Taking Control of Your Destiny With Personal Finance Training

Your future, whether you like it or not, will be affected by your financial situation and as a direct result, personal finance training becomes very important. There are a lot of people out there that avoid talking about money saying "it's not important because it won't make you happy" and other similar comments. However, these are most likely the same people that worry day in day out about whether they will lose their jobs or have enough money to pay off the debts. Let's face it: money IS important, it's all around us and if we are to successfully manage it and our future, we need personal finance training.

Construct Your Destiny

Before diving into the gritty bits of the training process, take a moment now to close your eyes and create the destiny you wish to create. Use all 5 senses. Picture it, feel it, hear the sounds from it, touch it and taste it. Once you have used all your 5 senses to envision to destiny, grab a pen and a bit of paper and write everything you saw, felt, heard, touched and tasted. Everything. It doesn't matter how long it takes, or how many pages you fill up, just do it. Once you're done, read over it and recognise that this is the destiny that you are determined to create at all costs.

Identify Those Bad Habits

Now the second step of personal finance training is to think about any bad and horrible habits you may have when it comes to spending money. Take some time to think about these and then make a list of all of them. It's more likely than not that these habits have led you to a poor financial situation. Don't be scared about admitting these. The first step towards fixing any problem, whether it's financial or not, is acknowledgement. The longer the list the better.

Eliminate Debt From Your Life

Your bad habits have most likely created a situation of high debt for you. If that weren't the case, then you probably wouldn't be reading this article right now. So once you've acknowledged your bad habits, you can then progress to rectifying the problem. You may have accumulated a high level of debt by taking out too many credit cards and getting charged a lot of interest for it. Or you may have taken out too many bad loans. Whatever the case, you must identify the cause of the problem and stop it in its tracks. You can only move on to the final step of personal finance training after completing this step.

Develop A Habit To Save Money

The final step involves developing ways to save money. Now, you will have probably already done this as part of eliminating debt, however, it's only now when it becomes your number one focus. The best way to save money is to make a list of your necessities and your wants. You have to be honest with yourself during this process. Once you have made up the list, you should restrict the amount of wants you buy. That doesn't mean that you completely stop accessing those wants, because you should always have something to reward yourself with for your efforts saving money. Over time, a saving habit will put aside a sizeable amount of money which will come in handy to realize the destiny you created for yourself in step 1.

As you have seen, personal finance training is a necessity if you desire to successfully construct your destiny in life. It should not be avoided or ignored, for it will only mean that you will live in financial uncertainty, with a lot of pain and suffering. It would be nice to have some financial certainty in our lives, right?

Personal Finance - Believing You Can Rid Yourself of Debt

Most people at the end of their life don't wish they'd spent more time at the office, but they do often regret not spending more time with their family, especially when their children were young. Unfortunately, people who find themselves with debt payments that exceed what they can reasonably afford usually cast about for ways to increase their income.

Instead of taking a part-time job, working overtime every week, or getting involved in a get-rich-quick scheme, look at your budget for ways to cut back your spending. Decreasing spending is usually a lot easier than increasing your income. Plus, you won't sacrifice time with your family in exchange for a paid off credit card.

It can be daunting to owe a bundle to your creditors and to be faced with the change and sacrifices that are necessary to turn your finances around. Success may require every ounce of determination and self-discipline you can muster.

It definitely requires that you be able to maintain a can-do attitude a get out-of-debt attitude over a sustained period of time, because your finances are probably going to improve gradually, not overnight.

A positive, 'I can get out of debt' attitude is key to turning your finances around. You have to believe that you've got what it takes. Here are some proven strategies for helping you believe in yourself and set your resolve:

Draw strength from tough challenges you've faced in the past. Maybe draw strength from tough challenges you've faced in the past. Maybe someone in your family had a serious illness, you went through a divorce, a close relative or friend died, or you experienced a major disappointment in your career.

If you believe that you're largely responsible for your family's financial problems, don't beat yourself up about what you did or didn't do. You can't change what happened, and letting feelings of self-recrimination and guilt bog you down makes it a lot harder to do what you need to do now. Benefit from your mistakes and move on. When negative thoughts come into your head, shrug them off, knowing they cannot control you after all.

A negative attitude can be contagious. If you act bummed out all the time about your family's financial situation, your bad attitude is likely to spread to everyone else in your household. If you have kids, don't forget that they are observing how you behave in the face of adversity, so set a good example.

Remember that you're not the only person who has ever experienced financial problems. Millions of people have been where you are and have had to do what you must now do to get out of debt. If they can do it, so can you!

Boost your self-confidence by getting smarter about money. Enroll in a basic personal finance class or read a good article on the subject (such as this one). Make regular visits to personal finance web sites for practical information about all aspects of everyday money management.

Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow Quadrant - Why You Need a Home Business to Help Your Personal Finances

This is a simple review of one page of Robert Kiyosaki's book the Cashflow Quadrant. Imagine what's in store for you if you read the whole book! If your personal finances are not where you would like them to be this article will explain why instead of taking on a second job you need to consider starting your own home business; your own online home business. Imagine working in your pj's if you would like!

p.4 is Robert Kiyosaki's famous buckets of water analogy.

At the end of the story he asked the question: Are you carrying buckets of water or are you building a pipeline?

WOW! OPRAH LIGHT BULB MOMENT! AHA MOMENT! REVELATION! LET THE BELLS RING OUT AND THE BANNERS FLY. [Who said that by the way? A cartoon character?] Call it what you will. If you have read Cashflow Quadrant and this wasn't your experience you need to read it again.

My thinking was forever changed.

I had a job. I was carrying buckets of water. When I stopped the money stopped. I had all my eggs in 1 basket. Any number of things could take me down. My health, my employment situation could change, my family situation could change. We see it all the time and in this economic downturn it is magnified. We all know someone who has been down-sized, had health issues, become widowed or divorced. Any number of catastrophes can befall us. Yet we never believe it will happen to us.

When you are completely reliant on wages or salary for your income you are in a very precarious position.

If your personal finances are not where you would like; consider diversifying. Instead of getting by with less and less; instead of having an ever decreasing income circle; why not expand it? Why not take Robert Kiyosaki's advice? Instead of taking on a second job; why not start your own business? Why not start a home based business?

As long as you are working a job; you are carrying buckets of water. When you stop the money stops.

The definition of insanity is to keep doing what you are doing and expect different results. Perhaps this economic downturn is a wake-up call? It should be. Is your ladder leaned up against the wrong wall? If you are in corporate America that could well be the case.

Most people think they are financially literate but then you look at their personal finances. Their personal finances are a shambles. If you could see what people actually own versus what they have on credit there would be a lot of naked people driving around in phantom cars and sleeping in empty houses. Kind of like the story of the Emperor's New Clothes.

People tend to think if I only made an extra $10,000/year everything would be fine. Not true. People with 6 figure incomes are simply broke at a different level. They are wearing more expensive clothes, driving fancier cars and living in larger houses but they are still broke.

How many people do you know that have 3-6 months of wages saved? Do you?

If I ask you: "Is your house is an asset or a liability?" If you answer an asset you are not financially literate. People have stopped reading Kiyosaki's book at this point. So to clarify; he is not saying not to buy a house he is just making sure you understand the vocabulary of the financially literate. His definition of an asset is something that puts money into your pocket and a liability is something that takes money out of your pocket. If you stopped working tomorrow would your house feed you?

The confusion arises when you go to the bank and they get you to list your assets. They even let you name your car as an asset. And it is an asset; an asset for them! Not you! If you re-neg on your payments they get your car.

In conclusion the reason I recommend Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow Quadrant is to give you a desperately needed wake-up call. What are your personal finances really like? Do you pay yourself 1st? Does 10% of your income get put where you can't touch it? Instead of taking on a 2nd job; I strongly recommend that you seriously consider starting your own home business.

Balancing Your Personal Finances Made Easy Part 1

In order to balance your personal finances and save money, you need to create a budget. This is the first step toward paying of your debt and saving for retirement. It leads to a future of financial security and peace of mind.

Approximately one half of your income should be used to pay for things you need. Experts disagree about the exact percentage, but it definitely should be no more than 60%. Write down all the areas that you NEED to spend money on each month from your personal finances. This includes food, gas, house/apartment payments, etc. Make sure you are honest and include only things absolutely necessary. (Do not include credit card debt or other debt here; they will come later.) Then write down how much you are paying for each of your needs that you listed. Take the total amount you are spending on your needs and divide that number by your total income so that you can see what percentage of your income goes for your needs each month. For example, if you make $2,000 a month, and spend $1,350 on your needs, you divide $1,350 by $2,000. This equals 0.675, or 68% of your income. If the amount you are spending on your needs is much over half of your income, as in this example, you are going to have to look for ways to save money on your needs.

Re-shopping your insurance: auto, renters/home, health, life, motorcycle, etc are some of the ways to save money on your needs. It's important to re-shop insurance every 18 months to two years to make sure you are still getting the best deal. If you have an overwhelming car payment, you may have to sell your car. Maybe the expense most out of control is your housing. Try renting one of the rooms in your house out, staying with a family member for a while, or moving to a more affordable place. Get creative, and find ways to save money on your needs, so that approximately one half of your income is spent here.

Take the time today to find out what percentage of your income you are spending on your needs. Then, look for ways to save money on them in order to begin balancing your personal finances. Look for my next article to balance the second part of your finances.

Personal Finance Budget

Setting up a personal budget for you and your family isn't as hard as you might think. What's hard is maintaining and keeping it working for you for any length of time. If you are setting up a personal finance budget, here's 3 tips to keep in mind.

1. KEEP IT PERSONAL

That might sound like a given, but with so many budget programs and plans out there, you'd be amazed just how easy it is to try and shoe-horn your personal finance situation into another person's perfect design. Don't do it.

By trying to make someone else's ideal, your own, it will only be that much easier to give up on it later when it turns out that it doesn't work for you. This means setting up categories that are specific to your situation and lifestyle. If you do a lot of camping, for example, and that's not one of the categories on your pre-formated budget sheet, don't try to squeeze it into "Recreation" or "Entertainment." Make a category for "Camping."

2. KEEP IT SIMPLE

One of the quickest ways to give up on a personal finance budget is to have it be so complicated that the week after you set it up, you're not sure why you did what you did and can't figure out how to update it. Keep it simple.

Keeping the budget simple also means not having it be too much work to maintain. If it's too much work, then you are really not going to feel like doing what needs to be done, because, it's too much work.

3. AUTOMATE TASKS

Do what you can to make things happen automatically so that keeping and maintaining a budget doesn't wear you out. For example, if you want to track how much you are spending on entertainment during the month, just keep your receipts and stash them in an envelope somewhere. At the end of the month, just add them up and you know how much you spent. This is much easier and "automatic" than writing down everything on a daily basis.

As I mentioned at the start, this article was about how to keep the budget going once it gets started. You could sit down tonight and make up a budget, but will it work for you? Will you be able to maintain it over the long-term?

Follow the 3 budgeting strategies above and you will greatly increase your chances of designing a personal finance budget that will last as long as you need it to.

Test Your Personal Finances IQ With This Quick Quiz

Managing your spending habits, saving sufficient funds and clearly seeing your personal financial situation are important elements in managing your personal finances correctly. This test will give you an idea whether you need some more help, or if you're on top of this important part of your life. (The answers are listed at the end of this article.)

Question #1. What does "living within your means" really mean?

Question #2. What damage can only paying the minimum credit card payments each month do to your financial future?

Question #3. What is the most widely advocated and proven method of getting your finances in order?

Question #4. What are the most important financial goals you can set?

Question #5. Why is it not safe to spend all your income each month?

Question #6. What is the recommended percentage of my income that needs to be saved for emergencies and a savings nest egg?

Question #7. In what order should your bills be paid?

How did you fare with these questions? Did you know the answers? If not, or if you wish to check your responses, check out the answers listed below.

Answer to Question #1.
"Living within your means" means spending to live as comfortably as possible, from your income, while saving sufficient funds to adequately cater for emergencies and building your savings nest egg. It also means that you should not rely on external funding such as credit cards and bank finance just to live day-to-day.

Answer to Question #2.
Paying only the minimum credit card payment each month can condemn you to life-long poverty. It is that serious. If you only pay the minimum off your credit card each month you quickly start paying interest on the interest and the debt can spiral out of control. Live within your means, don't add to your debts, pay cash and pay down that credit card debt as quickly as possible.

Answer to Question #3.
The most widely advocated and proven method to getting your finances in order is to prepare a budget. Please don't go glassy-eyed and lose interest now. This is an easy task that can finally put you in control of your finances once and for all. There are many resources available on the Internet to help you quickly make a start.

Answer to Question #4.
The most important financial goals you can set are as follows:

a) Set a goal to pay down that credit card debt, both for the amount and the time period. For example, I am going to pay $5,000 off the credit card debt in the next 12 months. Commit to only living off my income starting today. I will always pay cash from today onwards.

b) The second most important goal is to set a savings target. A budget can show you how much you need to set aside for emergencies and that savings nest egg.

c) The third most important goal is to determine to be debt free. This will transform your life. Work out what you need to live and see how much better your life would be if there was no money being applied to debts each month. It's like giving yourself a pay raise.

Answer to Question #5.
It is not safe to spend all your income each month for the simple reason that life is unpredictable. If you have no savings buffer then how will you afford the bills that occur when you least expect them? Will you pay for them with your credit card? Then how will you pay that bill?

Answer to Question #6. The most common percentage recommended to keep aside from your monthly income is 20%. This is a target of course. Not everyone can manage this immediately. Any amount you put aside will be better than nothing as long as you are shooting for a target.

Answer to Question #7.
If you are struggling with paying all your bills each month, the most vital bills are listed below in order of importance:

a) Housing - rent or house payments. If you don't pay these you may have no home

b) vehicle

c) groceries

d) power, water, gas etc.

e) credit cards

The costs of shelter, food, clothing and transportation always come ahead of paying the credit cards.

Are you now a little more understanding of this critically important part of your life? Could you do with some help? There are many agencies and websites dedicated to offering advice and tools to help you better manage your finances. Check them out today. Financial success can be yours. Don't you deserve it?