Education & Motivation

Money 101

2009-03-11T05:13:00.000-07:00

Setting Financial Goals

Top things to know

1. Narrow your objectives.

You probably won't be able to achieve every financial goal you've ever dreamed of. So identify your goals clearly and why they matter to you, and decide which are most important. By concentrating your efforts, you have a better chance of achieving what matters most.

2. Focus first on the goals that matter.

To accomplish primary goals, you will often need to put desirable but less important ones on the back burner.

3. Be prepared for conflicts.

Even worthy goals often conflict with one another. When faced with such a conflict, you should ask yourself questions like: Will one of the conflicting goals benefit more people than the other? Which goal will cause the greater harm if it is deferred?

4. Put time on your side.

The most important ally you have in reaching your goals is time. Money stashed in interest-earning savings accounts or invested in stocks and bonds grows and compounds. The more time you have, the more chance you have of success. Your age is a big factor - younger people (who have more time to build their nest egg) can invest differently than older ones. Generally, younger people can take greater risks than older people, given their longer investment horizon.

5. Choose carefully.

In drawing up your list of goals, you should look for things that will help you feel financially secure, happy or fulfilled. Some of the items that wind up on such lists include building an emergency fund, getting out of debt and paying kids' tuitions. Once you have your list together, you need to rank the items in order of importance

6. Include family members.

If you have a spouse or significant other, make sure that person is part of the goal-setting process. Children, too, should have some say in goals that affect them.

7. Start now.

The longer you wait to identify and begin working toward your goals, the more difficulty you'll have reaching them. And the longer you wait, the longer you postpone the advantage of compounding your money.

8. Sweat the big stuff.

Once you have prioritized your list of goals, keep your spending on course. Whenever you make a large payment for anything, ask yourself: "Is this taking me nearer to my primary goals - or leading me further away from them?" If a big expense doesn't get you closer to your goals, try to defer or reduce it. If taking a grand cruise steals money from your kids' college fund, maybe you should settle for a weekend getaway.

9. Don't sweat the small stuff.

Although this lesson encourages you to focus on big-ticket, long-range plans, most of life is lived in the here-and-now and most of what you spend will continue to be for daily expenses - including many that are simply for fun. That's OK - so long as your long-range needs are taken into consideration.

10. Be prepared for change.

Your needs and desires will change as you age, so you should probably reexamine your priorities at least every five years.

Eduvational Success quotes

2009-03-10T03:53:00.000-07:00

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
***Theodore Roosevelt

"Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty... I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led diffcult lives and led them well."
***Theodore Roosevelt

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing”
***Theodore Roosevelt

“Courage is the discovery that you may not win, and trying when you know you can lose.”
***Tom Krause

“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be”
***George Sheehan

“Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat.”
***Malcolm S. Forbes

“To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.”
***Mark Twain

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”
***Albert Einstein

“Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven't planted”
***David Bly

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."
***Peter F. Drucker

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."
***Albert Schweitzer

Success

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
***Often attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed"
***Corita Kent

"If a man will advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours"
***Henry David Thoreau

"You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one."
***James A. Froude

"Greatness is not in where we stand, but in what direction we are moving. We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it -- but sail we must and not drift, nor lie at anchor."
***Oliver Wendell Holmes

"The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation."
***Pearl S Buck

"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great person is one who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude"
***Ralp Waldo Emerson

"It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done."
***Samuel Smiles

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
***Theodore Roosevelt.
From a speech given in Paris at the Sorbonne in 1910

Setting Goals.

2009-03-09T15:39:00.000-07:00

Rules to follow

1. Keep Setting goals.
2. Make sure your personal values supports your goal.
3. Make sure the goal is your own.
4. Go after the goals that you are truly passionate about.
5. Goals that require risk on your part create magical endings.
6. Prioritize your goals until you fix on your number 1 goal.
7. Focus on achieving just one goal at a time.
8. Paint a crystal brilliant picture of the goal result in your mind.
9. Consciously choose the thoughts that supports your goals.
10. Control your attitude, make it a good one every single day.
11. Plot your initial plan and implement it.
12. Keep going no matter what.
13. Take measurement of your progress and adjust accordingly.
14. Trust yourself, you are wonderfully made.

It is time to believe. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all of your life.

I leave you with these wonderful quotes.

" Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Have Courage for the greatest sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace, God is awake."
~Victor Hugo.

Take care of your goals and your goals will take care of you.
Thanks
James Idayi.
http://littleeconomies.blogspot.com
http://eduvational.blogspot.com

Eduvational Goals quotes

2009-03-09T13:53:00.000-07:00

"I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they do their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change."
***Jim Rohn

“I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”
***Jimmy Dean

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
***Larry Elder

"We all need lots of powerful long-range goals to help us past the short-term obstacles."
***Jim Rohn

“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.”
***Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”
***Albert Einstein

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”
***Albert Einstein

"We must be careful not to let our current appetites steal away any chance we might have for a future feast."
Jim Rohn

“If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere.”
***Frank A. Clark

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal." ***Henry Ford

"If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up."
***J.M. Power

"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending."
***Author Unknown

"Between the great things we cannot do and the small things we will not do, the danger is that we shall do nothing."
***Adolph Monod

"Success is 10% inspiration, 90% last-minute changes".
***Author Unknown

"I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done."
***Henry Ford

"An average person with average talent, ambition and education, can outstrip the most brilliant genius in our society, if that person has clear, focused goals
***Brian Tracy

"Committing your goals to paper increases the likelihood of your achieving them by one thousand percent"
***Brian Tracy

"If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us."
***Jim Rohn