Building Wealth - Cutting Costs

OK Valentines day is a few days away and this is one in my opinion where men have it easy. Flowers, candy, jewelry and you are set as a guy. If you’re smart have them sent to your lady’s work place and you will have a very good Valentines day.

What about buying for men though? Most of us are not that worried about getting something for Valentines day but hey if we are going to be getting something give us something cool. So with Valentines bearing down and that thought on my mind when I was asked to take a look at a cool gift site called Vat 19 I was more then willing to do it.

One item that really caught my eye is this electronics charging valet station. The electronics Charging Station neatly hides cords while charging up to three devices at a time. The 5-plug surge protector is concealed and the small shelf and drawer store other items such as your keys and wallet.  Overall a cool and functional gift that I know most men and probably many women would really like.  Though guys if you get one for your lady, don’t skip the flowers, trust me.

If you own a retail outlet a great way to get a truly honest assessment of your service is to use a mystery shopping company to evaluate you with no bias or confusion.  I recently was asked to check out a web site that provides this type of service called BestMark and I must say I was impressed.   Rather then just sending some mystery shoppers to your store they provide professional consultants that have in-depth experience guiding programs from inception to ongoing execution to analysis to solution implementation.  That all adds up to put BestMark on my list of recommended sites for owners of retail outlets.

What I really like about using a service like this is the completely honest feed back that it provides and how that data can be used to improve your service.  While you are your location you view it via “rose colored glasses” and you have no real idea how the service is when you aren’t there (when the cats away…) and these services put you directly in touch with the reality on the ground.

I talk a lot on this blog about things like saving, investing and making money. I encourage people of every walk of life to spurn consumer debt and build wealth so they can live good even when times are bad. I want to shift gears a bit today though and talk a bit about how to protect your hard earned wealth.

I just got done reading a new book called Asset Protection 101 from Donald Trump’s Trump university and I have to say I learned a lot of new ways to protect the wealth I and my family have worked so hard for. In fact basically I just learned how to be a millionaire in reality and at the same time appear penniless on paper.

Of course I got wealthy in the first place by being a bit of a tight wad and knowing how to spot a good deal. So check out this deal from Trump University, buy a copy of Asset Protection 101 today and you also will get the following bonuses

• 3 J.J. Childers E-Books-valued at $19.95 each, these 3 e-books provide you with even more information about protecting your wealth, saving on taxes, and enjoying a stress-free retirement.
• 5 Special Reports-over 100 pages of extra material to help you build your wealth structure (worth $150!).
• The Top 50 Most Overlooked Tax Deductions-this gift alone could save you thousands of dollars when April comes around again!
• J.J.’s Asset Protection Worksheet-the master’s tool to show you where you may be vulnerable to lawsuits and how you can minimize your tax burden.
• Asset Video - addressing specific asset protection issues, which you can view on your computer
• 20% off the registration fee for Trump University’s Wealth Preservation: Asset Protection Retreat featuring instructor J.J. Childers.

There is also an awesome 1 hour free teleseminar. Now for a 20 dollar book those are some great bonuses. I don’t normally tell my readers to go spend money but in this case it will be a Andrew Jackson that is well used. For more information visit the Trump University Site for the special offer on Asset Protection 101.

In my site philosophy I explain in commandments 4 and 5 that I think every person today should be to some degree “self employed” and have some business of their own. Today the easiest way to make that happen is to make your money with internet marketing and one of the best things you can sell are either software that is down-loadable or informational products that can also be downloaded. With that all you need to do is create the product and market it, there is no inventory, no shipping, no real expenses.

To do it right though one thing you will definitely need though is ecommerce software or what is commonly referred to as an online shopping cart.  I was recently asked to check out a site called AmeriCommerce which provides the tools to do this.  I found there software is very easy to integrate and quite robust at the starting price of only 39 Dollars a month and if you need help with integration or even some help with web design they can provide that as well.

I like this platform for a few reasons

• Easy integrations with Google Check Out and PayPal
• Very stable platform that is simple but also robust for power applications as well
• It is search engine friendly
• Offers a ton of features
• Tracks your ROI (return of investment)
• Allows you to set up affiliates programs
• And a ton more

So check out AmeriCommerce if you need a good shopping cart program and the best news is they offer a 14 day free trial with every program so you can be sure of their quality of service before spending any money, for that they make my list of recommended sites.

Many people are familiar with the concept of a Roth IRA. For those that are not I will give a quick summary of the difference between Conventional and Roth IRAs and why I believe that a Roth is ALWAYS better for new contributions. Both offer significant tax advantages but one provides more advantages today while the other provides more advantages tomorrow. Given they are retirement investing vehicles clearly we should think more about the impact when we are 65 then when we are 30, 40, etc. Here is the basics of each…

• Conventional IRA - You put money in up to a set maximum per year. You then deduct your contributions from your income for that tax year. So if you owe taxes on 50,000 dollars for a tax year, contribute 10,000 to your conventional IRA you will then pay taxes only on 40,000. However, the tax is not avoided only differed until the time of withdrawal. When you then withdraw this money in retirement you pay taxes on 100% of the money you withdraw as 100% earned income. Oh and should social security survive till your retirement since a Conventional IRAs distributions are considered “income” it will effect what portion of your Social Security is taxed.

• Roth IRA - With a Roth we change the time of the tax advantage to the future vs. the present. So this year you owe taxes on 50,000 dollars and put 10,000 into your Roth IRA and you still pay taxes on the full 50K. However you will now never pay tax on that 10K you contributed or the interest earned on it EVER AGAIN. So if you are 30 in that year you will earn interest for 30 years or more tax free and you will NEVER pay a thin dime of tax on the earned interest. Also when you do withdraw the money it is already your money, it will never be considered “income”, you won’t pay any tax EVER.

Now some advisers point out that if you will have lower tax bracket in retirement and believe in “fuzzy math” that a conventional can win out. However, we should live in the world of practice vs. theory. What I have seen actually happen is that be it Roth or conventional people always contribute the same amount. What this means is while you will pay taxes on a Roth contribution today you will end up with the same amount of money at age 60, 65 or whenever you start to take the money out. In other words your tomorrow will be better with a Roth.

Now what many people do not even know is that a 401K which an employer provides can also now be set up with a Roth Option. With a 401K your employer takes a percentage of your check and deposits it for you. While 401’s have some restrictions that IRAs don’t they work quite similar in how they defer or eliminate taxes. The beauty is when you quit working you can roll your 401K into an equivalent IRA and that means if you have a Roth 401k you can roll to a Roth IRA and have money you can take as needed, keep inside the account as long as you like and never pay taxes on it or ever have it count as income.

Again though while the option of a Roth IRA is well known today most people are not aware of a Roth 401K so ask your employer to check into the option for you. To me they are better for all workers but for the youngest workers the advantages are even bigger. There is a good chance that your employer may not even be aware that they can offer a Roth 401k and as we said all the time in the Army “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”.

Item number one of the philosophy that drives everything we do on this site is “Debt sucks! Stay out of it as much as you can” and I most certainly do include “student loans” in that viewpoint. Now I realize that for some students taking some student loans will be the only way to pay for 4 years of college I just believe you should borrow the absolute minimum amount you can. Student loans are not for supporting a lifestyle they should be used to fund tuition, books and direct educational expenses.

My biggest issue is that many young people are lured into massive student loan debt while billions of dollars in college grants and scholarships go unclaimed every single year. Let me repeat that fact billions of dollars in educational grants and scholarships that never have to be paid back go unclaimed every single year while students go into deep debt to fund their educations.

That is why I am a big fan of websites like Scholarships.com that help put students in touch with those funds. So if you or someone you care about is getting ready to go off to college or is even currently in college please make sure to take advantage of every way to fund that education that is possible. Even just a few partial scholarships and grants can have a massive effect on long term debt.

I have talked to new grads that come out of school over 75,000 dollars in debt. In many places that will buy a person a starter home! Debt is cancer always remember that it must be used as a tool and only as it is needed. Right now this very second there is more then 19 Billion dollars waiting at Scholarships.com to help fund educational needs so please make sure to check out their website, set up a free account and find ways other then more debt to fund educational expenses.

For helping young people reduce debt and achieve educational goals Scholarships.com certainly makes my list of recommended sites.

A few days ago I posted my thoughts about the proposed “economic stimulus” where the government will be giving back about 300 dollars per tax payer in a retroactive tax cut from 2007’s tax year. You can read my thoughts about this tax rebate here. In short though I believe income tax is theft and I am for any and all cutting of income tax for anyone from the poorest to the most wealthy. On the other side though I think this rebate is bad for the country because there will be NO SPENDING CUTS on anything to fund it. All we are doing is going deeper in debt. Again read my full post on this to understand this better.

What I wanted to ask though today is what will you do with your 300-600 dollars in rebates?

Since I posted that orginal post I have been getting many visitors each day finding my blog from Google, they are all searching for things like

• “when do we get our tax rebates”
• “government giving out rebate checks”
• “will we get stimulate the economy checks?”
• “when will we get our government rebate checks”
• “800 dollar rebate checks government”
• and you have to love this one “government giving 300 dollars to everyone“

Now I am not here to criticize anyone but my guess is most of the people doing these searches are just itching to get that “free money” and blow it. Indeed that is “the plan”, yes indeed Uncle Scam (not a misspelling) wants you to spend every dime on consumer goods to “stimulate the economy”. The theory is more spending is good because more money is in circulation.

So please comment below after you read this post and tell me what you plan to do with your money. As many may suspect mine will be invested and many in the government want to not give the money to people like me that will save it. No they want “good Americans” to spend the money and “put it to work”.

So what are you doing with your refund?

• Taking a vacation
• Just blowing it
• Saving it
• Paying on debt
• Investing it
• Not sure yet?

Let us know because it is interesting what happens when you really ask yourself what you will do with extra money. Perhaps just perhaps thinking about this may make a few more of us think about saving this refund for a really rainy day. Trust me if you remember 1978 times are really not that bad right now.

Keep in mind this is not some government “entitlement” this is indeed your money, your tax dollars that you paid being returned to you. To do so your government has grow our debt by BILLIONS more. Again I am 100% for any rebate, any tax cut, any tax abolishment. Just realize that our elected officials did not think about how to fund this thing, they are just buying your votes from you with your own money and charging it along with interest to your children.

So knowing that how will you be spending your money, remember it is indeed yours it is not a gift from our exalted officials.