Is Risk-Taking Good or Bad?

Taking risks has been part of our daily life since the early evolutionary times. Back than without risk there was no survival or reproduction. Risk-taking lead mankind to our sophisticated society we live now. These days behind risk taking besides survival and reproduction there is money, love and power.

Risk-taking is a very positive behavior if it's used properly. Without risk life would be very boring, everything would be predictable. When we talk about risk we always imply that there is a possibility of danger, tension and loss.

Each risk has two sides, an upside and downside. If the downside is much higher than the upside the risk is considered a "stupid" risk. Why would you spend your paycheck on lottery tickets? You could lose everything and win nothing.

Calculated risk or intelligent risk is when the downside or loss is limited and the reward far outweighs the downside. When you apply for a job there is risk, you might be rejected but on the upside you could land in a great carrier. When you try to date someone you could also be rejected but you could also find some who will be with you for the rest of your life. When you start a business there is risk, with unlimited potentials on the upside.

People, businesses, governments take risks all the time. We do things all the time where we are not sure about the outcome. Risk with a limited downside is always welcome but unlimited downside or "gambling" can turn against us. 

A Good Personal Finance Program Gives a Peace of Mind

Without a personal finance program it’s hard to manage your money. Most people have several bank accounts, credit cards, loans, retirements account and investment accounts. Without a financial program it’s impossible to keep track of all of these accounts.

I personally use Quicken Premier 2011. It’s really worth the money. I only buy it every 3 years because it allows me for 3 years to use its online features.

There are a few very useful features I use all the time. I download transactions from my banks and credit card companies every couple of days. This way it’s very easy to monitor how I spend my money. I also know exactly what is charged on my credit cards. I match the downloaded transactions with my saved receipts. If I find anything suspicious I call my bank or credit card company.

Another feature I often use is to manage my bills. It’s very easy to schedule bills. I also schedule my paychecks too. If the paychecks vary week to week it’s possible to enter an average paycheck. I know exactly how much money I have in my accounts today tomorrow, next week, next month or even a few months from now. Now surprises.

As I mentioned I download the transactions every couple of days so when it’s time to reconcile my account at the end of the billing cycle all the transactions are there. Many times it only takes less than a minute to reconcile a bank or credit card account. It’s so easy that it’s actually fun.

I have been using Quicken for over 10 years and I couldn’t live without it. I save a backup of the Quicken file on an external hard drive once a week. Once my hard drive crashed and restoring everything from the backup files was very simple. I never thought about using an online financial software. I like to keep my personal information personal.

Can You Really Make Money Fast on the Stock Market?

I recently started to follow the stock market. It’s amazing how the market fluctuates day after day. A lot of the numbers didn’t make any sense until I read a couple of books visited financial web sites and watched business news on the TV.

Soon I found out that basically there are two types of investors, passive and active. Most of the passive investors let someone else manage their money and don’t really care about the market’s daily, weekly even monthly movements.  Sometimes they don’t even know what exactly they have in their portfolio.

The active investors closely follow the market’s every movement and they frequently buy and sell securities based on the market conditions. Successful active investors know exactly what they have.

So how much money can you make? Passive investors make less money. They usually make money when the market is in an uptrend and they lose money when the market is in the downtrend. A successful passive investor can make 5-10 % a year.

An active investor can also make money when the market is in a downtrend by what is called shorting stocks.  Although shorting stocks is risky, but in a downtrend you can make money faster then in an uptrend. An active investor makes about 10-15% a year.

There are also options which are derivatives of securities such as stocks. The price movement of options is not as simple as it is for the underlying stocks. Options which are basically contracts also expire, so after a certain time they can be worthless. Options are risky but they are highly leveraged. For example a 1% price movement of the underlying can result in a 15-20% price increase in the option’s value. With options it’s possible to make 100% profit in less then a week.

If you want to start to invest it’s best to get familiar with stocks first and a couple of years later move on to options trading. No matter what you trade, you can’t control how much money you are going to make but you can control how much money you lose. 

Good Debt versus Bad Debt

Debt is part of our daily life. Each month we spend a lot of money paying off debt. Not all that is bad and if we want to get out of debt or improve our credit score we should understand what the difference between good and bad debt is.

Good debt is something which generates wealth in the long term and often the interest you pay is tax-deductible. Examples for good debt are mortgage debt, certain home equity loans and student loan. When you take a mortgage out when you purchase a home the value of your home will increase in the long term.  You could sell that home and you could get more money than what you paid for. Student loans are also good debt to since getting a degree will help you to get a higher paying job. Certain home equity loans are good debt too if you use it for home improvement or to pay off higher interest rate bad debt such as credit card debt.

Bad debt on the other hand doesn’t generate wealth and the interest you pay is not tax-deductible. Examples for bad debt are car loan, credit card debt and certain home equity loans. Car loan is bad debt since your car is losing value from the very first day. When you use your credit card to buy cloth, food or things like a computer or big screen TV you accumulate bad credit. If you don’t pay off your credit card in full you end up paying more and more on something which worth less and less. Certain home equity loans can be bad such if you spend the money on a vacation or buy something which will gradually lose its value.

If you want to improve your credit score work on your bad debt first and keep the debt to income ratio for unsecured debt under 15%. Try to resist applying store credit cards when they give you a discount at the first purchase. If you can’t pay off the balance you will end up paying over 20%. With good credit you can get credit cards whit under 10% interest so why get a store credit card. And remember if you can’t afford to buy something your credit card is not going to make you richer.

What You Need to Know for Successful Investing

When you start investing you need to know that investing money on the stock market comes with certain risk. Before you invest you also have to figure out how much money you want to start with.

If you are new to investing it’s not a good idea not to invest all your money without learning about the basics. There are too many people start investing too much money without the knowing basics of investing. It’s better to start to invest with less money perhaps with a couple of hundred dollars while you master the investment terms. It’s also a good idea to keep an emergency fund and never touch it.

As I mentioned investing comes with risk. How much risk are you willing to take? Remember the money you invest is not insured, when you lose it its gone. Stocks are the riskiest investments. Mutual funds are a lot less risky since they are more diversified. Buying bonds are even much safer and you can still earn a lot more money than in a regular savings account. The higher the risk the more money you can make but also the more money you can lose.

You have to learn how much risk you can take also called risk tolerance. Starting with a little money and watching the stock market you will learn to get used to the market fluctuation without panicking.

What is the Difference between Saving and Investing?

When you save money you normally put your money in the bank and in return the bank pays you interest. The longer you keep your money there and the higher the interest rate the faster your money will grow. A savings account is a very safe place to keep your money. There is no risk involved.

With a savings account the problem is that the interest rate is so low, the highest rate I could find today is about 1.50%. With this interest rate your money won’t grow fast.

There are better ways to make your money grow faster. Investing in stocks is one of them. Your average return on investment could be easily around 12%. When you invest in stocks:

• You will own part of the company you invested in, unlike with a savings account ;
• You participate in the growth of the company, with a fast growing company your money can grow much faster than in a savings account;
• With investment there is always risk involved unlike with a savings account. Your money can grow but there is also a chance that you lose some money;

If you learn the basics about investment you will dramatically decrease the risk. For most people investing is not a way to get rich quick but to make your money grow over a long period of time.

How Many Credit Cards Should I Have

The number of credit cards you should have depends on how good are you at managing your credit. The more cards you have the more bills you have to pay and you have to make sure that you pay your bills on time.

It’s definitely good to have more than one credit card. If you have more than one credit card they should be different, MasterCard, VISA, American Express and Discover Card. One of your cards will be accepted no matter where you travel. Another reason to have more than one card is that if they close one of your accounts due to fraud you can still use your other cards. Some people use a separate card for groceries, another for gas and another one for online shopping. Department store cards make sense too if you want to take advantage of special discounts and special deals.

To keep your credit score high you have to keep an eye on your credit utilization which is your total credit card debt divided by your total credit limit. Keep this number under 30%. If your total credit limit is $10,000 then your balance shouldn’t be more than $3,000.

It’s better to have fewer credit cards with higher credit limit than more cards with lower credit limit. If you don’t use certain cards you should use them at least twice a year so your credit card company will see that you are using your card.

For most people having 5 credit cards is probably the best. If you have more cards and you want to close some of them leave your older accounts open since they influence your credit score more.

Learn How to Save Some Money

There is only one way to save money on a regular basis. You have to spend less than what you earn. If you regularly spend more than what you make than you probably don’t care about your financial health.

In order to make your financial situation healthier you will have to change your spending habits. It doesn’t matter how much you make. People with low income can save and people with high income can be in financial disaster.

Making money is not enough. If you don’t learn how to manage your money you can easily have financial problems. Most of the time people have money problems because they don’t know enough or they don’t want to deal with their financial reality.

First of all you have to find out how healthy your financial situation is. You have to sit down with all your bills and figure out where the money goes. This task is really easy if you have a financial program such as Quicken where you can download transactions and balance your accounts in a few minutes. You will able to predict your financial health in the future.

If you don’t like the picture you will have to make some changes item by item. Create a budget if you don’t have one and stick with it. Keep only what you need and learn how to spend less. If buying things makes you happy try to find other things which make you happy as well. Saving money is not necessarily painful if you are responsible about your financial health.

You Can Apply for Free Government Money with Bad Credit

Once you have bad credit it seems that it's hard to get out that financial situation. May be you accumulated personal debt, you received and unexpected medical bill or you just want to pay for college. Normally you have to pay higher minimum payments and you get the highest interest rates.

The good news is that most likely you can get free government money. You have to be at least 18 years old, US citizen or legal alien. You could be one of those people who receive thousands of dollars as grant money. There are billions of dollars available from the government each year.

This is free money, it's not a loan. You will never have to pay it back. It doesn't even matter if you have bad credit. Even if you declared bankruptcy in the past you can still apply for free government money.

Most people are unaware of how much money they could receive. Free grant money is not advertised. Banks, mortgage companies, credit card companies, hospitals, doctors have no interest in telling you that you might be eligible for free money. They just want you to pay the bill.

There are tenth of thousands of grants available to help you to get out of your stressful financial situation. You can pay medical bills, pay for mortgage, pay for your education or spend this money for your business and a lot more.

Take advantage of these government grants programs, you will be surprised the large number of grants available for you. You can find all the information you need including the grant application process online.