Top 8 Tips to Boost Your Investment Insight

You may not have lots of money, but you still wish that the little you have should be multiplied. Once you have budgeted, saved some money and have your debts under control, it is time to consider investments. 

Most people feel overwhelmed when they start out on investment, but it is not as difficult as it seems. Here is what you can do to increase your investment insight.

1. Know your goal

You must figure out your goals in life, and then create a financial plan for how to achieve them. Goals that have not been well-defined are difficult to obtain because humans have a goal-setting mechanism that cannot help you to achieve unclear goals. 

Don't make the mistake of financing what you should have invested for. For example, you would rather let your investment yield rather than paying a rate on a loan.

2. Save, insure and invest

The first step for providing for you and your family is insuring, not investing. The first step to take is to secure your life, health, disability, auto, home, and liability insurance before saving and investing in your future. 

When saving money, protecting the principal is more vital than increasing your purchasing power. While in investing, the goal is to build wealth and increase your purchasing power.

3. Keep an emergency fund

Lots of people live from hand to mouth and are therefore unable to handle their financial setbacks. Some people depend on credit cards to help them through tough financial crises, only to realize that mounting credit card debts cover them. 

So, start by building wealth in an investment portfolio which will act as a backup for money that will be available during emergencies. 

Save between three to six months worth of savings in a high-yield account or any other form of liquid investment for use in unexpected financial emergencies.

4. Mark your income and outflow

You need to keep track of your spending (Whether through a forensic financial accounting or using a Smartphone financial app) of how you spend what you earn. Create a spending plan, not a budget, because no one likes to be on a budget. 

Doing this puts a definite turn to your allocation of funds for consumption, investment, and savings.

5. Invest in your health

Your health is your wealth. Money cannot buy you good health. Thus, invest in your health and you will be surprised on the return on investment.

6. Remember your retirement income

Don't think that the IRA and the 401(k) contribution limits were set by the government to ensure that you can have a comfortable retirement. You may not be saving enough. A look at Peter Briger profile, an investments expert, and you'll learn that you should put together a stream of retirement income for pension benefits, retirement savings and Social Security. 

Retirement benefits are becoming rare in the private sector. So, estimate your retirement needs and then create a plan on how to meet your needs. If this task seems too overwhelming for you, seek the help of a financial professional.

7. Capitalize on your employer's contributions to your retirement

If your employer matches your contributions to a 403(b) or 401(k) plan, ensure that you contribute to your maximum ability. A typical program matches 50 cents on each dollar you contribute up to 6 percent of your earnings. 

Thus, your employer contributes 3 percent of your salary. This gives you 50 percent on your money even before you decide on how to use your money.

Investing in your health, having clear investment goals, and a creating a good retirement plan are necessary steps to take in life. These will ensure that you gain financial independence and security for your future.

Start Making Money From Your Blog

Are you an avid blogger with many readers online? Did you know that you could make money from your blog? If you are a creative writer with many interesting things to say, you have probably earned the loyalty of quite a number of readers and you can transform this loyalty into real money. 

Make Money Blogging using your personal blog, it is quite easy and most of the times you do not even have to change the content of what you write.

Pay per click advertisements

Pay per click (PPC in short) advertisements is one of the widely used internet marketing strategies. Personal blogs and websites that attracts moderate to high amount of online traffic can generate a good amount of revenue from PPC ads. PPC ad-serving apps are available from many companies such the very popular Google ad sense. 

Using the PPC ad-service application, you can set up an advertisement on your page and get paid every time one of your readers clicks the ad to follow the link to the company. 

Affiliate marketing

Sometimes the information that you give on your blog, could directly relate to the products and services offered by another company. The company can target your blog as a marketing platform through which you can get your readers to link to the company website and even buy its products. 

For instance, if you love talking about your fitness journey and working out experience on your blog then you can be an affiliate marketer for a company that sells fitness gear. The company will reward you for every link from your website that converts into a sale. Affiliate marketing is not only about generating traffic to a website but also converting the traffic to revenue by getting paying customers. 

You may need to have a bit of convincing power to enjoy the commissions on offer.

Posting for pay

Various sites offer bloggers payment to post on specific topics. The topics given are on the bloggers niche and natural talents. By posting interesting content on the topics given on a regular basis, you can make money from every post. 

Posting for pay is great for individuals who have great writing skills but do not have any specific blogging topic to write on.

Using the blog to market your services

You can also use the blog to market your services. If you have specific talents and skills such as painting, drawing, photography, dressmaking and styling, you can use your blog as your marketing platform. 

Write interesting posts describing your experiences, techniques and products to your readers using promotional tones that could convert them into customers as well. Many small-businesses rely on blogs along to get the information out there. It also makes the consumer feel part of the process of creating that product and this leads to long lasting customer relationships. 

You do not need to have a physical business location. You can even use your own home as a workshop and ship out the products to your customers.

BIO

Lydia Malloy is an e-commerce business owner with over five years-experience. After a debt review gave her a clear picture of her financial status, Lydia began the journey to money making online. You can read more about her experience on her blog.

What You Need to Know About Managing your Debt

Debt or no debt, it is crucial to maintain control of all your payments. Most of the time, debts develop when you do not keep track of all your payments and bills. Juggling bills while paying off debts is not easy. 

Debt review is a relief process for most debtors as it helps them manage their debt better through making single affordable payments until their debt is complete. The debt review process is quite thorough in terms of addressing financial issues. 

It is facilitated by a debt counselor. The following are some of the things you could learn from your debt counselor in order to avoid landing into crippling debt again:

Keep track of your debt

One sign of being in bad debt is when you do not know whom or how much you owe. Ensure that you always have a list of all your debts and creditors. This list should contain important details such as the amount due, the date that it is due and the kind of monthly payments you need to make. 

This list should be your point of reference when paying your bills at the end of the month so make sure you regularly update it. 

Always pay your bills on time

Late payments attract penalties and disrupt the financial balance that is necessary between income and expenditure. It becomes harder to pay off an amount that is more than a month overdue. 

With the new age of technology, you can use your Smartphone to create a calendar with reminders for when your bills are due.

Make minimum payments

When finances are tight, always try to make minimum payments on your bills. Growing debt arises from bills left unpaid. Minimum payments do not clear your debt but they prevent it from growing. 

Prioritize your debts properly so that you can make minimum payments on the debts much lower on the priority list. 

Financial Freedom Checklist

Start an emergency fund

Every individual should always have an emergency fund from where to can pull out a lump sum of money when needed. Work towards creating an emergency fund of at least $1,000. 

The emergency funds reduce the chances of you tapping into your salary and getting salary advances, which may affect your bill payment schedule.

Create a monthly budget

Spending without a budget can be very dangerous since there is always the risk of overspending. Keeping a monthly budget helps you to know how much your need to spend, save and use to repay your bills. A budget will also help you to determine how to spend extra money, which often goes to waste.

Ask for help

In case you have tried all the above but are still suffering financially, it is advisable ask for assistance from professionals such as debt counselors. They can help you to determine your level of debt and plan for repayment as well as budget for your monthly expenditure. 

Debt counselors will also help you to get reduced penalties and interest rates when paying off outstanding debt.

BIO

Rachel Johnson is a debt counselor who has worked in debt review for many years. She speaks more on debt review and learning to manage your own debt on her blog. Click here to know about your credit reviews.

5 Easy Online Moneymaking Ways

With the current job market, it is becoming more and more difficult to find employment even as a trained professional. 

Rather than sit back in despair, you can always make money using one of the most widely accessible resource: the internet. 

You can make money online through so many ways but here are a few:

Website testing

The process of creating a new website online is quite detailed. The web designers have to ensure that the website is user friendly and capable of serving the purpose for which they designed it for. The only way to tell is through testing using real people. 

Through connecting with middleman companies that recruit website testers, you can be paid to test these new sites and give feedback on your experience using the site. You can get as much as $10 every time you test a website. 

Testing a website usually takes about 20 minutes. So if you are earning $10 every 20 minutes, imagine how much you can make on a good day. 

Data entry

Data entry work is widely available online. There are recruiting companies that hire home based virtual employees to carry out this work for their clients. Granted you have to take an efficiency test before you can do the work but most people with basic academic backgrounds and skill sets often make the cut. 

The availability of work largely depends on the client’s orders but it could be a great way to earn some extra cash.

Online surveys

If you have good general knowledge and a strong opinion, you are the best candidate to take online surveys. There is often a lot of research that goes into creating new consumer products, releasing new TV shows and writing schoolbooks among other things. 

Surveys is one of the ways through which the people creating these things can find out public opinion and make products more suited to the consumers based on these opinions. You can even make a full time income by participating in online surveys. Some surveys may take as little as two minutes and earn you as much as $20!

Online tutoring

High school and college graduates can make great use of their academically acquired knowledge through offering online tutoring services. 

You do not have to be physically present but you can use the internet to conduct tutoring classes for high school kids and college students who need extra help in specific subjects. People with strong teaching experience can earn up to $50 tutoring online.

Freelance writing

Freelance writing is one of the most lucrative online opportunities today. If you are interested in writing, you can build a strong portfolio by working on projects such as web content writing, blogging, social media posting and ghost writing among other ways. With the right amount of dedication and time, freelance writing can be quite rewarding. 

There are various websites where clients seeking writers post projects and sometimes you have to outshine other writers to get the project, but once you create a strong online reputation, many clients will start seeking you out.

BIO

Christen Stewart is a freelance writer who quit her job as a waitress to pursue her writing dreams and now is making money writing online as well as doing what she loves. Do not suffer financially anymore, get a debt review and start making money online.