August 2013

What Young Adults Need To Know About Money When Just Starting Out

College graduates and their parents are faced with a daunting challenge of managing their finances on their own, often for the very first time. But, many recent high school and college graduates have a lot of questions.

It stems from not receiving the proper education from our school system and their parents on how to handle money, debt, and investing on their own and not knowing what to do when they are just starting out.

Many have questions such as: How much do I need to save for in an emergency fund? Should I invest in my employer’s 401k retirement plan? Are credit cards the right way to build a credit history in order to help me pay for my first home?

These are many of the financial questions, and there are more, that young people in their 20s and 30s are struggling with and do not know where to turn for the answers when they are just starting out.

Our school systems have done a poor job preparing our children to answer these personal finance questions. We as parents have also done a poor job preparing our children for the daunting tasks of managing their money, investing for retirement, paying down debt, and living the lives they had dreamed of growing up.

What Young Adults Need To Know About Money When Just Starting Out

In this episode of the Money Q&A podcast, “Your Money: Your Choices“, I interview Chris Smith who is a former senior finance executive with Hewlett Packard and the author of the book, “Securing Your Financial Future: Complete Personal Finance for Beginners”. We talk about a wide range of personal finance topics from budget, debt, student loans, credit cards, emergency funds, and everywhere in between. This is a great conversation for both recent high school and college graduates and their parents which tackles the tricky personal finance questions head on. You won’t want to miss it.

Top 3 Simple Reasons Why Your House Is Not Selling

by Hank Coleman

12 Things You Should Know Before Buying A House

Being stuck in a location that you hate or in a house that now holds bad memories can start to ruin your life. If you’ve recently been divorced and are still living in your marital home, or even if the area has become a hotspot for theft, you’ll want to get out as soon as you can.

But how can you do this? You have to understand why your house is not selling. There could be simple things that you can do to fix this.

No doubt you put your house on the market as soon as you could. But, what can you do if months and months later you’re still stuck in the same place after being unable to secure a sale? You are sure to be wondering why your house is not selling.

Why Is My House Not Selling?!?!

Your house is not selling. It has been on the market for months. There aren’t many showings or very few, and offers are not coming in like you had hoped either. Why your house is not selling can be weighing on your mind. Well, now is the time to implement our action plan.

Use more than one estate agent

If you’re struggling to sell with your current estate agent, ditch them and employ the help of a few different ones if you haven’t signed a non-compete agreement with your realtor. It’ll cost you more in fees, but they’ll each be scrambling to beat the competition, and that’s likely to result in a fast sell for you.

Up the advertising

Don’t leave the advertising of your home down to the estate agents. Advertise in your local paper and put up posters on notice boards at schools or supermarkets. Use Facebook and Twitter to let people know you’re selling, and ask friends to share and re-tweet. In short, use your common sense and take advantage of whatever access you have to the eyes and ears of potential buyers in the area.

How To Increase Your Online Conversion Rates

by Guest Contributor

There are ways that you can improve conversion rates with online ecommerce. Your website’s conversion rate is a measure that business owners can measure how many of their online visitors convert to a customer. Many businesses focus on the number of visitors, the amount of clicks on an ad or product link, and how many of those clicks result in a sale of the product or service.

Here are three of the most popular ways to improve conversion rates and get the most from your website, what you sell, and to give your customers the most value.

Best Ways To Increase Your Online Conversion Rates

1. Be Memorable – You should strive to be remembered. That is one of the best ways that you can increase your online conversion rates. I will often not click on a link that I receive over email right away.

I often think about it or save the email for even days at a time. But, customers remember great content or products or pitches and go back to them. If you are memorable, you can have great online conversion rates for your products and services.

How To Make Money Investing Like Harvard And Yale’s Endowments

by Hank Coleman

Episode #14 How To Make Money Investing Like Harvard And Yale’s Endowments

Most parents are terrified of the costs of college tuition and room and board fees that they will have to help pay for their children’s education. Every year for decades, the cost of college tuition and fees has increased faster than the rate of inflation in America.

To make matters worse, colleges have enjoyed endowments that have posted gains in their investments that have outpaced the stock market indexes. For a 10 year span from 1998-2008, Yale saw its endowment earn over a 17% annual rate of return on its investments. Harvard’s endowment earned over 15%, and the S&P 500 only returned a little over 7% during the same time span. So, the question becomes…can average investors earn a return like these college endowments? What does it take? Can it be done? Can the average investor learn how to make money investing and earn a return like these college endowments?

How To Make Money Investing Like College Endowments

In this episode of the Money Q&A podcast, “Your Money: Your Choices“, I interview Matthew Tuttle who is a certified financial planner and a partner in the Private Client Group, LLC, a wealth management firm. He is also the author of the book, “How Harvard and Yale Beat the Market: What Individual Investors Can Learn from University Endowments to Help Them Prosper in an Uncertain Market”. It is a great conversation for parents with college bound children and investors looking to get the highest rates of return for their investments like colleges have enjoyed for several decades with their endowments and investments.

Money Conversations Parents Must Have With Their College Freshmen

by Hank Coleman

Episode #13: Money Conversations Parents Must Have With Their College Freshmen

College students are graduating with an alarming amount of debt. They are being saddled with note only student loans but loans from family members and credit cards.

Part of the trouble stems from our inability as parents to prepare our children for the financial realities that they will face as college freshmen. We are simply not having the open and honest communication early enough about our expectations and their expectations as well.

Who will pay for what expenses? Will your child have to work part-time to pay for tuition? Will you give him or her a credit card to use?

These are all important topics that I discuss in this episode of “Your Money: Your Choices” when I interview Jonathan Clements who is the Director of Financial Education for Citi Personal Wealth Management and also the author of “The Little Book of Main Street Money: 21 Simple Truths that Help Real People Make Real Money”. It is a great conversation for parents with children of all ages that you won’t want to miss.

My Interview With Tim Higgins Author Of “How To Pay For College”

Additionally, I talk to Tim Higgins is the author of the book, “How to Pay for College Without Sacrificing Your Retirement”. Tim and I talk about specific ways that parents can cut down on the cost of college for their children. Tim focuses in his book on college planning with a holistic approach to paying for school.

During our interview, we cover a wide range of topics such as 529 College Savings Plans, choosing the right college major and what a difference it makes, how to pay for college using cash flow, and a host of other great topics. If you have a child in college or one about to go, you will not want to miss this discussion on the podcast.

Financial Lessons We Can All Learn Playing Candy Crush Saga

by Hank Coleman

I have a confession to make. I’m addicted to playing Candy Crush Saga. I’ve even gotten my wife hooked too. So, as I’m sitting here waiting for the countdown clock to give me more lives, I can’t help be realize how you can find underlying financial lessons in the game. Like many things in life, there are key take aways that you can find in almost anything that correlates to our lives and our finances. And, the game Candy Crush Saga is no different. There are a lot of financial lessons that can be learned from playing Candy Crush Saga if you stop and think about it. Financial Lessons We Can All Learn From Candy Crush Saga… Patiences Is Definitely … Read more