Guest Contributor on Money Questions and Answers Blog

How Realistic Is The Cash Only Lifestyle?

The following is a guest post by Steve Repak, CFP™. Steve is the author of “6 Week Money Challenge For Your Personal Finances“, a simple, step-by-step program founded on biblical principles paired with a CFP®’s understanding of modern wealth-management strategies.

How realistic is the cash only lifestyle? If you are in debt, you have probably heard over and over again that you should quit using credit cards and stick to cash only purchases.

In a previous article, I explained that for some people it actually hurts to break a large bill like a $20 so only using cash may help you get your spending under control. I wanted to share some of the risks and benefits of a cash only lifestyle and also show that you can still get out of debt if you want to use credit cards. If getting out of debt is your goal, there are three things you must do in order to succeed regardless of whether you use cash or credit:

Spend less money than you take home each week
Build an emergency savings
Develop and follow a get-out-of-debt plan

How Realistic Is The Cash Only Lifestyle?

Cons of using cash

One of the biggest disadvantages of carrying cash is that you can lose it! If you lose your credit card you can cancel it and order a new one but I am afraid you just can’t do that if you lose your cash.

If you use an ATM to withdraw cash you may be charged fees, which is like throwing money away. Worse yet, flashing cash can make you a target for thieves.

4 Binary Options Myths That Are Holding You Back

by Guest Contributor

Trading binaries can be a challenge, even when you understand how much potential they represent. One reason people often struggle with these trades is because of how many binary options myths are out there. Here’s a look at four of the most common ones you’ll want to be aware of.

Bonuses Go Hand-in-Hand with Trading

Just about every broker out there offers some type of bonus for signing up with them. To some degree, this is to be expected. It’s a cutthroat market at the moment, so every broker out there is doing their best to outsell their competitors. Maybe someday this will slow down a bit, but it’s not going to be any time soon.

Accepting a bonus isn’t a big deal, but it cannot be allowed to cloud your vision. Never pick a broker solely because of the bonuses they offer. In fact, you should ignore the bonuses altogether. Look for brokers with experience, solid reputations, good software and who are the right fit for where you are right now in your binary options trading journey.

Above all, never keep your money tied up with a broker because they’re giving you bonuses to do so. There is a long list of traders who have lost their shirts because they didn’t withdraw any money—to ensure they received attractive bonuses—and eventually it was too late.

Experience in the Stock Market Carries Over

Of all the binary options myths, this one may be one of the hardest for people to accept. Being a successful trader on the stock market can definitely help you succeed when you try your hand at binaries.

Is Now The Right Time To Invest In Gold?

by Guest Contributor

Do you invest in gold? Why have you invested in gold or chose not to invest in gold? Is now the best time to invest in the precious metal? Maybe, maybe not.

Financial markets have experienced high volatility since the start of the year. In January, US stocks dropped around 10%, while oil dropped approximately 35%, before both recovered in March.

This was as dovish tones from the Fed pushed markets up and oil-producing countries stated that they would restrict the supply of oil. Despite, markets recovering at the end of the first quarter, most analysts agree that 2016 be challenging year for the financial markets, nonetheless.

Gold Price Investing

In difficult markets, investors tend to look at so-called ‘safe haven’ assets as a store of value. Examples of safe haven assets would be German government bonds, US treasuries, and the Swiss franc. However, probably the most popular safe haven asset is gold. This explains why the price of gold has seen such a steep increase since the beginning of the year.

Year-to-date the price of gold has increased over 14% and gold has been one of the best performing asset classes so far this year. The price of gold is currently trading at around USD 1,224 per fine ounce, but many experts believe that there is still a lot of upside for the gold price in 2016.

Are You Running In The Right Direction?

by Guest Contributor

The following is a guest post on Money Q&A. Would you like to write the next one? If you would like to write an article for Money Q&A, please visit our Guest Posting Guidelines page. Mark Aardsma is an entrepreneur, investor, and the author of Investing With Purpose: Capitalize on the Time and Money You Have to Create the Tomorrow You Desire.

Investing With Purpose by Mark Aardsma

Life and work, they ask a lot of you. There’s a lot to be done, and some of it is really hard. Projects stretch your skills, packed days stretch your energy, and difficult people stretch your sanity. Some weeks (most weeks?) feel like marathons with a series of embedded sprints. You get tired, and you have to stop to catch your breath sometimes.

Not to worry though, you are no stranger to hard work. You’re driven, even when it gets tough. You focus your smarts on each problem, and most of the time you work out a solution.

You do your best to manage your money, save for the future, and invest well to grow it. The enthusiasm and perseverance you bring to life and work is admirable, it really is. You have your ups and downs, of course, but you put your heart into it, and engage each day in an earnest pursuit of… well, hmm.

It’s for success right? Financial security, that is important. Maybe it’s about earning respect, and a sense of accomplishment? Being able to go to bed at night feeling like things are going ok, people see you and treat you well, and life is just kinda, working?

Ok, so life gets a little murky, even for us driven types. It’s hard to discover and remember why we are doing all of this in the first place.

What’s more, life changes and unfolds in surprising ways. We find out we have interests, strengths, potential we didn’t know about before. Windows of opportunity close (sometimes slam quite rudely) and others crack open. What we want changes. A clear sense of direction doesn’t come easily in the first place, let alone update itself automatically.

You can navigate life with direction and purpose. It’s possible, and it’s essential. A crystal ball of insight into the future is not required.

Courage, that is the thing. Courage to open up big questions and let them bother you with their annoying tendency to hover around unanswered. Courage to spend time in the part of you where you keep your dreams.

A Look At The Difference Between Investment And Gambling

by Guest Contributor

Investing in the stock market and gambling at a casino are often compared and deemed to be very similar ventures. Both the difference between investment and gambling involve risk and choice in hopes of future profit. Investors and gamblers have to decide how much they are wanting to risk.

Some traders typically risk between 2% and 5% of their capital base. Long-term investors often spread their money across different investments in order to try and minimize potential losses as a form of risk-management.

Risk-management in gambling is also proficiently sought after by professional gamblers. They look at whether odds are in their favor before they make a bet. A key comparable principle in both gambling and financial investing is to minimize risk while maximizing profits.

Difference Between Investment and Gambling

However, there is a huge difference between investing and gambling when it comes to stopping losses. In gambling, particularly in sports gambling, there are no loss-mitigation strategies due to the activity being so speculative.

Stock investors however can set up stop losses on a stock investment which is the simplest way to avoid unnecessary risk. If stock drops 10% below its purchase price there is an opportunity to sell that stock to someone else and still retain 90% of the risk capital.

However, if you put a bet on that states that Tottenham Hotspur Football Club will come first in the Premier League, you cannot get any money back if they come second. You will lose everything you’ve put on, which isn’t the case when it comes to stock investment. Gambling is mainly to do with pure chance, and there are a lot more loss-mitigation strategies when it comes to financial investments.

How To Make Money By Trading Online

by Guest Contributor

Trading online is one of the most interesting ways make some money. Folks are drawn to trading because a lot of the bank products where your money is tied doesn’t give you the high profits that the trading business can.

Although, when it comes to online trading of underlying assets, there will always be a level of risk involved. This simply means that if it is a good way of making your money gain profit, you can also lose some from it. But with the right information to guide you through, this can be a highly profitable endeavor.

The Basic Strategies of Trading Online

Here are some of the strategies that will certainly help you achieve your goals in trading online.

The first is to go long while prices are low. This simply means that the best time to buy an asset is when these have reached low prices.

However, the tricky part here is anticipating when prices are going to go up or down. There is actually no way of knowing hence you will have to learn how to read the market. Part of going long or buying an asset means that you need to do a little research on the company offering it.

This will let you know if the assets’ value is not at par with industry standards. Proof of this can be seen in the earning’s that the company has gained per share sold and the interest of its employees in investing in the asset. Companies that are listed in volatile markets is where you gain more profits.