Personal Finance

As a follow up to my rant a few weeks ago about women not investing, I figured I should put my blog with mouth is and at least have some simple instructions on how to get started.

I am not a financial planner by any stretch of the imagination, but I have common sense and a somewhat informed sense of the basics. So please don’t sue and do your own research before you hand over your money to anyone. I am not promising that you will learn how to pick stocks or learn how to invest by reading this series.

I am promising that it will give you the basic overview if you have never thought about going at it alone. Learning to invest isn’t difficult, it just requires patience and a bit of time to sit down and research.

But before you start picking stocks,  you should figure out your financial situation. I am hoping that if you are reading a personal finance blog, you have some inclination to either assess, or fix your financial situation. I am sure everyone knows that already. Today we are going to focus on picking stocks.

Although many people are aware that investing a portion of their savings is one of the best ways to achieve financial freedom, they don’t know how to get started. The first step to investing is learning how to perform due diligence when it comes to picking out companies and stocks to invest in.

After all, the point isn’t to lose money before you even get started. While this isn’t a fast, easy task, the process can be sped up by doing market research through your TD E-series account, which offers full access to independent research reports. As you can tell, I really believe that the E-Series is a great beginner tool.

That being said, it’s important to remember that nothing is guaranteed in investing – and there’s always the potential to lose a lot more than you started with. This is why it’s vital to learn how to research stock companies and make your own predictions.

What to Look for in a Potential Investment

In a nutshell, you will be using the following criteria to drill the list down into a smaller pool of stocks to choose from:

1. Price-to-earnings ratio
2. Overall earnings growth
3. Dividends

Remember, there’s more to investing than just comparing the above three figures – you’re going to want to take a look at the overall picture once you’ve narrowed your choices down, including, but not limited to, the market cap, relative strength and the company’s return on equity, as well.

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Did you use a personal loan to help pay for a business-related expense?

If so, you should know that there’s a secondary benefit to this kind of loan.

Namely, the interest you pay maybe tax-deductible.

5 Important Caveats About Deducting Your Personal Loan Payments

Taking out a personal loan or even getting loans online to cover your business expenses is extremely common. Unfortunately, what’s less common is deducting the interest amount you pay on that loan from your taxes.

Before you do that, though, here are five important caveats.

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Throughout the course of our lives, what we do continuously determines the kind of person we will be … or are.

As Aristotle put it, “We are what we do continuously. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.”

When we adopt unmeritorious behaviour, we’ll be setting ourselves up for a strenuous life ahead. Our acts not only affect us, but ultimately the people around us.

Poor decisions such as failing to invest for the future can cause financial hardship. In fact, many families don’t realise how bad it is until it’s too late.

The following steps can help you form useful habits, live a productive life and plan for the long term.

1. Visualise your goal

What is your goal? Is it to become more financially responsible? Or to save more? Many people aim to create a financially stable future. This is your “Target Performance Goal”.

Define your TPG and imagine what it looks like – try to visualise yourself in this new position you want to achieve. You are not aspiring for master-level knowledge yet, so start from a modest position and climb up.

2. Create a roadmap

When you know your goal, the next step is to outline a series of actions that will take you there. For example, if it is to improve your savings habit, identify needless activities that drive up your expenses and cut them off. It is also a wise decision to write down things that will help you become financially responsible;

• Setting aside 20% for savings as soon as you are paid/receive income
• Investing some in a healthy stock
• Cutting gambling expenses altogether
• Seeking additional income sources
• Future proofing your finances with insurance and a pre-paid funeral plan

At the end of a stipulated period, review your progress so far and determine how successful you’ve been.

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Deciding that you want to attend grad school to obtain your online nursing degree is a huge decision towards your future. While it’s easy to get caught up in all the excitement it’s still important to remember the practical side. Paying for school can be challenging at best, even if you get a student loan, which is why we’ve put together a number of ways students can budget for grad school. This will help to make it a little less painful on the pocketbook when it’s time to fork over the money.

It’s Never Too Early to Budget

First things first, even if you won’t be attending your online nursing program for another year or more, it is never too early to start saving. In fact, the more time you give yourself to save the easier it will be for you. You will need to start by determining what the tuition is yearly, and how many years the program will take. Once you’ve got that total schooling cost, you’ll be able to set a goal. You can use pen or paper or set yourself up from the beginning with the proper tools, tools like Glenmore Investment.

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These days, everything seems to revolve online. Email, social media, cloud computing – the world is getting so digital, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything that’s not connected online or has a hashtag following it around like a Vampire’s familiar. The good thing about all of this convergence is convenience.

In fact, times are so convenient, you don’t even need to get out of the house to buy groceries if you choose to. You can have it shipped to your doorstep! You can shop for just about anything you want online, and the fact that you can do it your pajamas is totally glorious. But like any good thing, there’s a catch: getting a bad deal.

Mercy, Mercy Me

Bad deals are prevalent even in brick and mortar stores. The only difference is, you can check the item all you want for defects or anything out of the ordinary, and request for new stock should you find something wrong with it. When you’re buying something online, you’re at the mercy of the seller, regardless if it’s from eBay, Amazon or some other retail store.

You’re also at the mercy of the shipping company. There are countless stories out there of lost or misplaced items, broken items upon arrival and items that get shipped someplace else by mistake. Despite the readily available tracking number, it’s a nightmare to try and locate your shipment if something goes wrong.

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