The Basics of Money & Investing

Let’s begin with why you need more money.

• You want to get out of debt
• You want no more money worries
• You want nice things
• You want to help your family and others
• You don’t want to work every day for the rest of your life

We all should agree with these reasons for having more money.

What is keeping you from having all the money that you need?

• The cost of living is too high
• You have too many bills to pay
• Your job doesn’t pay enough
• There’s nothing left over to save and invest

If you agreed with these reasons why you don’t have enough money, you have to change your thinking right now. Really.

Do you want to get rich? Then follow the plan presented in this book. But first there are three important things that you need to do right now:

1. protect your current investments, if any
2. open a mutual fund account, and begin contributing to it
3.  get your spending under control

1. Protecting your current investments
   If you have a 401(k), 403(b), or 457 plan at work, instruct your benefits department to move everything into a mid-cap index fund (if offered), otherwise split everything evenly between an S&P 500 fund and whatever type of mid-cap fund is offered. See page 175 for a full discussion of these plans.
   
   If you currently own any mutual funds, they have probably lost money this past year. If they are not in an IRA, sell them now and take a tax deduction (let the IRS cover part of your loss) and take all the money and put it into a mid-cap index fund (see page 165).
   
   If you have a brokerage account, either a full-service or online account, sell all of your losers and put the money into your winners. Then tell your broker that you want to place a “stop loss sell order” at 7% under the current price. See page 48 for more details.
    
2. Open a mutual fund account and begin contributing to it every month
   It doesn’t matter if you don’t have any money, page 165 gives you some great low-cost choices, some that will even get you started with $0.00!
   
   See page 115 for everything anybody ever wanted to know about mutual funds.
    
3. Get your spending under control right now
   If you don’t get serious about this, you are not just throwing away the extra money that you needlessly spend, but the huge amount that this money will grow to if properly invested. This is the only way that you will get out of debt and get rid of your money worries, forever.
    
   Since getting your spending under control is so important, let’s jump right into talking about smart spending. This is where your investing money will come from. The extra money saved will provide you with every dollar that you need to become rich.

				Did you find the information you were looking for?
				After reading the above article, what is still your biggest question? Get Weekly Investing Advice Receive free practical investment advice and tips delivered weekly to your email box with contributions from financial planners, investors, and financing and loan professionals.   I want to ask a question and receive investment tips.   I only want to ask a question and don't want helpful advice. E-Mail Address:   Your Name:

To find more investing and stock related websites input the phrase "investing advice" directly into the search box below or simply type in your own search phrase to see over 1 million other investing, stocks and online trading websites.