One of the reason people is unhappy in their living is because lack of money and the feeling of security for their finance.

Today, we need money to settle a lot of things and problems. Basic needs such as food, clothes, houses, medicines are consuming money. We need money to survive. Therefore in order to feel the sense of real security in life, we must have some money left behind which give the sense of security to us

We all love to live in a life that full of security. No body like to have the challenges in their finance all the time. We need security to feel the peace. So achieving financial security is the basic goal that everyone of us should have. Besides that, before you start any investment, you are advised to cover all your basic needs and achieve financial security. This will not put you or your family in hot water just in case you lost money in investments.

What Is Financial Security?

My Personal definition for financial security is a level of personal finance where you don’t have to worry that you are not enough money just in case anything happen in your life. You have the true security for your life because you have all the necessary money ready to cover whatever unpredictable circumstances happen in your life. Besides that there are also no loopholes in your finance that might let you down such as debt or persona loan.

Therefore based on this definition, I have listed some of the requirements that we must have in order to achieve financial security.

1. Emergency Funds. Ok, it is very important to have an emergency funds ready for you and your family. Just in case anything happen, you have money to settle your problems. For example, if you lose your job, this money can let you to cover all your basic expenses while you can continue to look for a new job. Build up this emergency funds even you are in debt. If you are in debt, you can build up 1-2 months of emergency funds. After that you can continue to pay your debt. 1-2 months of emergency funds are better than none.
2. Become debt Free. Debt is dangerous and risky if we don’t know how to manage it properly. Therefore, I always encourage people to be debt free. There are good debt and bad debt tough. But if you don’t know how to handle your debts, you are advised to pay down the debt first. Debt is just like termites which can eat up the support of your finance. It can ruin and make your life fall down if you don’t handle it properly. So become debt free first and clear all the bad debts.
3. Saving Account. It can really give you the sense of peace and security to see that there are money left in your saving account. It is really nice to see this amount of money keep increasing. Saving account is a must because it is a fund for us to move our personal finance to the next stage. Maybe you want to start your business, maybe you want to invest or even save it for your children education. Well, this is very important for you to get into the next level of personal finance, Financial Comfortable.
4. Insurance. Life is hard to be predicted. There are things that might happen and affect our normal life. So we must buy the insurance to cover all this unpredictable things. Personally, I think an insurance that can cover death, medicines and illnesses is important for us. A life insurance is a must for everyone of us.
5. Maximize Your IRA Potential. Even though we have different financial goal to hit but we cannot forget our retirement. We should build the nest of our retirement from time to time. So spend sometime to manage your IRA and maximize its potential so that your retirement is under a protection.

It is really hard to live in a life that full of stress and worries about not enough money. Financial security is a stage that we must achieve for the peace of life and happiness. So please set a goal to achieve financial security as fast as possible. Good luck.

When I was a child, my parents taught me that we should donate and help other people. At that time I can do this very easy. Just take out the money from my pocket and put into the donation box. Well it is not really my money, it is my parents’ money.

But when I grow up and start to manage my own money, I found that sometime it is not easy for us to make the donation, especially in the form of money. There are many facotrs you might have to consider before you can put the money into the donation box. So here are some of the question that you might consider:

1. How much you can donate? Maybe you have started your own budget and living under its control. So you must consider how much you should donate so that it won’t affect your budget.
2. Should I donate now or later? Maybe you are lack of money and you are waiting for the next paycheck. So it can be hard for you to decide whether you should donate your money now o … later?
3. Which organization you should donate? Nowadays there are many charity organizations appear in the market. Do you have any favorite organization that you like to donate? What you should do when other charity organizations approach you?
4. What you can get in returns? Well, we have to accept the fact that there are some people are looking for returns after making the donation. Maybe the good name or the returns in Karma. But I think this is not really a donation anymore for this group of people. It sound like some kind of advertising and investing. To be honest, I hate this kind of people.
5. Can your love one accept that you make the donation? To be honest, not everyone is acknowledge the fact of donation. I saw this case before where a couple argue because of donation. So you might consider whether you should donate even though your love one objects on this case.
6. Can you sacrifice? Again, you know you want to use the money to buy something you want to. All in sudden, someone approach you and ask for the donation. But if you donate the money, you will be not enough money to buy what you want. Will you continue the donation?

God always tell us to love and help each other. It is very easy for God to do this but it can be hard for us on the hands. There are so much of things we have to consider before we can lend out our hands to help others. Anyway, it all about your heart to make your own decision whether you should donate. There are no “right” or “wrong” for this question.

So when someone hold a box and asking you to donate some money, will you do it?

With all the questions have to be considered, sometime I can feel that it is not easy to make a donation.

Photo Taken By Daquella manera

Do you ever consider to retire early?

Well, one of the common thinking of people about retirement is they only can retire after the age of 55 or any other number that match their condition. People usually work and wait until the age of retirement then only can start to “enjoy” and “taste” the life after retired.

In this blog, I always emphasize that we should retire as early as we can. If possible, we must retire wealthy, younger and financial free. Retire Early is my dream and also something that I want to propose to others like you. This is because our life is not just about jobs and income. I said this because many people spend most of their life in jobs just to get the income. There are many things in this world are waiting for us to enjoy!

For some of them, they have delay their retirement and continue to work because they need to the income so much. I feel sad while I saw people around me spend all their time in the jobs that giving them stress and tiredness. But don’t worry, if you start earlier with a proper plan and take action, you can retire early and enjoy your life too.

Below are some of the benefits that retire early can give you:

1. Start enjoying your dreams. It has been so many times I heard that how people have to sacrifice their hobbies and dreams because they need to work for income. I have to admit that not every body can live and make money from their hobbies or passions. Sometime we have to be realistic and tell ourselves that we can only enjoy our what we likes after we retired. Therefore, the early retirement will let you enjoy what you have dropped earlier in life in the younger age.
2. Skipping all the causes that make you sick. Don’t you agree that nowadays people are stressful and have a lot of emotion problems? Don’t you agree that those are the causes that affect their health and let them fall in sick? Reports show that many people are feeling stress because of their jobs and these emotion problems have affected their health. Besides that, people have less rest and change their living routines because of their jobs until they are greatly affecting their health and body. So if you can retire early, you can adjust your time and hence control your life. This will let you have less stress in your life and hence have a healthy body for the rest of your life.
3. Doing what you want while you are young. Before this, I heard an advice from my elder customer who like traveling so much. He is considered as retire wealthy and have the ability to spend most of his time in traveling. But he can’t do that because he is too “tired” to do so. He retired at the age of 55 and he told me that it is very tired and exhausted for him to travel in long period. As he get older, his stamina is not as good as those youngsters. Although he exercises from time to time but his body is not as good as before. So he gives me an advice that we must retire early and do what we want to while we are still young. This advice really punch my head and make me realize that how important it is to retire early.

We are usually tied up because of money or so called income. We have to do something that we don’t want(job) and spend most of our life in things that meaningless to us. So as long as you can build up the income sources that cover all your expenses now and future, then you can retire early and enjoy your life.

If you are still young(<50), you have the higher chances to retire early. Of course, the younger you are, the easier you can plan to retire early. In fact, in financial world, the earlier you start to plan, the better future you will have. This is a fact. So start saving, investing, planning early if you want to retire early.

What is the definition of a healthy life?

For me, it takes more than just a healthy body to have a healthy life. There are many things that we must take care in order to have a healthy life. For example, our personal finance. We can’t deny the impact of money on to our life and we must take care about it.

For our good health, we are advised to take more rest, eat more healthy food, do more exercise etc. We must take some healthy steps each day to ensure that we can have a healthy body. It is all about what we do every day that determine our future.

For the issue of money is same. There are a few things we must do from time to time to ensure we have a healthy finance. Without further ado, here are the 5 things that I recommend to you:

1. Take more notes. I have been listening so many time that my friends complain how they are struggling financially. They make so much of money but they still have financial headache. When I ask them in details, most of them will answer me they don’t even know how and where their money gone. This is a big problem for them. Since they don’t know how they spend their money, then how they can manage their money? So take more notes about how you spend your money every day. This will let you have a great overview on your cash flow.
2. Spend more wisely. Think before you spend so that you won’t worry after you spend. Before you buy anything, think properly. People usually buy things emotionally and they might spend too much money on something that is not really important for them. Ask yourself question like do I really need this thing? Is there any alternative for it? Should I buy at this price? Besides that you can also do some calculation so that you can find out how this spending can affect your future and life.
3. Read your statement. Each month we receive a lot of bills and statements in mail or email. I also know that not much of people will go through the bill. This is a bad habit. Even you are in great debt, you must read through the statements. This will let you understand how you spend your money and what kind of charges are taking money from you. So far I found that banks tend to charge some kind of “service” fee in our statement that we might not know. So if you don’t look at your statement, then how you are going to get rid of it?
4. Change the habits that consume our money. There are many things that we can skip and save money. For example, I never drink any coffee but plain water. In fact, drinking too much of coffee is not good for health. So why we must spend money for this habit? Drinking water is better and it is cheaper than a cup of coffee.
5. Read about Money. We must always read and touch things that we want to master in life. In fact, the issues of money is a huge knowledge and we can easily spend the rest of our time to study and master it. If you want to have a healthy body, you can read about books and taking care of your body. If you want a good financial future, then you must read about money. Personally I will encourage you to learn how to invest your money. No one can really help you when comes to investment even experts. Experts are only assisting you to plan and make decision and not really can help you to make money. So learn this skill yourself and it will pay off in future.

Above are the 5 tips that I think people should take to master their finance. Hope you enjoy it.

If you open up Google and search for the keyword - ways to get out of debt, you can find a lot of information teaching you how to do so. If you visit Amazon.com or any other book stores, you could find that there are actually many books about how to get out of debt. However, many people are still greatly in debt while there are so much of resources to help them. Something must be wrong here.

Personally, I went through some of sites and books. What I found is there are many great ways ready to help people to get out of debts. Many ways are working! However, it seems like not everyone can really benefit from them.

Getting out of Debt = Losing Weight

Today, I continue my daily evening jogging exercise routine in a local park. I saw a man was sitting on a chair under a tree. He is a big guy and can be considered obesity.

All of sudden, there was a thought came through my mind - I’m obesity and I can tell you that I’m quite fat. Before this I also like this man and spend my whole day siting in front of the computer without any exercising. But today, I’m different because I’m spending my time to exercise and I’m on my ways to lose weight. I can feel that I have been changing my lifestyle and habits so much for the past few months. I kept thinking and finally I found the key that make me changing and improving - motivation.

People actually know a lot of ways to get out debt, just like losing weight. But they fail to do it because they don’t take the necessary actions. Lack of motivation is the main reason why people never take action that they must to. Based on my experience, if they have the enough motivation, they will take action constantly and approach their goals. At that time, nothing will block them and they are definitely on the right track to success.

First, Build Up Your Motivation to Get out Of Debt

Getting out of debt is really like losing weight. There are many ways we can do it but only low percentage of people can make it and stick to it. Only those who have the motivation and take action has the chance to succeed.

For example, in order to get out of debt, first you must keep a journal on how you spend your money. This is a good way which can let you understand your spending habits and things that are taking your money away without your attention. You must keep this journal at least for 3 months to have a clear picture on your current financial status. So what you have to do is keep a small notepad with you. Every time you spend money, you must write down and keep a record.

Above is an example that I usually give to my friends who asked my financial advice. However most of them told me how troublesome it is to keep a journal or they are really lazy to do that. Guess what, they never improve their personal finance and until today they still have the same financial problems.

One of my favorite quote is “What We have today is the results from our past”. What you want in future, you must work hard and take action today. Taking action is the only way to change the future. You must do something to reduce your debt if not it will follow your forever.

But not everyone can take action constantly. Without enough motivation, we cannot take action or even feel lazy to do so. At that time, you will suffer and don’t want to take action anymore because you know it is a pain for you. Then you will give a lot of reasons why you can’t and how useless it is to do take the actions.

I know this because I been through all the process before. Therefore, I always try my best to search and build up my motivation before I take any action. Because I know by only have the enough motivation, we can take action without any blocking and this is the key to succeed.

How to have the motivation?

The key to achieve what you want is motivation and we must focus on this to prepare ourselves. Except we have enough motivation, if not it is useless for us to read 1000 ways of getting out of debt.

I lost total of 30 pounds in the last 3 months and I only can do this after I have enough motivation to keep diet and exercising. So today let me share with you some of the tips that I discovered from my success in weight losing which can be used to achieve any goal. Today, I’m still using it to keep myself motivated:

1. Getting started with small goal. Usually before we get started in anything, we are advised to set a goal. After setting the goal, then we must take actions and approach our goals constantly. But people usually make a mistake here - focusing on a goal that is too big for them pto get started.

For example, Mr. A has $30K total of debts and he wishes to pay them off within 1 year of time. In the first month, Mr. A manages to pay $1000 for his debts but at the same time he is worried too.

He wants to pay off his $30K in 1 year of time so average he has to pay $2500 every month. But in the first month he only pay $1000 which is lower than his goal. So guess what, his confidence level drops! If he doesn’t do anything after this, his will lose his motivation and give up.

From the example above, Mr. A makes the mistake of focusing his mind to pay $2500 in every month. This is the first time he try to pay down his debts and don’t you agree that high possibility that he might not be able to pay $2500 in first month? It is too risky for Mr. A to focus on a goal that is so high because if he just fail the first time, he might lose all his motivation and confidence.

Therefore, I usually set a big goal but split it into multiple small goal. I even make a tiny and simple goal in my first month of weight losing - just jog 300m per day. It is that simple and I can finish it everyday. Along the way, I gain my motivation and confidence. Then only I raise my goal. The theory is same in getting out of debt. Mr. A can get started by focusing to save more money to pay off his debt. Maybe $10 per day. This goal is much more easier than keep focusing to pay off $2500 in first month. Start small, accomplish it and gain confidence is the key here.

We are human and we like to feel the sense of success, happiness, fulfillment and any other positive emotions. We don’t like to feel hard and uncertainty. Therefore we will give up if we can’t feel the sense of success while keep telling our mind how hard it is to take action. So we must learn how to make ourselves feel good right after taking every action. The most effective way is accomplish those tiny goals.

I used to be fat and heavy since I was a child. I know obesity is not good for my body and life. But I still keep eating and never do my exercise. Yeah, maybe there are times for me to take action but I stop everytime I encounter the first obstacle in the process. But this time I’m different. I managed to lose 30 pounds for the past 2 months by exercising and diet control. I never took any pills or weight loss courses. I just do more exercise and control the food that I eat.

This is not easy for me especially in the starting stage. But today I feel that it is easy. Therefore I learn my lesson that we must gain enough motivation then only we have the momentum to move on and carry out our plan to achieve something.

Getting out of debt is same. If we have the motivation, it is easy and achievable for us to get out of it. In fact, we can easily go deeper and deeper if our motivation is low due to the lack of self-control.

You cannot go deeper in debt anymore. Quickly motivate yourself and stand up to fight it. What you do today is for the future. Good Luck.

PS: This Post was featured in Carnival Of Personal Finance #200