Hond Financial

Posts Tagged ‘financial planning’

Choosing the right financial planning professional.

When choosing the right financial planning professional, you need to ask them some key questions. Here are five questions to help you make the right choice:

1)      What experience do they have? If you chose a rookie financial planning professional you will probably get a cheaper service, but a more experienced adviser is more likely to produce better results.

Don’t jump to conclusions though. The younger, less experienced adviser might be dynamic, more enthusiastic, and a great planner to have on board, where as the older more experienced planner might be set in their ways, or waiting for the right moment to retire. Look for gut instinct when asking this question.

2)      What are their qualifications? All financial planning professionals require basic financial qualifications, but to be honest they are not rocket science, and can be passed with a few weeks study. It is very easy to get involved in financial services with the minimum of knowledge.

Look for those who have advanced qualifications, or are members of professional organisations such as the Chartered Insurance Institute or the Institute for Financial Planning. This shows a commitment to gain important knowledge. Those who only have the basic qualifications may be looking for a quick income in an industry which is lucrative to salesmen as well as financial planning professionals. Be warned!

3) How does the planner anticipate getting paid? You usually are given three options; the adviser will get paid by commission direct from the lender, by fee from yourself, or a combination of the two. Advisers who typically work on a commission basis will try and sell you something, otherwise they do not earn. Fee based advice tends to be more impartial, and represents better value for money in most instances. Find out exactly how much they expect to earn, and do a sense check as to whether they are asking too much for what they are doing.

Be wary of the planner who charges fees in excess of what they would earn from commission. You may feel you are getting a better service by paying a fee, but the fee needs to be proportionate to the work which is being done.

A typical fee might be between £150 and £250 per hour for the work that is done.

4)      Ask them to detail any conflicts of interest. Do they get an introducer fee for referring you to a third party, or do they have close working relationships with particular insurance companies. If so, find out why, and make a judgement call on whether this is ethical.

If the financial planner recommends any financial solutions, ask them why it is the best for your circumstances, and make sure you understand the answer. Ask them what else they considered, and why they rejected it. Ask them if any recommendation is flexible, and ask them what features it has which benefits you. Ask them to put it in writing too!

5)      What is their approach to financial planning. How long do they spend creating a plan and strategy, and how long do they spend promoting financial products? How do they establish how much risk you need to take,  and how do they forecast cash flow into the future.

So called financial planners who cannot answer these questions without bumbling will probably be sly salesmen in disguise. Most, if not all of these questions should be answered without you having to ask, but I reckon 99 out of 100 times they will not.

Sometimes it is difficult to chose between planners, but try hard to ensure that you do not end up with the smooth talking salesman, as it could ruin everything you are trying to achieve. You do not want someone who is target or commission biased helping you plan your future!!

A lesson on goal setting and financial planning.

Successful financial planning is not about choosing the right pension, or selecting the right investment provider, it is about having the right mindset, and being able to follow a proven process from start to finish.

First you need to look at  goal setting. I would say that goal setting is about 25% of the financial planning process, and without doing this, the process will not work at all. Imagine a car with 25% of its engine missing. It probably won’t work, and this goes for financial planning too.

Goal setting is an important subject, and cannot be covered in full on this blog, but more details can be found on my financial planning website. There are also specialist books written on the subject of goal setting which are well worth a read.

 The basics to goal setting are as follows:

You should set a goal for your benefit only. Not for the benefit of others, although there is nothing wrong if your goal benefits others indirectly.

You should make your goal positive in nature.

Your goal should be specific. You need to be able to see every small detail when you visualise your goal. The vaguer you make it the less likely you are to achieve it.

You must be able to picture your goal.

An example of a good goal could be:

“I wish to retire on my 55^th birthday. I want to have enough money to live a fulfilled life which includes playing golf on a weekly basis at the manor executive club. I will play regularly so I can beat all of my golf buddies.  I want to afford to have meals out with rosemary (my wife) at nice restaurants. We would enjoy good quality meals such as roast beef and Yorkshire puddings, and steak in red wine sauce. I would also like to take 4 holidays per year. I would like to take three foreign holidays, and explore new and exotic places. I would like to be able to lie on the beach, seeing clear blue sea and white sands.  I want to enjoy a long and fruitful retirement, and the earlier I retire the more I can see and do.

An example of a bad goal could be:

I want to retire early with a good pension. This is because I don’t like working. But I cant stop working if I don’t have enough money because I will be poor and unable to live a good life. I don’t want to be too poor to do anything, and I don’t want to retire when I am too old to do good things.

The first goal is specific, positive, for your benefit, and easy to visualise. The second goal is non specific, negative, and very difficult to visualise.

You should try and visualise your goals for 30 minutes per day. You should try and have between 10 and 20 specific goals at any one time. You should not restrict your goals to what you can easily achieve, but instead have goals which you dream of, and are out of reach because setting your sights too low guarantee you will under achevie.

People have all sort of invest for retirement strategies, from purchasing IRAs to gold coins. But one thing is for certain among all of these options: it is just simply crucial that you begin to prepare for the future now, because every day loss endangers your prospects of long term success and comfort. With the Republicans raiding our Social Security for the purpose of filling our already bloated war chest, the chances of ever retiring seem to grow smaller and smaller by the minute, and most Americans think that the future looks really rather bleak at this point. That is why investing for retirement is something that everyone should think about. Investing for retirement is no longer simply the concern of those approaching middle age, but rather something that even young people in their twenties and thirties need to understand and begin to do. Otherwise, who can guess the future. You may just end up working into your seventies or even eighties if you have failed to do sufficient investing for retirement.

Really, I am not qualified to give you advice about investing for retirement. There is no such thing as simply writing an article can explain to you what plan is right for your long term financial needs. The best way to learn how to invest for retirement is to talk to a qualified financial advisor qualification. That way, you will get the opinions of an expert, custom tailored for your needs and your financial situation. While everyone needs to think carefully when it comes to investing for retirement, not everyone needs to go about it in just the same way, and so having a plan that is correctly made to fit your needs is the only sure way of doing it.

If you can begin investing for retirement soon, then you can stop worrying about not having enough for retirement. This is especially true if you need help with debt.Your financial expert will have it all taken care of for you, where you can relax and watch your savings and investment grow over the years. There is nothing better than that.  Or you can start a coffee shop business today

One of the biggest problems facing people who have with money is knowing what to do with it. Though you may think that not having enough to pay the bills is something that happens when you simply do not have sufficient income, you should know that there are many other contributing factors especially in today’s economy.. There are many who have great incomes, but they don’t know how to manage their money. Their financial management skills are {no good, or none existent}. This often comes from parents who had the same problems. We learn by example.

Impulse control, or rather a lack there of, is normally one of the biggest reasons why people have problems with personal financial management. There are many reasons for this, but most people have problems because they have no patience. That is something that our grandparents and great grandparents would find to be an alien concept. If they wanted something they couldn’t afford, they did without it until they saved for it. Most people simply do not think that way today.

When you look at how much you earn, and then total up your monthly bills, you can really test your financial health. Many find that they look at the totals and have no idea why they can’t pay their utilities, rent, or mortgage. Even Even when considering the rising cost of living, things should never be as bad as they are for some families. What is needed is a good plan for financial management, even if it means hiring someone to help.  There are tons of finanical planning books and guides written about financial planning.

Many times a professional financial planner is well worth the investment in time and money.  Considering today’s economy, most all of us can benefit from an experienced financial planner looking over our situation.  Our first step should be to do a bit of research on our own about personal financial planning.

As I am getting older, I make up my mind that I really need to start saving some money for retirement. I am already in my mid-thirties, but I don’t even have as much as a single IRA in my name, so I’m definitely behind in the game of retirement planning.  I have consider working part time in insurance or bank but not sure of the require financial advisor certification that I need to start.

I’ve been reading news articles about how Social Security isn’t likely going to be around when I retire, so I know I can’t count on the government to take care of me when I am old and helpless. Plus, the cost of living just continues to skyrocket, which means that financial planning is even more important now than ever before.

As I said, I’ve never really worried about financial planning before, but I guess it’s better late than never. I don’t have a personal adviser for money matters, so I’ve been doing a little research on the Internet to try to find out how other people are saving up for retirement. I was pretty overwhelmed by the amount of financial planning information out there, so it’s definitely going to take me some time to weed through it all.

From many of the websites I’ve reviewed thus far, I’ve learned that the most important financial planning decision I have to make is what kind of investment vehicles to put my money into. There are many to choose, I must be careful before I part with my money. Or I could start some online business or data entry work such as those job from legitimate paid surveys

Keeping my money in the savings account that yields 3 just percent per year is not the smartest financial planning move I can make. Such rate of return is not idea, so I am better off in putting the money into stocks or bonds that can give better interest return.

Another thing I learned from the various financial planning website I visited was that it might be helpful to sit down with a professional planner to go over my current situation. Together, we could discuss my goals for the future, calculate how much money I think I’ll need for retirement, and work out a viable investment plan to help me reach my goals before age 65.

This is a great idea, so I’m currently looking for someone near me who is qualified to help me with my financial planning needs.

I am happy that I have finally decided to do something for my retirement. I do hope that with proper financial planning, I can have something comfortable to live on when I am old!  And maybe I should consider opening setting up a coffee shop business

Have you ever been out of work for a week, a month, even longer? Wouldn’t it be nice to only buy foods when they were on sale? Do you wish you had a stockpile of grains now that the prices are getting so high?

I have a great solution to this very issue, stock up on a year’s supply of food storage! I’m a big Dave Ramsey fan, and food storage to me is similar to his concept of an ”emergency fund”.  You have a smaller, short term food storage and once that is built up, you start working on your long term food storage. Both types of food storage can be financial advantageous to you.

Short Term Food Storage

Your short term food storage consists of getting a three month supply of foods that you eat on a day to day basis. Once you have your initial storage items gathered, you simply shop out of your pantry each month and only buy foods if they are substantially discounted that month. Since you will only be buying things that are heavily discounted, you will be reducing your monthly grocery budget quite a bit. In addition to saving a little bit on your grocery bill each month, you can also have the comfort of knowing that the food will be there in case of an emergency. For example, my husband took a pay cut for several months and we were able to spend less than HALF of our usual grocery budget for those months because we had stockpiled so much of our everyday foods.

Long Term Food Storage

Your long term food storage consists of getting a year’s supply worth of life-sustaining foods that have a long shelf-life. These foods probably won’t be rotated as often since they tend to be mostly raw ingredients such as white rice, dried beans, powdered milk, wheat kernels, etc. But since the shelf life is so long you can gradually purchase the items when they are on sale and work up to a year’s supply. Even if you don’t think you will ever use these items except in a REAL emergency, it’s not a huge budgetary constraint to have to re-purchase them every 10,15, or 20 years due to expiration dates. Long term food storage items can also be used in your regular recipes which will help you to also save money in the short term.

Homemade bread is significantly cheaper than store-bought, especially if you own a wheat grinder and grind your own wheat. Making other items from scratch such as muffins, pancakes, etc. can also save you money over buying packaged items. In times of economic trouble you can rely on your food storage for long periods of time while other people are begrudging the high prices of staple foods. Prices will most likely come down before you deplete your stores. And finally if a major disaster, economic melt-down, or other long-term emergency were to occur, you can feel confident that your family will be able to survive without purchasing basic food or water for quite some time.

Lotto Winner

Most of us fantasize at some point about sudden wealth. What if we won the lottery, or a big-money contest, or inherited untold riches? Well, it does happen; what if it happens to you?

If you become a lotto winner your life will never be the same. Not only your life, but the lives of friends and relatives will also change — and the change may not always be good. Incredible things have happened to people who have overnight attained the status of being a lotto winner.

No matter how you have won the lotto, whether you drew the winning numbers yourself or used the windows lotto pro software, the fact is that you will be richer by tens of millions of pounds or euros, and things will start to change almost before you realize it.

Winning a record prize of £ 11 million, Mark Gardiner believed that all his problems were a thing of the past. However, though his present problems vanished, he got into new ones that he was not capable of or trained to handling. Mark hit the jackpot with his business partner and friend Paul Maddison. Together the two of them won a record £ 22 million and Mark got his share of £ 11 million. Paul turned away from the limelight and faded into the background while Mark decided to have some fun.

Before he could comprehend it, Mark went through half of his winnings. Though he gave to friends and relatives, bought expensive cars and houses, married and then divorced, his problems never seemed to end. His family disowned him just as if he had committed a crime. Finally, Mark regained his bearings, grew wiser, and remarried his first wife, a childhood sweetheart, whom he had divorced when he was penniless.

Fortunately, not all stories are as heart breaking as the one mentioned above. There have been innumerable people who have made good on their fortune and remained grounded. Ianthe Fullagar, just a student, won an astonishing £ 7,055,142. After screaming in disbelief she settled down and called her family, and her boyfriend, and shared the news with them. Ianthe intends to share her new found wealth with those near and dear to her and to continue to pursue her degree in law. The only new thing she planned to buy was a new car.

An anonymous winner donated all his winnings of $3 million to his church without batting an eye. The church has decided to expand to accommodate the growing congregation and will also donate some of the money to charities.

The point is, as a lotto winner you now are in an enviable position to do a lot of good to yourself and to those around you. Your community stands to benefit too — if you maintain a cool head and spend the money wisely. So, you might want to think ahead — just in case.

Support The Red Cross - Liechtenstein Lotto has a guaranteed jackpot of EURO 20 million and is the only lotto that sponsors the Red Cross. Grab a lotto ticket today knowing that some of your money will be going to much needed aid work all around the world!

Lotto Winner

Most of us fantasize at some point about sudden wealth. What if it was us who won a big-money contest, or the lottery, or inherited untold riches? Well, it does happen; what if it happens to you?

If you become a lotto winner your life will never be the same again. Not only your life, but your friends’ and relatives’ lives will also change, and the change may not always be good. Amazing things have happened to people who have suddenly attained the status of being a lotto winner.

Whether you happened to draw the winning numbers yourself or used the windows lotto pro software, the fact is that you will be richer by tens of millions of pounds or euros, and things will start to change almost immediately.

Winning a record prize of £ 11 million, Mark Gardiner was confident that all his problems were a thing of the past. However, though his present problems vanished, he got into new ones that he was not capable of or trained to handling. With his business partner, friend Paul Maddison, Mark won the jackpot. the two had record winngs of £ 22 million and Mark got his share of £ 11 million. Shunning the limelight, Paul withdrew into the background while Mark decided to have some fun.

Before he could believe it, Mark went through half of his winnings. As Mark bought expensive cars and houses, gave to friends and relatives, married and then divorced, his problems never seemed to end. His family disowned him as if he had committed a crime. Finally, now wiser, he regained his bearings and remarried his first wife, a childhood sweetheart, whom he had divorced when he was penniless.

Fortunately, not all stories are as heart breaking as the one mentioned above. There have been many people who have made good on their fortune and remained grounded. Ianthe Fullagar, a student, won an amazing £ 7,055,142. After the usual screaming in disbelief she settled down and called her family, and her boyfriend, and shared the news with them. Ianthe intends to share her new found wealth with her near ones and to continue to pursue her degree in law. The main new thing she planned to buy was a new automobile.

One anonymous winner donated all his winnings of $3 million to his church without batting an eye. The church has decided to expand to accommodate their growing congregation; they will also donate some of the money to charities.

The point is, as a lotto winner you now are in an enviable position to do a lot of good for yourself and for those around you. Your community also stands to benefit if you maintain a cool head and spend the money wisely. So, plan ahead — just in case.

Support The Red Cross - Liechtenstein Lotto has a guaranteed jackpot of EURO 20 million and is the only lotto that sponsors the Red Cross. Get a lotto ticket on-line so that some of your money will be going to much needed aid work all around the world!