Help me to Retire

Has America’s financial system just been repeating mistakes from 3 generations ago?

Having slowly broken free of the regulations put in place to stop such a banking crisis again it seems that yes, we are in repeat.

The next few years will be very interesting - check out the full article here.

I’ve found a great article that talks about the decline of the largest income bracket age group in America and its effects on GDP and the stock markets.

The article uses Japan as a historic reference and then goes though the same charts with the current American situation.

A very interesting read that can give you a big picture on where markets are heading in the coming years.

Check it out 

With business sentiment continuing to fall, a standard normal recession is starting to sound good… But it seems many economists are now predicting a much worse Deep Recession.
It seems that American housing prices may fall as much as 20% before leveling out leaving many with negative equity (owing more than their house is worth).

The sub prime crisis has plenty more legs in it yet and we won’t see the worst of it until the 2nd half of the year.

Rising inflation is also damping business and consumer confidence.

Interesting times ahead.

Read more here 

I found a handy little article on the myths of leasing a car.

If you are currently looking at getting your self some new wheels, it may well pay off for you to lease the vehicle rather than buy it. Leasing can be good for you if you are on the road lots and only like to keep your cars for a few years. And of course, if you are running your own business there can be some great tax advantages.

Check out the article and perhaps speak to your local finance person to get all the details on what will work out best for you financially.

I don’t as yet have children, but when that day comes I want to be armed with a life time of financial information to teach them all I know about investing before they get out of teenage hood. I for one wish I knew what I know now when I was a teenager. I think it could have changed my life to the result of being several hundred thousand dollars richer or even much much more.

So at what age do you begin to teach your kids? I think it’s never to young as long as your kids have a basic understanding of money and its value. You can then begin to teach them about the ways money can make money. Perhaps starting with a basic savings account, preferably one with a decent interest rate and no fees such as the ones offered by ING and Bank West. Get them to save at least 10% (preferably more) of every bit of money that comes their way. Make sure they don’t touch it and show them how their money is growing over the following months and years. Get them excited about it.
Once they have a decent amount saved up and they have matured a bit you could then get them into a managed fund or even open a stock market account for them. Teach them about charts and valuing companies. This can be a great learning experience for them, especially if they make some money and lose some money.

From here you can teach them about property investing and using leverage (other peoples money). You can also get them to read books like Rich Dad Poor Dad so they can learn the difference between being an employee, self employed, a business owner and an investor.

There are several books written by Rich Dad to help you in the area of teaching your kids, you can check out the range here.

I think most of all you need to keep learning about money and investing fun, especially when your kids are young, other wise they will just think it’s boring. Good luck.

In these interesting economic times, now more than ever it is important to get all the information you can on a company your choosing to invest your hard earned money in.

There are many places you can do this. There is those reports you get from your broker, there is those online subscriptions you have, there is the news releases from the ASX and other markets and then there is your own research. And what do we use to research the most these days? That’s right, the Internet. So what would you say if I told you I was about to give you a link to a page that has 200 places where you can get info on companies? Not bad hey. Unfortunately they are mostly American, but there is plenty of world wide info there to be had and of course lots of us invest in the US anyway. Good luck.
Here you go

There is plenty of talk at the moment about the US dollar’s decline.

There is now talk of many countries abandoning the greenback.  Others are dumping large amounts and the rest are at least asking to be paid in Euros or Yen.

For some, like the guys at my work its time to hit amazon.com and buy up or make that trip to Disneyland as the Aussie dollar nearly equalises, but others know that there is financial shake up occuring that could upset markets world wide.

Interesting times ahead. Especially when people like Paul Nojin from Invest4Profit.com.au make predictions like the Australian Dollar is heading to $1.14 US.  I personally can’t see him being far wrong. I guess time will tell.

Short the US $ or Long the Rest.

Some more reading on the $US here

Check out Michael Yardney’s latest tele-seminar of his interview with wealth consultant Roger Hamilton.

Well worth a listen for all you budding investors out there.

You can grab the MP3 download of the session here 

How would you like hundred’s of years of investment advice from some of the greatest investors and smartest people ever scaled down to a list of twenty that you can read in a few minutes?  Sounds pretty good to me.

You are about to read some timeless advice from greats such as:

• Benjamin Franklin
• Warren Buffett
• Confucius

To warm you up here is one of the quotes: “The real key to making money in stocks is not to get scared out of them.”
-Peter Lynch
Well I won’t keep you any longer, head on over and read the full article here.

So what should you be doing today?

Well the greatest piece of advise I can give you is SOMETHING. Thats right, at least do something in preparation and start today as time literally means money when it comes to your retirement.  You have the basic things such as add as:

• Add as much extra $ into your Super / 401k plan as you can
• Look into salary sacrifice to top up your super before you pay tax on it
• Make sure you have some life / permanent disability insurance just in case - you have to think of your family! (Most super funds offer this free with their account.)
• Save up an emergency fund - enough to get by for several months

Then we have the more serious things you can do:

• Educate yourself - such things as reading this website - taking an investing course etc
• Get your self some property - or more property - and then some more
• Decide what path you want to take - either pay more off your home - or borrow to the max and buy more properties
• Start a stock portfolio or learn to trade or put some money into a high performing fund
• Invest in a business or franchise - remember work on your business not in it.

And my favourite:

• Stash some cash away that your partner doesn’t know about to get that toy you always wanted! ( I can’t be held responsible for recommending this one)