Posts tagged online stock trading and investments

Most readers here at Get Rich Slowly have their own tale of a financial turnaround. Many of us were just plain dumb with money when we were younger, and it took us years (or decades!) to realize the error of our ways. But what if somebody had cared enough to intervene before we got into serious trouble?

Corinne wrote yesterday looking for help. She’d like to help steer her younger sister in the right direction before she has financial trouble. But how should she do it? What’s the best way to reach a teenager who doesn’t even know they’re financially irresponsible? Here’s Corinne’s question:

I come from a wonderful family, with parents who are great in many ways, but are also just terrible with money. Fortunately, I’ve managed to avoid following in my parents’ footsteps — I’m 25, with a well-paying job, and have started really organizing my finances well and planning for my future.

My younger sister, however, may not be so lucky. She’s 18, about to start college, and just couldn’t care less about being smart with money. I want to guide her and inspire her to learn about personal finance sooner rather than later because I wish someone had done that for me. Do you know of any personal finance books that would appeal to a teenager? Any thoughts on how to frame my advice so that it’s well-received?

This is a great question, especially for this time of year. And while I’d love to be able to say, “Go buy Your Money: The Missing Manual — that’s the best choice!”, I don’t actually think my book is good for a kid out of high school. (My book is good for folks who are serious about their finances, who are motivated to succeed. It doesn’t sound like Corinne’s sister qualifies.)

So what books about money are good for teenagers and young adults? Here are a few top choices:

• I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. My friend Ramit set out to write a money book for young people, and he succeeded admirably. Even if I had no idea who he was, this would be the first book I’d recommend for most students. Two drawbacks to note: Not everyone likes his tone and style, and the book doesn’t really address the psychology of spending. (Here’s my review.)
• Debt is Slavery by Michael Mihalik. I raved about this book a few years ago. Of all the personal finance books I’ve read, I think this would have been most useful for me when I was in college. It’s not a comprehensive guide to IRAs and stocks and bonds; it’s a short treatise on how to take control of your financial life.
• The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke by Suze Orman. This is a pretty comprehensive introduction to personal finance aimed specifically at young adults. There’s almost too much information.
• Reality Check: The Student’s Guide to the Real World by Grant Baldwin. I haven’t read this book; the publisher sent me a copy, and I’ve leafed through it. It gets great reviews at Amazon.
• Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties by Beth Kobliner. This book comes highly recommended, but I haven’t read it.

The second part of Corinne’s question is tricky. How can she give advice to her sister without angering her or making her turn away? I’ve found from my own experience (and from chatting with others) that it’s difficult to get somebody to heed your advice until they’re ready to hear it. They have to come to it on their own. In fact, it’s possible to alienate the person you’re trying to help if you come across as an evangelist. If you push personal-finance books on somebody, they may be offended.

Instead, I think it’s best to lead by example. If Corinne thinks her sister should change, she should subtly show her what smart personal finance looks like, and then contrast that with how her parents are doing. Or maybe Corinne could pick up a copy of I Will Teach You to Be Rich, read it, and then offer to pass it on when she’s finished.

Another smart technique is to think out loud in front of the person you’re trying to help. Say Corinne is buying a car, for example. Even though she may know perfectly well what she wants to do — buy a late-model used car with cash — she might approach her sister and say, “I’m not sure what to do.” If Corinne lays out her options and her thought process, asking her sister’s help, she might be able to help her sister see how she arrives at her eventual decision. (Please note that the car thing is hypothetical; it could be any other sort of financial dilemma.)

The key in these situations is finesse. You want to get your message across, but you want to do it from a position of equality, not superiority. And, if possible, you want to do this so that the other person “owns” the action. That’s how I’d approach it, anyhow.

Have you faced this situation in the past? How did you handle it? How do you think you’d handle it today? How would you try to talk about money with a teenager? What books would you recommend? How would you get them to even care?

On average, 1.5 million people graduate from college every year in the US. In our current environment, many of these recent graduates are struggling to pay down their credit card debt and student loans, searching for jobs and trying to desperately to figure out how to gain financial independence. According to a recent study by Sallie Mae, college seniors graduate with an average of $4,138 in credit card debt, up 44% from 2004. Further research shows that people in the 18 to 24 age bracket spend nearly 30% of their monthly income just on debt repayment. (A recommended amount for debt obligation stands at 10% of net income.) If that doesn't strike a chord, the number of 18 to 24-year-olds declaring bankruptcy has increased 96% in 10 years. As our nation strives to find solutions for the dire state of the economy, many recent graduates attempt to find solutions for their financial burdens without any educational background in personal finance. If we can bring financial education to the 1.5 million people who graduate each year in debt, we could prevent them from making future financial mistakes and empower them with greater financial well being. Then, I believe, we will have found a solution for their financial problems and a great way to improve our current economy.

Without any formal personal finance instruction in our high school or college curricula, many college seniors who graduate in the red will continue to make common financial mistakes that only exacerbate their debt burdens. To illustrate this problem, consider the following example. Take Jane. Jane has just graduated college with $3,000 in credit card debt and $20,000 in student loans. She hopes that with her new job in the big City and a steady income, she can pay down her debt slowly over time. Due to the economic downturn however, Jane loses her job. Now, without any stream of income, Jane can barely pay her monthly rent and cannot afford to pay down her debt. With eighteen percent APR, Jane's credit card debt is quickly increasing. Unaware of the implications of mounting debt payments on her credit score and future financial health, Jane is not only in big trouble but must continue to live on credit in order to get by.

Unfortunately, it appears this Jane example is not a rare one! Without any formal personal finance education or trustworthy resources to tell them otherwise, the majority of people in the 18 to 24 year old age bracket do not know how to use credit effectively, tackle debt or make wise decisions when it comes to spending. In the 2009 study of undergraduate credit card spending by Sallie Mae, the majority of undergraduates students polled reported they lived beyond their means and eighty-two percent carried balances and incurred finance charges each month. Interestingly enough, eighty-four percent think they needed more education on financial management topics to better manage their finances. I believe we can positively affect these young individuals' financial well being and in effect, the future state of the economy by providing them with access to basic, trustworthy personal finance education.

By teaching twenty-somethings year olds responsible debt management practices, we can help them create a balanced lifestyle and find peace of mind through increased financial awareness, smart saving and long-term investing. As a result, we can create a new generation that is both financially savvy and financially positive – a generation financially empowered to take on the future. Obama – how's that for food for thought?!

As a twenty something year old trying to master my own personal finances, I am intimately aware of the lack of educational resources focused on personal finance. As an entrepreneur, I want to do something about it. For the past two years, I have dedicated my time and energy to building a Company that offers a solution for young people and the nation at large by way of trustworthy personal finance education. LearnVest provides women with the necessary tools and resources to manage their personal finances; it's core mission, to positively contribute to society through education and ultimately, the promotion of self-sufficient and financially aware women. At the same time, the Company hopes to raise awareness on the state of financial literacy in America and the need for personal financial education across all age groups and genders.

LearnVest is trying to make a difference and like our subscribers, we are continually trying to learn. I wrote this article with the hopes that it would open up discussion so please feel free to comment below. We welcome your feedback and your thoughts on this pertinent topic.

Generation Broke: The Growth of Debt Among Young Americans.
Richmond Credit Abuse Resistant Education (CARE) Program.

laqilk online stock trading http://jonturkmusic.com online stock trading, irltpb

Related Blogs

• Book Review: Yahoo Web Analytics | Small Business Trends
• Comic Book Legends Revealed #260 | Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic …
• Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei Book 6 » Manga Worth Reading
• Sotomayor the Comic Book | Verum Serum
• NRB Book Club: Crossing the Rubicon | NewsReal Blog
• Book Review – Kindred Spirits – How the Bond Between Humans and …
• The Credit Card in 2010
• American Express ZYNC Card | The Budget Fashionista
• Post-Grad Fashion: Staying Stylish After College – College Fashion
• Lynne Spears Asks Jill Zarin For College Advice! | PerezHilton.com
• Betting Basketball Club: Gambling Basketball Club: College …
• Bad Credit Banks | CCJS…Problem Solved
• Long Awaited Fixes for Credit Ratings Agencies | The Big Picture
• Bankruptcy Credit Score – Your Life After Bankruptcy | Credit …
• Hot Air » Beeler on debt: Greece is just the appetizer
• Our Crushing Burden of Debt » Blogs For Victory
• do people get caught when they steal credit cads – Negotiating …
• Saving or Paying Down Debt: Why 50/50 Works | Realm of Prosperity
• The Debt Baguette The Reformed Broker
• Rand Paul's Success So Far: Living Example of the Dying GOP …

Maybe you run a small business or you're creating a new personal budget, and you need some finance software, but you're reluctant to spend the money. Are there programs that can meet your needs whilst remaining free? The answer is yes, and it lies in wonderful programs oft referred to as 'opensource.' Opensource software is often as sophisticated as 'professional' software-if not more-and free to download and use. Below is a list of the best opensource finance software.

1. GNUCash – this is a double entry book-keeping finance program, best used for personal book keeping. It comes complete with a mortgage and loan repayment druid, OFX and QIF import, HBCI support, transaction-import matching support, (Limited) multi-user SQL support, multi-currency transaction handling, stock/mutual Fund portfolios, and online stock & mutual fund quotes; it also comes with small business accounting features if you are running a small business and can't afford a high end program. Mac OS X only

2. JCash – “JCash is a full featured, Java based money management application. It will provide all of the standard checking and expense account management functions, planning and budgeting capabilities and synchronization with the PCash PalmOS application” http://sourceforge.net/projects/jcash/

3. PayThyme – PayThyme is a payroll software package that is sophisticated and can easily keep track of any and all payrolls you may have. Useful for both the small and large business owner.

4. phpOrganisation – This is an SQL and PHP web-based organization system for small and medium sized businesses. It can be used to easily organization one or more accounts and can be accessed from anywhere via the web.

5. QuantLib – A full finance library, with many, many features. An excerpt from their website says “QuantLib offers tools that are useful both for practical implementation and for advanced modeling, with features such as market conventions, yield curve models, solvers, PDEs, Monte Carlo (low-discrepancy included), exotic options, VAR, and so on.”

7. QuotesViewer – Free Euronet Stock Browser software. “QuotesViewer is a graphical tool giving you easy and fast access to all quotes of shares on the Euronext stock exchange. Quotes information can be searched and sorted on different criteria, ie. market, ISIN code, mnemonic, name, price, volume. You can add your favourite stocks to a watchlist.” http://quotesviewer.sourceforge.net/

8. Grisbi – Grisbi is much like GNUCash, listed first in this article, save that it is simpler and with less features. Ideal if you do not need all the extra features; ie, personal book-keeping, not small business. It comes with some of the features offered by GNUCash, including: Multi-account and multi-currency handling, amongst others.

This is just a small list of the best opensource finance software I could find. There are several others I did not install and test, either because they weren't compatible with a PC, or they seemed very similar to one already listed here. If you have any you think should be added to this list, feel free to leave me a note in the comments box.

Stabroek <b>News</b> – Workers protest planned Air Jamaica sale to T&amp;T

Daily <b>News</b>, Sports, Business, Entertainment and more from Guyana.

AP Articles Return To Google <b>News</b>

It appears they have kissed and made up… for now.

Old <b>News</b>: A New Boss for Universal Music in 2011 | Peter Kafka <b>…</b>

This one counts as <b>news</b> in a technical sense, only: The people who own the world's biggest music company have finally announced plans to bring in new management. Vivendi says it will install Lucian Grainge as head of its Universal Music …

online stock trading tips, online stock trading tips, online stock trading tips, online stock trading tips, franchise opportunities, franchise opportunities, franchise opportunities, franchise opportunities, franchise opportunities, franchise opportunities, franchise opportunities, franchise opportunities, robert shumake, robert shumake, robert shumake, robert shumake, surface encounters granite counters, surface encounters granite counters, surface encounters granite counters, surface encounters granite counters, surface encounters granite counters, surface encounters granite counters, surface encounters granite counters, bill bartmann's plan, bill bartmann's plan, bill bartmann's plan, theleaseoptionking atlanta real estate agents

Stabroek <b>News</b> – Workers protest planned Air Jamaica sale to T&amp;T

Daily <b>News</b>, Sports, Business, Entertainment and more from Guyana.

AP Articles Return To Google <b>News</b>

It appears they have kissed and made up… for now.

Old <b>News</b>: A New Boss for Universal Music in 2011 | Peter Kafka <b>…</b>

This one counts as <b>news</b> in a technical sense, only: The people who own the world's biggest music company have finally announced plans to bring in new management. Vivendi says it will install Lucian Grainge as head of its Universal Music …

Stabroek <b>News</b> – Workers protest planned Air Jamaica sale to T&amp;T

Daily <b>News</b>, Sports, Business, Entertainment and more from Guyana.

AP Articles Return To Google <b>News</b>

It appears they have kissed and made up… for now.

Old <b>News</b>: A New Boss for Universal Music in 2011 | Peter Kafka <b>…</b>

This one counts as <b>news</b> in a technical sense, only: The people who own the world's biggest music company have finally announced plans to bring in new management. Vivendi says it will install Lucian Grainge as head of its Universal Music …

Shara Says:

January 12th, 2010 at 9:04 am

For those of you who want to know what extra payments on your loan will do go to bankrate.com. Go to their calculator section (at the top above the tabs) and look for ‘amortization calculator’. It is great to see what theoretical loans would cost, but if you know how to use it you can apply it to any existing loan as well. If you want to know how to input an existing loan just ask and I’ll walk you through it. You need the balance, interest rate, and payment or remaining time on the loan.

@Max

We DO have a program to help poor people buy homes. It’s called the FHA (Federal Housing Administration). It is administered by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are two quasi-government agencies. And recent events have shown us why they don’t work.

First let me explain, FHA loans are typically set at a price a little bit above the going rate for “great credit” people. But they are, sometimes significantly, lower than those for which most people qualify. They have significantly lower down payment and up front cost requirements and can bend some rules (such as allowing sellers to pay for closing costs, or using a third party’s money for down payment). This is a problem for two reasons: Without requiring a down payment the risk of a house being worth less than is owed is a significant risk, and people who can’t manage enough financial discipline to scrape together a down payment often don’t have the financial discipline to faithfully make their house payments.

In an ideal world people who are upside down on their mortgages would suck it up and keep paying as long as they could afford it. The reality is that many people would rather walk away, hand over the keys, and take the hit to their credit that bankruptcy will cause. The problem with a poor person as a credit risk is the same reason you want to help them: they have nothing to take away. Therefore you have no leverage to sue them and make them pay you what they owe you. I am a landlord and one thing I have learned is that people really want to do the right thing, but they have an infinite number of ways of justifying to themselves that something dishonest is okay. I had one lady argue that I shouldn’t have evicted her because her HUSBAND was the one who wasn’t paying the rent. I used to think that kind of convoluted logic was crazy, but I have found most people are more than capable of twisting ‘right’ to magically be whatever they want at the time.

Second, I know more than a handful of poor people. Most of the people I know who are perpetually poor are so because they make really bad choices. Sad to say, many of them do drugs that precludes them from being successful. The middle class (both upper and lower) people I know who are scraping by and have no money to buy a house are doing so because they can’t manage money. These are the people who break a leg and have to take a week off without pay and suddenly can’t make their bills. Not because they don’t make enough, but because there is nothing there left at the end of the month in case of emergency. If it’s there it’s spent.

I don’t want any of these people as homeowners. You can’t know until you own a house what a big responsibility it is. Everyone I know who has bought a house has had a learning curve much like a new parent, of “This is MY responsibility?!” and “I had no idea how much this would cost!” Even if you plan for it, you don’t understand until the bill’s in front of you.

As far as poor people having housing, there are a number of housing assistance programs available, the most prominent being section 8. Section 8 is a program that pays a percentage of the rent for a poor person, depending on the size of the family and how poor they are. I have talked to tenants that were 50% covered, a neighbor of mine was 100% covered, and I know people on the waiting list. The waiting list in typically quite long because there are a lot of people who want help paying their bills.

And this brings us to the crux of the matter, which is how much assistance to offer. The reason many of us are anti-socialist is because while it is great to want everyone to be happy, healthy, well fed, educated, and have a nice house, these things cost money. It costs me nothing to allow you free speech, but if you want food someone has to produce it and that person must be compensated. And if the compensation is coming from me instead of you what is your motivation to produce anything for yourself? You know the saying about giving a man a fish versus teaching a man to fish?

I am with Kevin that there are things that our government is designed to do: national defense, freeways, international treaties. And things that our federal government is NOT designed to do. Housing assistance is one of them. But that doesn’t mean I think no one should get an assistance, I just don’t think it is the job of the federal government, because a bureaucracy of that size has a really hard time administering such benefits, programs of that size are just asking to be cesspools of waste, fraud, and abuse, and as the concerns lately about INFLATION (remember that word? ) show, the federal government can print their own money if they get in trouble.

I think there are people who deserve housing assistance: The severely mentally retarded, people with mental illness, people with severe physical limitations, etc. But if you can’t BUY a house on your own then you shouldn’t be doing it. You either don’t make enough to survive the ups and downs of the market, or you aren’t mature enough to own a house. In this case there is a GREAT alternative: renting.