Personal Finance Training for Young Adults

In many of my articles, I focus on young adults as my target audience. By young adults, I generally mean people between the ages of 18 and 35 years old. Why target this group? Quite simply, time is on their side when it comes to saving for retirement, and because of this fact, small changes in their spending habits can make a big impact on their investing results due to compound interest. When these numbers jump out and “surprise” a person for the good, that person is more likely to take action to get their personal finances in order. Therefore, in this article I wish to provide basic personal finance training aimed directly at young adults, with the hope of positively impacting their financial futures.

Start a Roth IRA ASAP

Unlike a traditional IRA and 401k which are income tax deferred, the Roth IRA features contributions that are taxed in the year they are made, while gains and withdrawals are never taxed. Therefore, the best time to contribute to a Roth IRA is when your income is low. When are our incomes typically at their lowest point? While we are young adults, of course. As long as you have earned income, an individual can contribute to a Roth IRA up to the amount of his/her earned income or $4,000 (increases to $5,000 in 2008), whichever is less. For a married couple, both spouses can each contribute up to $4,000 for a total of $8,000 (increases to $10,000 in 2008). Think of it this way, some part-time workers don’t even pay income tax, due to their low income coupled with qualifying deductions. In such a case you could actually make Roth IRA contributions which would not be taxed, and the account would never be taxed. Pretty sweet deal!

Gradually Ramp Up Your Lifestyle Over Time

Some people make the mistake after graduating from college of buying a really expensive car, I guess as a reward to themselves for all of the hard work they put forth to earn their diploma. This is absolutely one of the worst, albeit most common, mistakes young adults make. Why? Because after buying a BMW at 22 years old, do you think we’ll buy a Honda or a Mercedes at 25? Of course, we’ll buy the Mercedes because we don’t want to go backwards on the “perceived” quality scale. The point is, it’s a good idea to hold back a little on the quality we demand as young adults because our taste will probably only get more expensive as we grow older. In other words, making a less expensive purchase as a young adult translates into a lifetime of less expensive purchases, even while steadily moving forward on the “perceived” quality scale throughout.

Base-Load Your Investment Accounts

Another trick to take advantage of while still a young adult is to base-load your investment accounts. By base-loading, I mean contributing a larger than normal amount to your accounts at the beginning of your investment career and little to none the rest of the way. This advice works great if you take advantage of it before you are married with kids and have a mortgage. Before you walk down the aisle and start a family, your expenses are typically low, so you are able to put some of your excess cash to work. That way when you do take the plunge, you can cut back or even eliminate investment contributions altogether, and it won’t even matter. For example, say at 22 years old you start contributing the maximum of $4,000 per year to a Roth IRA and continue until you are 30, at which time you decide to get married and start a family. Because running a household and raising a family can get expensive, you halt all contributions to your Roth IRA from this point forward. However, you allow the contributions you have already made to continue compounding. If we assume the Roth IRA compounds at 10% per year, how much will your account be worth when you reach 65? Surprise, nearly $1.3 million dollars! Pretty amazing.

Summary

Young adults have a distinct advantage over the rest of us because they still have the most valuable resource of all on their side – time. Making wise financial decisions early in life sets the stage for financial success during your retirement years. Hopefully, my simplistic personal finance training offered here will inspire young adults to take action now so they will be able to reap the benefits in the future.

Charles Hebert shares his views on personal finances from his website, Smart Money Advocate, which advocates simple strategies for achieving financial success.

My Links : Bike Racks bosch 4212l miter saw money work loan

Defining Credit Card Finance Charges

There are other fees associated with the use of a credit card besides the actual charge from each purchase. These other costs can add to the total balance on your account that you have to pay. The common credit card fees you will encounter at some point are the annual fee, the APR, late payment fees and the finance charge. The finance fee is added to it every month while the others are less frequent.

The credit card finance charge will be the dollar amount that you have to pay to the credit card provider for the use of their lines of credit to make purchases. This finance charge will be different depending on the APR or annul Percentage rate of the card. This is how credit card finance charges affect you card balance.

Your individual credit card company will have its own policies and approach to calculate the finance charge for your card. The outstanding balance will determine how much you will end up paying in credit card finance charges each year more than the APR will affect it. You need to understand how your outstanding balance is calculated.

The outstanding balance on your credit card may be calculated during one billing cycle or within two billing cycles. You must note that there are three types of balances which are used to figure the amount of your annual finance charges. These balances are the adjusted balance, the average daily balance, and the previous balance. Each of these balances has something in common, in that you will need to decide if new or recent purchases will be counted as part of the relative balance. When you have done this, you can then calculate the credit card finance charge. The finance charges will vary depending upon the billing cycle based on the carry- over balance and the timing of different purchases and payments.

Many of the credit card companies provide credit cards that operate under what they call a minimum finance charge policy. With this type of finance charge the cardholder is given a flat rate for the finance charges each year. This will mean that the rate will not vary or fluctuate because of differences in the card's balance each billing cycle. Your minimum finance charge is activated when your card has a carry-over balance that goes into the following credit card billing cycle.

There is no way to avoid the credit card finance charge. It is a necessary cost which must be paid in order to continue using the convenience of the credit line to make purchases. This means that it is important to have a good idea of how they work with your particular credit card company. You should have a working knowledge of what affects the charges that are added to your balance that you will have to pay. What would you do if you are assessed a wrong amount and then pay for something that is not applicable? You must spend some time studying your credit card terms and uses in order to know what to watch for.

Joe Kenny writes for themoneystop.co.uk, offering credit cards and personal loans.

Tags : best table saws bosch miter saw stand acne acne

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine

Are you looking for an upbeat exciting financial magazine? One that won't bore you to pieces?  Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine provides readers with the information they need to make smart decisions about their money. Each issue includes intellectual reporting on investments, taxes, insurance, paying for college, planning for retirement, home ownership, major purchases such as cars and computers and other personal finance topics.

It provides very simple, relevant financial tips. It is not just a magazine that is easy on the eyes, but it has principles that can be applied to your life right now and save you a lot of money. Kiplinger's has a nicely balanced approach and tone. It is not a preachy book and you will always find a tip, suggestion, or tax-saving idea that pays for your year's subscription in every single issue. Talk about a worthwhile publication!

This magazine talks about how real people with average salaries, kids, and debt can invest for the future. With helpful articles, parents can learn how to teach their kids to manage money and do so wisely.

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine is an economical, appropriate, and authoritative choice for someone looking for a smartly laid out finance magazine that they can understand. It conveys complex financial concepts in easily, comprehensible terms and covers the information you need to deal with finances on a level you understand.

Financial magazines can be long, boring, filled with numbers and terms that a regular Joe just does not get. However, Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, is a magazine that even your older kids would love to read.

If you found this article useful, you can also get tons of free investment advice and great finance tips at Invest Money Stocks.

This article was written by Richard Tyler - a happily retired investment guru who ran several successful businesses during his earlier years. He now shares his wealth of knowledge on investment, business and strategic wealth management at Invest Money Stocks. Ignorance is often the reason why some people are unable to harness upon what they already have to make more money while some 'in-the-know' get richer every year simply through investments. Richard sees it as a passion as well as a pleasure to share his knowledge and experience and hopes that his website will be a wealth of knowledge for those who need help in investment and wealth management matters. Invest Money Stocks covers a wide range of topics from business management, home budgeting, personal wealth management to stocks investment, options trading, penny stocks trading, forex trading, bonds, technical analysis, fundamental analysis and more.

Recommend : best sliding table saw mortgage

Finance - How To Keep Up Monthy Payments

At some point in time you have probably been forced to take out a loan or use a credit card for an unexpected event. Most people have a loan or some form of credit that they have to account for each month, it is important to keep these payments up to date to avoid late charges that may cause you to slip further into debt.

It is wise to look at your finances on a regular basis in order to budget what is coming out and determine if you have sufficient funds to cover these outgoings.

When you organise your finances it is a good idea to create a list of all the outgoings including any loans or credit cards you have that need to be paid on a per month basis. Once you have created your list make a new one but this time prioritise it so that the most important and urgent items are at the top and will be paid first.

Generally most people opt to pay the minimum payment on credit cards which is usually just the interest this means you are unlikely to pay off the actual amount you have borrowed.

If you have any spare money at the end of the month I would recommend you use this to pay off credit cards, remember to factor in the cost of living when working your finances out to avoid having to pay for day to day home running costs on a credit card. .

If you have any form of bonus scheme with your place of employment and receive a cash sum on a regular basis try to avoid blowing it on something you do not need and instead use it to reduce your monthly outgoings, this will in turn leave you with more money left over each month.

Paying off more than the minimum amount when it comes to loans and credit cards will reduce the length of time you have to pay on the loan or credit card it will also help your credit score if the loan is paid off on time and the repayment deadlines are met each month.

Sorting out your finances may seem like a chore and something that you cant face doing, sometimes not knowing exactly how much debt you are in seems like a better idea than facing the truth however ignorance is not always bliss. Knowing exactly what you owe, what out goings you have and how much extra you can afford to pay out could mean that your debt problems can be resolved sooner rather than later.

Not knowing when payments are due and wasting extra money that could have been used to reduce your debt can lead to a downward spiral where you may find yourself in a situation of taking out one loan to pay another.

Allen Jesson writes for several sites that specialize in Loans Finance & Insurance
Debt Consolidation and Refinancing

Tags : best table saw fences bosch slide miter saw acne acne

New Book Offers Exceptional Advice on Finance and Investing

This book's title "Wealth Is a Choice: How to Choose Wisely" says it all. Wealth is a choice. No one gets rich without making the decision to do so, whether it is deciding to buy a lottery ticket or pragmatically planning for retirement. The first thing people must do is make conscious decisions that they will have wealth and then set goals to achieve that wealth. Of course, the goals must be realistic, which rules out the lottery. In "Wealth Is a Choice" James Studinger provides valuable advice for setting realistic goals based on his own experiences and his many years of helping his clients increase their wealth.

Throughout "Wealth Is a Choice," Studinger relates personal experiences-his childhood in Manistique, Michigan, his working for a firm that helped prison employees with managing their money in the Marquette Branch Prison, various firms he has worked for in Michigan, and examples of the clients he has helped to grow their wealth, as well as examples of clients who did not grow wealth and what held them back. He also tells his own story of personally learning how to handle his money so he was not in debt. He began writing "Wealth Is a Choice" because he wanted to leave his sons a money road map should anything happen to him. That idea grew into one of the best books on money management I have ever read.

"Wealth Is a Choice" stands out for many reasons. First of all, a lot I know about money I learned from Suze Orman. Her books and television show are fantastic about money management, but Orman and many others focus primarily on how to get out of debt, and how to save money by spending less. Studinger talks about debt briefly, but he notes that many good books already exist on the subject. His purpose is instead to help us learn how to grow our money, which is what I've most wanted to learn. I'm apparently one of the fortunate few in America not in debt who has always been good at saving money. My need has been trying to figure out what to do with the money I save-how to invest it, what to invest it in, how to know whether an investment will be good or bad.

I have read books about mutual funds and stocks and how to determine which ones are likely to grow. Most of it I quickly forget. What was missing from the equation, and Studinger is the only author I know who has made this clear, is that the ultimate goal is to figure out how much you need to retire, and then to track your progress regularly toward that goal.

One point Studinger covers extensively, which cannot be underestimated, is the importance of finding a reliable advisor. He warns us that many advisors try to sell clients products based on how much commission they will receive rather than what is best for the client. He tells us to ask advisors upfront what the benefit is to them, while reminding us just because one investment will pay off for the advisor more than another, it doesn't mean we shouldn't choose the investment that will help the advisor more, we just also should choose what makes most sense for our investment needs. After all, advisors deserve to make a good living off their work provided they are giving their clients good advice. Studinger tells us to ask three basic questions of advisors before we make an investment: What is the rate of return? What is the risk? What is the cost?

Beyond finding a good advisor, Studinger suggests we find a good software program that allows us to track our investments. I have tried to track my investments by paper statements, making spreadsheets etc., but it is tedious and I never keep up with it. A software program sounds like the way to go. Studinger's own wealth management firm, JPStudinger Group, provides a wealth management solution tool that is web-based so clients can track their investments. A video of this tool can be viewed at http://www.jpstudinger.com.

The only slight flaw I see in this book are the examples of wealthy clients Studinger uses. The majority of them have significant incomes ranging from $80,000 annually and upward. Most Americans do not have such incomes, so they might find such numbers intimidating. Unfortunately, it is people with such high incomes who will most likely be reading this book. However, the person who makes $30,000 a year will find the advice given just as useful. Don't let the numbers intimidate you. A person's current income does not have to determine whether someone has the choice to become wealthy. As Studinger points out, it's about making good choices with the money you have that will make the difference.

"Wealth Is a Choice" is an easy to understand book. Unlike with many investment books, I never once felt lost or confused. Studinger writes in a straightforward style, and his honest advice leaves me with no doubt that he has the reader's best interests at heart. He has great cartoons throughout the book to illustrate his discussion, and he uses effective analogies, including football offense and defense and archery anchor points to get his points across. I think male readers will especially be able to relate to his examples and find the advice practical.

Lots of people read about money or tell themselves someday they will get their finances together. This book will inspire people to do so. Many readers, after completing this book, will realize that wealth is a choice and be inspired to make that choice for themselves. I know "Wealth Is a Choice" has encouraged me to review my financial goals and plan better for retirement.

For more information about J.P. Studinger and "Wealth Is a Choice: How to Choose Wisely," visit http://www.jpstudinger.com

Tyler R. Tichelaar holds a Bachelor's and Master's Degree from Northern Michigan University and a Ph.D. from Western Michigan University. His family's long relationship with Upper Michigan and his avid interest in genealogy inspired Dr. Tichelaar to write his Marquette Trilogy: Iron Pioneers, The Queen City, and Superior Heritage. Dr. Tichelaar is also a professional book reviewer and editor. For more information about Tyler R. Tichelaar, his writing, and his author services, visit:

http://www.MarquetteFiction.com

Tags : air compressor for power tools acne acne

Finance Quotes, This is How You Get the Best

When you are looking for funding to start a project, buy a house or even a car, it is always advisable to compare rates and get the best deal available. Depending on what you need to finance, there are many places that you can find quotes. The Internet has many deals that are available but you have to know where to look. You will see the types of funds available and then you can decide which one works best for you. There are two ways to get funding that you can choose from. You can go for a secured or unsecured loan.

The secured loan is economical as you have collateral that acts as security. When you go for this option, you are in a position to pay lower interest rates and also your monthly rates are reduced. The market is overwhelmed with these lenders.

So for them to be able to get clients they have to come up with competitive loan packages so that you can choose the one that you feel suits you best. They use finance quotes to tell you about the package they are offering. You also get a description of the terms and conditions that are offered by the lender. They act as a deciding factor about which loan package you will select.

To be able to access the best finance quotes, you can search online and you can then choose the one that you feel is suitable to your needs. Finance quotes are there to give you alternatives and also give you an estimate of what you will spend before you actually commit yourself to it.

Mercy Maranga writes content on Finance and Finance Management. Visit her site here for more information on Finance. Finance Information

Tags : bosch 4212 miter saw bosch 4412 miter saw work loan

Establishing Your Personal Finance Goals

Before you can start saving or investing for the future, you need to work out what your aims are. Only if you know what you are saving and investing for can you choose the best products to help you realise your goals. Otherwise, you're likely to end up with completely unsuitable personal finance products.

Some of the financial goals you have may include clearing your debts, buying a house, starting a pension or helping out your children.

Most people have short and long-term personal finance goals. In the short term you might want to buy a new car or pay for a summer holiday, while in the longer term you may be keen to build up savings for retirement. And, you may have more than just your own future to consider: If you have children or plan to have them at some stage, they may want go to university or need help getting on the housing ladder, and you need to plan to fulfil those personal finance goals as well.

Different personal finance goals require different investment vehicles so it's important that you work out what you want and then prioritise them. If you are investing for the long term for retirement, for example you should invest in equities because, historically, they produce the greatest returns over time.

However, they aren't suitable for short-term investment goals because they are extremely volatile the value of your shares may plummet just when you need the cash to buy your new car. But if you don't need the cash for many years you have plenty of notice as to when you need to sell your shares so can do so when you stand to make a profit. There may well have been times during the years you own them when you suffer losses at least on paper. But it doesn't matter as potential losses aren't realised unless you actually sell up.

How to Save Without Sacrificing

If you are saving for a holiday or new car, investing for the short term, stick to a savings account paying the highest rate of interest you can find. At least you are guaranteed to get your capital back, plus some return. You aren't risking your cash. You won't make the big returns you might have made on stocks and shares but at least you know there won't be any losses either.

If you are saving for a holiday or new car - investing for the short term - stick to a savings account paying the highest rate of interest you can find. At least you are guaranteed to get your capital back, plus some return: You aren't risking your cash. You won't make the big returns you might have made on stocks and shares but at least you know there won't be any losses either.

Creating a Personal Finance Emergency Fund

Before you consider investing for the longer term, you need to set up your own personal finance emergency or rainy day fund for contingencies that you can imagine but couldn't pay for out of your purse or wallet.

The fund should contain enough money to pay for events such as a sudden trip abroad if you have close family in distant lands, any domestic problem that wouldn't be covered by insurance, a major repair to a car over and above an insurance settlement, or a vet's bill not covered by insurance.

It may be prudent not to put your emergency fund money in an account that offers a higher rate of interest in return for restricted access such as not being able to get hold of your money for five years. The problems and penalties associated with getting your cash on short notice outweigh any extra-earning advantages.

An emergency cash reserve serves as reassurance so you can ride out investment bad times more easily. Know that you'll rarely be able to access investments in an emergency. You shouldn't be put in a position where you're forced to sell. And your credit card can be a temporary lifeline, giving you breathing space to re-organise longer-term investments when necessary.

Liza Mathers writes for Seek4finance. Our visitors can apply online for a range of personal finance, solutions including personal loans, mortgages, credit cards, current accounts and savings. Visit http://www.seek4finance.co.uk today.

See Also : bosch sliding dual compound miter saw bosch cordless miter saw bosch tracrac t3b portable miter saw stand money-online acne