28th February 2010

Life Insurance Mistakes To Avoid

Most of us know what life insurance is: you pay a monthly or annual premium and in return the insurance company pays your nominated beneficiary or estate a lump sum when you die.  Over the years life insurance has grown, with a multitude of policies to suit nearly every kind of need.

1. Buying Life Insurance From Mortgage Lenders When Arranging A Loan

Another common mistake is buying life insurance from a mortgage lender or bank who is lending the individual money to buy a home. Banks like to cross sell a variety of products to their customers, and when individuals seek financing for the purchase of a home, they suddenly become a captive audience to the bank who is making the loan.

The financial institution will try and add on a variety of insurance products in addition to the mortgage or loan they are making, and the deals on offer may not always be the best deals that can be picked up were the individual to approach an insurance adviser or a specialist.

It is better to buy life insurance from a specialist financial adviser, largely because they have a better understanding of the products on offer, and how they compare to rival products and probably have a bigger offering.

Individuals should also not be afraid to make an adviser work for their money and feel no pressure to commit. Advisers may be commission driven and financial products such as life insurance provide remuneration to advisers through a commission structure.

2. Life Cover through superannuation fund providers

Life insurance through your superannuation fund may seem like an easy option, but just make sure you read the fine print.

A life insurance policy through your super fund may not cover you for the right amount. This means that if something does go wrong, you may be severely underinsured, leaving your loved ones with insufficient funds during an emotionally turbulent time.

3. Buying Life Insurance directly without underwriting

Life insurance products sold directly without underwriting, often sold aggressively via television advertising, may cost double compared to equivalent cover which is fully underwritten.

Another point to note is that non underwritten types of life insurance policies often have exclusions on previous medical history.

Speak to your trusted insurance adviser about your personal life insurance needs and compare different life insurance quotes.


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    26th February 2010

    Work Smarter and not Harder

    I think many of you would agree that a lot of us are employees. We have a definite working time schedule. We have a boss. We work on a particular role. Basically, we work hard to sustain our day to day living.

    But if you want to achieve financial freedom, you should not just work hard but work smarter! Yes, you will earn more by working harder. You will work even harder if you got promoted because of the additional responsibilities and tasks that will be assigned to you. You will become probably rich because of overtime and pay raises but definitely you would sacrifice a lot.

    You will risk your health because of stress. You will lessen the time for your family and friends. In short, you will not enjoy the fruits of your hard work if you will only just work harder. Added to that, the government is your number 1 beneficiary if you work harder. Your pay gets taxed first even before you get it.

    Don’t just work hard, work smart too. How to work smart? Here are some of the the things that you could do to work smarter!

    Work like a smart entrepreneur. If you have the capacity to become an entrepreneur, start a business. An entrepreneur leverages his resources and hires people who are smarter than him to work for him. Yes, he will work but on the supervisory level only. He delegates tasks and he gets rich by doing it. These are the tactics of taipans and tycoons.

    Learn financial intelligence. If you would just work hard and even harder, you will definitely end up burnt out of your work. If you are financially literate, you would accumulate assets while you are working. And as these pile of assets accumulate over time, it would be sufficient to provide you with your needs without working. Choose to be the ‘rich person’ as Robert Kiyosaki said and not the ‘poor’ and ‘middle class’ persons who buy liabilities they think are assets.

    Work for passive income. As I already mentioned in previous posts, passive income is your money working for you. Try to work little by little for passive income while you have your job. And as your passive income grows, then that would be the time to go full time for it.

    Ultimately, working smarter is shifting from either the Employee (E) and Self Employed (S) quadrant of the Cashflow Quadrant to either Big Business Owner (B) and Investor (I) quadrants.


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    24th February 2010

    Get-rich-quick schemes really are too good to be true

    Admit it — at some time in your life, you’ve said to yourself, “I wish I was rich.”

    That desire is not a crime — but it may be leading people to waste their money, and their time, at a popular weekend workshop we’ve been investigating.

    The workshop is called “Learn to Be Rich” — maybe you’ve seen the ads on the Internet, transit, or heard them on the radio? They feature Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad — one of the bestselling financial help books ever written. And the workshops are popular — rolling into towns across Canada every weekend, filling ballrooms with people eager to learn how to turn around their financial fortunes.

    People are told they will learn valuable skills in real estate development, or how to play the stock market. But at Marketplace, we were hearing complaints about the three-day workshops (that cost $500), so we decided to enrol in one on real estate.

    The problems started within the first half-hour, where our instructor told us we weren’t, in fact, going to get the tools needed that weekend to get rich. Turns out, this weekend workshop was just a primer — we really needed to sign up for more advanced courses. And the cost for those? A mere $12,000 to $45,000!

    But there was to be no discussion of the price — our trainer told us if we didn’t like it, he would tell us to leave.

    In fact, throughout the weekend, we felt bullied and pressured to sign up for the advanced courses (where the real money was to be made). There was some instruction, but when we met with real estate lawyer Bob Aaron, he called what we were taught “bad advice,” and said many techniques were just plain “dumb.”

    To make matters worse, our instructor misled us with a whopper of a tale, and later blew up at participants because not enough people took the opportunity to shell out up to $45,000 for more courses. You’ll see it all in our story tonight, but it left us questioning what financial guru Kiyosaki thought about it all.

    When we caught up with him, even Kiyosaki admitted there were problems with some of the tactics used in the workshops that bear his Rich Dad brand.

    Bottom line? That age old nugget holds stands — if a weekend workshop on how to be rich sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

    Erica Johnson is a journalist and co-host of CBC News: Marketplace, Canada’s award-winning consumer affairs show. CBC News: Marketplace airs each Friday night at 8:30 p.m. on CBC Television.


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    22nd February 2010

    Financial Planning Towards Financial Freedom

    Financial planning is needed for those of you who want to achieve your financial goals, as well as the old saying “Failing to plan equals planning to fail” if you do not make plans in the financial planning or the plan is still not good then you’re planning to fail.

    Try to think for a moment: people who have done just planning to fail, especially who do not plan, certainly will fail. as Robert T. Kiyosaki always emphasized in every book of the mega best seller: The Importance of Having and continue Sharpen your financial intelligence because that is what will bring you to financial freedom.

    To make a financial plan is still much that is not understood by most people about issues related to financial issues. for example, people want to save in order to prepare for a down payment on a house, may not know how much to save each month, and probably also can not predict what the price will be the future home, questions such questions will arise and many will not be able to easily answered because of lack of knowledge about the “financial planning”.

    In this case you may need the help of a financial planner to help you create a financial plan which if the plan is executed, then you are running to achieve financial goals that have been defined.

    Read the rest of this entry »


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    20th February 2010

    Your Liquid Net Worth – Explaining the Concept

    The concept of “liquid net worth” merely combines two financial concepts: liquidity and net worth.  It defines the amount of your net asset worth that you can convert to cash easily. The first step to determining your liquid net worth (L.N.W.) is to calculate your net worth and then determine how much of your net asset worth is liquid. You do this by subtracting the total liabilities from the total assets and then determining how much of that amount the individual is willing and able to convert to cash.

    Strictly speaking, you may be able to convert most of your assets to cash. However, when calculating your L.N.W., you need to ensure that the assets that you define as liquid are:

    a) Available for conversion: you must be willing to convert the asset and it should not be held in lieu of a loan or other form of debt.

    b) Readily convertible- the asset should be convertible within a reasonably short period. This could vary depending on whether you are calculating immediate cash needs or are using a less demanding period (weeks or months).

    c) Convertible without incurring significant losses- you can convert most of your assets to cash at some point or another. However, you can purchase a collectible for a million dollars and be forced to sell it for one hundred thousand dollars when you need cash. You converted the asset to cash but the prohibitive loss incurred indicates that the asset should not be included (unless you are using the actual cash value of all your assets in anticipating a worst-case scenario).

    These criteria readily eliminate certain assets such as real estate (under certain circumstances) and even collectibles. However, the determination of your net worth and, by extension, your liquid net worth is not hard and fast. Instead it is a process with multiple likely outcomes.

    Your liquid net worth may incorporate assets like stocks or annuities- financial products that are typically less-liquid than cash accounts or Money Market Funds. Whatever assets you include should be liquid in the context of your financial circumstances and the reason for which you are undertaking the calculation of your L.N.W.

    Even if your asset composition does not change, your liquid net worth can be affected by asset valuation, changes in circumstances or even your decisions on which assets you are unwilling to convert to cash. For example, whether you include an extra property or car that you own depends on where that asset resides in terms of your financial goals. You should consider an asset, which you want to retain, illiquid.

    However, if circumstances force you to sell that asset and you do a valuation, you need to consider the value of the asset in terms of a current price that it can easily fetch. The accounting principle of prudence is necessary when determining your liquid net worth.

    Like many other aspects of accounting, your liquid net worth is a fluid concept. However, it is useful to know your liquid net worth and maintain it at a healthy level. Being forced to sell assets is a recipe for loss- especially if potential buyers know that you are desperate and must sell the asset.

    Darrell Victor is a freelance writer and former insurance advisor. For more Personal Finance articles, click http://www.helium.com/users/338815/show_articles?channel=6


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    18th February 2010

    Conspiracy theories spawn surprising tips

    Going to school, getting a job, staying out of debt, diversifying your stock portfolio and investing in a retirement plan in which the government will take care of you in your old age has, according to Robert T. Kiyosaki of Rich Dad’s Conspiracy of The Rich, become the new fairy tale.

    The author of the #1 bestselling finance book of all time, Rich Dad Poor Dad, with follow-ups such as Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing, Rich Dad’s Prophesy, has upped the ante once again with his newest addition to the Rich Dad franchise by challenging societal norms regarding personal and financial success in light of the recession and repeated U.S. government bailouts.

    According to Kiyosaki, the central banking system (most specifically, the Federal Reserve System of the United States) was designed — conspired — in a way that cash flows directly into the pockets of the rich, where hard-working taxpayers simply cannot win the old-fashioned way, especially in a deflated economy.

    In simple and often pleonastic language, the author explains the relationship between big banks and government, debt and America, and financial education and the poor.

    One of the biggest conspiracies Kiyosaki explores is the lack of financial education in schools, which the author pins all the way back to when industrialist John D. Rockefeller created the General Education Board under a Prussian system, churning students into cogs and not independent thinkers.

    Read the rest of this entry »


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