Minding Your Money 360 - Quick tips to manage your money for success

There was an article on today msn.com titled “Self-made millionaire says forget skipping Starbucks: Here are 5 real ways to get rich.” It was by Grant Cardone a highly successful entrepreneur, New York Times best-selling author, and sales training expert. I was intrigued so I read on and this is what I learned. In a nutshell, here are his 5 strategies to get rich:

Invest in yourself. In Cardone’s case he invested in sales training and that had a huge impact on his income.

Find the right job – not just any job. You want a job that will allow you to grow even if you have to start at the bottom.

Get great at what you do. Once you get the job, instead of slacking off – beef up.

Cultivate multiple synergic income streams. In other words, create income streams that feed off of each other so they all impact each other. So if you work for a production company, you might also do videos and advertising for companies as a side business.

Finally, and this one is the one that will put you over the top – try to save $100,000. He says, “Saving $100,000 shows that you have an ability to make money and then to keep it. Most people can't do either of those things. Once you can earn and save, then you can start to build wealth.

Hey, there are a lot of good points there and you might want to listen one more time.

And, that’s the minute for today. Want to take control of your money? Join the Minding Your Money Movement! Visit my website at www.psworth.com and sign up today.

Thanks for listening and as always remember that minding your money really is the path to a richer life!

It's Monday and I have a question, What’s Your Biggest Money Mistake?

I know I have certainly made my share of mistakes. But what do you think is your biggest mistakes so far. I say so far because we are only human and we will make mistakes. The question is will you learn from them or will you keep repeating them. While you ponder your biggest mistake, here are three common mistakes that people make:

Letting indulgences become habits. Going out to a nice dinner once in a while is no problem but do it every week and that can add up big time. Beat this one by keeping closer tabs on your spending and that will help you stay on track.

Putting subscriptions on autopilot so that they just keep renewing whether you use them or not. The fix for this is to actually read your credit card and bank statements and weed out subscriptions that you no longer use – it could save you hundreds of dollars.

Taking out a loan or using a credit card to buy stuff that loses value – electronics, clothes etc. – instead make a plan to pay cash for items that are not necessities because the interest you have to pay just adds to the costs making everything you buy on credit more expensive.

And that’s the minute for today. You know I love helping people with all aspects of their financial lives. If you have a question or comment, send it to me at [email protected]

Thanks for listening and as always remember that minding your money really is the path to a richer life!

It’s Friday and time for our word of the week –the word this week is Invest, Invest, Invest.

I chose invest three times because there are three types of investing that you should consider as you go through life. First there is the invest as in investing your money to make it grow – in things like stocks and bonds.

Then there is the invest where you invest in yourself – education, new skills, learning to invest your money, etc.

Then there is the invest where you invest in physical things like planting seeds. You can plant seeds in people, children and watch them grow and you can also plan seeds in the ground and watch them grow. I grew up on a farm and I can still remember how cool it was to just walk out there, pick something and eat it with no fear of pesticides or other bad things.

Our word of the week invest, invest, invest: it has lots of meanings so use them all as you go through life.

And that’s the minute for today. Don’t forget to take invest in making your money work! Visit my website at www.psworth.com and sign up for the Minding Your Money Movement and download a copy of the handbook so you can get started right away!

This episode has a special meaning for me – its Episode 600 – a real landmark. If you like the show, I would encourage you to go to your station – iTunes, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, Google Play Music, Stitcher Radio, etc. and subscribe and leave us a review so that they will continue to carry us and so you never miss an episode.

Thanks for listening and as always remember that minding your money really is the path to a richer life!

Today’s question comes from Rebekah with a ‘k’. She has a question about credit cards and scores and if you’re trying to increase your credit score, here’s a trap you may want to avoid.

She says, Patricia, I’ve always heard that if you pay off your credit card bills each month that it will increase your credit score but it doesn’t seem to be working for me. My credit score is staying about the same and some months it even inches down. What’s going on?

Rebekah also mentions in her note that she uses her credit cards a great deal during the month to get points but she always pays the bill off each month. And I think what’s happening is that you have gotten caught in credit card #5 trap. That is, in your quest to rack up points you may be using too much of your available credit each month and you are getting dinged for it. Here’s what I mean.

Let’s say that you add up all of the available credit on all of your credit cards and that comes to $10,000. If your goal is to increase your credit score, you should charge no more than 10% or $1,000 or at the very most 30% or $3,000 each month. The smaller the percentage you use, the better your chances of increasing your credit score.  If you are charging more than that, you could see your credit score inch down even if you pay off your balances each month because the amount on your statement is what’s reported to the credit bureaus that’s what they use to calculate your credit score. And that’s the trap. It’s not the balance you carry that’s reported, but the amount you actually use each month. If increasing your credit score is really important to you, you might want make more than one payment each month on your credit card so that they balance is not so high when your payment is due.

And, that’s the minute for today. Got a burning question? Send it to me at [email protected]

Thanks for listening and as always remember that minding your money really is the path to a richer life!

You all know that I am a big fan of setting goals. In fact, it’s something I constantly do and I believe goal setting is an important part of being a successful in life. But falling victim to mistakes can trip up and get you off track.

Here are 4 common mistakes that can derail your goals include:

Waiting for the perfect time to get started. See this for what it is, a form of procrastination. It can cause you to waste precious time. The best way to avoid this mistake is to just get started.

No system or plan to set or achieve your goals. You can use the SMART or the SMARTER goal setting method but the most important elements is to know what you want, what it will take to get there, where you are now and how you plan to bridge that gap.

Not working on your goals every day. There are so many distractions in life, that if you don’t consistently focus on your goals, they will start slipping away. To avoid this mistake, make a list of tasks to complete each day that move you closer to your goals and put sticky notes up or other reminders up to help you stay focused.

     4. Not celebrating your successes. Okay focusing on the end result is great, but you still have to live life in the interim so take some time to celebrate your successes as you completing major parts of your goals. Then have a big celebration when it is complete.

And, that’s the minute for today. Take control of your money? Join the Minding Your Money Movement! Visit my website at www.psworth.com and sign up today.

Thanks for listening and as always remember that minding your money really is the path to a richer life!

The GOP revealed its version to replace the Affordable Care Act yesterday and you’ve got to wonder what happened to the affordable part. I thought one of the reasons that some people were so dissatisfied with the ACA was because it was expensive.

In its present form, the new Trumpcare increases costs for the poor and elderly, allows for people with pre-existing conditions to be charged more and it does away with the Medicaid expansion program which slams over 10 million people. I’m not sure this is what people had in mind when they called for the repeal of the ACA. I think they were looking for a kinder, gentler plan that would actually provide affordable health care.

Regardless of which side of this issue you come down on, there are some parts of this bill that just seem to miss the point. We are the richest nation in the world. Over the past few years, we have made some astounding technological advances. We have minted a ton of millionaires and billionaires. Is it so out of the realm of possibility that we could actually create an affordable healthcare plan?

And, that’s the minute for today. Want to take control of your money? Join the Minding Your Money Movement! Visit my website at www.psworth.com and sign up today.

Thanks for listening and as always remember that minding your money really is the path to a richer life!

And, here’s the question of the week. What Happens If You Don’t Pay Your Taxes?

Believe it or not there are some people who don’t pay taxes and it’s not because they don’t make enough to file or they are exempt in some way. They just make a conscious decision not to pay them. So what happens?

History is littered with celebs who didn’t pay their taxes and ended up with jail time and really big fines. But for many people nothing happens. According to an article on msn.com, Josh Kornbluth didn’t pay taxes for seven years and then a funny thing happened – he fell in love. As a result, he wrote and produced a film called Love & Taxes that made it into the Sundance Film Festival. With the possibility of real money, marriage and a baby Kornbluth began to have a change of heart.

“There's great pleasure,” he said, “in being on the fringe, on not being beholden to anyone, but there comes a point for most of us when it's super important to be part of it. It's 'Love & Taxes,' not just because of my wife. It's also that I love America. I love being an American. I love the ideals of Americans. And, it’s tied up with being a taxpayer.”

However, at the end of the day, the real question is what do you think? Should we pay taxes or should we just stick it to the Man? Let me know what you think.

And that’s the minute for today. You know I love helping people with all aspects of their financial lives. If you have a question or comment, send it to me at [email protected]

Thanks for listening and as always remember that minding your money really is the path to a richer life!

It’s Friday and time for our word of the week –the word this week is Accountability.

I chose accountability because regardless of how much money you make it’s up to you to hold yourself accountable to manage it.  So many people I meet believe that if they could just make more money all of their problems would be solved. But that’s not necessarily true. We’ve all heard the stories about athletes who made millions of dollars and ended up broke shortly after their careers ended. And, we’ve heard the stories of people in low paying jobs like janitors who amassed millions of dollars over their lifetime.

The truth is, it really doesn’t matter how much money you make if you don’t manage it well – if you don’t hold yourself accountable.

Our word of the week accountability: Making money is just half of the equation. Managing it is the other half and if you’re not sure how to do that – get help – it’s that important.

And that’s the minute for today. Don’t forget to take control of your money! Visit my website at www.psworth.com and sign up for the Minding Your Money Movement and download a copy of the handbook so you can get started right away!

Thanks for listening and as always remember that minding your money really is the path to a richer life!

I got an email from Kyle and he couldn’t believe what happened to his credit score. The last time he checked it, it was around 800. But when he went to get a car loan this past week, he didn’t get the best rate that he was expecting because they said his score was 690. So what happened?

Quite accidently Kyle had missed a loan payment last month. He was so excited about the prospect of getting a new car that they payment just skipped his mind and it cost him big time. He had converted his bills to online and each month the different companies send him an email about his bill and he had overlooked the email and well you know the rest of the story.

Getting your bills online is helpful to bill companies – it saves them a ton of money because they don’t have to mail them to you but it can be troublesome for consumers if you are not used to getting your bills this way and it can lead to issues like the one Kyle experienced.

The takeway here is that if you get your bill announcements online, you need a system so that nothing falls through the cracks. My favorite system is to print each bill when it comes into my email and put it in a basket of to be paid bills. But that’s just one option. The option that I tend to like the least is autopay because you don’t have to look at the bill – it just gets paid. And, while that can certainly help keep your credit score in tact – it doesn’t give you any incentive to check your bills for accuracy or to always have a clear picture of where your money is going.

And, that’s the minute for today. Take control of your money! Visit my website at www.psworth.com and sign up for the Minding Your Money Movement and download a copy of the handbook so you can get started right away!

Thanks for listening and as always remember that minding your money really is the path to a richer life!

Yesterday I talked about deductible IRAs and I got a couple of questions about Roth IRAs so I want to clarify something. While Roth IRAs share many things in common with traditional IRAs which may sometimes be deductible if you meet the income requirements like we talked about yesterday, Roth are never deductible. Like traditional IRAs they grow tax deferred so your money can grow faster and the maximum amount you can contribute is the same -- $5,500 or $6,500 if you are over 50.

However, you purchase Roth IRAs with money that has already been taxed such as the refund you get. The real benefit of Roth IRAs is that when you retire and take them out, you don’t have to pay taxes on the amount you take out like you have to do with so many traditional IRAs and 401(k)s that have never been taxed.

But not everyone is eligible to invest in a Roth IRA –If you are single, you must make less than $117,000 to contribute the maximum and if you are married filing jointly, you must make less than $184,000.

And, whether you are married or single, set up an IRA in your own name. Hence the name individual retirement accounts.

And, that’s the minute for today. Take control of your money? Join the Minding Your Money Movement! Visit my website at www.psworth.com and sign up today.

Thanks for listening and as always remember that minding your money really is the path to a richer life!