Financial Jetstream

I’ve been getting a LOT of financial education over the last month or so, and I want to pass all this on to my readers!

I’m not a big reader and certainly prefer “How-To” manuals over fiction for my digest of print media. However, I’m also a big believer in repetition as a means of learning, as well as the power of our subconsciousness. This has lead me to prefer audio books which I can listen to again and again, even during sleep, and this is what I’ve been doing for the last month.

I started with Robert Kiyosaki’s book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, and found it a great inspiration, with some great general ideas for getting my finanical life more in order. It did lack some critical detail, but I was hungry for more, and so went searching for my next few financial lessions.

Over the next few weeks I was turned on to other audio books like Napoleon Hill’s book “Think and Grow Rich”, which gave more great nuggets of information and clarification, as well as a good dose more of “cheerleading”. Some concepts in this book also helped reenforce by growing belief in the power of our thoughts determining our reality. I would highly recommend this book along with movies such as “The Secret” and “What the Bleep Do We Know”, and other resources on Quantum Physics (for those truely interested).

I ended up listening to many more of Kiyosaki’s audio books, such as “Cashflow Quadrant”, “Rich Dad’s Guide To Investing”, “Rich Kid, Smart Kid”, and “Retire Young, Retire Rich”. During all this learning and researching, I came across a few websites presenting some negative Kiyosaki viewpoints. I suppose on some level there were a few valid points… perhaps Kiyosaki does more generalized cheerleading than giving solid next-steps to take, but in the end I HAD to come to the conclution that his audio books series has been MONUMENTAL in helping me change my attitude, get more focused, and has provided enough detail to get me started on the right foot.

Some other audio books I’ve been filling my ears with are “Why We Want You To Be Rich” (with Donald Trump). I thought a large part of it was quite boring and did not advance my financial education much, however, I do still feel it was worth the time spent. I did pick up on a couple nuggets.

And right now I’m a finishing up Steve Scott’s “Mentored By a Millionaire”, which does have lots of great information, and I will certainly be listening to it many more times to absorb as much as possible.

For you:
… and so you might be asking “How can this post help me?”
Well, here is a short list of things YOU can do to get started:
1) Realize you NEED more financial education. Determine how you are currently spending your time, and find a way to include 4-8 hours a week for your financial education.
2) With the time you find (or make) in step 1, you can start to fill it by reading some books, or listening to some audio books, that will help to increase your financial intelligence. The more you learn, the more you will see there is to be learned, and the importance of more education, as well as starting to learn the actual steps to take next.
3) Put your current financial sitution in to a spread sheet, where you can look at your monthly income and expenses for the last 1-2 year period (at least). You cannot make any specific plans on HOW to get to any destination if you don’t know where your current starting place is!
4) Once you can SEE what your current financial sitution is, then you can take some action to adjust your spending (and/or income) so that you free up an extra $100-$200 per month. Put that money in to a SEPERATE account each month/week! If you have NO clue how to do this, then leave a comment to this post and I will reply.

At this point, you will be starting the baby steps of your journey of a thousand miles. No journey can be completed for sure until you take the FIRST step!

5) Now you should have a small amount “extra” and you might (strongly) consider using the first bit to take your financial spreadsheet to a Financial Planner who can draw up a much more professional guide for getting you to your financial goals.

Actually, this is the step I am at now. I have asked a few friends and business networking associates about who they recommend for a Financial Planner. I’ve got 3 names and will be interviewing each of them this next week.

Tune in again soon for an update !

Here is the monthly activity for December

1) Google Adsense:
Again, not been doing anything more with Adsense lately. The income dropped another 16% back down to what it was in October, but still better than nothing, and has not been taking any more of my time.

2) PayPal Money Market:
The Account gained another 0.448% this month (5.03% annual).

3) Stocks (three portfolios):
Personal picks: +26.52%, -1.59% (gains THIS month)
TurnerTrends ETF-5: +11.08% (THIS month)

4) Second Life:
Gains: ?? (see below) – this month I added another $8,000 to the overall investment, and the normal gains have not been calculated separately, but at this point the gains should start looking really good.
The daily interest here is .1% compounded daily, which is about 3% gains per month (43% annual). Additional gains from other fairly passive in-world means.

Here is the monthly activity for November

1) Google Adsense -
This last month I have not been taking much more action on the blogs… just letting them bring in whatever they do… residually. It is obvious that the pages I have are not self-suportive at this point, as Adsense income dropped back down 26% this last month, but again, I am so happy I DID at least get things started, because the income was still enough to pay half of my electric bill for the month! — and no extra work.

2) PayPal Money Market -
The Account is still set up to gain 5.03% annual, which means 0.448% monthly gain…. better than the 0% interest from a checking account. I don’t have a lot in Paypal, but it’s easy to transfer to and from my checking account for paying bills.

3) Stocks -
The three portfolios did: +1.53%, +8.08%, +5.80 (gains THIS month)
Again, the first and last accounts are my personal picks. The middle account is the Turner Trends auto-trade account. It’s totally hassle-free and they are boasting 20% annual returns. Keep an eye out on it to see if something like that can help you.

4) Second Life -
The daily interest here is .1% compounded daily, which is about 3% gains per month (43% annual). There are some fairly easy ways to earn/win extra money, and so my investment has grown 3.38% this last month alone.

It’s the beginning of a new month (November), and the first week of each month I have set aside to do financial “stuff”, like pay bills, monitor income streams, etc. Along with that, I’ve decided to add “update this blog” so that it contains more stats gathered from the last month.

And so… here they are:

1) Google Adsense -
I’ve been tweaking pages, adding ads to pages, working hard on other blogs and have increased my Adsense income by almost 90% over what it was the month before! Well, to be honest… the amount is still rather small, and so a 90% increase was not terribly hard to achieve, but, it IS still exciting to see it going up every month for the past 4 months. One thing I can’t stress enough is that until you get started with Adsense, you’re additional earnings will be $0! So, stop procrastinating and at least GET STARTED!

2) PayPal has a Money Market account which earned a measly 5.03% last month. Not a rate I can retire on, but I look it as one diversification which can easily pass money between my bank, Second Life, friends & family, etc. Rather than have something sitting in 0% checking, this is a nice place.

3) My stocks did pretty well this last month. The percentages for each account are: +21.69%, -0.43%, +9.96%. The first and last accounts are my personal picks, and not much I can do to help out there. The middle account is an auto-trade account I have set up with Turner Trends. It’s totally hassle-free and usually does pretty good. We’ll keep a watch out for it here, and something like that might be an easily solution for you too. I’m sure you’ll feel better about it after you see a few months of good, positive growth.

4) My Second Life account holds the most promise currently. I have about $3,200 invested right now, after adding another $400 this month. The interest gains and “income earned from work” totalled almost $300 in new money. I’m also getting a friend started in cloth designing. I’m expecting to see that really help their income quite a bit as well, and when I have more data I’ll report that as well. If you do not have a Second Life account yet, I’d recommend getting set up! (It’s FREE) …. When you sign up, be sure to give “Ashling Babka” as your reference.. I’ll be notified when you get in-world, and can help you get started in any number of different areas… including just giving you 6,000 new items to help fill up your beginning “inventory”. And, I’ll explain more about how to make money in this Virtual World in upcoming posts.