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O, Canada!

What a week, Stock market looks like a yo yo this week. We got sea sick just watching. Fed keeps sticking their nose into private enterprise (Something they are very good at). Each time they fool around the stock market goes wild.This week they messed with banking, oil, technology, the Auto industry and one of their favorites is the airlines industry.

In case you haven’t picked up on it we are in favor of federal hands off where business is concerned. We think the American consumer will sort it all out given time.
When Uncle Sam starts messing with business it is always a disaster.

Enough about depressing financial stuff, now on with the trip.

Went to Canada week before last and was not surprised to find the American dollar not in a favorable position.

Western Canadians blame all the worlds woes on the US. Is that a surprise to any one?

Had a great time walking in one of the largest glaciers in the world in shorts and crocks. LOL. Our first time in the Canadian Rockies was quite a treat as we have never been that high since Viet Nam.

We loved the scenery and were especially in awe of the color of the Glacial water in the rivers and lakes. If you have not seen it it is a deep turquoise blue. The powdered rock from beneath the glacier suspends in the water and dispelled all the color spectrum except this unusual but spectacular blue.

The AKGORICLE was not present with his glacier cooler trying to save the glacier from global warming though and I was, as you might imagine very disappointed.

The Canadian Rockies in Banff National park are unspeakably beautiful.
We were about 4400 ft above sea level at the Hotel and 10,000 to 12,000 ft above sea level at various times in the Mountains.

I saw Elk in the wild for the first time. They were so used to people in the national parks we could walk up to within 50 feet of them and they paid little attention to us

The Banff Springs Hotel is spectacular and incredibly expensive. We stayed in the section of the hotel reserved for mere millionares and below.(Rooms only $475 per night.) The good rooms were up to $5000 per night.

8 of us had a 3 hour 5 course dinner for a mere $1400.00.

I had buffalo steak, 3 medallions the size of silver dollars for $55.

Parking our rental car was $34 per night. We ate most of our meals at McDonalds after that dinner.

We swam in the same pool that the Royal family has used (Not the Obamas)

We also swam in volcanic mountain mineral hot springs 105 degrees and they have to cool it from around 150.

As we returned to the good old US form our trip the Canadian Customs people were busy doing body cavity searches on the two of us 60 year old Caucasians tourists while Abdul and Mohammad and friends went right through without question.

Another week in the kingdom of the Vast Right Wing Conspirators at the Money Matters staff headquarters.

God wants that you should have life and have it more abundantly.

We are keeping our eye out for the true freedoms purchased at such a cost by our awesome fighting men and women so you and I have equal opportunity to prosper and profit.

God intended that you and I have available at our disposal “Exceedingly abundantly above all you can think or ask.

Ask and seek and knock and you shall find.

Until next week.

Happy trails to you until we meet again.

“Doug’s Money Matters is a section of the VAJoe Blog to ask for quick financial tips and advice from an expert with more than 20 years experience in counseling families to live without debt and to reach there financial potential. Please leave comments on this Blog. You can learn more about the Money Matters advisor at his website. The posts and comments by JoeMoneyMatters reflect his two decades of financial counseling expereince. VAJoe.com does not endorse any financial strategies, but offers this blog as a service to its site members for discussion.

http://dkirk@forwardfinancialgroup.com

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Amazing!

Just a few days away from the highest gas prices in history and already we are declaring “The worst is over.” say some Fox News financial analysts.

Who do they think they are kidding?

The market wen up on Thursday almost 200 points.

See that’s proof the good times are back, right?

Whoops! We forgot to tell you the market went down 450 points combined for the rest of the week.

I work all day every day with peoples finances and companies finances. Some of the people I work with are quite affluent. I see the best and worst and everything in between and I make it my business to keep track of what is going on both Nationally and Internationally financially.

I am not a Profit sent by God to foretell the future but we are being fed a line of c**p!

It has always been in the best interest of the stock market and business to project an image of prosperity even when one does not exist. Loosing consumer confidence has always been a major no no in the financial and business community. But when we (The consumer) have are head so far up our butt that we cannot see the forest for the trees it spells big trouble.

The business and financial industry have always made a killing when the consumer is ill informed or just ignorant.

Today the consumer is IGNORANT!

“If you know the truth the truth will set you free.” John 8:32

People do what makes them feel good at the moment, with no consideration to the consequences.

The Mortgage crisis is mostly the fault of the feels good mindset.

People are shooting themselves in the head financially and saying ” No one told me that the gun was loaded.”

It’s time for the American consumer to stop trying to buy the US out of hock!
It is not your responsibility to attempt single handed to raise the GNP (Gross National Product) numbers.

Stop using debt!

A client argued with me the other day that if all Americans stopped using debt the economy would collapse. I asked him when he was appointed savior of the economy?
Why is it his responsibility to buy everything he can get his hands on and destroy his own family in the process?

Think people!

Who is going to bail you out? Is the congress going to vote to bail you out financially?

You and I have to be responsible for ourselves.

For the most part those who are truly prosperous have no debt.

Those who are duped into believing we can prosper on debt walk a fatal line. I see them daily. I see the pain and devastation and bankruptcy and families torn apart by debt. I see sickness and depression and loss of self esteem. Emotional disorders, suicide, total destruction from the debt mentality.

Most who read these warnings will nod your head in agreement as I did for many years and change nothing!

MY hope is to cause just one to heed these warnings and take affirmative steps to change the direction of there lives forever. To those who would be bold and say I will not continue to be the status quo I say.
Start a structured plan of attack. You cannot do it yourself! If you were a financial expert you might pull off some real change but we need help. Get with a no fee faith based debt elimination strategist and let them help you.

You and I will accomplish much more if there is some accountability. Even the most prosperous of my clients will say I could not have accomplished all that I have done without a structured plan and a “Money Coach.”

Get a Money Coach today and start moving from mediocrity to true freedom. You will not regret it.

See you next week.

Doug’s Money Matters is a section of the VAJoe Blog to ask for quick financial tips and advice from an expert with more than 20 years experience in counseling families to live without debt and to reach there financial potential. Please leave comments on this Blog. You can learn more about the Money Matters advisor at his website. The posts and comments by JoeMoneyMatters reflect his two decades of financial counseling expereince. VAJoe.com does not endorse any financial strategies, but offers this blog as a service to its site members for discussion.

http://dkirk@forwardfinancialgroup.com

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I joined the Marine Corps in 1967 right after high school. I was in Nam by December. My combat experience and how I dealt with it probably was not much different than many others.

I was only in Nam a couple of days when a South Vietnamese soldier tripped a booby trap and was killed. The first time I had ever seen someone die.He was not dismembered and there was little blood and the experience seemed eerily surreal.

I was a Combat Engineer and a demolitions expert and mines and booby traps were my specialty. I felt as though if I had been where this man was I could have prevented his death.

A couple of days later we were mine sweeping a dirt road between a place called An Hoa and a fire-base called An Loc when we found that a large hole(50 feet in diameter) had been blown in the middle of this road. Loose dirt was everywhere and the V.C.(Viet Cong) had a bad habit of doing this and planting mines in the loose dirt because they were harder to detect. We had the infantrymen set up a defensive perimeter and we ( My partner and I ) began to probe for mines. Laying on our stomach to reduce our profile to explosions we would carefully push our bayonet’s into the loose soil, feeling for solid resistance while being gentile enough to avoid setting off any mines.
My partner(Clyde Dillenberg) and I were carefully and systematically clearing path through this area when the lieutenant walked by me upright. I thought; what is he doing, to myself. He knelt down just a few feet in front of me and began to probe. I looked up just as he pressed his bayonet into the ground and BOOM. The explosion knocked me backwards and I landed on my back about 25 feet back into the crater . As I looked up I saw the LT’s body flying through the air above me. He must have been at leas 20 ft high. He landed about 15 or 20 feet further up the road from where the explosion took place.
Pieces of his flesh and bone and blood were all over me.

Everyone said that he must have seen something because he suddenly walked purposefully directly to the spot where he knelt down and started probing.

I immediately began probing again to clear path to him so we could get him medical attention. When we had secured an area safe for the medical corpsman to come up to him the sight we found could only be described as unthinkable. Here was a man I knew with one leg ripped off taking with it the hip exposing his intestines. The other leg was blown off above the ankle and shredded flesh hung in ribbons from the exposed bone to the knee. The arm he was probing with was gone to just below the shoulder again exposing the bone from above the elbow to the armpit. The other arm was blown off rather cleanly around mid forearm.

We found him face down and rolled him over to expose the most horrifying sight I have ever experienced. His forehead and cheeks had gaping holes in them and both eyes were gone,the rest of his face was in tact. The rest of his torso was mostly in tact.Immediately assuming he was dead I informed the Doc(Medical corpsman) that there was no need to hurry because he was dead. Just then he (the LT.) groaned.

It was chilling. Then he began to talk. I was both horrified and saddened to think this man was still alive in the condition he was in. The doc called in a medical evacuation and we cleared the rest of the area of mines so a chopper could land and pick up the LT.
There was little we could do but watch and listen to this hunk of mutilated flesh talk asking for help. He could neither see or hear us talking to him but he kept calling out to us to help him. I began to wish for his death so he would stop talking.

We picked him up by the limb fragments and put him on stretcher and loaded him on the helicopter.

He died 3 days later. I was 19. New years day.1968.

There were to be many other days and many other horrors for the next 6 months.

I chose to share this experience as a part of my journey back from 40 years of healing. I was mortally wounded that day but not by mortars, mines or bullets. My wounds started that day and continued to become more and more severe over the next 6 months. I was wounded by enemy mortar fire in late June and medically evacuated ultimately back home and Medically retired.

From the time I was evacuated until more than 10 years later the severity of the mental wounds began to show up in increasingly more bazaar and violent ways.

In 1979 I found the true beginnings of healing from my mental prison. My wife and I had always made it our practice to attend Church regularly but it had little effect on my mental state until one summer morning when I met some folks who were involved in the same business we were in and they began to talk about their faith in ways I had never heard.
They talked of being “Born Again” and of a intimate personal relationship with Jesus. As they spoke I realized that I had been desiring a deeper faith and felt drawn to the Jesus they spoke of. They prayed with me and I invited Jesus into every area of my life. Healing emotionally began immediately. Although dramatic changes began that day the changes took several months to reach a level where I knew I was truly free.

I still have some spells where I get emotional and uncomfortable when spending a lot of time thinking about those months In Viet Nam. The hate, bitterness and anger are long gone. The violent incidents, long gone as well, the headaches loss of reality, also gone.

I have functioned as a whole man for many years. Although my physical scars remain and somewhat limit my mobility I am free indeed.

My hope is that by sharing this bit of my life here with my family at VAJoe that maybe one of you will find some healing as I have.

A difficult journey starts with one step. Start today.

If you have questions about any of these experiences you may post a response or email me at

dkirk@forwardfinancialgroup.com

Back to the regular Doug’s Money Matters next week

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If you still have not cashed out of the market you are probably singing that song. Thank God It’s Friday!
What a week! Well I have been overwhelmed with people wanting advice on what to do with the money the had in the Market (What is left of it).
Let me share some of our recommendations with you.

1. Establish an emergency cash reserve of at least $3000.00 (This needs to be liquid).
This way if something breaks (Car, Hot water heater etc.) You will not be forced into using debt.

2. PAY OFF DEBT! All the debt you can. If the economy were to collapse your 401k would be useless. If you own what you possess you start out 10 floors above everyone else when recovery begins. and you will have assets of intrinsic value with which to bargain for your needs.

3. Store up basic provisions. If things continue to skyrocket in price and you have food stored up you will not go hungry. You do not get a second chance if I’m right.

4. Find ways to save and invest in things of intrinsic value. Gold ,Silver, etc.
those things will always have value even when our Dollar is worthless.

This is not some far out fringe extremist survivalist strategy but the prudent plan of wise men throughout History.

This is a blog and you are welcome to ignore it completely if you wish. But should you ignore it and these things take place please don’t bother to come calling. There will not be enough for everyone. I am laying up provisions for my family and a few others but they are all moving purposefully towards this goal.

I will be speaking ,as I do almost every weekend in a Church. The people there will get a step by step plan to reach and exceed these goals.

These brief seminars are called Financial Freedom seminars. They are taught weekly in Churches and civic groups Nationwide.

Keep in mind my military family and friends, you must change how you are doing what you are doing if you want your life and future to change for the better.

Insanity is doing the SAME THING and expecting DIFFERENT RESULTS!
If you continue what you are doing or do more of it you will harvest MORE of the SAME results.

Politicians cannot save you. 401k’s cannot save you. Your smarts cannot save you. (If they could you would already be doing far better than you are now) YOU MUST have a plan to get free.

There is hope for all who seek it. But be cautious. There are also those who would have what you have saved, by force or influence.

My job is to be a watchman on the wall. calling out a warning.

Who will heed???

You can be free but you must act now. Freedom is why we served and freedom is what we sacrificed for, but few in this land possess it.

Do you want some freedom? Freedom from employers who control your life? Freedom from want? Freedom to enjoy your life? Freedom to help others? Freedom brings peace and rest, in your body , mind and your spirit.

My prayer for you this day and every day is that you will find true peace and freedom.

” Let Freedom Ring”.

See ya in 2 weeks, Going to Banff Canada for some of that freedom. ( Can you say FISH ON!)

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Fixing the money thing!

We have tackled many topics regarding your personal finances, however it’s time we tackled the pending financial disaster in America.

Today the stock market fell once again. Sound familiar?

Remember 2000 to 2003?

The stock market has fallen more than 2000 points since the first of the year, Is this just another minor market correction?

Why are the cost of goods going up at an alarming rate? Why are there so many forclosures on new homes? Why with so little unemployment are we seeing the kind of economic indicators we saw during the Carter administration? Should I be alarmed? What can I do to protect myself from a financial disaster if one should occur.

Doug intends to tackle these issues in this blog.

Lets look at some of the factors that have contributed to the unsettling times we are facing.

High national debt,the highest in history. High personal debt, also the highest in history. The blog host shows stastistics on his website that are alarming regarding personal debt and national debt.

Someone has to pay the piper.

Home forclosures are at a national record. In my sons 4 year old new home subdivision 1 out of every 5 houses is abandoned, in forclosure or severely behind on their payments.

Why?

Builders, bankers, realtors and their lobbies influenced the Government to modify lending rules several years ago to keep the housing boom going. The lenders were able to get people approved for loans that 2 0r 3 years earlier they would not have approved.

Buyers with considerable credit challenges were approved and the builders and realtors were thrilled. They could now get people in homes that they would not have qualified for before.

The problem comes in that the buyers were already in excessive debt and we just added hundreds of thousands to the burden. When you buy a new home the real estate taxes are based on the LAND only the first tax year.The second year the payment including taxes and insurance went up considerably. The third year,the loans were not fixed interest and the interest went up and so did the payment.

Buyers who were struggling to make the payment initially now were unable to make them at all.Thus forclosures! In many new home subdivisions people are just walking away from the home in the middle if the night.

The housing and mortgage industries are in a panic.The stock market is affected and so on and so forth.

Oh what tangled webs we weave in an effort to deceive!

THE STOCK MARKET

In 1960 only 2% of Americans owned stocks.

Then came the Mutual fund!

Today most Americans have Mutual funds through employer retirement plans like 401k’s, 403b’s, 457’s, IRA’s, and Roth IRA’s.

What does that mean?

The stock market is vastly overinflated.

Before mutual funds, the only people who owned stocks were people of means who were able to pay someone to watch, move, buy and sell on their behalf continuously.

Today the American people have been lied to by the brokers and agents who sell these mutual funds at big commissions and continued (Trail commissions ) even when the market goes down!

When the experts sell the mutual fund, owners are told to buy because the market is so good. When the market is low and the experts know what and when to buy the mutual fund brokers say again, buy now because the funds are a good value.

In other words, no matter what is happening they are giving you the exact same advice.

Sound a bit suspicious to you?

When in 2000 -2003 the market began it’s largest loss in history. The advice was exactly the same. It will come back, don’t worry!

Well, they were right! The market did come back. Over all, the average holder of mutual funds and stocks had vertually NO GAIN for 7 years!

How often can you afford those kind of setbacks?

Now, with the largest one week loss in the history of the stock market earlier this year and continued losses for thr first 6 months what do you suppose the advice of the mutual fund dealer is? Same old, Same old!

Why are we not suprised? They don’t want to give up those hefty commissions.

The stock market is more volatile than ever in it’s history and we predict a much longer and much larger loss than in 2000 -2003 over the next several years.

Can you afford it again?

What then should we do?

Lets start by using some of the common sense that our Government, Realtors, Builders , Bankers and Investment brokers seemed to have left on the Table of the BIG COMMISSION!

Start by developing an aggressive strategy to pay off all consumer debt!

First, make sure you have at least $2,000.00 in the savings accounts for immediate emergencies.

Then attack the debts one at a time starting with the highest intrest rate and going down.

Don’t add a little to each debt. Take all the extra money you can free up monthly and attack them one at a time!

Stop paying into retirement plans and eliminate consumer debt first.

That flies in the face of conventional wisdom due to the employers contribution.

Don’t let greed destroy you! Pay off the debt!!!

If a major economic downturn, recession or worse happens you will be on top and not at the bottom!

The choice is yours!

You can keep on doing the same thing you are doing now in whch case if the above
You can keep on doing the same thing you are doing now in whch case if the above happens you will be destroyed financially.

Or you can do something different.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Are you willing to bet we are wrong?

Doug’s Money Matters is a section of the VAJoe Blog to ask for quick financial tips and advice from an expert with more than 20 years experience in counseling families to live without debt and to reach there financial potential. Please leave comments on this Blog. You can learn more about the Money Matters advisor at his website. The posts and comments by JoeMoneyMatters reflect his two decades of financial counseling expereince. VAJoe.com does not endorse any financial strategies, but offers this blog as a service to its site members for discussion.

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What in the heck is going on here?

Are you watching the stock market? The Mortgage crisis? The oil situation?

We are free falling into the worst economic period since the great depression.

Think not? Consider this.

The Wall Street Journal says fuel prices could go to between $8.00 and $12.00 by years end. The Housing market that everyone thought would begin to rebound by mid summer is now predicted to continue to tumble for several more years. The world economic scene has NEVER been so vulnerable.

Iran vs Israel? Can you say WWIII? China owns everything of any value in the US and what they don’t own they are negotiating for right now.

Individual Debt is 10 times higher than just 5 years ago.

When we started in financial services 15 1/2 years ago 88% of disposable income of the average American family was dedicated to personal debt. today 135% is dedicated to debt.

How is that possible? We spend far more than we earn on average by using debt to pay for food gas utilities clothing perishable goods.

Where does that leave us?

IMPENDING DISASTER!

We coach thousands of families yearly who are average income earners with a home, 2 kids, 2 cars, both Mom and; Dad work, they feel like they are getting along alright until we do a reflective budget.

SHOCK & AWE!

They are upside down by hundreds even thousands of dollars per month.
How is it that they don’t know? They stretch the check by carrying more and more debt each month. The sad news is that if they don’t submit to some serious changes in the money management they will loose the house, go bankrupt, divorce. 78% of the families who go through this scenario divorce within 3 years.

What impact is this having on the stock market? Check your mutual funds since January.

Conservative speculators say we will see a much greater loss of value in the market this time than in 2000-2003 and it will last far longer.

What can we do? What should we do first?

STOP THE BLEEDING!!!

Do what ever you have to do to get back to better than break even and then have an aggressive strategy to eliminate debt.

STOP the contribution to the 401k, retirement plan etc, temporarily and pay down debt. That flies in the face of everything we have been taught but we must get free from the slavery created by debt.

More later.

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Doug Kirk  served in the United States Marine Corps from 1967-1969 Served in Viet Nam 23Dec 1967 to 21June 1968. As a Combat Engineer, attached to Fox Company 2nd. Battalion 5th Marne Regiment 1st Division. served in the Battle of Hue City. and other operations.

Wounded 21June 1968 Medically Retired 17 June 1969.

Worked as a General Contractor in Central Ohio until 1992.

Studied Architecture and Business at Franklin University.

Currently Chief Operations Officer, National Conference Speaker, Personal development and Training coordinator.

Forward Financial Group has been working with Corporations, Small Businesses and Families for 20 Years; teaching, developing and assisting large Businesses small businesses and families in very unique financial systems and development.

No one does all that we can do!

We have National and International Teaching and Training Programs to assist our clients large

 and small to maximize the financial recorces and “Find lost Money”.

Doug Enjoys helping people win in life,especially his Military Brothers and; Sisters and there families! 

We look forward to helping all Joe’s find answers, gain knowlege and practice sucessful financial principals.

In other words “Fixing The Money Thing”.

“Semper Fidelis”

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Our friends at VA Mortgage Center.com (who helped us with Charity for Charities and have a nice milblog in their own right) released a video today outlining some of the benefits of the VA Home Loan Program. You can watch it on YouTube here - VA Loan Video.

With the ‘housing crisis’ we are currently living through, it’s most important for qualifying Veterans and Active-Duty members to be aware of their options. Don’t forget to look into what the VA program might be able to do for you upon purchasing or even refinancing a home.

And heck, everyone loves a good time-waster video (especially if you are bored at work). Might as well learn a few things in the process. Give it a look and come on back to VA Joe!

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 Fixing the money thing!

We have tackled many topics regarding your personal finances, however it’s time we tackled the pending financial disaster in America.

Today the stock market fell once again. Sound familiar?

Remember 2000 to 2003?

The stock market has fallen more than 1000 points in the last month, most of that in one week. Is this just another minor market correction?

Why are the cost of goods going up at an alarming rate? Why are there so many forclosures on new homes? Why with so little unemployment are we seeing the kind of economic indicators we saw during the Carter administration? Should I be alarmed? What can I do to protect myself from a financial disaster if one should occur.

Joe intends to tackle these issues in this blog.

Lets look at some of the factors that have contributed to the unsettling times we are facing.

High national debt,the highest in history. High personal debt, also the highest in history. The blog host shows stastistics on his website that are alarming regarding personal debt and national debt.

Someone has to pay the piper.

Home forclosures are at a national record. In my sons 4 year old new home subdivision 1 out of every 5 houses is abandoned,  in forclosure or severely behind on their payments.

Why?

Builders, bankers, realtors and their lobbies influenced the Government to modify lending rules several years ago to keep the housing boom going. The lenders were able to get people approved for loans that 2 0r 3 years earlier they would not have approved.

Buyers with considerable credit challenges were approved and the builders and realtors were thrilled. They could now get people in homes that they would not have qualified  for before.

The problem comes in that the buyers were already in excessive debt and we just added hundreds of thousands to the burden. When you buy a new home the real estate taxes are based on the LAND only the first tax year.The second year the payment including taxes and insurance went up considerably. The third year,the loans were not fixed interest and the interest went up and so did the payment.

Buyers who were struggling to make the payment initially now were unable to make them at all.Thus forclosures! In many new home subdivisions people are just walking away from the home in the middle if the night.

The housing and mortgage industries are in a panic.The stock market is affected and so on and so forth.

Oh what tangled webs we weave in an effort to deceive!

 THE STOCK MARKET

In 1960 only 2% of Americans owned stocks.

Then came the Mutual fund!

Today most Americans have Mutual funds through employer retirement plans like 401k’s, 403b’s, 457’s, IRA’s, and Roth IRA’s.

What does that mean?

The stock market is vastly overinflated.

 Before mutual funds, the only people who owned stocks were people of means who were able to pay someone to watch, move, buy and sell on their behalf continuously.

Today the American people have been lied to by the brokers and agents who sell these mutual funds at big commissions and continued (Trail commissions ) even when the market goes down!

When the experts sell the mutual fund, owners are told to buy because the market is so good. When the market is low and the experts know what and when to buy the mutual fund brokers say again, buy now because the funds are a good value.

In other words, no matter what is happening they are giving you the exact same advice.

Sound a bit suspicious to you?

When in 2000 -2003 the market began it’s largest loss in history. The advice was exactly the same. It will come back, don’t worry!

Well, they were right! The market did come back.  Over all, the average holder of mutual funds and stocks had vertually NO GAIN for 7 years!

How often can you afford those kind of setbacks?

Now, with the largest one week loss in the history of the stock market earlier this month what do you suppose the advice of the mutual fund dealer is? Same old, Same old!

Why are we not suprised? They don’t want to give up those hefty commissions.

The stock market is more volatile than ever in it’s history and we predict a much longer and much larger loss than in 2000 -2003 over the next several years.

Can you afford it again?

What then should we do?

Lets start by using some of the common sense that our Government, Realtors, Builders , Bankers and Investment brokers seemed to have left on the Table of the BIG COMMISSION!

Start by developing an aggressive strategy to pay off all consumer debt!

First, make sure you have at least $2,000.00 in the savings accounts for immediate emergencies.

Then attack the debts one at a time starting with the highest intrest rate and going down.

Don’t add a little to each debt. Take all the extra money you can free up monthly and attack them one at a time!

Stop paying into retirement plans and eliminate consumer debt first.

That flies in the face of conventional wisdom due to the employers contribution.

Don’t let greed destroy you! Pay off the debt!!!

If a major economic downturn, recession or worse happens you will be on top and not at the bottom!

The choice is yours!

You can keep on doing the same thing you are doing now in whch case if the above happens you will be destroyed financially.

Or you can do something different.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Are you willing to bet we are wrong?

Joe Money Matters is a section of the VAJoe Blog to ask for quick financial tips and advice from an expert with more than 20 years experience in counseling families to live without debt and to reach there financial potential. Please leave comments on this Blog. You can learn more about the Joe Money Matters advisor at his website. The posts and comments by JoeMoneyMatters reflect his two decades of financial counseling expereince. VAJoe.com does not endorse any financial strategies, but offers this blog as a service to its site members for discussion.

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When should I start investing?

The popular belief in our culture today is that we should start investing as early as possible.

Generally speaking that is true, howeve , we want to look at the whole picture before jumping off the bridge.

1. Do I have a sound budget?

      If not, delay starting investments until you have identified where the money is coming from.

2. Do I have any debt?

     If you have a sound budget and debt is restricting your discretionary money,

     then start a systematic debt reduction plan. there are many books on the subject.

     The guest bloger ’s website has a free debt reduction planning area.

     Pay down or pay off all consumer debt before tackling investments.

     Paying consumer debt at the same time as investing is counter productive.

      What you earn and more may be eaten up by the interest you pay.

How should I choose what kind of investments to use?

We will not be going into great detail here in this blog on specific investment vehicles.

There are several basic groups of investments.

Savings

The most popular and widely known is a savings account at our local bank.

Everyone should have at least $2,000.00 in a savings account for emergency purposes.

You might choose to have more, but at least $2,000.00.

Bank or Savings and Loan savings accounts are relatively safe and earn a relatively small return. They are totally liquid and simple to understand and easily accessed.

Money market accounts pay a little more interest and generally are still very liquid.

They can usually be opened at your local bank.

Certificates of deposit (CD’s) yield greater returns the longer you commit to keeping them. CD’s are less liquid and have substantial penalties for early withdrawal.

Securities

Stocks, bonds,  and commodities are traded in the market. They offer potentially higher yields and potentially greater risk. These are purchased through licensed securities brokers or agents.

Mutual funds are the most common and widely known of security market sensitive investments.

Seen most often in 401k’s ,403b’s, 457’s and so forth ( Employer- employee based retirement/ savings plans. They are also used to fund many IRA’s and Roth IRA’s.

Mutual funds are intended to somewhat minimize risk through diversification ( spreading risk) while still affording the invester the possibility of greater gain.

Mutual funds make up probably the bears share of securities today and are easily purchased through employer plans, banks and brokers.

Caution! you should be aware there is a substantial risk of loss in these areas of investment. They should not be purchased without considerable caution.

Insurance based investments

Among this catagory of investments are annuities and insurances.

Annuities are broken down into 2 major catagories, Fixed and Variable.

Fixed annuities are generally very safe and produce a lower yield. A relatively new catagory of annutiy is the fixed indexed annuity. Still very safe while showing a very promising yield.

 Variable annuities are funded with mutual funds and have a substantial risk while affording a greater potential gain.( They generally have high fees and “hidden” fees).

Single Premium Life insurance has some unique benefits like tax minimumization or elimination and no risk earnings vary from policy to policy, but are generally good.

They are most often used to pass the death benefit along to beneficiaries and avoid or reduce the tax on the death benefit.

There are many other details and topics far too lengthy to explore on this forum.

Contact several advisors before deciding. Each, of course, will be happy to give you their perspective. Do not be rushed!

Joe Money Matters is a section of the VAJoe Blog to ask for quick financial tips and advice from an expert with more than 20 years experience in counseling families to live without debt and to reach there financial potential. Please leave comments on this Blog. You can learn more about the Joe Money Matters advisor at his website. The posts and comments by JoeMoneyMatters reflect his two decades of financial counseling expereince. VAJoe.com does not endorse any financial strategies, but offers this blog as a service to its site members for discussion.

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