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Personal Finance Tips – Warning! Are You in Control of Your 5 Main Personal Finance Needs?

The key to getting the edge on average-Joe finances and struggling with money worries is through gaining first-rate 'financial literacy' which reduces any over-dependency on accountants, financial advisors and so on, so that you can get control of and start to manage and direct your own personal finances. A great starting point on this journey is to know about and understand the 5 main financial needs in life as per classic financial planning.
The 5 Main Personal Finance Needs in Life
In classic financial planning there are 5 defined financial needs a typical person will have, oftentimes at pretty predictable timeframes.
I find it can be a useful back of a napkin checklist to have the following 5 financial needs listed in front of you and then ask yourself what you could be doing now to ensure you are actively addressing each of these 5 financial needs:
1. Savings i.e. the financial need to accumulate a lump sum from surplus income (typically saved from earned income) to meet some financial objective and/or build up a rainy day fund. An example of this would be you saving a down-payment for a home purchase at some stage in the near future. Another example of saving is building up an emergency fund (e.g. setting aside 6 months living expenses). You might also start saving with a view to utilising these funds for a longer term objective such as building up a rainy day or retirement fund.
2. Investments i.e. the financial need to invest a lump sum not required by you for a period of time, so as to earn a better return than standard saving can generate. A common example of this is investing a capital sum into bonds or stocks so as to generate a medium-to-high return. Another example of this need could be where you've recently retired and have received a lump sum retirement benefit and want to invest this appropriately. You'd have a financial need to invest this lump sum in the most suitable fashion possible (in a manner keeping with your age, risk profile and financial goals) so as to maximize your capital return and/or generate a future stream of (passive) income.
3. Protection i.e. the financial need to provide financially for certain unpredictable events in life, such as ill health or death, causing the total cessation of earned income for you and/or your dependants. An example of this is when you get a mortgage, you will take out a life assurance policy (mortgage protection payment insurance) which would ensure the mortgage is paid off in full were you to die before the end of the mortgage term. In addition to simply buying life policies you can "protect" yourself by building sources of passive and portfolio income.
4. Retirement Planning i.e. the financial need to accumulate funds to provide a replacement income (passive income and portfolio income) in retirement as you're no longer working (either by choice or necessity) and not generating earned income.
5. Mortgages i.e. the financial need to borrow a capital sum to fund the purchase of a property, usually an apartment (condo) or house, which will typically be used as your home.
The Typical Timeline of Your Personal Financial Needs
Your financial needs generally change as you get older. A typical timeline of changing financial needs during the course of someone's life would be as follows:
? Age 20- 30: Savings & Mortgages,
? Age 30-40: Protection & Longer Term Savings
? Age 40-50: Investment & Retirement Planning
? Age 60: Investment
It's important to note that this is a very general timeline. Personally, I think retirement planning should be looked at much earlier in life. With the exception of the current generation of kids (who actually will live shorter lives than those of us in our 20s, 30s and 40s now due to the growing obesity problem), people are living longer than ever before. However, less and less people are planning for and providing for their longer than ever retirement financial needs. (Why not take a look out our website and other articles on retirement planning to understand you retirement planning needs further.) I've heard it is said that people spend 5 times more time planning their holidays than they do their retirement! Sad but unfortunately true!
Becoming Your Own Financial Advisor
The process of personal financial planning is a process you can either undertake yourself or most likely with a financial advisor. The objective of financial planning is to achieve your financial plans and goals through the most efficient management of your available financial resources and proper use of financial products. Unfortunately, most people are not equipped to undertake financial planning themselves and they therefore over-rely on financial advisors and institutions.
A word of warning!! There are only a minority of financial advisors that truly have your best interests at heart (sorry...but it's true). Many are merely flogging you financial products for commissions and fees. The only financial advice worth taking is paid-for financial advice and advice that is in writing. This is as close to independent financial advice that you are going to get I'm afraid. At least by paying for the service, you know the financial advisor is going to provide a service in return for payment rather than have some financial institution line his pockets with initial and trail commissions on financial products sold to you which may or may not be entirely suitable.
After the recent financial crisis and the expos? on the entire financial system, there has never been a more important time to get skilled-up and be your own financial advisor. I'm not saying don't have a team of financial/tax/legal experts you can turn to for advice. Do! However, I am saying, get empowered and become knowledgeable on the financial requirements you have and the strategies, tools and techniques you will need to achieve them. To become rich and create wealth beyond mere averages requires you, to at least some extent, become your own financial advisor. P.S. Visit MillionaireMindsetSecrets.com and sign-up for FREE insights, tips and exclusives on Personal Finance Tips - utilizing our powerful income and wealth creation strategies can fast-track your wealth building so that you get rich for life and build wealth that lasts. P.P.S. Why not signup NOW for more insider secrets on Personal Finance Tips at MillionaireMindsetSecrets.com for FREE & download for free the "The 7 Secrets of Wealth Creation" e-book.
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8 Ways to Save Money and a different approach to Saving Money on your Mortgage Loan

All loans based on 100,000 at 6.50% fixed for 30 yrs. That’s a fairly small mortgage loan in today’s world, so realize, the bigger the loan, the more savings in interest there will be!

1) I’ll start off with the simple method to save money by not spending any extra money of your own and saving $400.00 because it’s the easiest savings plan there is!

Let’s say your monthly mortgage payment is $1000/month for round figures. If you pay the same amount 4 times a month ($250.00 four times) instead of 1000 at the end of the month you’ll save roughly .50/month = 400.00 for the entire mortgage loan. That’s not doing anything at all! Just pay your monthly mortgage weekly instead of monthly, but don’t pay the extra week when there’s a 5 week month or you will be paying an extra $250.00 four times a year. This method simply gets the money to the bank faster which means you don’t pay interest for as long. There’s no reason not to save that money!

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How to save money and get a free electricity

We all are trying to save money. The electricity bill is the highest bill comparing to the other utility  bill that we have to pay like water or gas. You think what you paying now is high just imagine years from now. According  to a study about energy in the world. We will consume more than 59% of energy in the next 6 years.

What about if I tell you there is a way How you can get free energy to your home. Imagine what you can do with that money you will save every month from eliminating the electricity bill from your budget or even just reducing it to 50% from what you paying now.You be able to save money and planet earth.

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Personal finance software helps save money

Managing your money can take up a lot of your time and also require you to do repetitive and tedious tasks. With a great personal finance software you will save a lot of time and the need for doing tedious repetitive tasks will be highly reduced. You can then concentrate on actually managing the money so that you improve the returns and also your financial security.

A personal finance software is a great tool for managing your finances. It will enable you to keep a track of many different accounts such as bank accounts and credit card accounts. It will also enable you to know costs, taxes and even analyze the financial information. In short it will do the work of a finance manager for you. This is a popular approach and in fact is based on the approach of large companies which need to manage complex investment portfolios of large amounts of money.

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