The biggest mistake that people make is waiting. Sure, they want to save money. They want to build wealth. They want to have a solid emergency savings fund. However, it is apparently human nature to think about these things and wait.

Some get overwhelmed with the idea of saving. Some think it would take too long. Some feel they can't make the kind of progress that would make it worthwhile to do to begin with.

This is the single worst mistake you can make.

If your employer offers a 401k, take advantage of it. It's automatic savings and it builds faster than you think.

Don't stop there. Also open a Roth IRA (if you qualify) or traditional IRA and make automatic "payments" to these. The days of thinking social security or even a stand alone 401k would be enough are GONE. Don't be a fool.

Many people look at savings as "optional." You know, do I save or live my life. The truth is: If you are not saving regularly, you are NOT living your life.

Work to build a significant emergency savings fund. We put this fund at 15 to 18 months of expenses. The first six (6) months of it should be totally liquid (money market savings account). The remaining amount should be staggered in six (6) month certificates of deposit.

If you have children, you must teach them the principles of saving wisely and regularly (automatically). It is the single biggest contribution you can make to their financial lives (unless you also make it very clear they should never owe on credit cards).

It's not easy to build wealth - unless you do it thru automatic savings. Harder now means easier later. You can do it.

Thank you for reading. Pass it along with our "share" button!

Loyd Ford
www.stickyasset.com/blog

Remember the Patrick Swayze movie "Road House"? In the movie he plays a "head bouncer" who knows how to cool down hot bars. One scene has him telling his bouncers "Be polite. Until it's time not to be polite." This advice has never been more true than it is today when you think about negotiating with retailers from car dealers to specialty items.

Do your research in advance. Find out all you can about a product. Find out about costs to the manufacturer and the retailer. Find out about incentives and deals that they may be willing to make to reach a quota. Never agree to go to a car dealer or retailer unless you have done your research. As the old saying goes, "Most battles are won before the first bullet is fired." Keep in mind you are going to see trained professionals. They know a lot. The more you arm yourself with in advance, the better your position will be in the end.

So, when you go "on-site," be cool. Be polite. Be patient. Frame the issue in advance. Make sure they understand that you are a deliberate person and that you feel this purchase (whatever it is) is a "big purchase" for your family and that you want it to last a long time. Be careful to "carve in" lots of compliments like "I want to purchase this item here because of the great people" (or the great store or whatever).

Avoid negotiating in front of other people. You will need to make your case alone. You don't want to add pressure that makes a sale at lesser terms hard for the merchant to offer a "Yes" to in the end.

Be prepared to see delays in conversation and lots of time sitting if this is a big purchase. It is all part of the game.

Time your negotiation. Retailers have quotas. They are usually tied to a month or week. Time your purchase and you could shave hundreds more off of the actual price.

Offer to pay cash for your purchase to save even more. Use this as a negotiation tool. Merchants face charges when consumers use Mastercard, VISA or other credit cards. Why shouldn't you receive a discount if you are saving them money?

Want more tips on saving thousands? Check out the e-book "How To Survive Any FInancial Crisis" at www.stickyasset.com. Sign up for our FREE e-saver on this site (look for the e-mail box to the right).

Thank you for reading our blog. Be sure to share by using the share button.


Loyd Ford
www.stickyasset.com/blog

Ben Berneke said recently that Americans of all varieties must take more control of their personal finances and see that saving is not an option and it is not only for the rich. He suggests the truth: You cannot live only for today. While this is true, you cannot only live for tomorrow either. Challenging, isn't it?

It is difficult to bring balance to your life continuously. However, the financial crisis and all of the carnage you have seen over the last 18 months can lead you to believe that you cannot control anything anyway. Why not just forget about it? Because that is a recipe for poverty. You think you don't have enough money now, don't save and see what poverty is like as an old person who may not be able to work.

Don't let this happen to you. While many get ego from making their mark on "work," we would like to challenge you to make your mark on saving and building wealth. How? Review your expenses and reduce your expenses unless you have a proper 2010 emergency savings fund (15 to 18 months of expenses in both high-interest money market and certificates of deposit) and are already contributing to your 401k and either a Roth IRA or Traditional IRA.

Employers want you to depend on steady work (to make them money). We want to encourage you to use time and the money you make to build emergency savings and retirement automatically and then begin the process of building actual assets that generate income on their own. You can do this.

Once you have acheived the above basics (which - with automatic savings vehicles such as direct deposit from each of your paychecks and/or automatic removals month after month from checking to savings - will come faster than you realize before you get started), you should begin looking at ways to purchase assets that gain value and generate passive income or dividends of some kind. This could be:

1. Stocks
2. Real Estate
3. Something that you creatively "build" that then generates small or larger income on a steady-basis

Of course, the big secret is: "Buy low and sell high." If you are smart, you will be careful to keep your balance on things you purchase Vs your credit. Credit is not often your friend. In fact, credit is NOT your friend. But, if you are following the above guidelines on emergency savings, you should be in a stronger position to move or will be as soon as you have built it. Remember - the most important part is STARTING. It will build faster than you think. Make this where you make your mark FOR YOUR FAMILY.

You should be as careful as possible to avoid major purchases like new vehicles or things that will lose value over time. These things - if they don't generate income of their own - are liabilities.

Think about this:

Spend your "disposable income" on assets and you will build wealth. You will grow wealth. Baby steps at first. Then, steps to secure an emergency savings fund and 401k and Roth IRA or Traditional IRA accounts. Then, move to assets. Limit expenses. Limit liabilities.

You are on the right path. Send this blog to your friends or share by using the "Share" button to the right of this blog right now. You can also sign up for our FREE e-saver in the e-mail window to the right.

Thank you for spending a moment with us. Good luck!


Loyd Ford
www.stickyasset.com/blog

I know you've heard this. You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control how you react to it. We have a philosophy that is close to this at www.stickyasset,com and this blog: Minimize the negative and celebrate the positive until someone tells you to cut it out.

The truth is that there has been a large reset in the U.S. economy and economies around the world. The world didn't come to an end. Some people have panicked and others have not. In a time of any crisis, it is best to work to remain what a friend of mine calls "even."

When things happen to you in your life, you choose:

A. Fall apart - this helps no one.
B. Review what is happening and make positive moves to secure the situation and begin to build positives going forward. After all, bad things happen to all people if you live long enough. None of us are really excellent at this, so it is a good exercise to work for balance and to remain even in any crisis (personal finance or otherwise).
C. Do nothing - this choice usually results in only making a crisis worse.

There is real power in staying positive. Don't believe me? Try it for thirty days. If you find someone around you being negative, excuse yourself and leave their company. Find yourself hit with all the negative headlines, choose to watch something else. Use your time to plan a strategy for saving and investing. Seek out positive personal finance that can help you and your family lift up, up, up!

There should be no doubt in your mind that if you want your financial life to improve you must take action no matter if there is a current crisis or not. If you have a job, you should have steady (automatic) savings. If you cannot afford to do this, you should immediately begin reviewing where your money goes.

Look to reduce expenses automatically Vs looking to reduce or cut back everyday expenses that may curb your good feeling and productivity. However, if excessive spending on little items every day of your life is your issue, you will have to reduce.

Savings is an option to some people. Others know it is a part of an overall plan to avoid personal financial crisis and help bring balance to your life.

You choose everyday. Are you enrolled in your companies 401k? Do you have a Roth IRA? Do you have a proper emergency savings fund (that is 15 to 18 months of expenses - do not get caught with a great 1980s emergency savings fund).

By choosing to stay positive, you have the ability to make good decisions that will help you save more, invest better and lift your family up. Savings and good investing is good because it gives your family options. If you are saving all along, crisis is something for others to have while you are busy trying to figure out how to build more wealth. After all, that's what rich people do in a crisis. There's a reason for Mr. Potter's attitude in the Jimmy Stewart film "It's A Wonderful Life." He's for buying you out cheap. He wants to take advantage of you to become more and more wealthy.

Your life is build out of a lot of things. Your family. Your work. Your hobbies. The books you read and the people you meet. But it should also be built with NON-optional steady and automatic savings. This will help give you options over the course of more crisis than the melt-down from last year and the continuing effects of the credit-freeze and potential threats from the government debt from all the bail outs.

Thank you for reading our blog. Stay positive and "even." Seek balance in your life. The sky is not falling. The positive who develop a plan will get ahead. Those that are negative will fall behind.

Let's get ahead. Use the "Share" button to the right of this blog to share with friends, family and those you care about. If you have a blog, please do link us to your blog. Let's get in this together and give each other positive hope that is based upon daily action to build a brighter tomorrow.


Loyd Ford
www.stickyasset.com/blog

Credit can be a difficult thing to manage. Some people will tell you that you must have credit. Some people will tell you to avoid credit all together.

BE MONEY WISE AND DON'T MESS UP

We believe you have to be money wise. Limit the control that credit has over your life and always be watchful of those offering credit and think of them as a distant enemy you never truly want to see up-close. While we are not saying these companies are your enemy (we save that for credit card companies and payday loan companies specifically), we are saying you should look at them as non-friendlies. They are not your friend. They seek the highest profit from you, and you must maintain the balance that comes from constantly understanding the dangers of credit.

CREDIT CARDS

At the same time, everyone has heard "pay more than the minimum payment" on your credit cards. The truth is: Work to pay off all credit card based debt. You cannot own credit cards - CREDIT CARDS OWN YOU. If you owe them, the sooner you pay them off the better your life will be. It is worth the sacrifice to balance them to zero.

Start by checking for any fees. Then work hard to get your existing credit card companies to lower or eliminate interest while you pay off the balance.

Credit cards are your enemy.

MORTGAGE PAYMENTS

They don't call mortgage payments "minimum payments," but maybe you should be thinking of your mortgage just this way. Do you have any idea of how many thousands of dollars you can save year after year (and over the course of your mortgage) by making MORE than the minimum payments?

If you only added another $200 or even $50 a payment (marked as an additional principle payment) and did this automatically month after month for the term of the mortgage, you would end up home debt-free faster than most Americans recognize.

NEGOTIATION

We are big believers in investing in yourself. Your employer does it. He or she pays you to work for them. You should believe in yourself enough to work for YOU for about 1 to 3 hours at least three (3) times per week. Start on the subject of negotiation. Most retailers don't want you to ask. They don't want to see you negotiate. Think it is beneath you? You have no idea how many thousands of dollars you can save just by:

1. Doing your research in advance.
2. Figuring out the profit margin or as close as you can get to it for the merchant.
3. Having an "ultimate consumers' attitude." This means if you don't purchase "X" at "X merchant," you can get it somewhere else. They have quotas and goals. You only have to purchase one.
4. Set short-term, medium and long-term savings goals. Save, save, save.

The consumer really should be KING these days. Unfortunately, the credit lobby has pushed and pushed in Washington and thru advertising and a wide variety of marketing to make us all "feel" like they are in charge. They have us chasing our credit scores instead of building up cash reserves. Don't believe me? Do a search on the internet about advice on spending for the good of the economy right now. Please! Protect your family and those you care about today. The economy will take care of itself. It always does.

Remember these www.StickyAsset.com guidelines:

1. Cash is King.
2. Credit is not king. (we add this because of all the marketing that makes it "seem" like such a help to you and your family. Don't chase your credit score. Work hard. Save automatically each month. Pay off debt.
3. You cannot own credit cards - CREDIT CARDS OWN YOU. Make more than the minimum payments. Watch them carefully since they are so bad the GOVERNMENT has to take them to task over their "practices."
4. Your checking account is a money laundering account for other people's money. Make any excuse to take money from checking and put it in money market savings and certificates of deposit (make sure your bank is FDIC-insured).
5. Set up automatic savings from your paycheck. It does not matter if you begin with only 1% of your income - BEGIN!

Sign up for our FREE monthly e-saver @ www.stickyasset.com/blog. It can save you thou$ands!

You can do this. Negotiate. Become focused on "out-the-door-prices." Compare. Negotiate (did I mention this?)! Pay extra to save more. (Huh?) That's right. Pay extra every month on debt to reduce overall costs.

Teach your children to save automatically. This may be the second best thing you ever teach them (second to "I love you!")!!

Please share this blog by linking us if you have a blog to your blog or using the "share button" to the right of this blog entry.

Thank you for reading!


Loyd Ford
www.stickyasset.com/blog

The biggest step you can take to financial security is the first step. That's the one where you determine to commit to an automatic savings plan and strategic savings to propel your family over the next five, ten, twenty or more years. Taking the first step and making certain that you follow up with automatic savings month after month will insure that you have the proper emergency savings fund and that you will - over time - pull away from the general economy.

You easily see that living paycheck to paycheck keeps you on your toes and filled with anxiety. Distance yourself from this by taking baby steps to save a percentage of each paycheck (off the top). It is a hard decision and commitment because it means you have to choose yourself at a later time over current issues or even your immediate wants and desires.

The trouble is that life has a tendency to swell up and become demanding. Talk to any adult who has been doing this awhile and they will tell you about unusual expenses, unexpected expenses and a sudden "opportunity" to get something you really want.

1. Set up automatic savings thru your work. You can begin with 1% of your after-tax income. Increase it each time you get paid until you reach 15%.

2. If your company has a 401k plan, get in it.

3. The "old folks" had Social Security. Some people have thought that was enough. Others thought that Social Security and a 401k would be enough. Now you need that and a steady Roth IRA or Traditional IRA.

4. If you've followed this blog for any period of time, you know that we are big believers in 15 to 18 months of expenses. This is the 2009 emergency savings fund. It will potentially take you many additional months to find a job if you lose yours in 2009 or 2010. A proper emergency savings plan (automatic savings) and account (15 to 18 months of expenses) will give you more options and more time to get a better job and move ahead.

Every man or woman faces the crisis unique to their time. We have ours. Terrorism. Economic great recession. How do we make the most of it? Think strategically - execute with automatic savings and give yourself any excuse to remove money from checking to savings.

Make certain your savings (money market savings/certificates of deposit) are FDIC-insured.

You can do this.


Loyd Ford
www.stickyasset.com/blog

We say it all the time: Don't chase your credit score. However, that is not the same as saying "Don't keep an eye on your credit score and handle credit wisely."

The truth is simple. Cash is king. Your credit is your word and should be protected. Here's where you can find the numbers.

Credit Score:

www.myfico.com

www.experian.com

www.transunion.com

www.equifax.com

Having given you all these sites, it must be said that credit card companies, payday loan operations and a wide variety of companies that offer credit and encourage that lifestyle are simply not your friends. They are your enemies.

You must spend time on your own learning so you can boost your tools in personal finance. These tools include negotiation, study, saving, investing, research and more. Your goal is to seek ways to push more money from checking to savings vehicles.

Make sure your savings is located where your money is FDIC-insured. Make sure you participate in a 401k plan if it is available to you, but remember that the new generation of investors cannot count on social security or even a singular investment tool like a 401k. You should be focusing also on a Roth IRA or traditional IRA. You should have an emergency savings fund with 15 to 18 months of expenses. If you don't have this, you should make plans to THUMP UP savings. You can do this with automatic savings.

Will it take you forever to have 15 to 18 months of expenses in emergency savings? No. Will you be a different person with that kind of backing? Why, yes. It will change you from a person who has to do certain things to someone with options.

A lot of people want to be rich so they never have to worry. They want to be rich so they can afford nice things. The nicest thing you can afford is to have options. That is why we recommend you make plans to save for short-term, medium-term and long-range goals.

We all know that there are tons of personal finance advisors. The used to be rich even have Bernie Madolf. Those words by themselves point out that no matter who you are the best thing you can do is YOUR OWN ADVICE.

Learn. Invest in yourself.

Spend time learning - it will pay off.

Automatic savings. Having an attitude about how different money is in your checking account Vs your savings (money market savings/certificates of deposit) will pay off.

Thank you for reading our blog.


Loyd Ford
www.stickyasset.com/blog

Do you have a plan to get thru the current recession? When the news darkens about the economy, we get more comments and it becomes obvious that more people begin to think about saving and investing. In fact, a large number of people don't generally even begin to think about saving and investing until they turn forty. This is why we began www.stickyasset.com and why we have written the e-book "The Sticky Asset: How To Survive Any Financial Crisis." If you are a parent that has been impacted by the current financial crisis, you have more than an opportunity to set your own path for a more solid future. You can help give your children a gift that their high school and college education will not give them. You can give them a successful personal finance future. That means wealth.

How do you begin this process? You do the most important thing you can - START. And include your children so they know the importance of saving and investing automatically and steadily. You do this - you will increase your options later in life. You don't - you almost guarantee poverty.

You can do this. Let's get started:

CURRENT THINGS/RECENT HISTORY

Review your spending. Reduce or eliminate spending based on your wants and your needs. You don't want to go crazy, but you want to be honest with yourself about how you can start reducing actual spending.

CREDIT CARDS

We want to become famous for saying, "You can't own credit cards - CREDIT CARDS OWN YOU." It's true. Check out the section in our e-book about credit cards and how to reduce or eliminate fees and interest and how you can systematically eliminate credit card debt. These people are your enemies. If you have a credit card or cards, you must pay them off each month. If it's too late for that and you are heavily in debt, you must work to eliminate fees first. Then, separate cards by interest rates. Then, make minimum payments on each EXCEPT the highest interest rate card. That one you pay as much as you can stand until it is ELIMINATED. Then, move to the next card....and so on...until you are CREDIT CARD DEBT FREE.

YOUR REGULAR BILLS

We call these guys the "usual suspects." Everyone has bills. Maybe rent or mortgage. Maybe cable or telephone. Maybe car insurance. Everyone one of these should be reviewed at least once a year. You should approach these companies now - during the financial crisis - and ask for help reducing your "bill." What? Can you do that? Of course you can. Tell them you want to keep doing business with them - but you are going to need their help. Be open minded about bundling services or changing deductables and ALWAYS (ALWAYS) pull the money you saved out of checking and put it into SAVINGS (money market and/or certificates of deposit). Money saved but not SAVED...is money wizzed away. Don't do it.

SET UP AUTOMATIC SAVINGS

Review ways to set up automatic savings thru work and thru your checking account. Yes, you can do both. If you have to, start slowly with 1% of your after-tax income. If you can do more, you should. Automatic savings is the #1 way to become wealthy over time. Time escapes most humans. You look up one day and you cannot believe how much time has passed. Don't save automatically and that is all you will notice. Save automatically and you will also notice how wealthy you are becoming.

TRICK YOURSELF - YOU'LL BE GLAD YOU DID

Anytime you save money. I don't care if it is $100 or $.25. Remove the savings you "would have paid" from checking to savings. We also want to become famous for saying that "checking accounts are money-laundering accounts for other people's money." In other words, leave your money in checking and it will eventually go to someone else....probably faster than you think.

GIVE YOURSELF ANY EXCUSE TO SAVE

Any excuse you can have for pulling money from checking and pushing it to savings - you should do it. The more pressure you put yourself under today, the wealthier you will be tomorrow.

Sign up for our FREE monthly e-saver at the e-mail sign up box on the right side of this blog.

Most people take for granted that their value or worth in the working world is what they make. It's not. It's what you save regularly.

It does not matter who you are - you can pay yourself first (automatic savings based on a percentage of your income) and build savings and eventually wealth. You just have to start.

Thank you!


Loyd Ford
www.stickyasset.com/blog

There are many things you cannot control in life. It is better to focus on the things that you can shape or nudge so that you can have some positive impact on your future. This is especially true when it comes to personal finance. You cannot often control career path or potential for downsizing to impact you, but you can work hard to prepare for future events. If you have savings when something negative impacts you, you are much more likely to survive it without as much stress or with time to recover your direction in life without changing your entire life's path.

Now is the best time in your life to begin to focus on saving correctly to provide yourself with enough emergency savings for future events. While some people become overwhelmed, anyone can begin a savings program that will end up boosting your savings and building actual wealth. It just takes that first step to say you are going to do it and the commitment to automatic savings over time to capture the essential money building concept that escapes millions of people decade after decade.

Are you ready to begin?

Start with your expenses over the last three (3) months. Review every expense like a detective. Look at the differences between real needs and wants. Put the wants in one column and the needs in another. Calculate the amount spent on wants.

Open a personal savings money market account with someone like ING Direct or HSBC Direct. Do your research to make sure they are FDIC-insured.

Take a look at your income. If you have to begin with only 1% of your income going to savings, DO IT. Begin. It is the most important step. This would mean that 1% of each of your paychecks will automatically go to savings. Then, you can increase it each time you get paid or once a month if you like by another 1%. Set up a way to generate this savings from your paycheck automatically.

You see, most people get their feeling of how they are doing from what they make or earn. That's incorrect. Your feeling of what you really make or earn should come from what you save automatically - not what you earn.

We have a several basic guidelines at www.stickyasset.com. Here they are:


1. You can't own credit cards - credit cards own you.

2. Checking accounts are money laundering accounts for other people's money.

If you keep these guidelines in mind, you will reshape your personal finance life in an entirely different direction than most people. You will work to use any excuse to pull money out of your checking account and put it in savings.

Savings builds faster than you might expect. You shouldn't save money by focusing on what you wish you had. You should focus on saving what you can automatically and then adding anything addition you can add to personal savings by use of any excuse month after month. Once you have 15 to 18 months of expenses in money market savings, you should focus your efforts on purchasing assets that generate their own income.

We hope you enjoy our blog. If you want your personal FREE monthly e-saver, sign up in the e-mail box to the right of this blog. You can also use the "SHARE" button to the right to share this blog with others you trust, love and care about today.

Have a great week and get started. You can save money and get ahead no matter who you are......


Loyd Ford
www.stickyasset.com/blog