"Managing Your Income" Report by AWESOMELIFE.COM FREE Marketing and Business Resources

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Managing Your Income by Gerry Robert

The beauty of sales is that there is no limit to your income. Achieving a personal fortune is a beautiful thought. For most people it never becomes anything more than a thought. Consider that all our lives are geared towards improving our financial situations. Consider, as well, that most of us spend an inordinate amount of time each day in the pursuit of earning a living.

It's sad that people who earn their whole life, so often end up with little or nothing to show for their efforts. People spend time each day thinking about debts and bank balances; worrying about what we owe and dreaming about what we would like to own. Unfortunately, most of us have little idea of exactly the condition of our current financial position.

Financial planning is crucial. It's vitally important because not even the men and women behind the most profitable companies in the world can become successful money managers.

Managing your money well means Mastering Money.

"Order", someone has said, "is the first law of the universe." So many salespeople who experience financial problems can easily trace their problems back to poor organization and sloppy record keeping. When tax time comes, or you need to convince someone of your financial situation, it is an embarrassing look through drawers, shoe boxes and other sorted storage areas.

Lack of order and proper record keeping costs time, sales and money and plenty of all three. Yet by creating a simple system you can get your records under control in a short time and then spend a minimum amount of time and effort maintaining the order. The stress savings alone will make this exercise very worthwhile to everyone in sales.

A good Money Management Filing System will save you hours, save you tax dollars and enable you to have your current financial situation completely and accurately at your fingertips in minutes. The one I recommend is simple. It is simply a system of filing your records so that you know where to find what you need to find to ensure proper order in your money management. It will allow you to:

Know exactly where all vital information is regarding your finances.
Allow you to prove loss when filing insurance claims.
Allow a place to monitor your goal achievement.
Assist in filing tax returns.
Provide instant proof for expenses.
Provide a place for your important papers and personal data about your finances.
Provide a system of quickly maximizing warranties and guarantees.
Provide instant information for loan or mortgage applications.
Provide a place for your Last Will and Testament.

Create the filing system.

Every system will be tailor-made for your specific needs but generally will contain files for receipts, bills, statements, contracts, agreements, records, and personal papers.

Once you place all relevant papers in the file system you will feel the benefits of ORDER. It's a nice feeling particularly if you have been rather disorganized in this area. Remember, to customize the system.

"Have a time and place for everything, and do everything in its time and place, and you will not only accomplish more, but have far more leisure than those who are always hurrying, as if vainly attempting to overtake time that had been lost."

Tyron Edwards

If you died tomorrow, would your spouse or loved ones or beneficiaries have a record of your personal affairs? Not maintaining a record of your affairs will present them with awful nightmare, should anything fatal happen to you.

Make an irrevocable commitment to invest at least 10% of every dollar you earn.

The Power 10 Principle

The Power 10 Principle stands for the power that can come from investing 10% of every dollar you earn. Imagine where you would be today, financially speaking, if ever since you began working you would have put aside 10% of every commission you have earned. WOW!

The statistics show clearly that a large number of the population will retire in poverty. It's a shame and shouldn't happen to anyone. Everyone who is working can use the power of 10% with the power of compound interest to become wealthy at retirement.

The Paycheck to Paycheck Syndrome

Close to 90% of families the world over are living from paycheck to paycheck. There always seems to be more month than money. You can move away from paycheck to paycheck and into prosperity using The Power 10 Principle.

This syndrome is not caused by a lack of money, on the contrary. I can show a person working on a meager salary how to retire with over a million dollars in the bank, if all they did was set aside a dollar a day. The paycheck to paycheck situation is a symptom of a lack of skills needed to build true, solid financial wealth.

I know salespeople who earn piles of money each year but are always OUTSPENDING what they earn. It seems there is no amount of money they cannot outspend. On the other hand, there are people who have managed their money and are on a solid footing financially.

Starting today, put the Power 10 Principle to work for you!

MY POWER 10 PRINCIPLE COMMITMENT

I ______________________________ make an irrevocable commitment to live by the Power 10 Principle. I will pay myself a minimum of 10% of every dollar I earn. I will follow this principle 100% from today onward.

__________________________________________________________
Signature Date

Live within your means.

I'm all for lavish, prosperous, extravagant lifestyles. I'm pro-Rolls Royce! I'm for flying First Class on airplanes. I love Brioni suits, but only once the money is there first. This strategy means to spend no more than you make on a monthly basis. Ideally that means to live on cash basis and not use debt to provide normal living expenses. It also means having the self-discipline to control spending while you raise income or create solid wealth.

"It's difficult to save money when you neighbors keep buying things your can't afford."

Anonymous

Take the Financial Fitness Test

Yes No

___ ___ I can go for three months without receiving any including my regular pay cheque.

___ ___ Our family can maintain our current lifestyle if I became disabled for an extended time.

___ ___ My family can maintain our current lifestyle If I died tomorrow.

___ ___ My investment portfolio or retirement saving plans is performing in an above average manner.

___ ___ My will is complete and up-to-date.

___ ___ My spouse knows exactly how much it costs us to live on a monthly basis.

___ ___ My spouse and I have outlined our financial plans in writing.

___ ___ I have spent at least one hour in the past year planning my next car purchase, home purchase, vacation or night out.

___ ___ Within the past year, I have taken one hour to discuss with my spouse our financial future.

___ ___ My spouse is concerned about saving for our future.

___ ___ We could afford to purchaser everything we desired this past year.

___ ___ If my spouse dies, I have someone who can advise me on all my financial affairs.

Scoring

If your combined "NO" responses are:

0 - 2 You have good financial fitness and your main objective should be to fine-tune your strategies to stay fit. It's better to be safe than sorry.

3 - 5 You have average financial fitness and your main objective should be to improve your present program. You should capitalize on your strengths and learn some new techniques while considering other alternatives. You should also review the weaker area and change those parts of your program.

6 + You have poor financial fitness. Don't despair, you are not alone. Most readers of this column probably fall into this category. Generally speaking, only one person in ten is financially fit. You should consider seeking help from a registered financial planner.

Avoid the common money mistakes and rip-offs.

Extended warranties
Many people get ripped-off when they buy electronics, appliances or automobiles by purchasing and often financing the repair insurance and extended warranties. This is 100% dealer profit. It is grossly overpriced. For every person who benefits, I can show you 3,000 who have lost. Sales people make huge commission rates on them and should be avoided.

Long term financing
When you choose to finance purchases within 24 months rather than 36 months or more you will save thousands.

Automobile dealer preparations
Never pay overinflated delivery and dealer preparation and setup charges. These fees range from $200 to $500. The car doesn't need assembling once it arrives at the dealership. They wash it and fill it with gas. Don't pay, buy somewhere else.
Fabric coating for seat covers
Never, never, never pay an auto dealer to coat your seat covers. It is a pure rip-off. People have paid more than $300 for something that costs the dealer less than $2. Buy a can of Scotchguard and do it yourself.

Financing automobiles
Never finance your automobile purchase at the dealership. A good finance manager, who'll earn $5,000 to $10,000 per month on financing commissions, will load your car up with high interest rates and extra warranties. They often make it sound like you couldn't get the car without their "help". If one person will finance the car, so will 20 others. Find a better deal.

New Cars
Instead of purchasing a car brand new, you might be much wiser to purchase the same car but only after it is two to two and a half years old. Here's why. A new depreciates 25% the moment it leaves the dealership. A $20,000 car will be worth $15,000 to $17,000 within five minutes of driving off the lot. Bad deal! Let someone else pay the depreciation, iron out all the bugs and buy a low mileage car and save thousands.

Credit Life Insurance
When you go into a bank and the manager says "Tick the box" and we'll insure the loan in case anything happens to you; the loan will be paid off. The problem is it's grossly overpriced. Many of these small rip-offs, spanning over decades can add up to thousands and tens of thousands of dollars.

Mortgage Life Insurance
If you die the mortgage will be paid off. You pay the same high premium for the duration but the mortgage amount declines. Let's say you have $100,000 mortgage and you insure the mortgage. If you die in 20 years and you only owe $15,000 on your mortgage, they will pay the mortgage company (not you) $15,000. You have been paying a $100,000 premium for 20 years. A better strategy is to buy a Term Life policy for the amount of the mortgage. If you die in 20 years still owing $15,000 on the mortgage, your estate gets $100,000.

Determine the interest rates on all your credit cards.
Many salespeople are actually shocked to find out that their credit card charges an enormous annual rate of 17% to 29%. There was a day when these types of interest charges used to be called "loan sharking." Today it is fashionable to charge huge rates because the bank is a respectable institution.

Pay off the credit card balances as soon as possible.
It would even be recommended to take out a loan consolidate all your credit cards at high interest rates. For example, let's say you carried department store charges of say, $3,000 at an incredible rate of 28.8% interest. Over the course of the year that would cost you $864. If instead you paid back your debt through a personal line of credit at a lower rate of say, 10%, it would cost you only $300 to service that original $3,000. You would pocket $564 saving.

Avoid the Credit Crunch
If you're the type of person who can't keep track of receipts, try adopting a system with two or three credit cards. You could try using one, say, for all automobile expenses, another for all entertainment. Your monthly statements will give you an easy reference record of expenditures. Remember, though, don't get caught by habit of letting balances be carried from month to month!

Replace high-interest credit cards with the lower rate cards and preferably a "No Annual Fee" card. Once you find out how much money you are spending on the higher rate cards, you will be shocked. Begin to seek out lower rate cards. More and more companies are going to low rate cards.

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