Catching the Coin

While it's easy to blame the markets for investment losses, the reality is that it is often investor behavior that brings devastation and loss to our investments.

In This Episode We'll Look At:

• The DANGER of tapping into your retirement accounts
• Building a reasonable plan to assure sufficient income for your future
• How to recognize and AVOID chasing a hot sector
• How seeking safety is not always a wise play
• Recognizing the folly of selling in down markets

Today's Resources and Links:

• 115 years of the popular US markets

• See show notes page for picture.

One Thing You Can Do Today to Improve Your Financial World:

Write out your personal, long-term investing plan. Be sure to do this during a time when you are able to be objective with yourself and your finances.

Refer back to your plan every time you are tempted to make one of the above mistakes.

A sample looks like:

"I will maintain 70% of my portfolio in broadly diversified equities, 30% in Fixed Income. I will buy more in down markets and sell a portion in up markets in order to maintain my 70/30 mix."

What Are Your Thoughts?

If you have a question or comment about today's topic, we invite you to share your thoughts in the Comments section below.

You can also find us on Facebook or Twitter.

In our quest to Carpe Diem, Seize the Day; we often forget to Carpe Cras, Seize Tomorrow.

However, the costs and expenses of tomorrow can certainly catch us off guard and the startling truth is that a large percentage of Americans are ONE emergency away from being BROKE!

In This Episode We'll Look At:

• Great reasons to save today for expected future expenses
• A great idea on how you can add several hundred dollars to your Stuff Happens savings account without touching your paycheck
• Walking you through the next steps in building a healthy Stuff Happens savings account

Today's Resources and Links:

• Articles
• Nearly Half the U.S. Can't Afford Unexpected $400 Bill
• 26% of Americans Have ZERO Emergency Savings

One Thing You Can Do Today to Improve Your Financial World:

Open a separate, online savings account and nickname it Stuff Happens.

Bonus Round:

Sell one semi-valuable possession that you know you can repurchase in a year or two (probably even a better model) and add that money to your new savings account.

What Are Your Thoughts?

If you have a question or comment about today's topic, we invite you to share your thoughts in the Comments section below.

You can also find us on at www.catchingthecoin.com, Facebook, or Twitter.

We love that "New Car" smell just as much as the next guy. However, compared to having that car payment, what we love even more is the incredible wealth-building power of investing monthly.

We need a car (arguable depending on where you live), but we need wealth for our future as well.

Today, we teach you the tale of............

The $500,000 Used Car!

In This Episode We Will Look At:

• Smart ways to buy newer model cars
• The benefits to paying off your car loan sooner, and begin paying yourself instead
• The incredible wealth-building power of investing your car payment over the course of your working years.

Today's Resources and Links:

CarGurus.com

Edmunds.com

TrueCar.com

One Thing You can Do Today to Improve Your Financial Picture:

Begin investing the dollar amount of your car payment the very month after your loan is paid off and keep that car until just before it dies!

Bonus Round: Begin saving for the down payment of your future car (half-down would be great!)

What Are Your Thoughts?

If you have a question or comment about today's topic, we invite you to share your thoughts in the Comments section below.

You can also find us on Facebook or Twitter.

Emotions are wonderful and needed in marriages in relationships, but in regards to our investments they can be disastrous!

The primary emotions that plague investors are pleasure and pain These can also be thought of as greed and fear.

Either can lead to making decisions or changes that devastate your wealth.

In This Episode We'll Look At:

• Indicators that trigger harmful emotions
• The necessity of a written plan to keep you on track
• How to avoid maneuvers that cause unnecessary losses

Today's Resources and Links:

• Nothing today

One Thing You Can Do Today to Improve Your Financial World:

When you are thinking calmly and reasonably, take the time to write out your long-term investment plan (strategy). Revisit and review your written plan every time you begin to feel fearful or overly confident.

What Are Your Thoughts?

If you have a question or comment about today's topic, we invite you to share your thoughts in the Comments section below.

You can also find us on Facebook or Twitter.

By planning vacations ahead of time, you can save money and have less stress.

There's no doubt that summer is one of the most popular seasons for family vacations.

In today's episode, we will cover some vacation tips and hacks to help you catch and keep more of your hard earned coin.

In This Episode We'll Look At:

• Starting with a plan
• Budgeting monthly for your vacation
• Awesome Packing tips
• Travel- Relax… Take a breath and make some awesome memories!
• Choosing vacations times toward the end of the season, and even off-season, can save you tons of money. In some cases, early June and late August can mean lower prices.
• Examples of sites to try: Hotels.com, Hotwire, Travelocity, Air B&B, Yelp

Today's Resources and Links:

• Flights
• Google Flights
• Kayak
• Hotels
• Yelp
• TripAdvisor
• Hotels.com
• Hotwire
• Travelocity
• AirB&B
• Membership Only Sites
• AAA
• BJ's Wholesale
• Sam's
• Costco
• USAA

• Uber
• iTunes Suitcase app
• Video showing how to pack for 30 days in a duffle bag.

One Thing You Can Do Today to Improve Your Financial World:

Add "Vacation" as category in your monthly budget. Saving a set dollar amount per month is more financially beneficial than getting in debt or withdrawing from a retirement account to cover vacation costs.

What Are Your Thoughts?

If you have a question or comment about today's topic, we invite you to share your thoughts in the Comments section below.

You can also find us on Facebook or Twitter.

Enjoying a healthy income today is both awesome and truly a blessing.

One key factor to accumulating wealth is protecting today's income. Doing so insures that you can enjoy an income in the future.

Additionally, it is absolutely necessary that we part with a portion of today's income to invest in our future financial well-being.

Click HERE for the rest of the show notes.

Should you bother having anything other than a 401(k) or IRA?

Today we introduce you to the Roth IRA. The ROTH IRA is one of the most under-utilized retirement plans available to wage earners today.

We'll go against "conventional wisdom" and introduce you to an outstanding tax saving tool.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How to identify the pitfalls of conventional retirement planning.
• The difference between tax deferral and real tax savings.
• The qualifications to contribute to a Roth IRA.
• The financial benefits of faithfully maximizing this strategy.

Resources

IRS Rules for ROTH IRA

Against The Grain, Avoiding the Financial Pitfalls of Conventional Wisdom by Tim Rosen [Amazon Affiliate link]

What Are Your Thoughts?

Are you currently using a ROTH IRA?

If you have a question or comment about today's topic, we invite you to share your thoughts in the Comments section below.

There's no doubt that life gets busy!

As we tend to live for today, it's easy to let time slip away and not plan properly for our financial future.

We want to help by showing you some simple, but often overlooked steps that you can take to both live for today and prepare for tomorrow .

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How you can still enjoy today while planning for the future.
• Aesop's classic fable, The Ant and the Grasshopper, is an outstanding, longstanding example of the importance of this principle.
• To permit yourself a certain amount (monthly or annually) to spend on the things that spin your dials.

Today's Takeaways

3 Accounts/Buckets of Money

1. Stuff Happens: This is a savings account that you want to feed every month. It has to be automatic (out of sight, out of mind) and the goal should be about $5,ooo for homeowners.
2. Projects: This is another savings account with a nickname. It is used to accumulate for a future purchase (ie. replace computer, car, kid's education/wedding, etc.).
3. Rest of Your Life: This is for the timeframe when you are longer working. It should be made mostly of investments in the market. It represents a source from which to draw a future income.

Today's Resources and Links

• Tim's cash flow worksheet LINK
• USA Today study on Baby Boomers: LINK

What Are Your Thoughts?

• Are you the "Ant" or the "Grasshopper"?
• What projects are you "bucketing" money for right now?

If you have a question or comment about today's topic, we invite you to share your thoughts in the Comments section below.

What's a few dollars here and there? Does it really make a difference what you're paying for cell service or Internet access?

In today's show, we discuss the little things that you can do differently that will result in huge long term financial changes for your future.

Many believe that building accumulating wealth requires large sums of money, perhaps waiting for an inheritance, or to sell your home for a profit.

You'll be surprised to learn the awesome accumulative power of "Little Things" in our lives .

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• The Power of Little things in our finances

• We walk you through the process of adding just a "little" extra to your credit card payment and how that can pay the balance off up to a decade sooner than the minimum payment.
• We share the huge benefits of investing the little amount of $100 a month and how that $100 can potentially make a 20 year old a Millionaire by 65.

Today's Takeaways:

• A "Little" amount of money, focused in the right direction can have a huge impact on your wealth.
• It's not difficult to discover dollars that are slipping through your figures. Those dollars can be recaptured for building your wealth.
• There are most likely utilities and other services that you are paying too much for. Those can possibly be reduced through a simple phone call.

Today's Resources and Links

http://www.moneychimp.com/calculator/retirement_calculator.htm

What Are Your Thoughts?

If you have a question or comment about today's topic, we invite you to share your thoughts in the Comments section below.

This is our pre-episode to explain who we are and what the content of the podcast will contain.

Although it's listed on our webpage, allow me to share the Mission Statement of Catching the Coin with you right here:

As Catching the Coin, we are committed to providing free, quality, personal finance information on a consistent basis through means of written and spoken means.

As you can see from our mission statement, our focus is on serving you!

Our goal is to use the podcast as the primary method to accomplish this goal. Here are just some of the content we plan to share:

• Money "Hacks"
• Get out of debt
• Free up tangled money
• Money History (for perspective)
• Interviews with experts