The Keys to Creating Personal Wealth and Financial Security Graham Roberts-Phelps www.grahamphelps.com 07515 851 691
How to make money and keep it
Preface This book is not just for high-flyers and top-earners. Regardless of your current income or status, you can use every page of this book. Please donâ€&#x;t just read it once, read it again and again, and underline the passages that really jump off the page for you. NB: Reading this book will not have any effect on your personal finances in the short, medium or long-term. However, applying them will. Creating greater personal wealth and financial security is you responsibility and yours alone. Graham Roberts-Phelps www.grahamphelps.com
Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. Warren Buffett
Dedicated to William and Lily; my inspiration, motivation, pride and joy, and my ever patient and supportive wife and best friend, Katharina.
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The way to wealth is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality. That is, waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality, nothing will do; and with them, everything. Franklin
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About the author – Graham Roberts-Phelps Graham Roberts-Phelps is a professional business consultant, speaker, author and trainer. He is also Founder and Director of GR Phelps Online Property Marketing www.grahamphelps.com contact@grphelps.co.uk + 44 (0)7515 851 691
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“The Universe rewards action, not intention.” Zen saying
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Contents Preface ................................................................................................................... 2 About the author – Graham Roberts-Phelps ................................................................................ 5 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 9 Understanding Cause and Effect ................................................................................................ 11 The Power of Belief..................................................................................................................... 13 Confident Expectations ............................................................................................................... 15 Law of Attraction ......................................................................................................................... 17 Your Financial Future is What You Make Up ............................................................................. 19 Creating an Abundance Mentality............................................................................................... 21 Money Exchange ........................................................................................................................ 23 Building Personal Capital ............................................................................................................ 25 Delayed Gratification................................................................................................................... 27 Learn to Save .............................................................................................................................. 29 Money Conservation ................................................................................................................... 31 Parkinsonâ€&#x;s Law .......................................................................................................................... 33 The Principle of Three................................................................................................................. 35 Intelligent Investing ..................................................................................................................... 37 The Magic of Compound Interest ............................................................................................... 39 Wealth Accumulation .................................................................................................................. 41 Money Magnetism....................................................................................................................... 43 Wealth Acceleration .................................................................................................................... 45 Learn How the Stock Market Works ........................................................................................... 47 Investing in Property ................................................................................................................... 50 The Money Illusion ...................................................................................................................... 52 Spend Wisely .............................................................................................................................. 54 Know the Number ....................................................................................................................... 56 Avoid Expensive Credit ............................................................................................................... 58 Four Final Thoughts .................................................................................................................... 60
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The No. 1 rule is to know the difference between an asset and a liability. The rich focus on their asset columns while everyone else focuses on their income statements. The more money that goes into my asset column, the more my asset column grows. The more my assets grow, the more my cash flow grows. And as long as I keep my expenses less than the cash flow from these assets, I will grow richer, with more and more income from sources other than my physical labour. Robert T. Kiyosaki (adapted)
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Introduction In 1906, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in his country. He observed that twenty percent of the people owned eighty percent of the wealth. This is still true today, if not more than ever. This book is dedicated to the principles, attitudes and strategies that these top 20% employ to create, manage and grow their relative fortunes. Even if your goals are more modest, and you simply would like to enjoy a prosperous lifestyle and quality retirement at the age you choose. In the coming pages, you will learn about the very best principles for achieving personal wealth, financial security and the peace of mind that comes with both. Maybe your goal is not acquire a large pot of money, but rather to retire early and comfortably or just simply not have to worry about money on a daily basis. One of your major goals in life should be financial independence. You must aim to reach the point where you have enough money so that you will never have to worry about money again. The good news is that financial independence is easier to achieve today than it has ever been before. If you are reading this, there is a good chance you are living in a prosperous society. If not, you clearly aspire to join such a group, and are in good company. Money has energy all of its own. It is largely attracted to people who treat it well. Money tends to flow towards those people who can use it in the most productive ways to produce valuable goods and services and who can invest it to create employment and opportunities that benefit others. At the same time, money flows away from those who use it poorly or who spend it in nonproductive ways. Your job is to acquire as much money as you honestly can and then to use that money to enhance the quality of your life and the lives of the people you care about. Money cannot buy you happiness, but it can cheer you up on a miserable day!
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This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy . Douglas Adams
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Understanding Cause and Effect Many things happen for a reason, whether or not we know what it is. Every effect, success or failure, wealth or poverty, has a specific cause or causes. Every cause or action has an effect or consequence of some kind or another, whether we can see it or not and whether we like it or not. This principle of financial cause and effect says that all achievement, all wealth, all happiness, prosperity and success are the direct and indirect effects or results of specific causes or actions. This means, if you can be clear about the effect or result that you want, you can probably achieve it. By studying who has accomplished the same goal, and by doing what they did, you can get similar results. The Cause and Effect principle applies to money as much as to anything else; financial success is an effect and arises from certain specific causes. When you identify these causes and implement them in your life and activities, you will get the same effects that many people have before you. Read the biography of any of the rich and famous and you soon be astonished how many started out with nothing more than belief. The fact is that you can acquire more money in your life if just do what others have done before you to achieve the same results. If you do not, you will not, it's just as simple as that. The most important expression of this universal law is that thoughts are causes and conditions are effects. To put it in another way, thought is creative and your thoughts are the primary creative forces in your life. You create your entire world by the way you think. All the people in situations of your life today have been created by your own thoughts and actions, or attracted to you by your own thinking and habits. Indeed, if you look around you as you are reading this book – everything in the room you are in started life as an idea or thought. When you change your thinking, you change your life; sometimes in seconds. Put more simply: “You become what you think about most of the time”. It is not what happens to you, but how you think about what happens to you, that determine how you feel and react. It is not the world outside of you that dictates your circumstances or conditions. It is the world inside of you that creates the conditions of your life. Specifically, it is the way you think about money and about your financial situation, that largely determines your financial conditions today.
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Look at the most important parts of your life: your family, your health, your work, your financial situation; and observe the cause-effect relationships between what you think, say, feel and do, and the results you are getting. Be honest with yourself.
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The Power of Belief In his book, “Think and grow rich”, Napoleon Hill states “whatever you truly believe with feeling becomes your reality”. Generally speaking, you always act in a manner consistent with your beliefs, especially your beliefs about yourself. Your beliefs act like a set of filters that screen out information that is inconsistent with them. If you act differently, you change or shape your beliefs to suit those actions. You do not necessarily believe what you see, but rather you see what you already believe. You reject information that contradicts what you have already decided to believe whether or not your beliefs and your prejudices are based on fact or fantasy. This is especially true with regard to money. The best belief that you can develop within yourself is that you are destined to be financially secure, wealthy a millionaire or whatever you choose. When you are absolutely convinced that you are a financial success in the making, you will engage in the behaviour that will make it come true. The worst beliefs you can have are self-limiting beliefs. These exist whenever you believe yourself to be limited in some way. When it comes to financial stability and wealth, no one is better than you and no one is smarter than you. Accountants go bankrupt and expert city investors lose millions in bad decisions. On the other hand, ordinary people, with no special DNA or natural talents become highly successful at something and provide for themselves, their families and the future, and sometimes become self-made millionaires. If someone else is doing better, it is largely because he or she has developed his or her natural talents more than you have. They have learned the principles of cause and effect and applied them to his or her financially affairs before you have. The fact is that anything anyone else has done, within reason, you can probably do as well. You just need to learn how. What one great thing would you dare to dream, if you knew you could not fail? If you had no limitations, if you had all the time, money, talent, skills and contacts that you could ever want, what would you want to do or be or have in your life?
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Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is. Bhagavad Gita
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Confident Expectations As many successful people will testify - whatever you expect with confidence becomes your own self-fulfilling prophecy. You are always acting as a psychic for your own life by the way you think and talk about how things are going to turn out. When you confidently expect good things to happen, good things usually happen to you – although not always directly as might have planned. If you expect something negative to happen, you are usually not disappointed. Wealthy people expect to be rich. Successful people expect to be successful. Happy, popular people expect to be happy and popular; and your expectations are largely under your control. So expect the best of yourself. Imagine that you have unlimited abilities and that you can accomplish anything you really put your mind to, and of course take action to achieve them. Imagine that your future is only limited by your own imagination and that whatever you have accomplished up to now, it is only a fraction of what you are truly capable of achieving. See today as a starting point for a better future, and then see that everyday. Imagine that your greatest moments lie ahead and that everything that has happened to you up to now has merely been a preparation for the great things that are yet to come. Whilst confidence, or self-belief, in itself, is not enough on its own it is often the precursor for all other elements to be effective.
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If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. Thoreau
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Law of Attraction Think of yourself as a living magnet. That is, consciously or unconsciously, you attract into your life the people, situations and circumstances that are in harmony with your dominant thoughts. This is one of the great principles that can explain much of success and failure in business and personal life. It says that everything you have in your life today, you have attracted to yourself because of the way you think. You can change your life because if you can change the way you think and the „successâ€&#x; habits that you develop on a consistent basis. Many people who achieve great success will tell stories of chance meetings, ideas, circumstances or events that have proved pivotal in their endeavours. When you develop a burning desire for financial success and think about it all the time, you set up a force-field of positive emotional energy that attracts people, ideas and opportunities into your life to help you turn your goals into realities. Consider your financial life today and see how it harmonizes with your thinking. Take full credit for all the good things in your life. They are there because you have attracted them to yourself. Then, look around you at the things you do not like and take full responsibility for them as well. They are there because of you as well, because of some principle in your own thinking. What is that principle and what are you going to do about it?
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All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage. The Dhammapada
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Your Financial Future is What You Make Up As many self-help books proclaim, your outer world is a reflection of your inner world and it corresponds with your dominant patterns of thinking. Now, this is an extraordinary principle, known as the „Principle of Correspondenceâ€&#x; in some books. This law explains most happiness and unhappiness, most success and failure, most greatness and meanness in life. Your outer world reflects your inner world in every way. Nothing can happen to or for you in the long-term until and unless it corresponds to something inside of you. Therefore, if you want to change or improve anything in your life, you must begin by changing the inner aspects of your mind. Sometimes this is called your mental equivalent. Your greatest responsibility in life is to create within yourself the mental equivalent of what you want to experience on the outside. The fact is that you cannot achieve it on the outside until you have first created it on the inside. It is very much as though your life is a 360-degree mirror. Wherever you look, there you are. Your relationships for example, always reflect back to you the kind of person you are on the inside. Your attitude, your health and your financial conditions are a reflection of the way you think most of the time. The Principle of Correspondence is a foundation rule of virtually all religions and all schools of thought. It can be the key to success and personal fulfilment. There is only one thing in the world that you can control and that is the way you think. However, when you take complete control over your thinking, you take control over all the other aspects of your life at the same time. By thinking and talking only about what you want and by refusing to think or talk about what you do not want, you become the architect of your own destiny, you create your own world.
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Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship . Benjamin Franklin
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Creating an Abundance Mentality Despite what the papers and media would have us believe, we live in an abundant Universe in which there is sufficient money for all who really want it and who are willing to obey the principles governing its acquisition. Whilst this might be a tough claim to support Global, it is certainly true for most well developed financial economies, and certainly true for you if you are reading this book. It means is that there is plenty of money available to you, me and many other people, perhaps contrary to your or their beliefs. There is no real shortage of money – it‟s everywhere! You can have virtually all the personal wealth you really want and need, if you are willing to learn how and make the efforts necessary. We live in a generous universe and are surrounded on all sides by blessings and opportunities to acquire all we truly desire. Your attitude of either abundance or scarcity toward money will have a major impact on whether you become financial secure or wealthy. Become wealthy because they decide to become wealthy. Individuals become wealthy because they believe they have the ability to become wealthy because they believe this completely, they act accordingly. They consistently do the things that turn their beliefs into realities. The second effect of an Abundance Mentality is that people are poor because they have not yet decided to become rich. In the book 'The Instant Millionaire' by Mark Fisher, the old millionaire asks the boy who has sought his advice about becoming a millionaire, “Why aren‟t you rich already? This is an important question to ask yourself. However you answer this question, it will reveal a lot about yourself to yourself. Your answers will expose your self-limiting beliefs, your doubts, your fears, your favourite excuses, your rationalizations and your justifications. Why are you not rich already? Write down all the reasons you can think of. Go over your answers one by one with someone who knows you well and ask them for their opinion. You may be surprised to find that your reasons are mostly excuses that you have fallen in love with. Whatever your reasons or excuses, you can now get rid of them. The world is full of hundreds and thousands of people who have had far more difficulties to overcome than you could ever imagine and they have gone on to be successful anyway, and so can you.
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Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons
.
Woody Allen
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Money Exchange Money is simply the medium through which people exchange their labour in the production of goods and services for the goods and services of others. Before there was money, there was barter, and in many countries this is still common. In barter, people exchanged goods and services directly for goods and services without the medium of money. As civilizations grew and barter became too clumsy, people found that they could exchange their goods and services into a medium like coins, which they could then exchange for the goods and services of others; thereby making the whole process more efficient. Today, we go to work and exchange our work for money, which we then use to purchase the results of the work of other people, or to buy experience. If you are seeking to increase your personal wealth and financial independence, there are five elements you should consider carefully: 1. Money is a measure of the value that people place on goods and services. It is only what a person will pay that determines the value of something. Goods and services do not have a value separate and apart from what someone is willing to pay for them. All of the value is therefore subjective and based on the thoughts, feelings, attitudes and opinions of the prospective purchaser at the moment of the buying decision. 2. Your labour (or anybody elseâ€&#x;s) is viewed as a factor of production or a cost by others. We each have the tendency to look upon our efforts or our work as something special because it is so intensely personal. It comes from us and is an expression of what we are as a person. However, as far as others are concerned, our labour is just a cost. As intelligent consumers, as employers or customers, we all want the very most for the very least, no matter whose labour is involved. For this reason, you cannot place an objective or fixed value on your own labour. It is only what other people are willing to pay for your labour in a competitive market that determines what you earn and what you are worth in financial terms. 3. The amount of money you earn is the measure of the value that others place on your contribution. The way the market for labour of any kind works is simple. You will often be paid in direct proportion to three factors: the work you do, how well you do it and the difficulty of replacing you. How much you are paid is influenced by the quantity and quality of your contribution in comparison with the contributions of others, combined with the value that other people place on your contributions.
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4. Money is an effect, not a cause. Your work or contribution to the value of a product or a service is the cause, and the wage, salary or earnings you receive are the effects. If you wish to increase the effect (the money), you have to increase the cause (the value) that you put in. 5. Finally, to increase the amount of money you are getting out, you must increase the value of the work that you are putting in. To earn more money, you must add more value. You must increase your knowledge, or increase your skill, or improve your work habits, or work longer and harder hours, or work more creatively, or do something that enables you to get greater leverage and results from your efforts. Sometimes, you have to do all of these together. The highest paid people in our society are those who are continually improving in one or more of these areas to add greater value to the work that they are doing.
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Building Personal Capital Your most valuable asset, in terms of cash flow, is your physical and mental capital, your earning ability. You may not even be aware of this, unless you are wealthy already. Your ability to work is the most valuable asset that you have. By leveraging your earning ability to its fullest, you can bring extra wealth each year into your life. By applying your earning ability to the production of valuable goods and services, you can generate sufficient money to pay for all the things that you want in life. The amount of money that you are paid today is a direct measure of the extent to which you have developed your earning ability so far. Therefore, your most precious resource is your time and intellect. However, our time is really all most of us have to sell. How much time you put in and how much of yourself you put into that time, largely determines your earning ability. Poor time management is one of the major reasons for poor productivity and under achievement. It is the number one problem for entrepreneurs, executives, managers and salespeople in every field. Your time and money can be either spent or invested – wisely or foolishly. To a certain degree, your time and money are interchangeable. If you spend them, they are gone forever. You cannot get them back. On the other hand, you can invest them, in which case you get a return on them that can go on and on. If you invest your time or your money in becoming more knowledgeable and better skilled, you can increase your value. By increasing your ability to get results for yourself and others, you increase your earning ability, your personal cash flow; sometimes, for the rest of your career. One of the smartest things that you can do is to invest 3% of your income every month back into yourself on personal and professional development, on becoming better at the most important things you do. There is nothing that will give you a bigger and better return than reinvesting some of your time and money back into your capability to earn even more. All wealthy and successful people have learned this sooner or later, and many other people are still trying to understand. One of the best investments of your time and money is to increase your earning ability. Think of yourself as a business or enterprise. The purpose of business is to increase return on equity or ROE. This requires organising and reorganising business activities so that the company is earning a higher return on the capital invested in it.
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In your work life, your personal equity is your mental and emotional capital. Your job then is to earn the highest possible return on your human capital, to increase your return on energy. Identify the things you do in your work that represent the highest value use of your time. Focus more of your time on doing those things that represent the greatest contributions you can make to the most important results that you can achieve. Continually look for ways to increase your return on energy. Remember the 8020 rule – 80% of your success will come from 20% of your activities.
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Delayed Gratification It is an accepted truism that some of the most successful people in any society are those who take the longest time period into consideration when making their day-to-day decisions. The higher a person rises in any society, the longer is the time perspective or time horizon of that person. Many people at the highest social and economic levels make decisions and sacrifices today that may not pay off for many years. Sometimes not even in their lifetimes. People with long time perspectives are willing to pay the price of success for a long, long time before they achieve it. They think about the consequences of their financial choices and decisions in terms of what they might mean in 5, 10, 15 and even 20 years from now. People at lower levels of personal wealth and achievement, often have the shortest time perspectives. They focus primarily on immediate gratification and often engage in financial behaviours that are virtually guaranteed to lead to indebtedness, poverty and financial problems in the long-term and usually in the short-term as well. You begin to move up socially and financially from the day that you began thinking about what you are doing in terms of the possible long-term consequences of your actions. As you begin thinking longer term and organizing your financial life and priorities with your future goals and ambitions in mind, the quality of your decisions improve and your life starts to become better almost immediately. In this way, delayed gratification is the key to financial success. Your ability to practice self-mastery, self-control and self-denial, to sacrifice in the short-term means you can enjoy greater rewards in the long-term. This is the starting point of developing a long-term time perspective. This attitude is essential to financial achievement of any kind. Self-discipline becomes the most important quality for assuring long-term success. Self-discipline can be defined as the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not. Your ability to discipline yourself to pay the price of success, in advance, and to continue paying it until you achieve the goal you have set, is the true mark of character.
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Remember that sacrifices in the short-term are the price you pay for security in the long-term. The key word here is sacrifice. When you resist the temptation to do things that are fun and easy and instead discipline yourself to do the things that are hard and necessary, you develop in yourself the kind of character that virtually guarantees you a better life in the future.
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Learn to Save Financial security can be gained by saving 10% or more of your income throughout your lifetime. Therefore, one of the best things that you can learn to do is to develop the habit of saving part of your salary, every single month. Individuals, families and even societies are stable and prosperous to the degree to which they have high savings rates. Savings today are what guarantee the security and possibilities of tomorrow. In the book 'The Richest Man in Babylon', George Classon explains a simple lesson - “pay yourself first�. Begin today to save 10% of your income, off the top, and never touch it. This becomes your fund for long-term financial accumulation and you should never use it for any other reason except to assure your financial future. The remarkable thing is that when you pay yourself first, and learn to live on the other 90%, you will soon become accustomed to it. You, like me and most other people, are a creature of habit. When you regularly put away 10% of your income, you soon become very comfortable, and you soon develop a habit of living on the other 90%. Many people start by saving 10% of their income and then move to saving 15%, 20%, and even more and their financial lives change dramatically as a result. So will yours. You should also take full advantage of tax deferred or tax-efficient savings and investment plans. Because of high tax rates, money that is saved or invested without incurring taxes accumulates at a rate of 30% to 40% faster than money that is subject to taxation. So, you should invest in company pension and retirement plans, and legal, secure offshore, tax-free or low-tax investments, so long as they are secure. Begin today to put away 10% of your income, it is rarely too late to start. Set up a special account for this purpose and treat your contributions with the same respect that you do your rent or mortgage payments each month. (You never miss them.) If you are in debt today and 10% is too much for you, start by saving 1% of your income and living on the other 99%. When you become comfortable living on 99% of your income, increase your savings rate to 2%. Over time, work the rate up to 10%, 15% and even 20% of your income, and your financial future is guaranteed.
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When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is . Oscar Wilde
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Money Conservation It is not how much you make, but how much you keep, that determines your financial future. Many people make a lot of money in the course of their working lifetimes. Sometimes, during boom periods, people greatly exceed their expectations and make more money than they ever thought possible. The true measure of how well you are really doing is how much you keep of the amount that you earn. Successful people are fastidious about putting away chunks of money regularly and paying off debt during prosperous times so that they have reserves set aside when the economy or business turns downward. Calculate your true net worth as of today. Make a list of all your assets and value them at the amount you can actually get for them if you had to turn them into cash quickly. Add up all your bills, credit card balances and mortgages and then subtract them from your assets to get your net worth today. Now, divide the number of years you have been working into your net worth. The result is the net amount you have actually earned each year after your costs of living. So, here is the question. Are you happy with it? If you are not happy with how much you have earned each year since you started working and how much you have kept, start today to do something about it. Start today to do something different.
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He that wants money, means, and content is without three good friends. William Shakespeare
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Parkinson’s Law This adaption of Parkinson‟s Law (“Work expands to fill the time available”) is that expenses rise to meet income. Parkinson‟s Law is one of the best known and the most important principles of money and wealth accumulation. It was first formulated by English writer C. Northcote Parkinson many years ago and it explains why many people retire short of funds, either what they would like to have or what they could have had. It seems that no matter how much money people earn, they tend to spend the entire amount and a little bit more besides. Their expenses rise in step with their incomes. Many people are earning today several times what they were earning at their first jobs. But somehow, they seem to need every single penny to maintain their current lifestyles. No matter how much they make, there never seems to be enough. The first effect of Parkinson‟s Law is that financial independence comes from violating Parkinson‟s Law. It is only when you develop enough willpower to resist the powerful urge to spend everything you make that you begin to accumulate money and move ahead of the crowd. Next, if you allow your expenses to increase at a slower rate than your income increases, and you save or invest the difference, you will become financially independent in your working lifetime. If you can drive a wedge between your increase in earnings and the increase in costs of your lifestyle, and then save and invest the difference, you can continue to improve your lifestyle as you make more money. By consciously violating Parkinson‟s Principle, you will eventually become financially independent. From this point onward, resolve to save and invest 25-50% of any increase you receive in your income from any source. Learn to live on the rest. This still leaves you the other 50-75% to do with as you wish.
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Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust
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Oliver Wendell Holmes
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The Principle of Three There are three legs to the stool of financial freedom; savings, insurance and investment. One of your major responsibilities to yourself and to the people that depend on you is to build a financial fortress around yourself over time. Your job is to create an estate within which you can be safe from the financial insecurities experienced by most people. To achieve this goal, you need to maintain the correct proportions of your finances in each of these three: savings, insurance and investment. In order to be fully protected against the unexpected you require liquid savings equal to two to six months of normal expenses or around three months salary. Your first financial goal is to save enough money so that if you lost your source of income for up to six months, you would have enough put aside to carry you over. The act of saving this amount of money and putting it into a high yielding savings account, fund or a money market account will give you a tremendous sense of confidence and security. Not having to worry about money ever again should be one of your major goals. Knowing that you have this money put away will make you a far more effective, and probably a nicer person, than if are always worrying about your next payslip, your next bag of groceries or having enough money to retire at an age you choose. Next, you must insure adequately to provide against any emergency that you cannot pay for out of your bank account. Always carry sufficient insurance to protect yourself against an emergency that you cannot write a cheque to cover. Carry sufficient health insurance to provide for yourself and others in any medical emergency. You insure your car for liability and accident, so insure your life so that, if something unfortunate happens to you, the people who are counting on you will be provided for. Perhaps the deepest need or craving of human nature is the desire for security, and without adequate insurance, you are taking risks that you simply cannot afford. Finally, and the third leg of the stool, is that your ultimate financial goal should be to accumulate capital until your investments are paying you more than you can earn on your job.
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Your life is divided into roughly three parts, although these three parts tend to overlap. First, there are your learning years, where you grow up and get your education. Then, there are your earning years, from approximately 20 to age 60 or 65. Finally, come your yearning years, when you can retire, with the average life expectancy today approaching 80 years and rising. We are also staying healthier and fitter longer during our retirement years. The simplest and most effective of all financial strategies is for you to save and invest your money throughout your working lifetime until your investments are paying you more than you can earn on your job. At that point, you can begin to phase out of your regular job and spend more and more of your time managing your assets. This seems like a very simple lifetime planning strategy, but it is remarkable how few people follow it and how many people end up at the age of 65 with very little put aside. The average retired person today has a total net worth well below what they could have had with proper planning. Do not let this happen to you.
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Intelligent Investing This is one of the most important of all the Principles of Money. Always invest, and always investigate before you invest. Avoid get rich quick schemes and never gamble with your money, especially money you investment for long-term gain. You have worked too hard to earn it and taken too long to accumulate it. A short-cut to becoming a expert in every aspect of investment, is to take advice from a trusted advisor. Choose someone with experience, and particular knowledge of secure, well-regulated and Government-backed Institutions. Always ask for full and complete disclosure of every detail and demand honest, accurate and adequate information on any investment of any kind. If you have any doubts or misgivings at all, you will probably be better off keeping your money in the bank or in a money market investment account than you would be speculating or taking the risk of losing it. The only really easy thing about money is losing it. It is hard to make money in a competitive market, but losing it is one of the easiest things you can ever do. A Japanese proverb says: “Making money is like digging with a nail, while losing money is like pouring water on the sand.” Always look for low-medium risk Investment funds with a view to long-term capital growth. An important lesson comes from self-made billionaire Marvin Davis, who was asked about his rules for making money in an interview in Forbes Magazine. He said that he has one simple rule and it is this: “Do not lose money”. He said that if there is a possibility that you will lose your money, do not part with it in the first place. This principle is so important that you should write it down and put it where you can see it. Read it and reread it over and over again. Think of your money as if it were a piece of life. You have to exchange certain number of hours, weeks and even years of your time in order to generate a certain amount of money for savings or investment. That time is irreplaceable. It is a part of your precious life that is gone forever. If all you do is hold on to the money rather than losing it, that alone can assure that you achieve financial security. Remember: do not lose money. If you think you can afford to lose a little, you are probably going to end up losing a lot. There is something about the attitude of a person who feels that he has enough money that he can afford to risk losing a little. Always ask yourself what would happen if you lost 100% of a speculative investment. Could you cope or afford that? If you could not, do not make the investment in the first place.
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Only invest with experts, funds and Institutions who have a proven track record of success with their own money. Your aim is to invest only with people who have such a successful track record with money that your risk is dramatically diminished. Don't lose money. If ever you feel tempted, refer back to this rule and resolve to hold on to what you have. Invest only in things that you fully understand and believe in. Take investment advice only from people who are financially successful from taking their own advice.
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The Magic of Compound Interest Investing your money carefully and allowing it to grow at compound interest will eventually make you rich. Compound interest is considered to be one of the greatest miracles in wealth creation and economics in general. Albert Einstein described it as the most powerful force in our society. When you let money accumulate at compound interest over a long enough period of time, it increases more than most people realise. You can use the Rule of 72 to determine how long it would take for your money to double at any rate of interest. You simply divide the interest rate into the number 72. For example, if you are receiving 8% interest on your investment, and you divided the number 72 by eight, you would get the number nine. This means that it would take you nine years to double your money at 8% interest. It has been estimated that £1.00 invested at 3% interest at the time of Christ would be worth half the money in the world today. If the money had been allowed to grow and double, and then double again, and then again, and again and again, it would be worth many billions or trillions of pounds today. The key to compound interest is to put the money away on a regular basis and never touch it. Once you begin accumulating money and it begins to grow, you must never, never touch it or spend it for any reason. If you do, you lose the power of compound interest, and though you spend only a small amount today, you will be giving up what could be an enormous amount later on. If you start early enough, invest consistently enough, never draw on your funds and rely on the magic of compound interest, it will make you rich. An average person earning an average income who invested £100.00 per month from age 21 to age 65, and who earned a compounded rate of 10% over that time, would retire with a net worth of more than £1 million. Begin a regular, monthly investment account and commit yourself to investing a fixed amount for the next 5, 10 or even 20 years. Select a company with a family of mutual funds and investment instruments, and keep your money working month after month and year after year. As Warren Buffet once said; “Our favourite investment period is forever”.
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I've been rich and I've been poor. Rich is better. Sophie Tucker
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Wealth Accumulation Every great financial achievement is an accumulation of hundreds of small efforts and sacrifices that no one ever sees or appreciates. The achievement of financial independence will require a tremendous number of small efforts on your part. To begin the process of accumulation, you must be disciplined and persistent. Initially, you will see very little change or difference, but gradually, your efforts will begin to bear fruit. You will begin to pull ahead of your peers. Your finances will improve and your debts will disappear. Your bank account will grow and your whole life will improve. Then, as your savings accumulate, you develop a momentum that moves you more rapidly towards your financial goals. It is hard to get started on a program of financial accumulation, but once you do get started, you will find it easier and easier to keep at it. The momentum principle is one of the great success secrets. It can sometimes take a lot of effort to overcome the initial inertia and resistance to financial accumulation and get started, but once started, it takes much less energy to keep moving. When you first begin thinking about saving 10% or 20% of your income, you will immediately think of all kinds of reasons why it is not possible. You have lots of debts or may be spending every single penny that you earn just to keep afloat. However, if you find yourself in this situation, there is a solution. Begin saving just 1% of your income in a special account, which you refuse to touch. Begin putting your change into a large jar every evening when you come home. When this jar is full, take it to the bank and add it to your savings account. Whenever you get an extra sum of money from selling something or an old debt is repaid, or a bonus comes in unexpectedly, instead of spending it, put it into your special account. These small amounts will begin to add up at a rate that will surprise you. Next, as you become comfortable with saving 1%, increase it to 2%, then 3%, then 4% and 5%, and so on. Within a year, you will find yourself getting out of debt and saving 10%, 15% and even 20% of your income without it really affecting your lifestyle.
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Don't knock the rich. When did a poor person give you a job? Laurence J. Peter
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Money Magnetism The more money you save and accumulate, the more money you attract into your life. „Money Magnetismâ€&#x; is a primary reason for wealth building throughout history. It explains much of success and failure in every area of life, especially in the financial arena. Money goes where it is loved and respected. The more positive emotions you associate with your money, the more opportunities you will attract to acquire even more. A prosperity consciousness attracts money like iron filings to a magnet. This is why it is so important for you to start accumulating money, no matter what your situation. Put just a few coins into a piggy bank. Begin saving even a small quantity of money. That money, magnetised by your emotions or desire and hope will begin to attract more money to you faster than you can imagine. It takes money to make money. As you begin building and growing your personal wealth, you begin to attract more money and more opportunities to earn more money into your life. This is why it is so important that you start even with a small amount. You will be amazed at what starts to happen. Take time every day to reflect on your financial situation and look for ways to deploy your finances more intelligently. The more time you take to think intelligently about your finances, the better decisions you will make and the more money you will have to think about. And, the more you think about your savings and investments, the more of them you will attract into your life.
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Riches are not an end of life, but an instrument of life . Henry Ward Beecher
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Wealth Acceleration Similar to „money magnetismâ€&#x;; the faster you move toward financial freedom, the faster it moves toward you. The more money you accumulate and the more success you achieve, the more and faster money and success seems to move towards you, from a variety of different directions. Everyone who is financially successful today has had the experience of working extremely hard, sometimes for years, before they got their first real opportunity. But after that, more and more opportunities flowed to them from all directions. The major problem that most successful people have is sorting out the opportunities that seem to come at them from everywhere. And it will be the same for you soon enough. The fact is that 80% of your success will come in the last 20% of the time that you invest or put in. You will achieve only about 20% of the total success possible for you in the first 80% of the time and money that you invest in an enterprise, a career or a project. You will achieve the other 80% in the last 20% of the time and money that you invest. Peter Lynch, the former manager of the Magellan Mutual Fund, one of the most successful mutual funds in history, said that the best investments he ever made were those that took a long time to come to fruition. He would often buy the stock of a company that did not increase in value for several years. Then it would take off and go up 10 or 20 times in price. This strategy of picking stocks for the long-term eventually made him one of the most successful and highest paid money managers in America.
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Learn How the Stock Market Works At its simplest, the value of a stock is the total anticipated cash flow from that stock discounted to the present day. What this means is that a share of stock represents a share of the ownership of the company. This share entitles the owner of the share to all the benefits and risks of ownership, including profits, losses, stock increases, declines in value, good or poor management and increasing or decreasing demands for the products or services produced and sold by the company. When you buy a stock, you are investing a certain sum of money and betting that your return will be in excess of what you could earn in a guaranteed investment, such as a bond or a money market fund. Purchasing a stock is a form of gambling because the future of the company and the value of the stock are both unpredictable. They are determined by countless market forces such as sales, competition, technological change, interest rates, quality of management, world events, weather and many other things. Here are some keys to understanding the stock market: 1. A saying about stocks and shares is that “bulls make money and bears make money, but pigs get slaughtered.” This means that people who invest aggressively when the market is rising make money. People who sell short and protect themselves when the market is declining make money, but greedy people who try to make a killing in the market almost always lose money. More than 70% of Day Traders, people who move in and out of the market completely one day at time lose money and many of them lose everything. 2. Long-term investing in the American, UK or a major stock market is the best way to achieve long-term financial security. The value of stocks traded on the US markets has increased an average of 11% over the past 80 years. As a result, a person who began investing at the age of 20 and who invested £100.00 per month in a mutual fund that increased an average of 10% per year would retire with a net worth of more than £1 million.
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3. Pound (or dollar) cost averaging in the long run will make you rich. Pound cost averaging is a way of making money in a falling market, so long as the market recovers, by investing smaller amounts on a regular basis (not ad-hoc lump sums) This means is that there is no such thing as bad market timing. If past performance is a guide, it is virtually impossible for you or anyone else to lose money investment in the UK or US stock markets on a long-term basis. When stock prices are a low, your monthly premiums more units or shares, with higher value when the prices rise, as they invariably do. If investing in individual stocks or smaller-spread funds, It is always better to buy the stocks of good, solid companies selling valued and respected products and services and then hold onto those stocks for the long run. 4. Finally, remember the stock market is managed and made by professionals. This means that every purchase of a stock represents the sale of that same stock by someone else. The person purchasing the stock is betting that the stock will increase in price. The person selling the stock is betting that the stock will decline in price. Every stock purchase and sale is therefore a zero sum game at that moment with one person betting his wisdom and judgment against that of another person. Most of these people are professionals who do this for 50 to 60 hours every week. Your safest course of action is to invest in an Index Fund or Management fund, that represents a range or wide range of stocks and sometimes other forms of investments, not just equities. An Index or Tracker fund linked to the whole market is more secure comparatively as it goes up or down based on the average trend of the entire market. 5. The three most important things when in investing in equities, or anything for that matter, are: diversify, diversify and diversify. Do not put all your eggs in one basket.
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Money is the seed of money, and the first guinea is sometimes more difficult to acquire than the second million. Jean Jacques Rousseau
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Investing in Property This principle says that the value of a piece of real estate is the future earning power of that particular piece of property. The value of any piece of property is determined by the income that can be generated by that property when it is developed to its highest and best use from this moment onward in time into the future. A piece of property may have sentimental value to a particular owner, but its cash value is directly related to its future earning power. There are millions of acres of land that will never have any real value, such as desert land for instance that has no future earning power. There are vast areas of many large cities where property values are declining because growth and development have come and gone and will probably not return. Every day men and women are selling homes and properties at less than they paid for them. Or losing them to foreclosure, because these properties have declined in earning power, in attractiveness and therefore in value. You make your money when you buy property or real estate and you realise it when you sell. It is by purchasing a piece of property at the right price and under the right terms that enables you to sell it at a profit later. Many people think that they will make their money when they sell the property irrespective of how they purchased the property or at what price. This is setting the cart before the horse. The more carefully you investigate a piece of property and the more thoroughly you prepare a purchase offer, the more likely it is that you will get the kind of deal that will enable you to sell that property at a profit later on. The three keys to real estate selection are location, location and location. Each piece of property is unique in that there is only one piece of property like that on the earthâ€&#x;s surface. Your ability to choose a piece of property in an excellent location will have more of an impact on the future earning power of that property than almost any other decision that you can make. Property and real estate values are largely determined by general economic activity in the area and by the number of jobs and the level of wages. This is very important when you are selecting a neighbourhood or a community in which to invest. Generally speaking, property increases at three times the level of population growth and two times the rate of inflation. When you purchase property in a fast growing community, you are virtually assured of above average increases in value.
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There is a very easy way to return from a casino with a small fortune: go there with a large one. Jack Yelton
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The Money Illusion Money illusion is a term used to describe the effect of having feeling richer than we really when we have a high or higher income. „Money illusion‟ refers to the tendency of people to think of currency in nominal, rather than real, terms. In other words, the numerical/face value (nominal value) of money is mistaken for its purchasing power (real value). The term was coined by John Maynard Keynes and Irving Fisher wrote an important book on the subject, The Money Illusion, in 1928. A recent scientific study highlighted this, improving on previous and more subjective questionnaire based surveys. Scientists discovered that thinking about cash stimulates the reward centres in the brain that are involved in pleasure. The higher the salary – even if it is just imagined – the greater the pleasure generated in the brain. In this way, money works like a drug on the human mind – and even just the thought of earning a higher salary gives us a physical „high‟. The most intriguing aspect of the research is that the findings hold true even if what we want to buy costs more, for example in times of high inflation, and our actual spending power drops. The results of the study suggest that the human brain is innately susceptible to the illusion of wealth that money can bring. Some economists have proposed that people behave irrationally when it comes to wages by being happier with higher salary increases in times of high inflation than they are with lower salary rises in times of low inflation. It has now emerged that more money really does seem to generate the feelings of reward in the brain that are also involved in irrational or addictive behaviour, even if the purchasing power of higher salaries is reduced by high inflation. The study by Professor Armin Falk, of the University of Bonn, has found scientific support for the theory of money illusion being embedded in the human mind by examining the brain activity of 18 volunteers who took part in a series of tests involving different salary payments and prices. The volunteers were asked to earn their "salaries" by performing a series of mental tasks on a computer. The salary rates were at two levels, with the higher level being 50 per cent greater than the lower level. They could then spend this money on a selection of goods listed in two types of catalogue. Each catalogue was identical except that one was 50 per cent cheaper than the other.
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In practice, the volunteers had the same purchasing power, irrespective of which salary they earned. But the brain scans show that the reward centres in their brains were far more active when stimulated by the idea of the higher salary. This means that intuitively, the money illusion implies that an increase in income is valued positively, even when prices go up by the same amount, leaving real purchasing power unchanged. For instance, studies have shown that people report being happier when they receive a 5 per cent increase in their salaries at a time of 4 per cent inflation, compared to a 2 per cent increase in salary at a time of low inflation. Remember to fight against the „money illusion‟. Consider real value when calculating your wealth and financial well-being, not just the „buzz‟ that comes from higher earning or investment return.
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Spend Wisely Even though seemingly very obvious, it is worth remembering that gross income is not the same as net income. In order to have £100 of spending money, you will need (in most countries) to earn £200. Therefore, a simple saving of £20 per week (approximately a £1000 per annum) will be the equivalent of a £2,000 pay rise. Here are four things to remember and use as a guide: 1. The first principle of spending wisely is to differentiate between needs and wants. There is no gain in buying well (i.e. cheaply) things that we don‟t really need. Living in an advanced consumer society has great advantages, but it is not without sand-traps. 2. The second is to spend less on highly taxed items. At the time of writing, and in much of the USA and Europe this includes alcoholic drinks, cigarettes and petrol. Moral, health and environmental issues aside, these items mean your money is eaten away in government tax. Driving a fuel-efficient vehicle and avoiding reducing your mileage can save you hundreds and possibly thousands of pounds a year. These cars also tend to have lower maintenance costs and less depreciation too. 3. Point number three is very simple: Avoid expensive items that depreciate. The list might include cars, computers, designer clothes, holiday apartments, high-end technology, and (in some areas) residential houses. No matter how good a bargain price you may negotiate, an expensive car will be worth less than 30% of it‟s value three or so years later. Before you buy that £50,000 luxury car, imagine piling £30,000 into a bag and setting fire to it or throwing it in the sea. On the positive side, a well-maintained and good quality used car can be a better financial decision. 4. Lastly, best-buy commodities and daily items and choose quality and value on everything else. Commodities are household utilities such as gas, electric and water, day-to-day commodities (a name brand washing powder contains a premium to cover the expensive marketing and advertising. A non-branded product will probably wash your clothes just as well). However, for non-commodity items higher quality will probably give you great satisfaction and better value in the long run. For example, cheap shoes are a false economy.
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My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income. Errol Flynn
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Know the Number That is, the number you need to know to retire well, and with the option to retire when you choose. Many of us go through our working years without too much thought of how we'll live well and comfortably when we retire. Of course, most of us want to be able to stop working at some point and enjoy our retirement years, but the only way to do that is to be financially prepared. The fact is that the only person responsible for your retirement finances is you. How do you know how much money you will need to retire? Try the following steps: 1. Calculate the cost of your current living expenses. Statistics say that when we retire, we will need around 70% of our annual income we live on while working. This is probably not an accurate figure for most of us anymore, since we tend to live longer than we used to, retire earlier than we used to which means we tend to travel and have more lifestyle expenses when retired. As people age, more medication and visits to the doctor are typically required. 2. It's not wise to depend on Social Security, since there is no real guarantee the money will be there when we're ready to retire. Most Governments in the developed world are facing a financial crisis in paying pensions due to the large „demographic bubbleâ€&#x; of older people living longer. Most Governments in the undeveloped world have no chance. If your home will be paid off before you retire, you will not have to worry about paying a mortgage, but older homes tend to need more money for maintenance costs. If you are able to pay off your debt before you retire, you will not have to make monthly payments for credit cards or loans, which can reduce your living expenses considerably from what they may be now. 3. Determine your desired retirement income. Some people are able to, or rather have to, cut costs dramatically when they retire. Others plan additional expenses for their retired years that actually require having more money during retirement than when working. If you plan to travel to visit family or for vacations, your income will need to be able to support the travelling lifestyle. Many retired people look forward to travelling, and if this is your intention you'll want to be sure your income is enough to make it happen. It would nice to have the choice, wouldnâ€&#x;t it?
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4. Are you going to relocate? Some retired individuals or families move to another state or location with a lower cost of living, mostly because they have to. Instead, create a dream of where you would ideally like to spend your retirement years, and the lifestyle you would love to have. 5. Remember to account for inflation. Life is more expensive with every passing year, so you have to consider that when figuring the amount needed for your retirement years. For example, the amount you can live on comfortably in your first year of retirement may be tight during the fifth year and not enough during your tenth year! Experts say to assume an inflation rate of 3%. 6. Try to predict the number of years you will be retired. How old do you want to be when you retire? How old will you realistically be when you retire? (These two numbers can be different!) Then think about how many years you will live beyond your retirement day. You can use life expectancy calculators or you could just guess, but you need to have an estimate of years in order to estimate the amount of money you need for retirement. Budget for at least 20 years. 7. Finally, calculate the money you will need each year of retirement, accounting for inflation and your lifestyle, and then add up the money for each of the years you will be retired. Then, save and invest. Most people find their retirement number to be out of reach for regular savings, so you'll probably want to use investment strategies to help you reach your number. A financial advisor can be extremely helpful with this. It's recommended that you set aside 15% of your gross annual income for retirement. You should aim to build a „potâ€&#x; of capital that will produce an income without eating away at the capital. Otherwise there is a danger you will run out of money before you run out of life. So, know your number, and start today to build a capital fund that will produce adequate annual income for the whole of your retirement.
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Avoid Expensive Credit Credit is a way of making cheap things expensive. A Senior Director of a major High Street UK Bank, admitted that banks credit card fees were extortionate and he would never use one. Generally speaking, the cheapest ways to borrow money are: 1. Not paying your bills until you have too. 2. Friends, family and relations that donâ€&#x;t charge you interest. 3. Mortgage-type long-term finance, most likely secured against property. 4. Agreed overdrafts 5. Unauthorised overdrafts (although 5 and 6 might vary). 6. Credit cards (unless cleared in full on a monthly basis). 7. Loan sharks and gangsters. Finally, make sure you review all your loans, bank accounts and credit cards annually. Financial institutions have a habit or rewarding new customers with better rates and punishing loyal and lazy ones.
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If you wish to get rich, save what you get. A fool can earn money; but it takes a wise man to save and dispose of it to his advantage. Brigham Young
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Four Final Thoughts Here are the four keys to success with money for the rest of your life: 1. First, earn as much as you possibly can. Do everything possible to excel in your field so that you are paid extremely well for what you do.
2. Next, hold on to it as much as you possibly can. Remember, it is not the amount that you make, but the amount that you keep that counts in the long run. Resist the natural tendency of most people to throw their money around, to spend it impulsively and end up broke every month, no matter how much they earn. Do not let this happen to you.
3. The third key to money is for you to reduce and control your costs of living. Look for every opportunity to practice frugality in everything you do. Buy less expensive items. Put off important buying decisions for a day, a week or even a month so that when you finally do make the decision, it is a good one. All wealthy people are very careful with their money and their expenditures. That is how they became wealthy, and are more likely to stay that way.
4. Finally, the fourth key to money is for you to invest it carefully and make it grow as rapidly as you can. Because of the effect of compound interest, combined with cost averaging principles, you can become wealthy in a few years by saving and investing 10% to 20% of your income, every single month off the top, as you go along. Investing in a legal and secure tax-free or low tax investment is the preferred strategy for most high-net worth individuals and corporations.
It has never been more possible for you to make more, save more, accumulate more and grow your money faster than it is today. Your focus should be to take full advantage of the wide range of opportunities that are available to you. You can then apply these principles to fulfil your financial destiny and become wealthy in your working lifetime. Good luck, although you probably realise creating greater personal wealth and being financially secure is not really about luck, is it?
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