7 Habits of the Financially Successful

By Keith Whelan 01/17/14 at wisebread.com

If you think about it, achieving success in some of our most important life activities requires two key ingredients: knowledge and behavior. Knowledge by itself isn't enough; knowing what to do only gets you halfway there. You also need to follow through by taking action. (See also: Success Secrets You Should've Learned in High School)

Take a job, for example. On paper I might be an expert at my profession. Very knowledgeable. But if some aspects of my behavior are lacking — say, weak organization or communication skills — and they lead to poor or failed execution, then my chances for rapid career advancement are slim.
The same holds true for financial success. There's certainly no shortage of information and advice on managing our finances. But what are the behaviors that contribute most to turning that knowledge into successful results? A good place to look is among people who are financially successful. (See also: Investment Lessons From Self-Made Billionaires)

To help identify these behaviors, I've drawn from "The Millionaire Next Door" by Tom Stanley and William Danko, from Daniel Goleman's "Emotional Intelligence," and also from my own experiences and observations. What did I find? The financially successful tend to have seven behaviors in common.

Meet myRA: Obama offers IRA plan details

By Matthew Heimer at Encore 01/29/14

The “myRA” retirement plans proposed by President Obama in his State of the Union address this week will be structured like Roth IRAs; they’ll rely on a new kind of Treasury savings bond that guarantees them against losses; and they’ll have a $15,000 maximum account balance, according to details disclosed by the administration today. The president won’t need Congress’s approval to get the myRA off the ground, though he will need some logistical help from employers to set up the accounts.

Shutterstock

The myRA: A new incubator for small nest eggs.

As the president said on Tuesday night, the myRA is designed to serve people whose employers don’t provide access to a retirement plan—a category that experts have estimated includes about half of all workers. Lack of access a particularly big issue at small businesses, since small employers often can’t afford to offer their own plan. The administration is being careful to label these as “starter” accounts; the emerging details make it clear that the myRA won’t have much value to an investor who’s had time to amass a respectable nest egg.

Look At Little Sister

By Terry Noel at Common Sense Liberty  01/27/14

As President Obama gears up to tell us all to shut up and do what his Administration says tomorrow night, one mighty foe will dog his every word–The Little Sisters of the Poor.

In the tangled mess that is Obamacare there are upwards of, oh, a billion rules for how one is to buy, sell, and administer health care. The Little Sisters have accomplished what few groups of any kind for any reason have: They earned an emergency junction from the Supreme Court. It is unusual in two ways. First, such permanent stays pending appeal are rare. Second, there was no recorded dissent among the Justices.

Homeland security chief: Illegal immigrants 'earned' right to be citizens

By Joe Newby

Below is an article reporting on a speech by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.

Two important things he said.

1.  “It is also, frankly, in my judgment, a matter of who we are as Americans,” he added, “to offer the opportunity to those who want to be citizens, who’ve earned the right to be citizens, who are present in this country--many of whom came here as children--to have the opportunity that we all have to try to become American citizens.”  Dixon comment:  There are millions of people who want to be citizens of the United States.  I'm not sure how you earn the right to become citizens - other than to go through the process.

Winning at investing made simple

This article talks about how difficult it is for manager to beat the market, and how you can deliver market returns at little cost.  It poses and answers the following questions.

Question No. 1: Buy and hold what exactly?

Question No. 2: What if high stock and bond returns are really over?

Question No. 3: Can I ever do better?


By Pat Regner  01/16/14  CNNMoney.com

Financial Basics

Articles I recently read that are about basic financial and investing issues

5-investing-basics-that-can-make-you-rich

6-worst-financial-mistakes-can-make

how-to-set-up-an-ira-to-build-wealth

important-money-tips-every-dad-should-teach-his-kids

the-one-page-guide-to-financial-independence

Sites I suggest to sign up for their email news

MoneyTalksNews.com

RealMoneywithdougstone.com

The 6 Worst Financial Mistakes You Can Make

From the Country Financial Security Blog

By Miranda Marquit 01/08/14


So, it’s the new year and you’re working on the 6 ways to increase your financial security. But while you’re working on improving your financial prowess, don’t forget to avoid some of the pitfalls.
You know the six steps to take, now here are the six mistakes to avoid:

1. Failure to Track Your Spending
One of the worst mistakes you can make is failure to track spending. No matter your resolutions, if you don’t know where your money is going, you can’t fix your financial problems. Use personal finance software to track your spending and keep up with where your money is going.


2. Neglecting Your Cash Flow
Not only should you have an idea of where your money is going, but you should also know where it comes from and when it arrives. Your cash flow is the way money moves through your household economy. It involves timing, as well as dollar amounts. If you don’t know when a bill is coming out of your account with respect to when you are paid, you could easily end up with overdrafts – and the fees that come with them.

How the public is unhappy with surveillance but unmoved, in one chart

From the Washington Post

By Sean Sullivan  01/17/14

To view the article, click here.

President Obama unveiled new limits Friday on the National Security Agency's sweeping surveillance efforts.
In doing so, he addressed an issue on which the public opinion can be summed up like this: We don't like what we see, but it's not that big a deal for the government to address compared to other things.
Recent Gallup polling shows a couple of notable points: 1) A clear majority of Americans (63 percent) say they are dissatisfied with the state of the nation as it pertains to government surveillance of U.S. citizens and 2) It ranks low on the list of priorities they'd like to see Congress and the president address in the next year. Just 42 percent  say it is an extremely or very important priority — placing it lower than more than a dozen other matters.
Here's a visual representation of this reality, via Gallup:

Only the state of the nation regarding the economy, poverty and homelessness are held in lower regard by the public than surveillance of Americans. And only abortion, race relations and acceptance of gays and lesbians are seen as lower priorities for Congress and Obama to deal with.
None of this is to say that the revelations about government surveillance have not been a big deal and that a lot of Americans aren't going to look closely at what Obama just said.
It's just that while the issue has received a lot attention, it's simply not a something-must-be-done-right-now issue in the eyes of the public.

Sean Sullivan covers national politics for “The Fix.” Prior to joining The Washington Post in the summer of 2012, Sean was the editor of Hotline On Call, National Journal Hotline’s politics blog. He has also worked for NHK Japan Public Broadcasting and ABC News. Sean is a graduate of Hamilton College, where he received a degree in philosophy. He lives in Washington. Follow Sean on Twitter.

The FBI Cover-Up

From Investors.com
Michael Ramirez Cartoon 01/17/14

To view the site, click here.

Wouldn't you know, FBI says it can't find anything illegal in all that IRS intimidation

Short, sarcastic, but right on the mark article about the way the Obama administration investigates the Obama administration.  The article is by Andrew Malcolm with Investors.com and was posted 01/14/14. Worth a look.  To read the article, click here.

What Happened to Transparency?

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD JAN. 7, 2014

From the New York Times

When President Obama took office in 2009, he promised an “unprecedented level of openness in government.” In a memo issued the day after his inauguration, he wrote, “The government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.”

The Majority of Members of Congress Are Millionaires

January 10, 2014

By Allison Martin

From MoneyTalksNews.  To view the article, click here.

A recent report reveals that a number of U.S. Congress members are among the nation’s elite.

Says OpenSecrets.org, the website of the Center for Responsive Politics:

For the first time in history, most members of Congress are millionaires, according to a new analysis of personal financial disclosure data by the Center for Responsive Politics. Of 534 current members of Congress, at least 268 had an average net worth of $1 million or more in 2012, according to disclosures filed last year by all members of Congress and candidates.

The Center for Responsive Politics considers this ”a watershed moment at a time when lawmakers are debating issues like unemployment benefits, food stamps and the minimum age, which affect people with far fewer resources, as well as considering an overhaul of the tax code,” reports CNNMoney.

11 Nasty Trends That Will Test America's Resilience

Investors Business Daily Editorial posted 01/03/14  To view the entire article click here.

The IBD Editorial lists 11 issues that cast a lingering shadow over our economy and prospects for the future. Issues include limited job growth, growing government dependency, workers leaving the workforce, expanding regulation, taxes and spending, growing debt, and declining global strength.

This is crucial information as we attempt to identify the reasons for our stagnant economy, meager job growth and uncertainty surrounding the future.  Definitely worth a read.

Million, Billion, Trillion

Listening to a radio program the other day, the host was trying to quantify the enormity of our national debt - $17 trillion.  In an attempt to put this in perspective, I found the following data at the If I Had a Trillion Dollars website.  Wow!!!!!

1,000 = one thousand
1,000,000 = one million
1,000,000,000 = one billion
1,000,000,000,000 = one trillion

A million is equal to a thousand thousands (1,000 x 1,000).
A billion is equal to a thousand millions (1,000 x 1,000,000).
A trillion is equal to a thousand billions (1,000 x 1,000,000,000)
or a million millions (1,000,000 x 1,000,000).

If you count backward, then:
1 million seconds = 12 days ago
1 billion seconds = 31 years ago
1 trillion seconds = 30,000 B.C.
(give or take a decade or two)

If you stack a trillion-worth of $1000 bills together, then:
1 million dollars = 4 inches high
1 billion dollars = 364 feet high
1 trillion dollars = 63 miles high
(give or take a foot or two)
Note that this is a STACK, not laid end-to-end.

With about 305,000,000 people and 111,000,000 households in the U.S.

$1 Million is 1¢ per household,
$1 Billion is $3.28 per person and $9 per household,
$1 Trillion is $3,280 per person and $9,000 per household

If a person’s salary is $40,000 per year it would take:

25 years to earn $1 Million
25 Thousand years to earn $1 Billion,
25 Million years to earn $1 Trillion

 If you lived to be 80 years of age, to have:

$1 Million you would have to save $34 each day of your life,
$1 Billion you would have to save $34,000 each day of your life,
$1 Trillion you would have to save $34 Million each day of your life

An Old Man's View As We Enter 2014

As I cheer the fact that I made it to yet another year, here are some thoughts as we enter 2014.

I do not like the current state of affairs in our country.  There are significant issues to address and plenty of people and things to blame for how things have changed over the past decade or two.

Most of all I blame myself, and people like me, that have looked the other way, rationalized issues that have come to our attention, and just plain ignored things.

As 2014 began, I attended mass and prayed for the following:

Optimism - to believe that this year will be better than the last

Hope - that people down the street and across the country take a step back from their daily lives to reflect on the important issues affecting us

Faith - in my creator, my ability, and in my fellow man to see the best in others and to recognize that we are our community

Confidence - to make rational decisions and address whatever comes before me

Competence - to help my children and grandchildren recognize the important things in life, right and wrong, good and evil, how to properly treat people, and to take responsibility for your actions and decisions

Vision - to foresee the results of decisions that have been and will be made which will affect my family and to impact those decisions as much as possible

Ability - to use my experience and talent to improve things for family and community

Courage - to speak up when necessary, regardless of opposition, in this new era of political correctness and mob mentality

Strength - to uphold my beliefs at all costs and to help those that need assistance

Health - good health for my family, my friends and for myself

Happiness - to enjoy the blessings that I have, both present and past

Dave Barry’s Review of 2013, the Year of the Zombies

Long, but funny, post from Dave Barry in the Washington Post.  It provides a look back on the year 2013. Click here to view.