Twila Van Leer

Pay Down Debt Or Build Savings?

October 7, 2016 By Twila Van Leer

The decision of what to do with left over money can be a serious one.

People who take personal finances seriously sometimes have a decision to make. If you have money left over after taking care of essentials, is it better to use it to pay down debt or put it into savings? It’s an ongoing debate with no absolute answer and you should make a decision based on your own personal situation and goals.

Factors to consider, according to financial planners, include the type of debt you are considering, the amount of interest you pay and how long your obligation will last.

Some advisers see debt as the fatal flaw in personal finance plans and they advise getting rid of it as quickly as possible. Consider the cost: As of late May this year, the average fixed interest rate on a credit card was 12.52 percent. Variable rate cards come with an even higher rate – 16.03 percent on average. That’s a compelling reason to opt for the pay-down-the-debt approach. Ultimately, having more money at the end of the process is a cogent argument.

Mortgages

Mortgages often are the largest debt a person or family carries. They don’t usually come into consideration in this debate. Mortgage interest rates generally are lower than those on consumer debt. Also, they are tax-deductible.

Retirement Savings

On the flip side, consider these facts about saving. The most frequent target of savings is retirement. Workplace plans that sometimes offer an employer contribution also make this option desirable. Look into 401(k) or 403(b) opportunities.

Such plans withdraw the employee’s money before it is considered income, so there are tax savings. The arguments for putting your money into retirement options is great since many Americans find themselves facing the rocking chair with not enough padding to live on.

Still there are those who argue that having a cushion for retirement while still dealing with debt is not a good place to be. Make your decision based on the facts of your personal finance picture.

Of course, there is no rule that says you can’t do a little of both. Looking for an adequate but not cushy retirement option while putting the rest of your excess into debt payment may be the road you want to travel, Run the numbers and make them fit your own circumstances. Either way, there is compounding to consider: The interest on either debt or retirement savings goes on just the same. Take that into consideration while you ponder the question. There’s a good middle ground for you.

Retirement Wisdom From An Expert

July 20, 2016 By Twila Van Leer

Expert advice for successful retirement.

If anyone knows how successful retirement works, it’s Warren Buffet. Over a lifetime he has become a hallmark of profitable market investment. A recent article in The AARP Magazine shares 10 keys to his success.

Keep A Cash Reserve

Keep a reserve of cash for emergencies and for unexpected opportunities. A rainy-day provision is essential, especially as retirement looms. The end of a regular paycheck means changes in cash needs. Now you must rely on Social Security and whatever other nest egg provisions you have made over your work career. Embellish your emergency fund to take care of any financial challenges. Tap the fund to respond to lucrative investment opportunities.

Invest In Companies That Provide Essentials

Boring companies don’t get any attention at parties, but you may find that there are great long-term returns from companies in more mundane industries. You may think, for instance, that toilet paper, baby diapers and soap are not exciting investments, but Buffett has successfully invested in Procter & Gamble, which has become a world leader in this market segment. Those who put $1,000 into P&G stock in 1986 and reinvested their returns would have more than $32,000 to show for it today. Boring companies who become tops in their industry niche often provide better rewards to shareholders than attention-grabbing upstarts.

How Effective Is The Brand?

Brand loyalty is something to look for in wise investments. Loyal customers will pay more for a product they like. Coca Cola is an example. The logo is known around the world, making it the third most valuable global brand in 2015. Its initial success as a soda drink has financed its expansion into other marketing areas. Invest in strong brands to get larger returns.

Look For Good Fund Managers

Good management is a keynote of successful businesses. Buffett notes that most companies eventually have to survive a bad manager, but when there is a great leader, the company prospers. He points to the outstanding examples of Bill Gates at Microsoft, Steve Jobs at Apple and Jeff Bezos at Amazon. A great manager and a strong business model is an unbeatable combination.

Learn From Your Mistakes

Avoid mistakes, but learn from them. Even Buffett admits to investing mistakes. He experienced a loss of about $450 million in a Tesco investment when the company fell afoul of accounting problems. When such things happen, the best way to recoup is to study what went wrong. Search out the warning signs, suck up the loss and use the information to avoid further market losses. Keep a record of mistakes and they’ll be a guide to better investing.

Stick With What You Know

Stick with what you know. The investment market is huge and intimidating, but Buffett believes you can succeed without being an expert. He avoided the technology revolution in the 1990s and so did not lose big in the tech bust that followed. If you are more familiar with particular areas of the market, put your money there.

Increase Your Buying Power

Look for what will increase your buying power over time. Investments that produce consistent income and steady growth are best. In 2011, Buffett looked at gold as an example of a non-income producing asset, overshadowed by such investment opportunities as croplands and petroleum companies. Retirees benefit in particular from income-producing investments that keep up or hopefully exceed inflation and that provide sustained purchasing power.

Buy At The Right Price

Don’t overpay. Even if a company is successful, a share price that is too high is a bad investment. Wait until an industry has settled before investing. Buffett waited on investing in energy companies until stock prices plunged after the decline in oil and natural gas prices. Make a watch list of interesting stocks and see if valuations fall to more suitable levels. Patience is a virtue in the world of investments.

Use A Buy-And-Hold Approach

Don’t make the same decision over and over again. When you are frequently trading, it increases the chances for missteps. The buy-and-hold approach puts more emphasis on what stocks you purchase in the first place. You may not want to hold a stock forever, but minimize the number of decisions you have to make. The more opportunities you allow yourself to make mistakes, the more mistakes you’ll make.

Look For The Spirit Of Innovation

Don’t avoid revolutionary investments. The business world is full of visionary individuals looking for ways to improve things. One for-instance is the forward momentum at General Electric, a long-time leader in world business. The company saw the opportunity for snapping up a leadership role in the wind energy and turbine business and became a pioneer in the renewable energy industry. Look for the spirit of innovation as an indicator of strong investment possibilities.

Freelance Jobs On Top 10 Websites

July 13, 2016 By Twila Van Leer

Freelance jobs on the top 10 websites online — Freelance jobs posted online are becoming easier to find.

Freelance jobs can solve income problems for many people who work at home. In 2015, some 15.5 million Americans were self-employed, according to Bureau of Labor statistics. By 2020, the number is expected to rise to about 60 million – more than 40 percent of the total workforce.

Freelance Jobs Online

Freelancers are doing their work at home, in coffee shops and co-working spaces everywhere. Many or the best and brightest are leaving traditional jobs to take advantage of the flexibility and autonomy in jobs of their own creation. Whether the objective is just making a side job of a hobby or making freelance the way to a living, there are resources that can be helpful.

Toptal

Toptal is a freelance network of elite software engineers and digital designers from more than a hundred countries around the world. It has a screening process that weeds out everyone except the top 3 percent of talent in a number of categories. If you are selected, you know you are in company with the elite. You are allowed to decide if you want full or part-time work, how many hours and set your own rates. Toptal works with such companies as AirBnB, IDEO and JP Morgan and has a consistent lineup of interesting clients and projects.

Upwork

Upwork, a union of the two leading freelance networks, Elance and lDesk, is now the largest website to find freelancers. It has more than 10 million registered users, four million clients and listings for three million jobs every year. It is a source for writers, architects, legal aides, photographers and others. Users can enroll for short-term or long-term projects, work by the hour or by the project. A chat feature, time-tracker and payment protection are part of the program.

99 Designs

99 Designs has its own twist. The platform is for designers and every job comes in the form of a contest. Instead of browsing through a catalog of portfolios and resumes, clients are asked to crowd source projects, set a budget and give instructions and then let designers submit work based on the project brief. At the end of a week, the client chooses the best design and pays its originator. This is a good site for designers who want to test their talents and shake up their workflow.

PeoplePerHour

PeoplePerHour offers a source for all skills related to web projects, including software engineers, digital designers, SEO specialists and marketers. A tool called WorkStream simplifies the business side of the work by organizing payment, communications and management all in one place. You can browse jobs, be notified of new openings via your inbox and send up to 15 proposals without charge before you sign up for the premium plan.

LinkedIn Profinder

This freelance source has more than 420 million members in more than 200 countries and is a leading place for learning about job-related information. It recently launched LinkedIn Profinder as a means to help freelance professionals to find jobs. Based on its enormous amount of user data, it is able to connect freelancers with strong leads based on keyword searches and companies followed.

SimplyHired

SimplyHired has the largest variety of freelance jobs of any on this list, with information on jobs ranging from construction to concierge work. It offers help for those seeking extra work and has information on jobs in more than 24 countries, offering opportunities in 12 languages.

Freelance Writing Gigs

Freelance Writing Gigs is a job board that is updated daily with freelance writing and blogging jobs. Topics vary from technical writing to writing about such things as recipes, photography and healthcare. There are great opportunities whether you are looking to supplement your income or make freelancing you full-time work.

If you are among the millions of freelancers looking for new opportunities, check into these sites to see what’s in them for you.

Successful Habits Of Billionaires

July 11, 2016 By Twila Van Leer

Learning a few successful habits can improve the quality of your life. Interviews with more than 200 highly successful people, conducted by Kevin Kruse, revealed several repeating themes that might be guides for others aiming for success. He talked with billionaires, Olympians and a selection of entrepreneurs. The question was simple: “What is your number one secret to productivity?” The most consistent answers included the following:

Successful Habits

Many people look to their family, friends or mentors to learn successful habits. It’s better to learn from the experts.

Time Management

There are 1,440 minutes in a day and nothing is more valuable than time. Time spent can never be reclaimed. Most people block out one-and-a-half hour segments of time. Olympic gymnast Shannon Miller told Kruse that her schedule is almost minute-by-minute. Mastering minutes means mastering life.

Focus On One Thing At A Time

Identify the most important task ahead of you, the one that will have the greatest impact on reaching your goal, and work on it without interruption. Dedicate your morning, when you are most productive, to that objective.

To-Do List

Only 41 percent of what’s on the to-do list actually gets done, according to research. Those unfinished talks lead to stress and insomnia and occupy your mind until they’re done. Put items on your calendar and then work by the calendar in the order that is most feasible.

Predicting Future Success

You can’t trust your future self. Most of us are time inconsistent. For instance, we load up on fresh veggies anticipating salads for a week, then throw away the rotting mush before the week is up. Do what you can do right now to. Look ahead and see what you can do now to defeat your future self.

Family Time

Successful people include family time, exercise and health time and time for giving back. There is always at least one more thing to do, so know where you can draw the line. Think about where your priorities lie and allocate time to what you think is most important. Don’t allow work to nudge out the more important things.

Journaling

Richard Branson, who built Virgin, says a simple notebook goes with him everywhere. That’s a “million dollar lesson” they don’t teach in business school, said Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipping executive. Writing down things as they occur to you leaves your mind free to think of other things.

Manage Emails

Process emails a few times a day. Don’t feel obligated to respond to every vibration that ends up in your inbox. Schedule time to respond to emails quickly and efficiently and then leave them to the next session.

Protect Your Time

The advice of Mark Cuban is “Never take meetings unless someone is writing a check.” Meetings tend to start late, have the wrong mix of people, meander around topics and run long. Avoid them if possible. If it is necessary and you can influence the proceedings, made them short and to the point.

Learn To Say “No”

Remember that old 1,440 minutes thing. Trying to respond to every request for your time will use them up in a hurry. Screen your time and protect the minutes.

Pareto Principle

The reality that 80 percent of results come from 20 percent of activities. Those who succeed best learn which activities drive the greatest results and stick with them, ignoring the rest.

Delegate

Take the “I” out of the equation whenever you can. The question should be “How can I get this task done?” not “How can I perform this task?” The successful don’t get bound up in control issues and they don’t micro-manage.

Touch Things Once

Picking up a bill then setting it aside without handling it means you have given twice the time to the same objective. Try the “touch it once” approach. Deal with everything when it arises, if possible. You can then free your mind from that particular chore.

Use A Morning Routine

Many of the people Kevin interviewed shared a consistent morning routine. The successful habits varied, but repeat suggestions included a good breakfast, light exercise and mind soothers such as meditation, prayer, inspirational reading or journaling. Over the day, maintain your energy level. Don’t skip meals, sleep or breaks in an effort to fill more time with productive work. Food is fuel, sleep an opportunity for recovery and breaks the way to recharge periodically.

Caregiver Survival Tips

July 8, 2016 By Twila Van Leer

Anyone caring for the ill or elderly people needs to know a few caregiver survival tips. Caregiver burnout is a reality that can drain physical and psychological resources to the limit.

Caring for a family member who is ill or disabled can be a draining, depleting experience that calls for adjusting schedules and setting priorities, according to experts. The solution is effective time management that gives you some breathing room during demanding days.

Caregiver Survival Tips

Focus on what must be done and put other items into a “can wait” category. Do the most demanding things first, at the beginning of the day when you’re at your best. Be flexible so you can handle unexpected demands.

Make Some Time For Yourself

Failing to eat healthfully, exercise and allow yourself some “down” time to restock and restore can quickly lead to burnout. Try to prepare some healthy snacks, rather than grabbing what’s fast and convenient. (How come that seems to include everything you have an appetite for?)
Some physical activity, such as a walk, can help defuse stress and give you a mental lift. Don’t let your caregiving responsibilities keep you from getting adequate rest. If your patient naps, you do the same.

Use Technology To Help With Time Crunches

You may spend a lot of time in medical settings with your “patient.” Use a smartphone or other portable device to make use of waiting time to keep others updated, check your emails or simply listen to music or podcasts for a break.

Organize And De-Clutter

Caring for a person who is ill or otherwise in need of constant attention can be stressful. Messiness in the surroundings can multiply that stress. An organized environment will make it easier to deal with the demands of caregiving. Clean up messes as you go. Have a place for everything and keep “stuff” in its proper place. That takes a lot less time than cleaning up when things get into disarray.

Know And Acknowledge Your Limitations

Be honest about how much you can give to the demands placed on you. Often, the person being cared for is a loved one and you may be tempted to push yourself beyond your limits to provide the needed care. But failing to recognize signs of burnout may be detrimental to both you and the person for whom you are providing care. If it is possible, build a network of family or friends who can give you a needed break now and again. Look into community and social resources for help as needed. Physicians and other caretakers may be able to offer suggestions.