Give your children a Gift that will keep on Giving.

There are many occasions for giving gifts, especially to children. And one of the biggest occasions is coming up: Christmas. You might give clothes that the children can wear or some toys that will keep their attention, or you can gift them some shares of stock.

Buying them shares of stock might set a different course for their financial lives and get them interested in investing and personal finance at a young age. If presented as a fun game, kids will usually enjoy the experience and will want to learn more.

You can even download software for them to track their stocks or you can use a simple spreadsheet.

There are different ways to accomplish this. If you already use a stockbroker, there might be offerings available to help you, so check that out first. You can also use a service like http://www.investordelight.com/ to track their investments in all kinds of graphs and get them accustomed to online investing.

Once they have their shares, you can also introduce the children to fantasy stock markets where they have an imaginary amount of money to trade and compete with other children. There are many benefits to having children learn stock investing.

A good place to begin might be Young Money, where they can start with an imaginary $10,000 in fantasy money.

If you wish to give something more hands-on, consider Cash Flow for Kids, or the regular Cash Flow game if the children are older. Cash Flow makes it real and offers a fun way to learn the basics of personal finance.

Whichever gift you decide to give, make sure it’ll be something more than just a temporary moment of excitement and continue to pay dividends for a long time.

How do you manage your TIME?

We’ve all heard that time is money, and anyone who’s applied quality time management strategies can attest to that fact. Knowing how valuable your time is may inspire you to work on your time management skills.

The point is that there are usually a small number of critical tasks that, if completed, would make it a successful and productive work day. While this discussion deals with tasks at work, the method also works in other situations, such as household tasks. The problem arises from the fact that the critical tasks are typically associated with some level of discomfort and so we do our best to avoid them. We introduce other, less important, tasks into our lives to stay busy and avoid the tasks we really need to get done. By removing those non-essential tasks and focusing on getting the critical, yet uncomfortable, tasks done, we can accomplish a successful day's worth of tasks in a short amount of time.

This concept ties into the subject of procrastination. It always seemed like my semester-long projects in school were accomplished in the last few days before they were due. If I had worked on the project up front with the same amount of focus and desperation, despite the discomfort (i.e., lack of sleep, etc.), that I put into it at the end anyway, I could have completed the semester-long project in the first week of the class. If that was the major contributor to my grade, as was often the case, I would have freed up a significant amount of time, since I might not have had to go to class anymore or put in the same level of effort for the rest of the semester that I might have otherwise.

What distractions are you using in your life and what are your critical tasks? Perhaps you've been avoiding doing something about your debt because you're afraid to take an honest look at your finances or because you assume that doing something about it will be difficult. It may be time to push aside the distractions and take decisive action such as consolidating your debt.

Take decisions and act on them.

PROCASTINATION - No1 Investment Mistake

Time is your greatest friend. Once you have decided to get onto the Investment Ship, you are automatically given an ally. Time is your asset. Depending how you use this asset, it can work for you or against you. By putting forward your investing, you are not utilizing the time asset.
Time and amount of money required are inversely proportional. What this means is the more time you have, the less money you need to invest. The longer you wait to get started with your investments, the more money you will have to put in to get the same type of return as somebody that started earlier.

Here's an example: Let's take three people, Mikel, Stanley and John. John was smart and at age 20 he started investing N1000 per month. Stanley started investing N1000 per month at age 25. Mikel, always waiting for the "right time", started investing at the age of 35. Assuming 9% return on their investments, and their desire to retire at age 65, how much will have each have if they continue investing N1000/month until they retire?

Waiting five years to start investing cost Stanley N272,355.82, and waiting ten years to start investing cost Mark a total of N446,309.40. That's almost half a million naira (ignoring taxes).You might be looking for the right time to start investing. The only "right time" to start investing is today. Putting off investing for any reason is going to cost you much more in the long run than getting the timing correct.

Make it automatic -- one of the secrets that the government uses to make sure that everybody pays their income taxes is that they have it automatically taken out of your paycheck before you even see it. Once the company sets up payroll taxes for you, there is no more thought that goes into paying the government.

You should follow this system. Make investing automatic. There are many ways of investing and saving automatically. You can have it taken out of your paycheck and automatically invested. You can have a certain amount taken out of a bank account monthly.

Meanwhile, whatever you do, start your investment plan today.

Are you investing for the right reason?

Ok, you have finally realized you must start putting part of your income away(investing, I mean) for your future and you have taken the steps to achieve this by diong so, but are you actually doing it for the right reason?

Take for instance, you put some money into stocks and mutual fund. Then out of the blues you begin to pump money into insurance for a three year plan because you have been promised by a sale agent of a good payout for the current year. If you jump at this offer, thereby negleting the plan you have already setup, then you will rock your financial boat for the future.

You need to look out for details such as past dividend payment history, past earnings etc to be convinced you are taking the right step and not tying up your money for long periods in unexpe ted investment plans.

Happy investing.

How to Break Up With Your Bank.

Are you Banking with a bank you do not necessarily want to bank with? Well you do not need to keep yourself stranded with any bank in this days of various banking opportunities because you have many options for your banking needs these days.

With the number of banks all around us there is no reason to stick with a bank you don't like. You would come across some difficulties along the way as you try to complete this process but it is worth it.

Reasons to Switch Banks

1. Location Change: You might be moving to another location and need to avoid long distance charges by your bank for operating an account not domiciled in your geographical location


2. Poor customer service: A repeated pattern of negative interactions with customer service can be frustrating, especially if you prefer a human touch on your cold-hard finances. Again, there's no reason to put up with this when you can easily go elsewhere.


3. Opening a new joint account: If you get married or form a domestic partnership, you may want to get a joint account with your spouse. If the two of you use different banks, at least one of you will need to switch. The same holds true in any situation where two people decide to combine finances into a joint account.

Conclusion

Switching banks takes some work, but almost all of that work can be done online these days. You usually won't have to wait on hold on the phone or visit the bank in person. The most challenging steps in the process are choosing your new bank and simply remembering to switch all your linked accounts. It's an inconvenience to be sure, but it can improve your financial situation, and if you're moving, it's often a necessary evil. No matter what your reason for switching, changing banks gives you the opportunity to secure lower fees, higher interest rates and better customer service.