Start Late, Finish Rich
Filed under: Books, Education, Finance, Money, Saving, Spending
Tis the season for resolutions.
A lot of people will make the resolution to read more and learn to take control of their finances.
Here is a good book that I recently finished and it fits 2 of my requirements for a good book. It was easy to read and contained some really good information.
Financial Education
Filed under: Education, Investing, Rant, Robert Kiyosaki, Statistics
While reading my ever growing list of blogs today I ran across this post with the statistics about what students know. It’s pretty sad and disturbing.
The State of Financial Education in the U.S.
Here’s another minor rant.
When the government made the change that allowed companies to switch from Pension plans to 401k etc plans and the schools didn’t start teaching finance to school kids they did a severe disservice to Americans. What they did was make millions of people enter the stock market without teaching them anything about it. The equivalent of forcing people to drive without teaching how to drive or driver testing. The results are the same, CRASH!!! Only difference is that one crash is early and the other later in life.
I think it was Rich Dad’s Prophecy that talked about how our lack of financial education is going to cause severe problems when the baby boomers are forced to start withdrawing money from their retirement plan.
I find it insane that they will be forced to withdraw regardless of how the market is or even if they want to sell off their holdings. I’m hoping that someone figures it out and changes the rule but I’m not holding my breath.
I’m not saying that we should stop contributing to our 401k etc plans since it’s pretax and has employer matching. However learn how it works. Stop believing everything the experts say and learn for yourself. Education never ends.
The 4 jars Method Of Saving Money
Filed under: 4 jars, Cashflow Quadrant, Charity, Doo Dads, Getting Started, Investing, Rich Dad Poor dad, Robert Kiyosaki, Saving, Spending
Here’s an interesting way to save money that I adapted from Rich Dad Poor Dad or maybe it was Cashflow Quadrant or one of the other Robert Kiyosaki books. He said to take 3 jars and label them as the following:
Saving
Charity
Investing
I added Doo Dads and if you’ve read the Rich Dad Poor Dad books you know that Doo Dads are the little toys that usually drain our paychecks.
So what you do is take 4 piggy banks or jars or whatever and put in a dollar to each jar everyday and then deposit the investing jar into an investment account, donate the charity jar, deposit the saving jar into your saving account and buy a toy with the doo dad jar.
If you can’t swing a dollar for each to start, then do a quarter or if you can do more, then do that. The important thing is to put something in daily and to use it for what the jar is for. When you’re first starting out, you may be tempted to take money out of the jars, treat it as a loan and pay yourself back asap.
You’ll be surprised how little you notice the money gone and how fast it adds up.
NAKED RETIREMENT
Naked Retirement strips down the old traditional models of retirement planning and replaces the it with a more creative and intuitive one that helps people take control of their retirement planning, saving, and investing.
The book details the evolution of retirement and uses it to help baby boomers and retirees understand why they are behind in saving and what they can do about it.
"Retirement planning can no longer be one-dimensional, focused exclusively on merely providing information such as how pensions or a 401(k)’s work. It needs to extend beyond financial planning to include aspects of health and social issues that will impact future retirees," according to author, Robert Laura.
Billed as the ultimate defense against the scary, anxious, and stressful feelings people get on their first day of retirement when they have only a financial plan full of numbers and charts to guide them, Laura simplifies the mental and emotional aspects of retirement planning with thought-provoking questions about your definition and approach to retirement as well as important retirement conversations that foster strong relationships in retirement.
The book culminates into a one-page Naked Retirement plan that will help people as well as planners successfully estimate retirement preparedness and future success.
Book is available at NakedRetirement.com and is emailed in pdf format directly to participants.