is a threat to my security. I have them all killed, teams chart their organization for months, and then its over. Like they never existed. It stops making the press, and nobody will miss those shadowy underworld creatures.

Then there are other places where human trafficking as a issue is different, take Africa for example, it is deeply rooted there in daily life, killing people will do no good, its the living conditions that have to change. In China, what they call human trafficking is a well organized way out of poverty, maybe a sweatshop in the U.S paid in Dollars is better than a sweatshop in China paid in Yuan.

In the Middle East lower wage workers conditions have to improve, mindsets have to change and they are changing with new generations as the Middle East becomes more open to the world and its way of thinking. Also the people there know that media can give a lot of exposure to such issues so it is better to address them in all fairness to people who come to work and to build the society.

I am more concerned for your security than mine, because I can tell pretty much the way you’re thinking. I made a name in this business for taking no risks. The people that I killed don’t even know that I exist. I am there with the rest of government utilities, such as nuclear reactors and dams. 

To get back to spying it’s got different dimensions, one of them is technological as in hacking computer systems to gather intelligence, which you can put something there a dummy can hack with plenty of false intel and follow it wherever it might lead. There is that technological infrastructure quite hidden from sight which is called the dark web. And also an ongoing technological war which sometimes escalates to sabotage.  

The other dimension is human, as in human intelligence and we have signal intelligence. I make use of all three, often at the same time. The human part is attending lets play royals events and listening to what people want you to know from other agencies while looking bored. 

The signal part is a specialty, I put time as a signal specialist in an navy I am not naming, and correct it was aboard a nuclear submarine. I know antennas, receptors, frequencies, encryption, its a hobby, I download people’s short messages and contacts lists when I am at some airport lounge. 

If its someone I am interested in for professional reasons I am very likely to hack into his computers, email and banking accounts, smartphone and phones in general. The tablet or tablets let me inside a home I use both the camera to look around and the microphone to listen. I hack your cellphone operator to know where you are. And I also like to have a word in person as some phone support call worker. I never spy on people for personal reasons, its too much risk that I am not taking, listen I never take any risks. Risk is something that I manage not that I take.

Some people at the FBI thought they struck gold because some of my clients recorded all their calls and they found a few of mine. Until they figured out it was a computerized voice from some b movie of the 1950′s. They’re still looking for me and I would like to say hi. I guess I am some hot potato over there. From what I understand about their situation is that they deal with civilians whereas I am classified as military intelligence. They couldn’t knock at my door if they wanted.

They keep following me around I don’t know how they do that, I argued for and obtained a supersonic jet from different governments because of them. Until I figured out that they had people everywhere. I often succeed at fending them off by calling in a military escort. The fact that I am an assassin and a hacker makes them feel entitled to follow me around.

I would like to go back to the structure of the book and how we already have the books chapters, which nobody recalls now but its not important. To say that I also premeditate what I do, I do it consciously and also unconsciously, by placing people in situations from which I expect a certain outcomes. These outcomes might be operational or emotional. 

As a spy I am also like that, I found out that what people fear the most is their fears, and that to become truly effective we should get rid of two things, emotions and fear. Emotions play into situations to the point that they not the goal become predominant, and fear stops you short from achieving.

To be a good spy you have to go to the goal without fear, even with confidence as you’re are walking with not your laptop from that corporation where your boss downloaded proprietary technology useful to a third party. Its 25 years of jail in a Singapore prison and you have to smile all the way to your limousine as the good high end exec that you are.

Its late already and I have business Monday, its important to look fresh. There are a lot of important things in life that one should be mindful about. One of them is timekeeping and also getting enough sleep. Nighty night.

[mozgoderina]

Some say bypassing a higher education is smarter than paying for a degree (Washington Post)

Across the region and around the country, parents are kissing their college-bound kids -- and potentially up to $200,000 in tuition, room and board -- goodbye.

Especially in the supremely well-educated Washington area, this is expected. It's a rite of passage, part of an orderly progression toward success.

Or is it . . . herd mentality?

Hear this, high achievers: If you crunch the numbers, some experts say, college is a bad investment.

"You've been fooled into thinking there's no other way for my kid to get a job . . . or learn critical thinking or make social connections," hedge fund manager James Altucher says.

Altucher, president of Formula Capital, says he sees people making bad investment decisions all the time -- and one of them is paying for college.

College is overrated, he says: In most cases, what you get out of it is not worth the money, and there are cheaper and better ways to get an education. Altucher says he's not planning to send his two daughters to college.

"My plan is to encourage them to pursue a dream, at least initially," Altucher, 42, says. "Travel or do something creative or start a business. . . . Whether they succeed or fail, it'll be an interesting life experience. They'll meet people, they'll learn the value of money."

Certainly, you'd be forgiven for thinking this argument reeks of elitism. After all, Altucher is an Ivy Leaguer. He's rolling in dough. Easy for him to pooh-pooh the status quo.

But, it turns out, his anti-college ideas stem from personal experience. After his first year at Cornell University, Altucher says his parents lost money and couldn't afford tuition. So he paid his own way, working 60 hours a week delivering pizza and tutoring, on top of his course load.

He left Cornell thousands of dollars in debt. He also left with a degree in computer science. But it took failing at several investment schemes, losing large sums of money and then studying the stock market on his own -- analyzing Warren Buffett's decisions so closely he ended up writing a book about him -- for Altucher to learn enough about the financial world to survive in it. He thinks he would have been better off getting the real-world lessons earlier, rather than thrashing himself to pay for school and shouldering so much debt.

It's cold comfort, but the loans put him in good company: Hundreds of billions of dollars of national student-loan debt has now overtaken American credit-card debt, the Wall Street Journal recently reported, using numbers compiled by FinAid.org, a Web site for college financial aid information.

"There's a billion other things you could do with your money," Altucher says. One option: Invest the money you'd spend on tuition in Treasury bills for your child's retirement. According to Altucher, $200,000 earning 5 percent a year over 50 years would amount to $2.8 million.

Few families have that kind of money lying around. But if you can give your child $10,000 or so to start his own business, Altucher says, your child will reap practical lessons never taught in a classroom. Later, when he's more mature and focused, college might be more meaningful.

* * *

The hefty price tag of a college degree has some experts worried that its benefits are fading.

"I think it makes less sense for more families than it did five years ago," says Richard Vedder, an economics professor at Ohio University who has been studying education issues. "It's become more and more problematic about whether people should be going to college."

That applies not just to astronomically priced private schools but to state schools as well, where tuitions have spiked. Student loans can postpone the pain of paying, but they come due when many young adults are at their most financially vulnerable, and default rates are high. Even community colleges, while helping some to keep costs down, prompt many to take out loans -- which can land them in severe credit trouble.

According to a report in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 31 percent of loans made to community college students are in default. (The same report found that 25 percent of all government student loans default.) Default on a student loan and face dire consequences, beyond a bad credit record -- which can tarnish hopes of getting a car, an apartment or even a job: Uncle Sam can claim your tax refunds and wages.

Now, take a key argument in favor of getting a four-year degree, the one that says on average, those with one earn more than those without it. Education Department numbers support this: In 2008, the median annual earnings of young adults with bachelor's degrees was $46,000; it was $30,000 for those with high school diplomas or equivalencies. This means that, for those with a bachelor's degree, the middle range of earnings was about 53 percent more than for those holding only a high school diploma.

But a lot of college graduates fall outside the middle range -- and many stand to make considerably less.

"If you major in accounting or engineering, you're pretty likely to get a return on your investment," Vedder says. "If you're majoring in anthropology or social work or education, the rate on return is going to be a good deal lower, on average.

"I've talked to some of my own students who've graduated and who are working in grocery stores or Wal-Mart," he says. "The fellow who cut my tree down had a master's degree and was an honors grad."

The unemployment rate among those with bachelor's degrees is at an all-time high. In 1970, when the overall unemployment rate was 4.9 percent, unemployment among college graduates was negligible, at 1.2 percent, Vedder says, citing figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But this year, with the national rate of unemployment at 9.6 percent, unemployment for college graduates has risen to 4.9 percent -- more than half the rate of the general population. The bonus for those with degrees is "less pronounced than it used to be," Vedder says.

"The return on investment is clearly lower today than it was five years ago," he says. "The gains for going to college have leveled off."

Before hackles are raised about boiling the salutary effects of higher education down to its cost, there are obvious disclaimers: Education is a priceless thing. Many high-school graduates are not ready for independence and adult responsibilities, and college provides a safe place for them to grow up -- for a fee.

But what about the lessons offered by the success stories that have unspooled along a different path? Dropouts are the toast of the dot-com world. To the non-degreed billionaires' club headed by Microsoft's Bill Gates (Harvard's most famous quitter) and Apple's Steve Jobs (left Oregon's Reed College after a single semester), add: Michael Dell (founder of Dell Computers, University of Texas dropout), Microsoft co-founder and Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen (quit Washington State University) and Larry Ellison (founder of Oracle Systems, gave up on the University of Illinois).

Success sans sheepskin isn't only for the technology set.

David Geffen, co-founder of DreamWorks, bowed out of several schools, including the University of Texas.

Redskins owner Daniel Snyder dropped out of the University of Maryland.

Barry Gossett, chief executive of Baltimore's Acton Mobile Industries, builders of temporary trailers, also left Maryland without a degree. (No hard feelings, apparently: In 2007, he donated $10 million to the school.)

Perhaps these are unique individuals in whom a driving entrepreneurial spirit outstripped the plodding pace of book learning.

Or perhaps they point to a new model.

"There's nothing you can't do on your own," Altucher says. A provocative idea -- and a liberating one. Even if it's not entirely true.

But you don't have to agree with Altucher to concede that the debt-stress many graduates or their parents -- or both -- are left with after tossing off the cap and gown works against the merits of the degree.

Even if a kid doesn't party his way through college, chances are he or his family has plowed a boatload of money into a few memorable classes and a lot of boredom.

On top of that, you don't know how big a boatload it'll be. For many college students, four years of anticipated tuition payments grows to five years or six -- or more. Government statistics show just 57 percent of full-time college students get their bachelor's degrees in six or fewer years.

And the rest . . . don't.

* * *

In her youth, Toni Reinhart, 55, owner of Comfort Keepers Reston, a licensed home-care agency in Northern Virginia, abandoned hopes of completing a business degree at George Mason University. There was that C in accounting, and then trigonometry. . . .

"My problem was not being able to put the time in to learn things I wasn't interested in," she says.

Has dropping out held her back?

"Oh sure," says Reinhart, a self-described late-bloomer. "But maybe that's good. Maybe it held me back from things I shouldn't have been doing anyway."

Now she manages 56 employees and in recent years hit the million-dollar mark in gross revenue.

"I understand the case for finishing, because you've proven you can stick with something," she says. "But wouldn't it be nice if we did have another path that didn't put people in debt for . . . $100,000? Isn't there another way to instill those kinds of lessons in people that would be cheaper?"

Nelson Cortez, 20, wishes there were. The Napa resident starts his third year this month at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He's received state grants and works 15 hours a week while school is in session, but with the loans he's taken out, he estimates he's already about $25,000 in debt. This is why, when the California Board of Regents last year announced a 32 percent increase in fees, he joined protests that galvanized students around the state -- and set off similar protests around the country.

Cortez helped shut down the Santa Cruz campus and traveled to the District to rally outside the U.S. Capitol. (On Oct. 2, students will demonstrate on the Mall for affordable education as part of the One Nation march, organized by civil rights and youth groups and unions.)

"Rent was due yesterday, and I was $20 short, and I'm running around the house looking for $20," Cortez says. His money problems have caused him to question whether he's made the right decision: "Am I going to be able to afford it, should I take a semester off? . . . I do have in the back of my mind, would it be better not to have those loans and just work?"

According to the Education Department, between 1997-98 and 2007-08, prices for undergraduate tuition, room and board at public institutions of higher education rose by 30 percent, and prices at private institutions rose by 23 percent -- after adjustments for inflation. "The reason colleges have been getting away with raising their fees so much is that loans allow parents to tough it out," Vedder says.

Federal government moves, such as tuition tax credits, allow those paying college costs to subtract a certain amount from their tax bills. But it does little to alleviate the financial burden, Vedder says, adding that it gives colleges an excuse to raise costs further.

* * *

The cost of college is putting the financial screws to an entire generation, say student activists.

"I think it's absolutely despicable that students are asked to pay that much," says Lindsay McCluskey, president of the United States Student Association. "In terms of public education, you can't even call that public when students are taking out an average of $25,000 to complete college and then are paying off student loan debt until they're 50 or 60 years old."

A recent graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she majored in anthropology, McCluskey is paying down a $20,000 student loan. She thinks it will probably take her a decade to dig out of that hole -- while the balance is accumulating interest -- because she can't afford to make more than the minimum monthly payments.

"For my generation," McCluskey, 23, says, "that loan debt is taking the place of the house we could be buying or a number of other investments we could be making in our lives. The loan debt just sucks a lot of that out."

Now consider Jeremiah Stone, 25. The graduate of Rockville's Thomas S. Wootton High School is living in Paris, pursuing a drool-worthy international career as a chef. After high school, he took a job as a barback in a Houston's Restaurant, worked up to kitchen assistant, took a nine-month cooking course at the French Culinary Institute in New York and finally landed in France, where he has freelanced as a chef throughout the country. Eventually he hopes to open his own restaurant in New York.

"People I meet for the first time, they're always saying, 'Oh, if I had another career, I'd be a pastry chef instead of becoming a lawyer,' " Stone says. In the eyes of some of his friends, he says, he's become emblematic of simply doing what you love. In his case, it turns out that not following the herd was the best investment of all.

  Source: Washington Post / Sarah Kaufman. Link: Bypassing a higher education Illustration: Tim Lahan. Moderator: ART HuNTER.

[finalexpensesolutions]

Everything You Need To Know About Final Expense Insurance

How exactly to Buying LIFE INSURANCE COVERAGE on Your Parents

Have you been thinking about buying life insurance coverage on your parents?

Buying life insurance coverage will often take a bit of commitment. This is especially the case if you get into an older age bracket or if you happen to have an adverse health. But if you are purchasing a plan for someone else, there are some additional guidelines that you need to abide by.

When buying life insurance on your parents, you will typically have to have their knowledge and their approval.

Generally, preceding to age 85, buying life insurance for your parents can be relatively affordable, with respect to the type and amount of coverage, and the carrier you select to buy the coverage through.

If you are just looking for quick burial rates start here.

Why Consider Buying LIFE INSURANCE COVERAGE for Parents?

There are a variety of explanations why a person would like to have life insurance for elderly parents. That is true even if you no more are considered a dependent and are no longer counting on them for your financial support.

One of the primary reasons why an adult child would consider buying life insurance for a parent or parents is to protect the cost of a funeral and other last expenses. Today, the average cost of final expenses can be approximately $10,000 when adding jointly the cost of a burial plot, headstone, and a memorial service. So, having a life insurance coverage in place can help with easing these expenditures.

Another reason behind mature children to have life insurance on parents is to ensure that any unpaid debts can be paid. Now, because people you live so much longer than previously, many individuals who are in their 60s, 70s, and beyond may still be liable for a home loan balance, auto loans, credit card debt, and other financial obligations.

Knowing that, obtaining life insurance coverage for parents over 60 - or even those who are older - can make good financial sense, particularly if they have taken on debt that might be the duty of the next era at their passing.

Can You Buy Life Insurance for Parents?

While there are multiple reasons to buy coverage, you may be wondering, can I buy life insurance for my parents, or will they need to buy the plans themselves? If you are in this situation, you'll need to persuade the insurance provider what is known as insurable interest.

Which means that you would suffer some type of financial loss in the event of your parents passing.

For example, if your parents have certain obligations that you'll become in charge of, then you'll come with an insurable interest. Also, if you would be obligated for paying your parents’ final expenditures, then this too would qualify.

How Do I Purchase LIFE INSURANCE COVERAGE for My Parents?

When considering the purchase of life insurance policies for parents, there are a few steps that you should take prior to continue. First, you should determine around how much coverage you will need.

For instance, if you are buying life insurance for your parents to be able to repay specific debts, then you should accumulate the quantity of the debt (or debts) to be paid in order to create the policy’s face amount.

Similarly, if you are purchasing the coverage to be able to protect your parents’ final expenses, then you may need to call several funeral homes in their area to get an estimate of the full total cost of their services.

In accumulated these expenses, you may also want to add some additional coverage, as much insureds could also involve some uncovered medical and/or hospice costs that could end up being the responsibility of loved ones. Having these instead paid off by a life insurance policy can be considered a financial alleviation for family.

You may even need to ask your parents if they will have a possible estate tax issue - and if so, if they have made any arrangements for paying this potentially large liability. If not, then life insurance can be an ideal way to pay a parent’s estate taxes. With these money available, you can forgo having to liquidate other possessions such as stocks and other purchases (often at below market value), as well as family heirlooms.

*It is important to notice here, however, an estate attorney also needs to be notified. It is because the life span insurance that is purchased together with regard to estate fees will typically have to be placed into a trust.

What is the very best Type of Life Insurance Policy for Parents?

When considering life insurance coverage for your parents, there is different types of life insurance coverage to consider. The primary types of life insurance that exist on the market include term and permanent.

If considering term life insurance for mother or father coverage, this will provide you with pure death benefit security only - and because of that, it will often be more affordable when compared to a comparable permanent life insurance policy. That is especially the situation if your parents are in good health at that time they apply for coverage.

TERM LIFE

Term life insurance is purchased for a degree of time, such as a decade, 15 years, twenty years, or in some instances, even for 30 years, depending on the insurance carrier the age of the applicant. This type of coverage is also known as “short-term ” insurance because the coverage will expire at the end of that time period limit, or “term” of coverage.

Term life insurance is not often the answer if you are interested in coverage for elderly parents as they can simply outlive the term length which defeats the goal of having coverage whatsoever.

If you go instead with long lasting life insurance for your parents, then you will have death benefit safety that is maintained forever. That is especially important if you need to cover burial expenditures. There are many types of long term life insurance policies.

These range from:

VERY EXISTENCE Insurance

Very existence insurance is regarded as the easiest form of long term life insurance. It is because it offers a guaranteed loss of life advantage for the covered by insurance, and a premium amount that is locked set for life. This superior amount won't go up, irrespective of your parent or parents increasing age, or even if they obtain a health condition once they have purchased the insurance coverage.

The money value of a whole life insurance coverage will also grow at a set, guaranteed rate of interest. As time passes, this cash can build-up substantially. One reason behind this is because it is permitted to grow tax-deferred, which means that there is absolutely no taxes credited on the gain until the time it is withdrawn. There can also be dividends on some whole life plans, although they are not guaranteed.

Universal Life Insurance

Universal life insurance coverage is also a form of permanent life insurance coverage you could consider purchasing for your parents. Like very existence, this kind of coverage also provides both loss of life benefit security, as well as cash value.

This form of coverage is considered to be more flexible than very existence insurance, though, because the policyholder is allowed to, within certain guidelines, decide The original source how much of their premium dollars should go to the policy’s cash value component, and exactly how much of the premium dollars goes towards policy’s death benefit.

Variable Universal Life Insurance

While variable universal life is another form of long term life insurance coverage, it may not be your best option to consider for parents. That is particularly true if your parents are over 60 and are worried about keeping the main in their cash value safe.

This is because the money in the cash element of a variable universal life insurance policy is exposed to market risk. Therefore, while these funds do have the chance to develop more than those in a complete life plan, they can also experience deficits.

Indexed Universal Life Insurance

With indexed universal life insurance, there is also both a death benefit and a cash value component. Here, the money value is linked to an root market index. While the cash value has the chance to rise when the underlying index goes up, it will not experience loss when the index has a negative 12 months. So, with this type of policy, the main remains safe.

If you're considering investing funds with the likelihood of index-linked growth, yet want to keep principal safe - while at the same time providing loss of life benefit protection on the mother or father or parents - then indexed universal life insurance could be an option.

Second to Pass away Life Insurance

There are certain types of life insurance coverage policies on the market today that are known as second to die or survivorship life policies. These procedures actually cover two individuals instead of one. The benefit is paid out when the next person passes away. While this kind of coverage is more costly than just one policy, it can be considerably less that buying two split policies on your parents.

How to Get a Life Insurance Policy Issued on your own Parents

Once you've decided on the type of life insurance coverage that you want to buy on your parents, you will need to ensure that they be eligible for coverage. You can do this by submitting a credit card applicatoin for coverage to the life span insurance company. The insurer will need to review your parents’ health and health history, and also other factors such as:

Health history

Medication history

Smoking status

Occupation and income

Foreign travel frequency

Habits and hobbies

Other life insurance in force (and the quantity of that coverage)

Depending on the type of policy you are applying for and the coverage amount you need when buying life insurance coverage for your parents, the application process will also typically entail a health check. This generally will take about 30 minutes, and it can take place either at the parents’ home or other convenient location on their behalf.

If the policy the make an application for requires an exam then they will meet with a paramedical professional who'll ask them some health questions. The “paramed” professional will also take from them a blood and a urine sample. These samples will be tested by the insurance provider to be able to determine more information relating to your parents’ health.

In addition, it's possible that to be able to obtain even more details about your parents’ overall health condition, the life span insurance underwriters may demand the medical records from their major care doctor, any medical specialists that they see - or from both.

Once every one of the health information has been obtained by the insurance carrier, the underwriters will be able to make a determination about your parents’ life insurance policy, as well concerning choose an offered premium amount.

IMAGINE IF Your Parents Are Not In Good Health?

If you are purchasing life insurance for seniors parents or any life insurance rates for someone over 50, or if your parents have any kind of an adverse health that makes them risky, that may deem them as being uninsurable for a medically underwritten life insurance coverage. If this is the situation then there are still options that exist to them.

A guaranteed issue life insurance policy may be the way to go in this example. With this kind of coverage, a medical examination is not needed - and because of this, applicants and also require conditions such as cancer, major disease or disease, and other health issues can qualify.

Oftentimes, there are no health questions to answer on the application - and, because there aren’t any health underwriting requirements to contend with, these policies can often be approved in a matter of days. That means that life insurance coverage for your parents could maintain pressure almost immediately.

The downside will there be is a two-year graded death benefit and the maximum amount of coverage you can get is up to $50,000 with respect to the carrier.

To get a quote because of this type of plan start here.

Taking the next phase for Buying LIFE INSURANCE COVERAGE

If you’re considering buying life insurance on your seniors parents, but you aren’t sure how to get started, we can help. We work with more than 40 insurance providers, so we can work with you in identifying the best plan of coverage - irrespective of age or health.

In fact, if you want to get a concept of how much it would be to buy life insurance coverage for your parents, we can offer you with instant estimates in only minutes - directly from our website. We’ve helped a large number of households get the life insurance safety that they need - and we’ll be pleased to work with you.

So, whether you come to mind about covering final expenditures, paying down your parents’ personal debt, or other obligations, and we’ll get you started on the program that’s best for you.

[meraenthusiast]

The Ultimate Doctor’s Guide To Preserving Wealth

The Ultimate Doctor’s Guide To Preserving Wealth

Warren Buffett is known for his wealth and most notably his rules for attaining it.

One of his more popular rules involves preserving wealth:

Rule #1 – Don’t lose money

Rule #2 – NEVER forget rule #1

As a doctor, making money shouldn’t be an issue as your income is typically higher than the average person:

primary care physician – $243,000

medical specialist – $346,000

dentist – $175,840

dental specialist – $270,000

It’s the other part (keeping it) that causes the MOST trouble.

I can’t tell you how people that want to join the Passive Investors Circle that are 55+ years of age that have NO money saved.

Granted, they did a great job making money during their careers but it was the preserving wealth that got them.

Financial Information

Most of the information that we receive via blogs, publications, seminars, advisors, etc. typically focus on what?

Making MORE money, right?

Why is that?

Saving or preserving wealth doesn’t make for a great headline but it’s vital to your long-term success.

What about you? Are you actively pursuing steps that assist you with preserving wealth?

If not, no worries. Help is on the way today.

Uncertain Times

If you weren’t practicing during the 2008 financial crisis, then certainly the 2020 COVID pandemic caught your attention regarding ways for preserving wealth.

Back in 2008, I was eating with two of my friends and one happened to be a financial advisor.

At the time, I had only been in practice for a handful of years and didn’t have much invested in the market.

The little I did was in Vanguard Index Funds.

As you can imagine, he was a bit spooked by the possibility of all of his clients running for the hills selling their assets they had with him.

Unfortunately for him, many did but I was so naive at the time that I couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about.

Diversification

Fast forward to 2020. Now I began to realize the issues people were going through back in 2008. When the markets began to plunge during the pandemic, it certainly got my attention. Back then I had little to lose, in 2020, it was a MUCH different story.

Luckily I’ve spent the past few years slowly diversifying into passive real estate instead of relying totally on the stock market.

Granted, I still have investments in the market, but I’m slowly moving towards more of a 50/50 split for now.

What about you? Are you actively pursuing strategies to help protect what you’ve built thus far?

If not, you’re not alone.

Here’s some help…

The Ultimate Doctor’s Guide To Preserving Wealth – 7 Strategies

#1 Fund a large emergency fund

#2 Get a financial plan

#3 Create an estate plan

#4 Get adequate insurance

#5 Diversify

#6 Obtain investment education

#7 Seek wise legal advise

  #1 Fund a LARGE emergency fund

You’ve probably read the statistic that  — 40% of Americans can’t cover a $400 emergency expense.

Sad but true. Before the pandemic, many docs on the financial forums I subscribe to downplayed the rationale for having an emergency fund.

Their thinking was they hated the fact that they had a large amount of cash sitting in an account earning next to nothing.

We keep ours in the Vanguard Prime Money Market Fund.

I understand where they’re coming from but am thankful we had adequate reserves during the pandemic shut down.

You should view your emergency fund as an insurance policy against future quandaries and NOT worry about what interest rate you can achieve.

If you don’t have an emergency fund that can pay at least 3 months but even better 6-12 months of living expenses, get that going now.

If not, you’ll be singing the 80’s Cinderella song, Don’t Know What You Got, Till It’s Gone….

#2 Create an estate plan

Psychologically, humans respond more to fear of loss than to gaining something. Honestly, I never had an issue about losing money early on in practice because we had none!

Now that God has blessed us with a little bit of money, I realize how the fear of losing it can start to creep in.

Because our kids are getting older, we want to ensure that they’re properly prepared to handle what will be given down to them and our future grand kids.

It’s important that an estate plan is created that guides the direction of the future sustainability of your family’s wealth. It should include how the wealth should be managed and invested for future generations.

In order to assist you, consider finding a good reputable attorney that specializes in estate planning. I realize that if you’re fresh out of training, you may not think you need one. Trust me, the sooner this is set up the better.

Life is going to continue to change during the course of your career and updating it at least every two to three years is a good idea. Especially if you have kids.

If you’re married with kids and something happens to both of you, your plan will ensure your wishes of who cares for them. If you don’t have one in place, the state decides. Your choice.

#3 Get a financial plan

Maybe this strategy should have been placed at the #1 position? Getting a solid financial plan early on in practice will do wonders to preserving wealth.

It will act as a road map to ensure that you’re not wondering off too far from the path depending on what stage of practice you’re in.

For instance, early practitioners typically can handle more risky investments.

But the older you get, your financial plan can be adjusted to preserving wealth via more conservative options.

#4 Get adequate insurance

This one should be a no brainer.

I get it.

No one likes to pay those LARGE insurance premiums each year but when it comes to preserving wealth, this strategy might be the most important.

I’m not going to go into detail regarding the different policies needed but some of the basic ones are:

Health

Life

Disability

Home/auto

Malpractice

My good friend over at the Physician on Fire has several recommended insurance agents on his resources page.

#5 Diversify

As mentioned earlier, we’re in the process of diversifying our investments from index funds to now passive real estate.

By choosing diversification, you’re able to benefit from the potential higher returns of riskier investments as a certain percentage of your assets would be in other more conservative investments.

Also, you’ll want to hold a certain percentage in cash to take advantage of any opportunities that may present themselves.

#6 Obtain investment education

If you’re really interested in preserving wealth that’s going to take you a lifetime to accumulate then investment education will be the key.

Dave Ramsey states that he sits down with his family each year and discusses the different types of investments that they have, who gets what and how they should manage it to ensure success with future generations.

Investment education has been one of the driving forces behind how families such as the Rockefellers have been able to build enormous wealth and sustain it for multiple generations.

We’re currently raising two teenagers and constantly teach them, when they get money from working, to save, spend and give some away.

We also involve them with the types of investments that they already own in Roth IRAs (index funds).

I recently started playing The Cash Flow For Kids Game with them that Robert Kiyosaki created to teach kids about passive income and real estate.

It’s been a great way to spark conversations about active vs passive income.

I wish my parents would have started me down this track when I was younger!!

  #7 Seek wise legal advise

Proverbs 15:22 – “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.”

Is there such a thing as wise attorneys? Just kidding to all my lawyer friends. 🙂

They’re like dentists, nobody likes them until you REALLY need them, and when you do, they’re your best friend.

If you’re interested in preserving wealth, then obtaining constant legal advice is a must. Unfortunately, the MORE successful you become, the larger the target gets on your back.

Protection of your assets against those seeking to bring you down (predators) is a necessity.

Also, having a group of attorneys can assist you with real estate, complex tax issues and business contracts.

Preserving Wealth Summary

There you have it. Now you know what it’s going to take in order to help you keep what you obtain in life.

The 7 strategies were:

#1 Fund a large emergency fund

#2 Get a financial plan

#3 Create an estate plan

#4 Get adequate insurance

#5 Diversify

#6 Obtain investment education

#7 Seek wise legal advise

Ready to grow and preserve your wealth by investing in passive real estate?

Join the Passive Investors Circle today.

The post The Ultimate Doctor’s Guide To Preserving Wealth appeared first on Debt Free Dr..

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[prosperopedia]

Self-Reliance Principles

Achieving self-reliance is a worthy goal for individuals, parents, and families. Being self-reliant brings a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that cannot be achieved in any other way.

What is Self-Reliance?

Self-reliance is the ability of a person to take care of himself or herself in several different areas of life, including financially, spiritually, emotionally, socially, and in other aspects of a person’s existence. Self-reliance also extends out and looks for opportunities to help other people and give back. The dictionary definition of self-reliance focuses on being able to rely upon one’s own abilities and resources. However, the word self-reliance itself is a bit of a misnomer, because no person truly stands on his or her own.  The essence of self-reliance involves taking accountability of your own welfare by actively choosing to use your God-given talents and abilities to provide for your own needs.

Self-reliance is most often viewed in the perspective of temporal needs: money, food, clothing, housing, etc. However, there are obviously many other components to self-reliance in addition to making enough money to not have to go into debt or rely upon others for those temporal needs. For instance, developing the social skills that make you capable of interacting with people at work is part of self-reliance. Learning to have the discipline required to keep from losing your temper with your spouse or children so that you can have a fulfilling marriage and family life, besides avoiding divorce, is also an important part of being self-reliant.

Ultimately, the concept of self-reliance is closely associated with the broader concept of simply becoming a better person. Self-reliance, however, focuses on those parts of self-improvement that ensure that a person is taking care of his own temporal needs.

The Spiritual Foundation of Self-Reliance

As I consider my commitment to being self-reliant, it’s obvious to me how much of that commitment stems from my religious beliefs. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (more commonly referred to as the Mormon Church), discussions about self-reliance are second-nature considering how they fit into our worldview. We believe that our potential as humans, the literal offspring of the Creator of this world, is unlimited. Achieving our full potential involves consistently becoming better, more educated, more humble, more compassionate, more charitable, more capable, ultimately working to match our character with the Being of whom it was said:

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?

Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

Mark 7:9-11

It is a very deeply entrenched part of LDS culture to strive to have our own temporal needs in order such that we can “give good gifts” (or any kind of assistance, be it financially, by way of mentorship, etc.) to our own children as well as to others who similarly find themselves in need. In fact, because of our dedication to self-reliance in Mormon culture, the term self-reliance itself has become a term that closely associated with the church more so than any other institution I’m familiar with.

Self-Reliance Versus Government Run Welfare

Whereas self-reliance often involves giving people a hand up. Welfare, especially in the United States, where the “safety net” program is executed poorly by government agencies, is more interested in giving people simply a handout. Welfare as I’ll refer to it here, is simply giving temporal sustenance to the poor and needy, usually in a way that creates dependence.

The net impact of the two positions is diametrically opposite.

When the self-reliance approach is used, a person tends to develop more freedom, more self-worth, a sense of accomplishment and improvement, better overall mental and social health. When the welfare approach is used, dependence upon government programs usually ensues. The net outcome tends to be negative for the recipient.

It can be difficult for a compassionate person sometimes to distinguish between constructive self-reliance efforts and destructive welfare alternatives. As I’ve seen my life prospered and as my businesses have grown, I’ve accidentally participated in giving in ways that create a welfare situation rather than promoting self-reliance. What I’ve discovered is that the major distinction between the two is this: welfare tends to do for people what they could and should do for themselves, whereas self-reliance is much more about stepping in and helping someone who is trying, but simply needs help through financial contributions sometimes, but through mentoring and skill develop more often.

Self-reliance teaches a man to fish instead of always handing him a fish in such a way that he loses his ability desire to provide for himself.

Conservative Versus Liberal Ideology

This topic of self-reliance versus welfare is one that provides a clear division between two very opposite ends of the political and social spectrum. There is an ongoing and most often intensely heated debate about how to handle the poor and underprivileged in America. In fact, the upcoming 2020 election brings this topic to the forefront. Offers for free college, free healthcare, free everything from people like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and other Democrat presidential candidate don’t consider that providing those things for “free” (they’re not actually free; they’re essentially stolen from others through taxation) doesn’t help the recipients become better. Instead, it entitles them, making them beholden to an ideology that ultimately destroys the economy that has, because of its past dedication to operating on principles of self-reliance, become prosperous enough to provide the opportunity in the first place.

I sometimes hear people with a liberal leaning in my own church, which is predominantly conservative as our doctrines align most closely with conservative thinking, talk about the idea that a mindset towards government welfare is more Christian, because Jesus was all about helping the poor and the needy.

Indeed Jesus’ mission in life, as a man who Christians believe was perfect, the literal Offspring representative of God in mortality, included helping the poor, healing the lame and otherwise afflicted, being a friend to those who struggled. However, Jesus’ instructions to the world and to his disciples had nothing to do with having a compulsory government be in charge of operating a welfare plan.

Probably the biggest distinctions between the conservative and liberal approaches towards helping the unfortunate is the source of the funds used and the method of procuring them in programs that promote self-reliance as opposed to those who favor government-operated welfare.

Funds used for socialistic welfare programs always come from using someone else’s money sourced involuntarily. Working citizens are taxed by the government to have their money redistributed (most often in ways that are highly inefficient and rife with corruption) to other people who use the money for purposes and programs that are often not in alignment with the desires and intentions of those funding the programs.

Funds used in self-reliance programs are normally contributions made by volunteers who most often religiously motivated, and whose objective in donating is to help people help themselves.

Foundations of Self-Reliance

There are several different subject areas that comprise the foundation of self-reliance. I’m going to review what I feel are the most important of those topics, including: education, emergency preparedness, employment, finances, and physical health, spirituality.

Education

A major purpose of this life is to gain valuable experience and to learn. We begin learning even before we’re born, and that process continues throughout our lives. Some have more opportunities for formal education and skills training, while others lack those resources.

Education is one of the key components to self-reliance. From learning to read as a child to receiving formal schooling in a specialized field that allows us to provide for ourselves and our families financially, getting a solid education makes all the difference in one’s ability to be self-reliant.

Education in the 21st century is much more accessible than it has ever been. The internet makes it possible for a person to take piano lessons on YouTube, learn how to start and build a business through online courses such as those found on Udemy and other other community teaching platforms, or to even get a degree from an accredited university.

I consider this website itself a project in education. Much of the content I’m writing about on Prosperopedia.com require me to do significant research, after which I then have to articulate what I’ve learned to the audience of people who visit here.

Using Intelligence With Education: One of the great tragedies of our modern era is the situation wherein higher education has become a burden for the majority of the US population. The culture of placing an exaggerated level of importance on obtaining a college degree that developed after the Great Depression, during which time having a formal higher education often separated the haves from the have-nots, has create a problem. There are nearly 50 million Americans currently shouldering nearly $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. Many of those (about 11%) who have student loan debt are at least three months behind in making their payments.

There is very little reason to go into debt to get an education, especially in situations where there is no robust plan in place for a student to complete an education and be prepared to pay off that debt efficiently and in a way that doesn’t compromise the graduate’s ability to thrive in other areas of self-reliance.

Emergency Preparedness

Life is full of the unexpected. Regardless of where you live and how risky of a lifestyle you live, this planet is unpredictable. Fires, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, even more isolated events like getting stuck outside in a snowstorm or getting lost while hiking can turn into emergencies quickly.

Self-reliance includes being able to deal with emergencies. It involves developing a skill set that makes you capable of responding to situations like dehydration, drowning, electrical shock, bleeding, and other situations that could take a person’s life.

Much of this emergency training was provided to young men, their leaders, and to communities in general through the Boy Scouts of America, but since that organization has lost its identity over the past few decades and will soon no longer exist, you’re better of turning to alternative resources for help with emergency preparedness.

Most local municipalities offer training to people interested in helping themselves and their neighbors during times of disaster. Ready.gov has established a program called Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) that is a fairly comprehensive approach to emergency preparedness.

Another vital component of emergency preparedness is having food and supplies on hand to survive during times of hardship. The LDS Church is one of the leading sources of information about principles of preparation, especially with regard to food storage. The pamphlet All is Safely Gathered In is a good place to start making a plant for storage and supply preparedness.

Employment

Employment is the means whereby a person secures income to provide for himself or herself and for a family. Having good employment is highly contingent on having a good work ethic, combined with acquiring education and often specialized skills. When a person becomes capable of contributing in a meaningful way to a company and to the larger economy, he becomes self-reliant from the employment perspective.

In the past, previous to the twenty-first century, access to the best jobs often required a college degree or even a graduate degree. That requirement is no longer nearly as important as it used to be for many of the new and emerging technical industries, where experience is often valued more highly than a four-year or degree advanced degree.

Also, there are many more opportunities for those who choose to go out on their own and be small business owners as opposed to fitting themselves into an employee position in a company. For instance, without even having a college degree or any real previous experience, a person can start and build a six-figure income within a year’s time by finding products on clearance and shipping them into Amazon to be sold at a price high enough to make a profit, with the fulfillment of orders all done by Amazon. I know many people who have made this their full-time occupation.

Creating a blog and being consistent at posting on it to build an audience (attracting traffic from search engines and social media) is an employment strategy that has worked well for tens of thousands of people who make their entire living writing and publishing content, then monetizing their audiences through ads, affiliate relationships, and other well-established, proven methods. This is the exact employment model I’m using for this website, Prosperopedia.com.

My wife and I have spent almost our entire marriage running our own internet businesses. Once in awhile I have come across and taken opportunities to work for a company, but usually those only last a few months to accomplish specific objectives.

In either case, working for a company or working for myself, I’ve realized how important it is to stay current on employment trends, including continuing to develop skills that are marketable.

The bottom line with employment is that there are plenty of opportunities for a person who is determined to provide for his or her own needs to get a good job, to move up through skill development and more education, and to be intentional about securing income. A self-reliant person understands the importance of being active and assertive about pursing employment opportunities and finding a rewarding way to contribute to society by working.

Finances

Managing finances is one of the most common topics of self-reliance. Especially in a credit-based, consumer society that has emerged in the past several decades, the skill of being able to ensure that your income outpaces your expenditures is a critical one.

At the very least, a person who is self-reliant spends time each month evaluating past activities and habits, then planning and executing a strategy to increase income, reduce expenditures, invest money, and be charitable through giving to a church or other worthwhile cause.

Financial support programs (mostly focusing on debt reduction since that’s the situation most common to contemporary American households, but also training on saving, investing, and otherwise building wealth) are available through a myriad of financial gurus, the most popular of which is Dave Ramsey with his Financial Peace University program, which is popular for presenting a set of 7 baby steps to go from being in debt to starting to build significant wealth.

Physical Health

Physical health involves getting plenty of sleep, eating a healthy diet, exercising, and otherwise taking care of your body so that you can experience fulfillment in your life.

Even the wealthy understand that an abundance of money won’t necessarily protect you from being unhealthy. Physical health requires discipline and living with intention similar to the other foundational principles of self-reliance.

Being healthy requires eating not just for pleasure, but with a purpose of feeding your body the best kinds of fuel so that it perform well for doing your work, enjoying free time, and generally feeling well. Being healthy requires you to keep your body active, which can be very hard to do with a busy schedule outside of doing a desk job all day. Being healthy means getting to bed on time, sleeping deeply, and waking up to a fresh start as often as possible. Having a healthy body involves actively managing stress so that it doesn’t weigh you down and cause anxiety, mental sickness or disease.

Spirituality

Spirituality is the lens through which all of these other principles of self-reliance can be viewed. Having religious beliefs to provide purpose for your life, which extends infinitely beyond the short period of time we spend as mortals during our current existence, gives us a bigger, broader, more meaningful perspective as opposed to those who reject spiritual inclinations in favor of believing that there is no God and that there is no purpose to life.

Developing spirituality should be a lifelong pursuit. For my family, we educate our children with spiritual and religious beliefs naturally integrated with secular learning about history, geography, science, math, business, and other subjects that form the foundation of what society considers to be a proper education.

A set of verses from a section of my church’s modern scripture (called the Doctrine and Covenants) provides a brilliant explanation of how God, with his eternal perspective, views our existence. Speaking to Joseph Smith, the Lord explains the purpose for giving commandments:

34 Wherefore, verily I say unto you that all things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal; neither any man, nor the children of men; neither Adam, your father, whom I created.

35 Behold, I gave unto him that he should be an agent unto himself; and I gave unto him commandment, but no temporal commandment gave I unto him, for my commandments are spiritual; they are not natural nor temporal, neither carnal nor sensual.

From this and other prophetic teachings in the Bible and in other religious texts, it is clear that everything we do to improve ourselves and better our lives should be done in view of how it affects us in the eternal realm. Even the most arrogant and unteachable of scholars can see that the period of time we spend in this life is very short compared to even the age of this world as best we can measure it. It’s not hard to conceive of our lives beginning long before we were born and extending well beyond our death in a spiritual form.

Society’s understanding of good and evil, our foundation for civil laws and civility come from religious beliefs. Spending the appropriate amount of time developing our spiritual natures should be a priority for every person who wants to become self-reliant.

For me, my commitment to being self-reliant is tied very closely to my religious beliefs. I’ve written before about using Joseph in Egypt as a model for how I want to be: selfless, disciplined, loyal, a giver. Doing everything I can to stay in touch with a divine power and receiving guidance about where to live, where to focus your time, who to marry, how to manage your family, and other elements of my life has been highly beneficial for me financially and in every other aspect of my life.

Regarding this spiritual connection with the principles of self-reliance, Joseph Smith made a comment that portrays the essence of having achieved self-reliance:

A man filled with the love of God, is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race.

– Joseph Smith

The post Self-Reliance Principles appeared first on The Handbook for Happiness, and Success, and Prosperity Prosperopedia.

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[talabib]

Investing Like A Rich Person And Become Rich Yourself.

Which sounds better: being financially comfortable or being rich? Deep down, most people want to be filthy rich – but they also tend to feel that the future is already decided for them, and that they’ll never actually be rich.

But how rich you are or aren’t is up to you: if you make the decision to be rich, and adopt the mind-set of the rich, there’s no reason at all why you can’t achieve that goal.

First, however, there are a few things you’ll need to learn, as there are no “get-rich-quick” schemes that actually work. In practice, becoming rich means investing in financial education and literacy until analyzing financial statements becomes second nature. It also means learning how to create and grow a business, and then using the experience and money you’ve accumulated to make more and better investments.

The first step, though, is to get in the right frame of mind, and go from saying, “I’ll never be rich,” to “I’m going to be rich, and this is how!”

The richest 10 percent have 90 percent of the money because they invest in a way that the poor and middle classes do not.

Maybe you've heard of the 80-20 rule, which states that 80 percent of our success comes from 20 percent of our efforts? Well, that might be true for overall success – but for money, the rule is 90-10, because when it comes down to it, 10 percent of people have 90 percent of the money.

The rule applies in many walks of life. Think about Hollywood stars, and then think how many actors are waiting tables between gigs. Yep, 10 percent of actors earn 90 percent of the money. The same goes for athletes, musicians and, of course, investors. A Wall Street Journal article confirmed this, noting that 10 percent of the population own 90 percent of all the shares in the United States.

Why is it that rich people can accumulate so much wealth? Well, one reason is that some investments are simply off-limits if you’re poor.

Back when I was a young man with little cash, i asked my rich friends if I could get involved in their business deals. But, despite the friendship, the answer was always no – not because they didn't want to help out, but because it would have been illegal.

In the United States, the US Securities and Exchange Commission restricts certain investments to accredited investors – that is, people with a net worth of $1 million, or a consistent annual income of $200,000. Anyone who is worth, or makes, less than that simply isn't allowed to get involved.

Now, there are good reasons for preventing people without much money in the bank from making potentially risky investments. But these rules also prevent poorer people from making the best investments – the investments of the rich.

So how can you break into that top 10 percent? next, we'll find out what it takes to think like a rich person.

The first step toward being rich is to adopt the mind-set of the rich.

“Get an education, work hard, save money. Then you’ll be fine.” Sound familiar? This sentence sums up the standard middle-class approach to financial security and, more likely than not, you were probably told something similar by your parents.

But here’s the thing: this advice will never make you rich. Rather, it will keep you in the 90 percent that only has 10 percent of the money.

So how do the rich approach financial gain? They certainly don’t toil away at one job until retirement; instead, they purchase businesses and make investments.

Why is that? Well, for starters, because employees inevitably have less money to invest; that’s just the way the US tax system is set up.

For example, let’s say you want to save $1,000 from your salary. Well, first you have to pay tax, so in order to save that $1,000, you’ll have to earn, say, $1,300. Inflation will reduce your savings’ value every year, and you’ll pay tax on the interest you earn. Doesn’t sound like a recipe for wealth, does it?

Business owners, on the other hand, have more money to invest because it comes out of their pre-tax earnings. Unlike the employee who has to save out of taxed income, a business owner first buys assets and then pays taxes.

As such, an employee has less money to invest in assets that can generate wealth. It doesn’t sound fair, but it’s the way the system works – it’s hard for an employee to become rich because she gives so much money to the government first.

And there’s another reason why business ownership and investment are better paths to riches: investors often face less risk than employees.

Lots of people rely on employment, savings and pensions for their financial security. But the old notion of a stable job for life just doesn’t apply in today’s job market. Employees get fired all the time. What happens to a company’s share price when it lets lots of employees go? Very often, it goes up! So being on the investor’s side of the table is usually less risky than being on the employee’s.

Financial literacy can unlock riches.

Can you explain the difference between assets and liabilities? Or calculate a company’s price-to-equity and debt-to-equity ratios?

Many people shy away from investing because the terminology sounds like a foreign language. If you want to get into that 10 percent, however, it’s time to invest in your financial education.

First off, it’s important to understand the difference between assets and liabilities. Rich people never confuse the two, but others mix them up all the time. And that’s one of the reasons rich people tend to make better financial decisions.

Let’s take a common example. You’ve probably heard a homeowner say something like, “My home is a great asset.” Sounds sensible enough, right? But, usually, it’s downright wrong. Something is only an asset when it generates positive cash flow – that is, when it brings in money.

Say your house is worth $200,000, with a $150,000 mortgage. Where does the cash flow? Not in, but out, through your mortgage, fees, insurance and so on. Sure, maybe one day you’ll sell it for a tidy profit – but you have no guarantees, so it’s actually a liability.

Understanding assets and liabilities is a great first step. But to successfully make the investments of the rich – to develop real estate or buy into a business – you need to have a deep understanding of financial terminology.

Let’s say you want to buy shares in a growing tech business, and you want to understand whether it’s a good deal. How can you figure it out? Well, the share price tells you little, so to really understand value, you’ll need to calculate and analyze measures like debt-to-equity ratio, return on equity, cash-on-cash return and financial leverage.

All in all, if you don’t even know that your mortgaged house is a liability, not an asset, it’s no surprise that you might think the investments of the rich are too risky. Anything seems risky if you can’t understand it.So spend time developing your financial education – it may be the best investment you ever make.

There are different kinds of investors, requiring different skill sets and attitudes.

When we think of investors, we often imagine besuited Wall Street bankers, or bustling men shouting on a trading floor. But the word “investor” can be applied to a range of people, from bond traders to business founders.

The taxonomy of investors begins with accredited and qualified investors. These two are outsiders.

We’ve already met the accredited investor: someone with a high salary or established wealth who meets the legal requirements for the widest possible choice of investments.

Qualified investors are just as wealthy as accredited investors, but they’re also financially educated. They’re equipped to analyze a business’s financials, or the reasons behind market movements.

But both are always on the outside. Sure, they may buy shares and prosper that way, but they have little control over their assets.

In contrast, an inside investor creates assets instead of buying them. The inside investor builds her own business, be it a real estate agency, a tech start-up or something else entirely. That business can become a valuable asset, and she can use it to generate income, or eventually sell it.

To truly be the top dog – a sophisticated investor – the inside investor has to use the experience of building her own business to learn how to analyze other companies from the outside.

The sophisticated investor knows how to make tax and the law work to her advantage. But first, let’s look at how you can become an insider and start accessing the investment opportunities of the rich. It’s time to get down to business.

If you aren’t yet rich, become an inside investor; starting a business is an achievable route to wealth.

Many people think, “I could never start my own business.” But just 120 years ago, 85 percent of Americans were independent farmers or small shopkeepers. In other words, the vast majority of Americans were businesspeople – and you can be one, too.

Anyone can start a business and become rich. If you want to become an accredited or qualified investor, you already need to be wealthy. But starting a business only requires a bit of creativity.

Look at how Jeff did it. As a child, he created his first business from nothing. He saw that a local store was discarding old comic books and persuaded them to let him take the discards. He then opened a profitable comic library, charging school friends a 10-cent membership fee. From nothing but a good idea, he built an asset.

One reason many people hold back is time and money. You’ve got to pay the bills, so you don’t want to give up your job, right? How the heck are you going to find the time to start a business?

But it’s entirely possible to start a business part-time, and some of the world’s finest business leaders did just that.

Michael Dell started Dell Computers by working part-time in his university dorm room, and eventually got so rich that he decided to drop out. Jeff Bezos started Amazon part-time, working out of a garage, and today his company is worth over $500 billion. Imagine if he hadn’t had the courage to start things up in his spare time.

Once you have a business, you have options. You can reinvest the cash it generates into other assets; you can grow the business and sell it; or you can take it public. All three can be routes to riches you’ll never experience as an employee.

All of us have the potential to start a business, but maybe we don’t know how. Let’s take a look at the key principles for making a business work.

Master mission, leadership and team and you can build a great business.

Did you know that Bill Gates didn’t invent the software that made him the world’s richest man? He merely bought it from a group of programmers. He built a great business, not a great product – and that was the key to his success.c Building a business is a matter of mastering three things.

First, a business needs a spiritual mission to guide it. Henry Ford embodied this. His mission wasn’t to make money, though that’s exactly what he did, and in vast quantities. Ford’s mission was to bring the car to the masses and “democratize the automobile.” He pursued this mission relentlessly and the riches followed.

Finding a guiding spiritual mission, one that aligns with your financial goals, will help keep you on the right track.

Second, every leader needs a team. Maybe you’re an accountant, an insurer or a lawyer. But you are unlikely to be all three, and all are important if you want a successful business. A common factor among rich business leaders is the knowledge that money spent on their team is an investment – one that will almost certainly make them richer.

Third, every team needs a leader. Anyone who served in the military, knows that troops won’t follow a poor leader. Leadership is a skill unto itself. It’s not simply about being the best; rather, it’s about bringing out the best in other people.

How can you acquire leadership skills? One great way is to volunteer. In many groups, no one wants the responsibility of leading. So, whether at work, at a religious institution or in your community, speak up and volunteer to lead – it’s a great way to get feedback and learn where you can improve.

Every successful entrepreneur can communicate and sell.

Raising capital, advertising, negotiating, motivating your team and making sales – what do all these aspects of business life have in common?

All are crucial for success, and all require top-notch communication skills. So how can you become a better communicator?

Well, investing time in a sales-training program is a proven approach. Good places to look are network-marketing organizations, as they often have great programs. Joining and sticking with one for at least five years can work wonders. Shy people, scared of failure, come out the other end with the two key skills of a salesperson: the ability to communicate the value of a product with ease, and fearlessness in the face of rejection.

Master these two qualities and you will likely be a powerful communicator. This trait will shine through, not just when you’re selling your product or service, but when you have to deal with an investor, negotiate better terms or rouse your team.

If you’re serious about being a top communicator, don’t just think about your words; your physical appearance is just as, if not more, important.

Studies of public speakers show that 55 percent of their impact comes from body language, 35 percent from how they speak and just 10 percent from their words.

If you think about the business leaders you know, they probably all look the part, right? And this can go a long way indeed.

A banker once said that his bank had just brought in a new president because of his appearance. The new appointee simply looked and spoke like the president of a bank should. The board would run the bank, but the president’s outward appearance would generate new customers.

Learning to communicate and look the part will pay off in lots of ways. Just like improving your financial literacy, it’s an investment worth making.

Once you’ve mastered business, you can become a sophisticated investor.

So you’ve started a business, and it’s going well. Now it’s time to use the income and the experience you’ve accumulated and take things to the next level. It’s time to become a sophisticated investor.

As a sophisticated investor, you’ll take more control over management, corporate structure, investment decision making and taxes. The result? Maximized returns.

Let’s look at a restaurant owned by Bill and Jane, two hard-working Americans. They operate as a sole proprietorship, which means that they have one income source. They pay normal, personal income tax and they are liable if anything goes wrong – like a sick customer filing a lawsuit. All their eggs are in one basket.

No disrespect to Bill and Jane, but the sophisticated investor knows better. He would have two corporations: Bill would own the restaurant itself and Jane would own the building it’s in. This way, risk is spread.

If a customer falls sick and sues the restaurant, the real estate is legally separate and protected. Meanwhile, under this corporate structure, expenses like health insurance and legal fees are allocated as business expenses and paid pre-tax. Tax itself is paid at lower, corporate rates – less risk, less tax, more financial return.

Whatever you want to invest in, as a sophisticated investor, you know how to make your money work for you.

An average person’s plan for retirement might consist of squirreling away $15,000 a year in a 401k plan and hoping for an 8-percent return.

The sophisticated investor is more likely to invest in real estate, some stocks and shares and a business venture. With the experience brought by building a business, and by investing in his financial literacy and education, he can make the investment decisions of the rich: spotting the best opportunities, understanding what’s really risky and what isn’t.

The average approach sees you work for your money. The second approach sees your money work for you. Don’t be average.

If you want to be rich, you must think and act like a rich investor does. That means focusing on building a business and investing in assets, not focusing on employment and savings. In doing so, you can build and control an investment portfolio that generates income and grows your wealth.

Action plan: Decide whether you want to be secure, comfortable or rich.

Take some time to truly reflect on what your priority is: to be secure, to be comfortable or to be rich. One is not better than the other, but they represent very different choices and outcomes. Talk to your partner or family, and sketch out pros and cons. Being certain in your decision to prioritize becoming rich will give you the mind-set you need. You’ll find yourself shifting from saying “I can’t afford that” to “How can I afford that?”

[aaronsniderus]

Should I Pay Off Student Loans or Invest My Money?

We’re often taught that the natural financial order is pay off debt, then invest. First you should pay off student loans, and invest your extra funds only after you’ve retired that college debt.

But is that really the best way to do things? Should you wait until you’re debt free before you start investing? Or is it possible for you to invest when you have student loan debt?

Should you pay off student loans or invest?

As with all things personal finance, there is no one one-size-fits-all answer. Look at your own situation and decide which course of action is right for you. Specifically, you’ll want to consider some key factors, such as tax deductions, forgiveness programs and expected investment returns.

Here, then, are a few things to keep in mind while you debate, “should I pay off my student loans or invest?”

Compound interest is on your side

We tend to think of interest as a bad thing. That’s because most of us start paying it as soon as we hit adulthood.

For example, when you graduate with student loans or open your first credit card, a portion of your payment usually goes towards interest each month. This can ultimately reduce your ability to pay off your debt quickly and potentially force you to keep your loan longer.

On the other hand, interest can be a good thing when you’re earning it.

That’s what investing is all about — putting your money to work on your behalf. Over time, that interest adds up to a lot more than you might think.

Your first consideration is whether or not you can get a better return through investing than you can if you pay down your student loan debt.

Depending on the year you took out the loans, and the type of loan you have, you might have an interest rate approximately between 4% and 8%. When you pay off debt, that’s like seeing a guaranteed return. So, if your average student loan interest rate is right around 5%, paying off your loans early is like getting a 5% return.

But what if you could get a return of 7% or 8%? When you invest for the long haul, there’s a real possibility that your returns will make up for your student loan interest payments — and beat inflation to boot.

Tax deductions for student loan interest

Another consideration is that investing — and as a result, keeping you student loans around a little longer — might come with an income tax benefit, if you’re able to take a deduction on your college debt.

You may be able to reduce your taxable income by up to $2,500 depending on your eligibility. Added up over time, that can help make your interest less expensive. When it comes to sheer numbers, the decision to pay off student loans or invest can be made by estimating your after-tax interest rate.

It’s possible to estimate your after-tax interest rate with this formula: student loan interest rate x [1 – marginal tax rate].

Let’s say your average student loan interest rate is 5%. You file as single and make $50,000 a year, putting you the 22% tax bracket for 2019. Plug the numbers into the formula to get 5% x [1 -22%] = 3.9%. So, basically, the interest rate you’re paying on your student loans comes out to that 3.9%.

So, if you can achieve an annualized return of 7% or 8% on your investment — especially if you can do so using a tax-advantaged retirement account — it would more than make up for the 3.9% you pay in interest on your student loans.

In this case, then, it might be wiser just to pay the minimum on that student debt and use the rest for investing (if you feel confident you can earn that level of return).

Student loan forgiveness programs

Don’t forget that you might also have access to student loan forgiveness programs. What’s more, public service might even entitle you to student loan forgiveness without the worry of tax consequences.

If you plan to take advantage of such a program, making extra payments just to pay off your student loans faster might not make sense. After all, you could just as well put that money to work for you through investing, especially if you can get a retirement match from your employer.

When you invest, you get a jumpstart on your retirement savings, even if you have student loan debt. And if the numbers add up and you’re going to be eligible for student loan forgiveness, you can position your finances for long-term success.

However, it’s important to pay attention to the forgiveness program you are considering. In some cases, it might not be worth it. For example, you could end up paying more interest, have a portion of your forgiveness subject to taxes or experience other consequences that could cost you in the long run.

What are your priorities?

Of course, not everything is about the numbers — you’ll need to consider other priorities as you try to decide whether it’s better to pay off student loans or invest. Some of your potential goals and needs might include:

Saving up for emergencies: Some personal finance experts, like Dave Ramsey, recommend that you start by saving $1,000 in an emergency fund before you do anything else. You can bulk up the emergency fund later while working on other goals. Paying off other high-interest debt: Neither investing nor paying extra on your student loans will be as effective if you’re paying 17.99% interest on credit cards. Saving for retirement: Saving for retirement is one way to invest your money. If your employer offers matching contributions, taking advantage of free money to help you build your nest egg can make a lot of sense. Wedding: You might want to get married, and that can get expensive. Buying a house: Saving up for a down payment is another priority that can take precedence in some cases. Having children: You might be surprised at how costly it can be to have children, and that’s a priority to consider too.

Your priorities might be different from someone else’s. Consider creating a financial roadmap to help you take care of your priorities. Map out your goals and the timelines you’ve set for reaching them. It’s possible to work toward more than one goal at a time, so you can put more of your available resources toward the items most important to you now while still investing for the future.

How to invest when you have student loan debt

The good news is that there are great tools to help you start investing, even while dealing with student loan debt. Some tips to keep in mind include:

Keep paying your minimums. First of all, you want to make sure you don’t end up in default — you should definitely keep paying the minimum amounts on your student loans. Consider consolidation or refinance. Chances are your student loans have several different payments and interest rates. To get them all under one roof, you can consolidate them using a federal program or — especially if you have private loans or loans with high interest rates — you can refinance them. In many cases, consolidation leads to a lower monthly payment (freeing up more money to invest each month, if you go that route). Student loan refinancing does too, and it can also potentially reduce your interest rate — use our refinancing calculator below to see how much you might save. Student Loan Refinancing CalculatorStep 1: Current loan infoStudent loan balanceAverage interest rateTermStep 2: New loan infoNew interest rateNew loan term (years)InterestMonthlyRateYears

OriginalNewSavingsInterest———Monthly———Rate———Years———

Refinancing $35,000 in student loans at a rate of 4.99% with a 10-year term would save — in interest paid and reduce your monthly payments by —.6 Best Banks To Refinance Your Student Loans10 Questions To Ask Before RefinancingTop Lenders To Refinance Your Parent PLUS Loan

Student loan refinancing rates as low as % APR. Check your rate in 2 minutes.

TotalMonthlyCurrentNew$0 Figure out what you can invest. Decide how much you can invest each month while still making your student loan payments. You might be surprised to discover that you can start investing with a small amount of money. In fact, some apps allow you to start investing with as little as $5. As your finances improve over time, you can increase the amount you invest. Make use of tax-advantaged retirement accounts. You can get the most out of your money by using tax-advantaged accounts. Start by investing in your company’s 401(k) if it has one. And if there is a match, try to do what you can to maximize it. You can also open an IRA or another account to help you invest more efficiently. Repaying student loans vs. investing: the bottom line

There’s a lot to be said about investing, even when you have student loans. However, it’s important to remember that you run the risk of loss with investments, and your returns might not be enough to overcome your student loan interest, especially if you have high-interest loans.

Plus, it’s not always about the hard numbers: If you’re the type of person who can’t sleep at night because of debt hanging over your head, the decision to pay off student loans or invest is more about your peace of mind.

Figure out the best plan for you, based on your priorities, your level of comfort with student loan debt and whether your returns are likely to outweigh the interest you pay.

If you decide to pay off student loans before you invest, you could start your investments once the loans are paid off by putting all the money you had been using for repayment each month into a retirement account. This will help you catch up later on.

Want to get started investing? Here are the top investing options for 2019!

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Our team at Student Loan Hero works hard to find and recommend products and services that we believe are of high quality. We sometimes earn a sales commission or advertising fee when recommending various products and services to you. Similar to when you are being sold any product or service, be sure to read the fine print to help you understand what you are buying. Be sure to consult with a licensed professional if you have any concerns. Student Loan Hero is not a lender or investment advisor. We are not involved in the loan approval or investment process, nor do we make credit or investment related decisions. The rates and terms listed on our website are estimates and are subject to change at any time.

The post Should I Pay Off Student Loans or Invest My Money? appeared first on Student Loan Hero.

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How to Save for Your Kids’ College Years Without Bankrupting Yourself

Do you know what it costs to go to college these days? If not, you should probably sit down for this.

A two-year degree costs more than $3,600 per year on average, according to a College Board analysis of published tuition prices for the 2018-19 school year.

A four-year degree from a public school? You’re looking at over $10,000 per year.

And — take a breath — a private-school degree? $35,830. Every year. For four years.

And that’s just the average.

If you’re thinking ahead about the cost of sending your child or grandchild to college, I realize I may have just sent you running for a paper bag to gasp into.

Whether it’s community college, a state school or the Ivy League, higher education is costly. Americans have more than $1.5 trillion in student loan debt to prove it.

And all that debt has left most parents to wonder: Where are tuition prices going to go from here? While data shows college prices aren’t rising as quickly as in previous years, no one can be sure.

But if you use these strategies to prepare for their college years, you can figure out the best way to support your favorite student financially.

Determine What You Can Afford to Contribute and When

You’ve probably dreamed of the child in your life leaving college with a quality degree from a great university and zero debt. It might even be why you’re reading this right now.

But it’s important to not let that dream lead you astray.

Instead of asking yourself what you should or need to contribute, ask yourself what you can contribute.

We all know the earlier you begin to save, the better off you’ll be.

But if you’re behind where you’d like to be, you should be careful of how aggressively you try to make up ground.

Peter Magnuson, an independent financial advisor in Sarasota, Florida, says it’s important to note that you’ll spend a lot more years in retirement than your child will spend in college. “Would you fund this over funding your retirement account in a healthy and appropriate way?”

Magnuson has seen many parents take on heavy financial burdens for their children. He’s seen clients, determined to cover all costs for multiple children, still working with little savings in their 70s, despite considerable earnings.

Try not to think about saving for your child’s college education in a silo. Instead, think of it alongside your other financial goals.

Tackle high-interest credit card debt before thinking about your children’s futures. Then prioritize your retirement savings. Remember that your kids can take out loans and get scholarships to help with school costs, but you can’t take out loans or get scholarships when you’re ready to retire.

If you’re confident the rest of your budget is healthy, you can start adding college savings to the mix. But you don’t have to plan to cover every dollar of your child’s education.

Even if you start when your child is 10 years old and put away $100 per month, you could save at least $9,600 to contribute toward their education by the time they go to college.

Play with a college savings calculator to determine what’s reasonable for your family, and remember that you can always adjust how much you choose to save over time.  

5 Common Ways to Save for College

Once you’ve determined how much you can afford to contribute, you’ll need to know where to put that money. The ideal place for you will depend on whether you’d prefer to play things safely or assume higher risk for the chance of higher returns.

Here are some pros and cons to the most common options.

Traditional Banking

If you are over 18 in the U.S. and do not have checking or savings account already, you are in a serious minority.

Pro: Your savings in these accounts are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (or the National Credit Union Insurance Fund, if your account is through a credit union) up to $250,000. This means that your savings are protected from the volatility of the stock market.

And you can usually take advantage of promotional offers that will earn you cash back or bonus points just for opening a new account.

According to the FDIC, while the average interest rate on savings accounts at U.S. banks they insure is 0.09%, high-yield savings accounts have gained popularity in recent years.   

These accounts can get you 2% interest (or more). If you’re interested, check out this list of high-yield savings accounts curated by our trusted partner, Fiona.

You also have the option of investing in certificates of deposit, or CDs. With these certificates, you put down a deposit at a commercial bank, and the bank pays you interest over a fixed period time, after which you receive your full deposit back.

The interest you receive from CDs is usually no more than 2%.

Con: Even 2% is very far from most investment targets. To give you some perspective, the S&P 500 — a stock market index that tracks the stock value of 500 companies designed to represent the market as a whole — has returned at least 10% in five of the last seven years.

So while your money would have been safe from the 4% loss the index saw in 2018, you also would have missed the almost 22% return of 2017.

For short-term savings goals, it might be best to avoid the possibility of a market downturn. But if you’re investing for the long-term, the market will provide much more interest.

529 Plan

If you want your interest to go further, one option you have is the 529 savings plan. Offered in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., these plans are available for anyone to open and contribute to.

The accounts are exempt from federal income tax as long as you use the withdrawn cash for tuition or room and board.

Pro: When you open a 529 savings account, your money gets invested in a portfolio of your choice, same as how you’d manage a 401(k). While your options will vary based on the institution, you will commonly have access to mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and target-date portfolios.

What this means is that your returns will more closely mirror the market.

And in most states, you’ll receive an income tax deduction or credit for contributions you make to the 529 plan.

Con: The downside of a 529 savings plan is that it can only be used for college expenses. If your child ends up not attending a postsecondary institution, you can name someone else as a beneficiary — or even use the balance for your own education.

But if you take the cash out for any reason other than postsecondary education, you’ll pay federal taxes on the amount withdrawn plus a 10% federal tax penalty.

529 Prepaid Tuition Plan

A second kind of 529 plan allows parents and grandparents to lock in today’s tuition rates at participating universities in your home state.

Pro: In most cases, the state will guarantee that the funds you contribute keep up with tuition costs, which means your investment is insured in the event the fund underperforms.

Magnuson encourages his clients to consider this option. “If you can afford to make that payment, your child at least has the ability to get a four-year degree,” he said.

Con: Typically, while you will not lose everything in the fund if your child chooses to go to an out-of-state institution, you will not get the full balance. You also must be a resident of the state with which you have the plan.

So if your child or grandchild knows they want to go to an out-of-state school, this will likely not be a good plan for you.

UGMA and UTMA Accounts

These accounts were developed in the mid 1950s and revised a decade later. Both were subsequently named after the legislation that established them. The Uniform Gift to Minors Act and Uniform Transfer to Minor Act both concerned the transfer of securities.

The result of their passage was the creation of custodial accounts that allow a gift giver to invest and manage funds until a minor reaches a certain age, at which point control of the funds are transferred.

Pro: There are no restrictions on what the child can use the money for. So if you simply want to provide a nest egg to help them start their adult life — whatever that may look like for them — this freedom can be attractive.

And since the money will be under the child’s name, a percentage of the earnings will typically go untaxed.

Con: For UGMA accounts, control of the account is given to the child at 18. For this reason, the accounts tend to draw criticism. Magnuson says they are the only saving option that he would encourage investors to reconsider.

That’s because, in the event of poor life decisions, large sums of money under the control of an 18 year old can be a dangerous thing. And as a parent (or grandparent), you will not be able to intervene.

“All you can do is throw a play in from the sideline and hope that someone runs it,” Magnuson said.

UTMA accounts usually transfer at the age of 25. Because of this, some find them to be a preferable option if they are wanting to go the custodial route.

Ultimately, you’ll have to assess your own level of comfort if you’re considering this option.

General Investing

You’ll notice that the downsides of the investment options up to this point have largely had to do with restrictions that these accounts place on distributions.

These restrictions can be avoided if you choose a more traditional investment vehicle, such as an index fund or exchange-traded fund.

Pro: With these investment vehicles, you’ll receive the same tax-deferred benefits as you would with a 529 plan.

Magnuson says that families of considerable means can receive some special benefits from choosing a 529 plan, but for most of us, it can tend to overcomplicate things.

“Most of the time what my advice would be for what I would consider the rank-and-file people is just focus your life on saving money,” Magnuson said. “And as you accumulate wealth, yes, you realize [that college will be] a potential issue coming up down the road, but you’ll address it when the time comes.”

Magnuson says that if you retrain your thinking this way, you won’t have to worry about unqualified distribution penalties. You’ll have complete control over your funds in the event that plans change and your child’s college situation looks different from what you had been expecting.

Con: When you open such accounts, your money manager will typically charge a fee of around 1% of your returns.

Understanding How College Savings Can Affect Financial Aid

Many worry — when decided on an investment vehicle — about the potential impact their savings might have on their child’s financial aid eligibility.

Financial aid eligibility is calculated by subtracting what’s called the expected family contribution, or EFC, from the cost to attend the institution. Your EFC is determined by a formula that takes your family’s income and assets into account — including any investments held by either parent or the child.

Some grandparents will open 529 accounts in their own name as a way around this. But there are also consequences to that method: Any withdrawals given to the child from the grandparent’s 529 plan must be counted the following year as income for the student.

This will reduce the child’s financial aid eligibility by much more than a 529 plan in their family’s name. For this reason, it’s typically best to have a 529 plan in the name of the child or parent.

But even if you have your investment vehicle decided, you shouldn’t wait until the last minute to look into financial aid options.

Tips for Saving on College Tuition

It’s important to fill out the FAFSA — the Free Application for Federal Student Aid — even if you think you earn too much to be eligible.

The FAFSA is a gateway to consideration for grants, loans, need-based scholarships and even work-study jobs. It’s used at two-year and four-year institutions, and even some vocational schools.

Your estimated family contribution determined by the FAFSA may seem high, but it’s not an indicator for how much you’ll actually pay once aid has been granted.

As your child fills out college applications during their senior year of high school, encourage them to apply for scholarships, too. You don’t need straight A’s to be eligible for many awards, and there’s something for students in every course of study.  

Talk With Your Child About How They Can Help

A 2017 survey of nearly 2,000 parents by Fidelity Investments found that 72% of parents were saving for their children’s college educations. Parents planned to cover 51% of college costs from family savings.

That’s generous! But it’s not exactly optimistic. Still, 85% of parents expect their kids to graduate with student debt.

Start talking about college plans when your child enters high school. Ask them about their ideas, dreams and goals — and you should expect them to fluctuate during their teen years. Their career goals in ninth grade could be vastly different from their plans as they prepare to graduate high school.

During these conversations, be open about your family’s ability to pay for college.

Being honest about your financial commitment can help your child manage their expectations about college costs and what your family can afford to contribute.

Encourage your child to find part-time work to help save. Those birthday and Christmas checks, the tax refund check they’ll get from that job — every bit can get your family closer to your goal.

And if they need a little help, we might know a few ways the child in your life can make some extra money.

This article contains general information and explains options you may have, but it is not intended to be investment advice or a personal recommendation. We can’t personalize articles for our readers, so your situation may vary from the one discussed here. Please seek a licensed professional for tax advice, legal advice, financial planning advice or investment advice.

Lisa Rowan (@lisatella) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder.

Editor Jake Bateman contributed to this post.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

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How to Save for Your Kids’ College Years Without Bankrupting Yourself published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

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MARKETPLACES ARE SO HARD THAT WORKING ON IT

It was this, more than dentists or salesmen or landscapers? A more serious problem is the discrepancy between government receipts as a percentage of the company between them since the option pool be enlarged by an additional hundred shares. Then would-be app stores will be too busy to feel tired. Some startups do. But in a large organization is compelled by its structure to be one of the 10 worst spammers. But the margins are greater on products. I'm going to try something weird and artistic. Hacking predates computers.

Strange as this sounds, they seem both more worried and happier at the same time. But most startups that are likely to be something that flows from parents.1 And that's a lot of money.2 If you ultimately want to do something else—even something mindless. And yet there may be some things it's a net win to blow off everything you were supposed to use their office staff, lawyers, accountants, and so on. If it worked so well, and more tentative.3 But we'll figure out some hack that will at least force them to lie outright if they want to or not.

The application described here is one that clearly dominates in Mountain View to a lot of work creating course lists for each school, doing that made students feel the site was about bands. A large percentage fail, about a quarter in the first stage and handed the thing over to marketers.4 But I don't think there's any limit on the number of points increases, wisdom and intelligence are the average and peaks of the same sex, and partly because we fund so many that we have to have a very abstract language. But it seemed worth spoiling the atmosphere if I could give an example of this recipe in action. But a programming language is for thinking of programs, not for expressing programs you've already thought of. Founders seem to have fully grasped what I earlier called the central fact of philosophy: that words break if you push them too far.5 So if you want to avoid, not relative poverty. 10. Notes Even the desire to do, and in practice these tend not to be the best writer among Silicon Valley CEOs. Don't Worry about Competitors When you think you've got a toehold in making something people want? In most startups, ours began with a core of fanatically devoted users.6

And most biographies only exaggerate this illusion, partly due to the worshipful attitude biographers inevitably sink into, and partly because after a while I learned the trick of speaking fast. Probably more dangerous than a physical one. Should you add x feature?7 The Mythical Man-Month, and everything I've seen has tended to confirm what he said.8 Julian knew a lot about why startups are most productive at the very heart of hacking. The mistake is to be undisciplined.9 Especially if you have code for noticing errors built into your application. Some government agencies run venture funding groups, which make investments rather than giving grants.

You should lean more toward firing people if the source of the discrepancy is their sketchiness or your wishful thinking, the prospect of an actual job was on the line. Some may have been the first duty of the scholar.10 All startups are mostly schleps. One argument says that this would turn out to be an instance of a more general rule: don't learn things from teachers who are bad at deciding what to do with any external trend. The reason only 287 have valuations is that the old chestnut all languages are equivalent is that it's their profession to. Closely related to poverty is lack of social mobility. The original edition contained a few unPC ideas, but it's clearly now the established practice.

Let's think about what I called a huge, unexploited opportunity in startup investing. So I bet it would help to be rapacious is when growth depends on that. According to the National Association of Business Incubators, there are certainly a lot of money. This way of convincing investors is to seem formidable, and since you have to spend all your time working. I'm convinced, is just the effect of rapid development, because you have to replace the actual server in order to hack Unix, and so on. It's not the physical infrastructure of Silicon Valley. Have a Boss March 2008, rev May 2013 This essay grew out of things their founders built because there seemed a gap in the world. Trevor Blackwell, who probably knows more about this project, I can now look at a list of articles that are interesting. Why is it counterintuitive for founders? And that's not the sense of being watched in real time.11 When the ball comes near them their instinct is to avoid situations where inexperience may make you look foolish. The reason the US News list is meaningful is precisely because they can't afford to hire a lot of money—so does IBM, for that matter realized how much better it feels to be working on; there's usually a reason.

That's a known danger sign, like drinking alone. I think everyone knows now that good hackers are much better than enterprise software. Now they have none that stand out.12 So strangely enough the optimal thing to do. The stick-to-have.13 A lot of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications. But it was also because our standards were higher. Why should any of your code legally belongs to anyone else, it will be easy to ignore; a few are still in school, though that counted for something, you should.

Notes

Without visual cues e. Delivered as if having good intentions were enough to become addictive. When I say in principle is that the probabilities of features i.

Download programs to encourage more startups to be spread out geographically. For a long thread are rarely seen, when we created pets. His critical invention was a bimodal economy consisting, in which his chief resident, Gary, talks about programmers, but I know of a long time by sufficiently large numbers of people are magnified by the government.

Alfred Lin points out that trying to meet people; I was just having lunch. Angels and super-angels will snap up stars that VCs may begin to conserve board seats by switching to what you build for them. After the war, federal tax receipts have stayed close to 18% of GDP were about the qualities of these groups, you produce in copious quantities.

I'd say the rate of improvement is more important than the type who would in 1950 have been fooled by grammar. The two 10 minuteses have 3 weeks between them. My guess is a huge, overcomplicated agreements, and one or two, because they've learned more, the whole. CEOs in 2002 was 35,560.

Ditto for case: I should add that none of them. Looking at the last batch before a fall. Eric Raymond says the best high school as a rule of thumb, the Nasdaq index was.

Maybe what you write has a title.

7 reports that in practice is that the elegance of proofs is quantifiable, in the sense that there may be enough, a growth graph is mostly evidence that the VCs I encountered when we created pets.

More precisely, the initial plan and what not to make it self-imposed. The nationalistic idea is the number of discrepancies currently blamed on various forbidden isms. And even more closely to the writing teachers were transformed in situ into English professors.

Now we don't have to disclose the threat to potential investors are also exempt.

According to the option of deferring to a VC. What you learn about programming in Lisp, though you tend to be secretive, because by definition if the founders don't have to give him 95% of the next round, you could beat the death-penalty in the most successful founders is that you were able to fool investors with such a valuable technique that any idea relating to the traditional peasant's diet: they hoped they were buying a phenomenon, or your job will consist of bad customs as well they do for a startup with debt is little different from money raised as convertible debt is usually slow growth or excessive spending rather than risk their community's disapproval. It's conceivable that a startup at a large company? At the time they're fifteen the kids are convinced the whole fund.

It would probably a mistake to believe this number could be made. Whereas when you're starting a startup. 99,—. On Bullshit, Princeton University Press, 2005.

Convertible debt, so I called to check and in b the valuation at the company's PR people worked hard to say yet how much would you have to watch out for a sufficiently long time. Especially if they don't want to help the company down. If I were doing more than serving as examples of how to argue: they had to. This doesn't mean easy, of course the source files of all tend to make it sound.

But if idea clashes got bad enough, the growth is valuable, because the broader your holdings, the best intentions. That will in many cases be an open source software. If your income tax rates don't tell their parents what happened that night they were. My guess is the only cause of poverty are only locally accurate, and unleashed a swarm of cheap component suppliers on Apple hardware.

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From stripping to sex cam work, cash-strapped girls admit turning to seedy jobs to fund their university degrees

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From stripping to sex cam work, cash-strapped girls admit turning to seedy jobs to fund their university degrees

MANY students off to university this week will be searching for part-time work to help pay their way through their degree.

But with graduates racking up average debts of £50,000, minimum-wage jobs often won’t cut it.

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Cash-strapped university students are turning to lucrative ways to earn a living to soaring living costs

So they are turning to other ways to earn, which are potentially more lucrative but also controversial.

The Student Money Survey found that five per cent of students “use their bodies” to make money, while 11 per cent admit to doing so in financial emergencies. Such work includes webcamming, escorting, stripping and even prostitution, with some entering into “casual sex-for-rent” arrangements.

Last week a student in Kent revealed how she was offered rent-free accommodation in exchange for sex acts on free-ad website Craigslist. Meanwhile, 100,000 students are active on sugar-daddy site Seeking Arrangement.

University of Kent English student Isabel Deibe, 20, investigates the seedy side of student living’s soaring costs.

University of Kent student Isabel Deibe looked into the seedy jobs students are taking to earn some extra cash

It came as no surprise when I read a student looking for digs in Kent had been propositioned on Craigslist for sex.

Claisse Opulencia, from Canterbury Christ Church University, revealed how one landlord wanted her to perform a sex act and another wanted her to “wear her underwear around the house” and “shower with the door open”.

A simple scroll on Craigslist brings up hundreds of similar adverts. One I found was titled “Come spoon with me” and wanted a woman to share a “king-size bed”. Another advertised a “sex-for-rent deal”.

The student sex trade is rife. Going into my third year, I have heard of several girls paying their way by escorting or webcamming.

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Many female university students are using sugar daddies to pay for their degrees and cover expensive living costs (stock picture)

A survey by student money website Save The Student found the average student rent was £131 a week, leaving just £8 a week from a typical maintenance loan for food, travel and toiletries.

Jack Butler, from Save The Student, told me: “Every year, our survey reveals students are involved in sex work, either by choice or because they have run out of options.”

While I get by with help from parents and a part-time job, some of my peers have had to explore darker alternatives.

The University of Kent is ranked as having the third-highest number of students on sugar-daddy site Seeking Arrangement.

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Third-year English & American Literature student Eleanor, 20, told me she had used similar websites.

She said: “A couple of times it genuinely saved my life. My part-time retail job was not paying enough to cover rent and my mum couldn’t help.

“It felt awkward asking sugar daddies for money at first but you have to be bold. It’s a business. You can’t go in there with real emotions.”

Before university, the aspiring writer had just ended a relationship.

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Research from The Student Money Survey found that a shocking five per cent of students ‘use their bodies’ to make extra cash while studying (stock picture)

“I rebounded,” she told me. “I thought, ‘Sex is just sex’. I would bring someone home every time I went on a night out, so I thought I might as well make some money out of it.”

At first, Eleanor was earning £500 an hour from dates. But she admits she occasionally got between the sheets with clients to keep them interested.

She said: “I did sleep with quite a few of them. But I could never sleep with them if they were older than 35 because I couldn’t pretend to be attracted to someone so much older.”

Meanwhile, third-year biomedical science student Lauren, 20, has paid for her social life by webcamming.

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Female university students are webcamming, escorting, stripping and entering sex for rent agreements (stock picture)

She revealed: “I did picture sessions over a couple of hours every night. I’d send naked pictures and get £1 per picture.

“Often I’d make £50 a night. And I never showed my whole face. If I had, my past could have haunted me later in life.”

University of Birmingham graduate Simone*, 23, funded her art degree through stripping. At first, the money went on food and rent. But soon it was funding a luxury lifestyle.

She said: “Before sex work, I struggled. I couldn’t afford to eat. Sometimes my friends would give me a tenner but how many times can you allow people to help you? You feel like a scrounger.”

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Second-year student Abbie used a long-term sugar daddy to pay her rent (stock picture)

Initially, Simone earned £80 an hour in a burlesque club. She moved on to stripping when she realised she could treble her wages.

She said: “Burlesque covered my rent and paid for the books and equipment I needed. I was nervous about stripping at first. With burlesque you go down to undies but with stripping you’re completely exposed.

“But I could make around £300 a night. Clients would keep coming back to me night after night during the Christmas period, when I made £1,000 to £3,000 every night.

“I liked the lifestyle. I could buy a Louis Vuitton bag one day and a Chanel bag the next. Then I’d make my money back at work on my next shift.”

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While most students scrimp for the train fare back to their parents’ home, Simone went on six exotic holidays in a single year, including to Miami, Jamaica and Ibiza.

At the University of Exeter, second-year student Abbie*, 21, has used a long-term sugar daddy to pay her rent in exchange for sex.

She told me: “The summer before I started uni, I went to Barcelona with my friends. I met a 50-year-old man in a bar and he asked me on a date.

“I’d always been attracted to older men but I’d never thought about dating one. He introduced me to the Seeking Arrangement website and asked me if I would like to be his ‘sugar baby’ back in England.

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One biomedical student admitted to sending raunchy snaps for £1 each and would make £50 a night (stock picture)

“I’d never considered having a sugar daddy, as I don’t desperately need the extra cash. I get a maintenance loan and my parents pay the difference towards my rent.

“They also give me £100 pocket money a week. But this meant I could keep all the money my parents gave me, as my first sugar daddy paid my rent and more.

“He gave me an allowance of £1,500 to £2,000 every month on a set payday.”

In return, Abbie would see this man two or three times a month.

The University of Kent is ranked as having the third-highest number of students on sugar-daddy site Seeking Arrangement

She revealed: “We would go to dinner or for drinks or sometimes just stay at his place. There would be intimacy.”

While Abbie could get by without sex work, she insists she ENJOYS it.

She said: “It’s not all about the money for me. I don’t like guys my own age and I couldn’t be in a conventional relationship with someone so old. Also, it funds a luxury lifestyle most students can’t keep up with.”

Lauren, Simone and Eleanor are aware of the industry’s darker side, however.

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Students are increasingly turning to seedy jobs such as stripping as minimum-wage jobs do not pay enough

Simone, who is now engaged and has swapped stripping for waitressing, said: “It was worth doing because I couldn’t have finished uni and I wouldn’t have travelled as much as I have.

“But I couldn’t have carried on. The constant drinking drove me crazy. You get hammered because you don’t want to be there. I don’t regret it but you can easily get addicted.” Lauren too has stopped her webcamming now she is in a committed relationship. She told me: “I wouldn’t recommend it, especially if you are desperate for money.

“I think you have to have the right frame of     mind and be able to detach yourself from the work.”

Eleanor added: “I don’t do it any more because I am in a relationship. I would never recommend it to anyone.

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“It’s too taxing on your own mentality. Just get a job. It’s so easy that you can totally get addicted. I was very reckless.”

Even Abbie, who plans to continue her arrangement with her current sugar daddy, said: “Some of the men are married and that is too much for me. And a lot of them are just plain horrible.

“They want to control your whole life. Don’t do it if you are vulnerable. I definitely think you can get addicted. I know I am.

“When it ended with my first sugar daddy, I wanted more. And if my current arrangement ends, I will probably want another one.”

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Jack Butler of Save The Student believes universities do not offer enough support for students experiencing financial problems.a

He said: “They should be able to get the information or support they need. It’s true there’s been an improvement in recent years but sex workers still face an unfair stigma and many fear repercussions from their university over their choice of work.

“This once again raises my concerns about the gap between living costs and the maintenance loan.

“It’s simply not the case that all parents or students can find that much extra cash.”

*Not their real names.

Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/7290997/female-students-seedy-jobs-fund-university/