Personal Finance

by | Jul 19, 2019 | Living Skills

Effectively Manage your Personal Finances

Objectives

  • Grow your personal wealth.
  • Maintain a good Credit Score.
  • Reduce your risk of financial hardship.

The Facts

  • Personal Financial Risk is increasing as managing personal finances becomes more and more complex in a rapidly changing environment. Adequate healthcare coverage is essential. (Healthcare costs are the major cause of personal bankruptcies)
  • Accumulating savings is more difficult for many people as they have less discretionary money to save, there are low interest rates and a very volatile investment marketplace.
  • Having a disciplined approach to managing your money is critical.

Income greater than expenses = Happiness

Expenses greater than income = Misery

To know which is greater you have to know what they are!

Most people don’t know what they are. You have to have the discipline to know and plan a budget. The less money that you have the more critical this is!

Understanding Personal Finances:

Income

The amount of money that you have available after tax and deductions. You therefore also need to know (estimate) what your tax and deductions are likely to be. Your income may also be variable based on bonuses/commissions or irregular work.

You must establish a cash reserve to cover expenses in low income periods. This is not what you should use credit cards for.

Expenses

  • Fixed expenses – predictable expenses that occur on a regular basis, weekly/monthly/ annually: Mortgage/Rent, car payments, healthcare, basic food insurance,…………..
  • Variable expenses – expenses that are dependent on circumstances and vary in cost but are likely to occur. You have to estimate the likely amounts and budget for them.
  • Gas, clothes, additional food, utilities (gas, electric, water…), car maintenance, house maintenance costs, healthcare payments, credit card bills……….

Reserves/Emergency money – Risk Management

You must have rainy day money to cover any loss of income for a time. This should be at least 3 months expenses. Maintaining this reserve has to be a planned variable expense. This and keeping your credit card debt to the minimum, will be major contributors to getting and keeping a high credit score.

One of the major drivers of credit card debt is defaulting on payments.

Discretionary Money

This is the income that you have left after paying all fixed and variable expenses and maintaining your reserves. Credit availability is NOT discretionary money, it should be treated as short term emergency money and paid off every month.

If you do take out credit payments on a purchase you must be able to pay them and maintain your cash reserve.

Discretionary money will be used for funding savings, retirement, entertainment, college funds, luxury items………….

You should prioritize how you spend this money, the first priority should be maintaining reserves, then savings, particularly for healthcare costs and then starting a retirement fund.

RJB 9/16/2015

You are a Business of One

by | Jul 19, 2019 | Living Skills

You are a “Business of One”

Facts

  • The median income for the US is around $50,000 per year. This means that in a 40 year career a typical person living in the US will earn around $2m in today’s money.
  • Intuit’s study entitled “Intuit 2020 Report” indicated a trend that by 2020 40% of the US workforce could be contingency/contract/self employed workers. Fewer people will have life time employment opportunities with one company.
  • US workers are now part of a global employment environment. The impact of outsourcing has had a dramatic impact over the last 10 to 15 years. The global environment presents both a risk and opportunity for US workers.

The fact is that the average American is a Global Multimillion dollar Business of One.

 

 

Taking control of Your Business.

The basic principles of business are critical for you as an individual. You are also typically the sole investor.

What should you invest in to get a better return on your money? How and what you invest in, for your business, will be critical to your future quality of life and happiness.

What as an investor should you look for?

  • The probability that you will be able to grow value and your wealth in the future.
  • To do this you must be able to show that you have a credible vision of what the future is likely to be and that you can manage the required changes in your business through innovation and execution.
  • You have credible data that supports your future vision and the changes that will be required.
  • You have a plan for managing change, innovation and business risk management.

 

The Challenge for You.

As the manager, owner and investor in a multimillion dollar global business you have to have good basic business management skills and the data that give you the best available indication of what the future changing environment means for the decisions you make today.

Many of today’s decisions have long term impacts for your life:

  • Career and education/training choices.
  • Money management – credit score, house purchase/rent, savings, investment, location for living……
  • Risk management, healthcare coverage, life insurance, financial reserves, investment risk, life style risk……

These and many other decisions require access to credible facts and conclusions that you can use as indicators of what the future challenges will be for your “Business of One”, so that you can most efficiently plan for them.

This information is not currently available to you without a great deal of time and effort analyzing huge mass of information that is being thrust onto you in ever increasing amounts.

The problem is that you are not in control of your “Business of One”, the very sophisticated vested interest groups are. They are controlling your information channels.

Not only are they controlling them, but they are flooding you with misinformation, distorted facts and lies to support their interests NOT yours.

The “Individually Connected Community” provides a solution that enables you to take control of your “Business of One” through a connected network of customizable vetted facts and conclusion sources.

This gives you the ability to more easily gain personal skills and insights into the future “life and business environment” for your “Business of One” and more effectively accumulate wealth and manage personal and financial risk for the life that you want.