Why have a financial plan?

Just as it will be impossible for anyone to find his/her way in an unknown forest without a map, likewise you can't survive in the financial jungle without a map to help you differentiate the trees from the woods (that is knowing things which are impulse items and does which aren't).

In other words, a financial plan is the requisite tool that you need for the effective management of your money. Without it there is no hope for you. You only spend your whole life battling to make ends meet, with credit card companies chasing you every day.

Still not convinced about why you need to have a financial plan? Then take a look at the following reasons detailed below.

1. For Vision/Goal Attainment
A financial plan is an essential tool when it comes to goal setting and achievement. There is no way you can attain your vision or achieve your goals without a plan about how you're going to do that. Even corporate giants such as Microsoft and Apple make good use of financial plans in achieving their organizational goals. And their success stories talk a lot about financial planning.

It's thus imperative for us individuals to make good use of financial plans to work out what to do to attain our financial goals and be where we want to be in the foreseeable future. A financial plan is simply a tool or a group of strategies that you can use to attain your financial goals. And a typical example of a financial plan is the budget (which is a list of one's expected expenses and incomes). If you want to know how to make a financial plan or draw up a budget, then this article is a must read for you.

2. For Effective Money Management
Having a financial plan will also enable you to manage your money effectively. Just imagine the amazing benefits you'll get from a budget that allows you to track your expenses and influences you to think twice before spending your money.

The budget, as a financial planning tool can also help you to save more easily. You may find it comfortable saving between 2 and 10% of your income (which is good), but a budget can help you to save more creatively and get some surplus cash which you can add to your savings at the end of the month. If you'll like to learn more about how you can use a budget to help you save some additional cash, then make it a point to read this article.

3. To Control Backtracking
Back in my high school days I preferred spending money more than saving it. My relatives will advise me to change my ways, and in return always promise them that I would, but I never did. Then for a few days I will reduce my expenses, and then fall back into the old spending pattern. And the problem was that I never had a financial plan. It is thus imperative that you live on a financial plan if you don't want to follow in my footsteps. Putting in a budget is the best strategy for controlling impulse spending and making sure that you don't return to your old spending pattern.

A budget will clearly make you aware of the amount of money you have available to spend on your necessities. And if you go according to it, you'll never experience your old lifestyle again. That life of impulse spending and indebtedness will be gone for good.

4. For Financial Freedom and Prosperity
Yes. Financial freedom and prosperity is the ultimate goal of every organization and individual, hence their making good use of financial plans in that quest. We can talk about people like Warren Buffet, Gorge Soros and Bill Gate. These are people who made good use of financial planning in their quest for prosperity. And it worked and is still working for them.

So why not follow in their footsteps and get on a financial plan. Your decision to do it or not is what will determine your financial future

What is financial freedom?

Many people yearn to get rich. They envy the lifestyle of the rich and famous people. They watch the ways the rich and famous spend money, and they try to get some of these items for themselves.

For example, when they see their idols use a branded handbag, they will get one for themselves too. Yet they are afraid to tell the whole world I want to be rich, as if this is a forbidden sentence.

Right now we have financial freedom as a substitution for the word rich. I want financial freedom sounds more acceptable than I want to be rich.

What is financial freedom?

Financial freedom means you are no longer a slave of money. You do not need to work for money. You have enough money to enjoy your life. You can choose to continue working once you have financial freedom. You can choose to work for personal satisfaction, and not for money.

Financial freedom means you are not enslave to the bank. You no longer fear the bank foreclosing on your house or car. You have the means to pay off all your debts whenever you want.

You choose to take on debt so that you have more money for investment. You choose to buy more properties using the banker's money. It is not as if you do not have enough money. You have more than enough money to survive. You have financial freedom. The debt you assume is for investment purpose.

Financial freedom means more than just debt free. You may pay off the mortgages and credit card debt, but you are not financially free yet. You have to save enough money to last you for the rest of your life before you reach the goal of financial freedom.

Financial freedom means you and your family have enough money to pay for all expenses until you leave the world permanently. You do not have to worry about financing tertiary education for your children, because you have financial freedom.

Some people are fortunate enough have rich parents. They have financial freedom the moment the minute they are born. They have financial freedom provided they do not misuse the money.
You may not have such luxury. You may have to work hard and save hard for thirty years of your working life before you reach the goal of financial freedom. Most people reach the goal of financially free by the time they reach retirement.

Financial freedom does not mean you are rich. You will not make it to the list of billionaires just because you are financially free. Financial freedom means you have enough money to survive without working. It does not mean you are the richest person in the world.

Achieve Financial Freedom Ideas

Do you ever dream of being in a position where you would never have to worry about your financial situation? Can you imagine the kind of lifestyle you would be enjoying if you had total financial freedom?

If so, then this article may help you get started on your path to Financial Freedom… and the Lifestyle of your Dreams.

Many Seek But Few FindIn the present context, the word 'achieve' is meant to suggest that some deliberate thought and effort needs to go into the type of financial freedom we are considering. Therefore, inheriting wealth or winning the national does not qualify. Neither does watching the equity in your home grow for just sitting in it.

Many people dream of and seek financial freedom… but very few find it. Why do so few of the many who try to gain financial freedom fail? The reasons are mainly psychological in nature. In short, most people do not cultivate and exercise the mindset and behaviour that is necessary to achieve financial freedom.

How You Will Not Gain Financial FreedomFirst, consider three ways that are unlikely to lead to your financial freedom:

1. Saving-and-investing the steady, cautious way: This is likely to leave you actually worse off financially in real terms, since the 'true' rate of inflation is usually higher than the net interest you receive on your savings.

2. Being an Employee: Unless you are a senior management executive or a high-flying sales person/fund manager, there is little chance that as a normal employee you will gain financial freedom.

3. Self-Employed: Few people who are self-employed ever reach financial freedom. The reason for this is that most self-employed individuals are simply still 'employees' who have a 'job' rather than a business. For most self-employed people, the 'time is money' element restricts their ability to gain financial freedom. This is especially true if they provide a personal service that requires their physical presence to carry out this service.

How To Gain Financial FreedomSo, how can you gain total financial freedom? There is one way that has great potential: Start and Develop Your Own Home Based Business. More people are able to become financially independent by running their own home based business than ever before. For example, over the past 5 years, many people have become financially independent with home based property businesses, although the market is slowing down now.

However, to gain financial freedom within the next 5 to 8 years, you need to think 'business SYSTEM' rather just business, lifestyle business, or 'job'. Don't switch off just yet! It's not as difficult as you may imagine. You just need to find the right type of home based business. What kind of in-demand products could you offer (other people's products to start with), that command a substantial profit margin, and that are best suited to your skills and interests? … and most importantly… whose business operations can be as AUTOMATED as much as possible.

The key to your financial freedom lies in Smart Thinking - before you launch your home based business. Think from the end backwards. Consider your exit route - Put a date on it - Put a figure on the amount of money you need to have 'total financial freedom'. Look for a business you can start and run from home on a shoestring budget. Think 'zero employees'. Think 'money paid up-front'. Think 'zero bad debts'. Think SYSTEM!... and you may conclude that a home based Internet business fits the bill.

So, Think Internet business… one in which you have 'no need to see (potential) customers face-to-face'; and in which you can 'outsourced all non-core tasks'. Above all, Think 'AUTOMATION'! ... Set up your business so that as many operations as possible are as automated as possible, especially customer ordering, payment, and delivery systems.

Time For Mind-Change And Attitude Change?You see, following the principles mentioned above, your own home based Internet business can become your new 'super-highway' to total financial freedom!

If you are 'employed' or 'self-employed', you may need to ditch many of your present ways of thinking and some of your present attitudes. Thinking and Practising the type of 'Home Based Business System-Automation' described above usually requires 'mind-change' plus 'attitude-change' to make it happen. This is certainly a modern financial freedom 'path less travelled', but probably your best ways of gaining total financial freedom within 5 - 8 years!

Financial Planning and Retirement - Who Needs Financial Planning?

When it comes to financial planning, there are many reasons people often give for not making a financial plan. They can range from "I don't have any money" type objections to "I don't have any time right now" excuses. But, in today's turbulent financial world, you must be very careful. Many Middle-Class Americans are one month away from living on the street. The perceived security and safety of a job is illusory (just ask any unemployed American).

Why Do You Need Financial Planning?

In short: life requires self-generated, goal oriented action - a plan. This extends to every area of our lives, including financial. The degree of our planning will determine - at least in part - the degree to which we are successful. And, although a financial plan does not guarantee success, it is necessary for it (at least in the long-term).

Those who scoff at this need to realize that life is motion. It will not stop or slow down for you. If you do not consciously make a financial plan, you will make one for yourself perhaps subconsciously, and randomly, and usually to your own detriment.

Consider the case of "John", who sees no need to meet with a professional financial advisor or learn anything about financial planning. He believes himself to be "small potatoes", or he perceives financial planning as "unnecessary" or "boring" and thus he avoids it - at least for a while. However, what John does not realize (or was not paying attention to) is the fact of reality that life demands that we make decisions every day in a variety of different ways and in different areas of our life.

Money happens to be one of those areas that we are forced to deal with almost constantly, and usually multiple times throughout the day. How do we make the decision to grab a cup of coffee from the local donut shop in the morning vs. putting that money back into our pocket and simply make it at home instead? For John, this decision making is done pragmatically, and emotionally. Whenever he feels like buying a cup of coffee from the local donut shop, he will. If anyone asks him why he spends so much on coffee every day, he rationalizes it: "$1 isn't that much." he tells himself (and anyone that dares to ask).

But John's statement is void of any context. Consider, if we were to put that $1 spent on coffee into an investment yielding 8%, that $1 would become $1,500. Strategically placed at 20%, it balloons to well over $20,000 after 30 years. Would you consider $20,000 to be "not that much money"?

But to be completely honest, this isn't about whether John should or should not buy that cup of coffee, it's about his reason for doing so. His disastrous "reasoning", which attempts to replace a truly objective approach to his financial life, can very easily spill over into other areas of his life. The coffee issue is "small potatoes". The line of "reasoning" is not.

Coffee is not John's problem. What if we were to take a look at another common dilemma in John's life (as well as many other American's lives)? Suppose the decision is whether John and his wife should pay off their mortgage as quickly as they can so that they can be rid of that "evil" mortgage payment and all of the interest that they are paying. As a result of his upbringing, or some in vogue article his wife read in a magazine, or just on a mere whim, John arbitrarily decides that paying off the mortgage quickly is a good thing. He and his wife have a 15 year mortgage, and are making payments on it as quickly as they can. They don't realize that they are losing many hundreds of thousands of dollars by financing a home this way. John is confronted by either a friend or a financial planner who tries to show him how would be better off if he just held onto that mortgage and invested the difference.

Now, John and his wife can rationalize their actions (being afraid to admit to having made a mistake at all) by saying "yeah, well...we just like the idea of having our home paid for". Yet, if pressed for a more thorough answer, they don't have one. When the facts of reality confront them that dumping their 15 year mortgage and carrying a big long mortgage instead (even well into retirement) and investing the difference is much better for them financially, they squirm and cringe and retreat into a mental fog. They no longer have any idea why they like the idea of having their home paid off.

John had decided long ago that he didn't need financial planning. That he had a handle on everything. Now perhaps John, like many other Americans do, continues to ignore or simply continues to dismiss the idea that financial planning is like any other subject - it needs to be learned. What are the consequences of not taking responsibility and the initiative to meet with a financial advisor (one that can teach them how to prepare for financial uncertainty as well as teach them sound financial planning strategies)? Well, in John's case, he eventually retires and without a mortgage. He has lots of equity in the home, but virtually no savings. His home has appreciated and depreciated with the real estate market, but even if he wanted or needed to cash out the money, he would have to take out a loan and pay it back (or sell the house). John and his wife were able to scrape together something that resembles a savings, but because they didn't pay much attention to the real effects of inflation, their nest egg is substantially smaller than what they had hoped for.

In addition to all of this, it's looking like John's wife's health is deteriorating, and she may need long-term care (statistics from major life insurance companies - like Met Life - suggest that 1 out of 2 people - 50% - will need long-term care at some point in their lives). Or expensive medication. Where do they get the money to pay for these things? Perhaps they go without. Perhaps they die prematurely because of it, taking to the grave the erroneous idea that financial planning never could have helped them. Never could have saved them. Never could have helped them live a better life. Yet the truth is the opposite. It could have helped them, and it could help you too.

Financial Planning As Practical

Many people don't think in terms of financial planning as being "practical", yet this key mistake is what keeps many individuals from becoming financially successful. Unless we make it a point to study it in school, our only formal education in finance and economics is perhaps from the worst of all teachers - the Government.

Governments do not induce better money management habits. The concept of deficit spending and the growing national debt that is a result are prime examples of why. They aren't very good at teaching individuals the value of investing either, and the ill-fated Social Security program is a good demonstration of what happens when Government allegedly invests our money for us.

Banks and certain other financial institutions regularly fail during recessions despite the fact that they are heavily regulated by the Government. In fact, at least for the banking industry, it is the Government that promotes such reckless lending and investing policies that lead to such failures. By forcing everyone to comply by the same irrational rules, chaos is inevitable.

The fact that these institutions are supposed to represent the hallmark of good money managers, it should be no surprise that many individuals are completely lost when it comes to personal financial planning. The folks who are supposed to be the experts can't even do it themselves.

The only individual that can help them is the financial advisor. By the very nature of the profession, financial advisors promote thrift, savings, and sound, rational investments and speculations. These are the essential concepts that are necessary for an economy to grow and thrive. If a nation is conserving it's finances instead of consuming them, it has a much better opportunity for growth.

For the individual, the financial advisor promotes personal growth - personal financial growth. And, without growth the only thing open to us is death

The Huge Risk of Credit Card Fraud to Online Businesses

With the additional security of offline card transactions in the form of chip and pin, online fraud has rocketed. It continues to grow as more fraudsters move online to target a growing audience with the added benefit of less risk and possible anonymity from their scams. Credit card fraud is massive and said to account for approximately 10 to 20 per cent of all online orders.

This is a huge threat for many businesses since credit card payments are their primary payment method therefore the risk is very high for them. Online card transactions are all labelled as "Card Not Present" (CNP) transactions. With banks now passing the risk of fraudulent CNP transactions over to retailers, since they won't guarantee card payments without PIN number entered, the risk of fraud has never been greater.

Thankfully there are a number of initiatives to attempt to reduce online card fraud. Credit card companies and banks have introduced password systems where the customer is passed onto a secure bank system to enter a password at the end of checkout, which is between just them and their card issuer.

While initiatives like these are great, it still leaves the online business open to many fraudulent operators, which result in fraud business costing billions of pounds each and every year. While card transactions are approved it only means that the card is being used on a site is live and not stolen, has sufficient funds but does not guarantee payment. The risk is the card may be used as part of a fraud scheme being stolen from the legal owner which means the money will be gone forever.

There are many ways that fraudsters can get hold of your card details to use fraudulently, from identity theft, customer data hacks on sites or even your site and various other methods in between. The recommendation would be to invest the time and some money in attending the next Marcus Evans fraud seminar, businesses online need protection and it's a small price to pay compared to the potential hole it can leave in company finances.

Tips to Becoming a Great Leader

WE are providing tips you can stand up to be call a great and effective leader. When people are to describe you in a statement, you want to be described as a leader that is consistent, firm, resourceful and flexible to changes. You will also be supportive and allow participation from the ground in running the organisation. How do you achieve that? Read more to find out!


1 - This will determine your inBe consistent in your expectations and delivery tegrity and consistency. Your team members would not want to work with a leader that is always unpredictable.

2 - Communicate positively and firm - Avoid negative remarks that will only will wash the moral from your staff. What you need is a highly motivated team that deliver wonder results right. Not a team of lousy feeling employees waiting for the next pay cheque to come.

3 - Communicate regularly with your stakeholders - That includes your employees. You need to keep them updated of progress. When it comes to planning, as much as possible, involve your employees in day to day decisions and long term planning. Give them a sense of ownership and belonging. Everyone is important in the organisation!

4 - Intervene when something is wrong - If you feel something is wrong with certain task; find out more of the problem. Terminate the task if that is an option. Sometimes, its better to terminate the task then to find alternatives to resolve it.

5 - Teach your team members how to fish and not show them the fish - You will be tire out one day if you keep showing them the fish. Teach your team members ways to be productivity, let them learn new techniques (that works for them). Their productivity will be your input for your personal productivity.

6 - Determine your staff abilities - Assess each and every one of your team members. Some maybe strong in certain areas of work while others may not be. Let's face it; you can't get the best people from your recruitment exercises every time. Therefore, it's best to optimize your staff by understanding what they are best at and grouping them together to boost productivity!

7 - Create a pleasant, safe working environment - You do not you're your employees to come to office with a worried mind. Everyone is happy to come to office and no one is hurt.

8 - Constantly evaluate your operating procedures and fine tune it for improvements - Processes do not dictate how you should do things. Processes are designed by human beings in first place so do not allow processes to dictate your innovation. Constantly find out the loop holes or areas of improvement in your organisation process so that your team can work more efficiently.