Living your life your own way

Thoreau once said :"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined". Most people tend to live in the shadow of the lives of other people and usually that makes them unhappy and unfulfilled. There is nothing worse than realizing at the eve of you r death that you have not really lived the life you were put on earth to live. It would be very sad to realize in your old days that you have been a carbon copy of other people.
Sadly, that's exactly what will happen to most of us: we want to be like other people even though our creator made us different.
We tend to follow the blueprint designed for other people's lives when we have never deeply analyzed our own.
Some deep questions can quickly help us realize who we really are if we are strong enough to answer them honestly:

Who am I ?

Why am I here?

What can I do?

Ponder those questions for a while.

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Stop credit card debt before it begins

Using credit cards seems very easy but it can very easily get anyone who becomes addicted to their use in very big financial trouble.To sell the use of their cards, banks and credit card companies push toward the idea that they can make your life easy.
I agree that walking around with a lot of cash can be a burden. It can also be very difficult to dispute a charge that you wrote a check for. Credit cards become appropriate for such situations.
But using credit cards abusively will land anyone somewhere he/she does not want to be. The worst thing with credit cards is the interest rate they charge you while giving you the impression that you can take your time to pay back the money that you owe. Talk about the power of negative compounding: your interest gets added to the previous balance and that becomes a new balance on which interest is charged and the negative cycle continues. Try to pay a credit card debt, the minimum payment at a time. You will be dead before it is over.
So what are the alternatives to abusive credit card use? The following ideas can be adopted:
- Use the card only for amounts that can be paid back very quickly (within one month or two)
- If you absolutely have to use that card, it will help to use one with a low interest rate (do not use the 22.5% interest rate one)
-Use credit cards only for real needs and not wants and for emergencies not as a game that you play at the mall while your other customers and the store clerk are watching.

Be wise!

Avoid Financial Paradox

I have watched for some time now what I call the financial paradox happen to many people.
Be reassured. It is not a disease that you can catch from other people. Watching other people dealing with FP may actually help you to avoid getting in the position of contracting it..

What is FP ( Financial Paradox)It is simply the art of taking a financial step that can bury you both financially and emotional. Let me explain what I just said: when you buy a car more expensive than what you can normally afford and must work two jobs to be able to pay for that, you are deep in FP. While you are working, you cannot enjoy your new car and everyday that car is loosing its value.

Common Sense Way to become rich

If you want to become rich without being an inventor or setting up a business or even investing, you have to consider two factors that contribute to the weight of your pocket:
- How much you earn
- How much you spend

Anyone with a minimum CS ( Common Sense) knows the following:

How much you earn - How much you spend= how much you keep ( Bottom line)

You can increase your income by looking for a higher-paying job ( preferably looking for a type of job that match your skills and where you can perform without feeling at work)


We all know how to decrease how much we spend: by focusing on our needs and not our wants

(Needs: things that are essential for our lives
Wants: things that we wish to have but that are not necessary to our lives)

Thanks!

Eric

Having a more successful financial life

If you are planning to work for 40 years and take a retirement at age 65 or more and then enjoy some time before kicking the bucket, do not expect to see me in your company. The reason for this is very simple:

1. I do not believe in looking forward to enjoy life only when I am 65, 70 or even older. I will be too senile to enjoy life to the fullest.The bet time is when I am still fairly young. I would love to take my retirement when I am 40 or 45 years old.

2. There is more to life than working while looking forward to a time of retirement

3. There are ways to combine FUN and success all life long

Become financially successful takes a lot of planning, a lot of thinking out of the paved road and a lot of "playing it risky" sometimes.

It is good to "go to school, get good grades and get a job" but the real world does not care about scholastic reports. What you need, to achieve success in the real world, is financial knowledge. It goes from knowing where to invest your money to businesses that you can start to enhance your financial status. If you have your money under your mattress, that does not reflect a lot of financial knowledge. Do you know the financial vehicles that can earn you the highest interest on your money without uneducated risk? Do you know the sources of loans ( if you ever need those ) with the lowest interest rates and how to get them ?( I am not talking about the Paycheck Advance around the corner)

If you have any doubt about any of these things, feel free to get in touch with our team at

financialknowledge101@gmail.com

Thanks

Eric

Ideas on how to improve your credit score

People have often asked me how they can improve their credit scores. Here are some ideas to consider.

1. Keep your balance below 50% of the credit limit of any of your credit cards. This may mean transferring balance from one card to another if for instance you have $500 on one card with a limit of $600 and a balance 0f $500 on another card with a limit of $2000.

2. Pay your bills on time from now on.
By deciding to pay your bills on time starting now, you will improve your score in the near future
3. Check your credit report for any inaccuracies. In case you find any information that is not accurate, contact the credit bureaus and demand that the inaccuracy be corrected.
Check the following link offered by the Federal Trade Commission to get ideas on how to dispute errors on your credit report:

Improve your Credit Report

Thanks and best wishes!

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