Money – A New Marital Relationship Divider

Jawaharlal Nehru once said, “The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one’s relationship has a glowing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing, it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of Divine accident.”

Yet this divine creation, destined by God and discovered on Earth by humans can be crashed in an instant by reasons such as infidelity or extreme cruelty but in the recent times for no reason at all.

The ‘quickie divorce’ i.e. splitting for no reason at all is common and so is financial discord increasingly becoming a reason for break-ups. If you take a peek at the results released of a couples and money survey by Credit Canada and Capital On, here are some points that merge:

• More than one third of couples get married without having any open conversation regarding money which becomes of primal importance after marriage.
• 86% of couples fight about money

The fights take on a consistent, regular nature.Women and men aren’t just battling over spending but they have radical differences in their approach to most financial things. For example:
Most couples don’t share the same philosophy about finances as their partners.
Men’s worst fear is not to be able to retire and women’s worst fear is not to be able to pay for their kid’s finances. Is there any wonder that Men are from Mars and women from Venus.
The main pain points in the financial compatibly of a couple are:

• One third of men and women lie to their partners about how they spend money.
• The partner not in control of money is most likely to hide the facts about their debt.
• The couples once they fall into the trap of monetary discord don’t trust that their partner will be truthful to them.
• To learn more about how much of a match made in heaven are you, try out Credit Canada’s compatibility test at www.crediteducationweekcanada.com.

This may be your first step at eliminating your relationship financial divide. Ever wondered if you are a match made in heaven and discovered on Earth, don’t look to stars for an answer, instead check your financial compatinbility.

How rich are we?

Oscar Wilde said, “Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical and prosaic. It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.”

Yet if you are making 90,000 Canadian $ you are amongst the top 5% of the Canadian tax paying population. If you earn more than 180,000 you account for top 1% of Canadian population. If the yearly income is about 60,000, you are the top 20% of the population.

Happiness however cannot be measured by money, it is infact an index of your happiness in terms of family, friends, vacation time, health but don’t fool yourself, a big measure of it is the money you make.

“Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.” Said Mother Teresa

No matter how little money you have or how few possessions, having a content and beautiful mind makes you richer in a real sense. Being abundant in knowledge, being worry free, confidently on-track makes you appear happier and richer than another who has abundant money but not a fertile mind to enjoy those riches.
Lao Tzu quotes, “He who is contented is rich”

If you want to be rich just count the things that money cannot buy. The success of your marriage, the warmth of the embrace of your husband, the laughter of kids playing, the serenity of watching a baby fall asleep in your arms, the smell of fresh ground on a rainy day when you are inhaling fresh air or enjoying beautiful sights, these are some joys of a content and happy mind.

I am sure you are richer by visiting this site and educating yourself in all important aspects of life.

10 Investing Habits of Rich People

Embody the habits of the rich to enrich your own wallet!

1. Tax-free: Contributing and trading within a tax-qualified brokerage account means that you could be earning up to 30% additional in returns (which you don’t give to the IRS for capital gains taxes). Compound that year in and year out and it could be worth millions.

2. Play it Safe: Always keep a percent equal to your age safe, i.e. out of the stock market. Certificates of Deposits, savings accounts, money markets, and bonds are less risky than stocks. (Bond funds should be counted as stocks, not bonds.)

3. Stocks on Steroids: Take a small percentage of your stock portfolio for trading. (Don’t trade the whole nest egg.) Subscribe to a great stock newsletter, which is tracked by an independent agency, to achieve superior returns.

4. Great Partners: Interview your financial partner (broker) as if your life depends upon it. Your lifestyle does!

5. Tithe: The first check you write each month should be to your financial freedom fund. 10% for investing, so that your money can make gains while you sleep! With this habit alone, you could be a millionaire in 31 years, even if you only made $14/hour.

6. Don’t be the Bank of Mom and Dad: You’re not qualified to, nor would you want to, establish the underwriting guidelines for loaning out money to relatives. If someone needs money, consider any gift you give to be a gift or charity. If someone wants you to go into business with him or her, consider whether or not you want to provide that widget or service to the world. In most cases, you’ll be better off considering your help to be charity or an investment, and not a loan.

7. Avoid Fair-Weather Friends: Whether it is a new broker, a new person you met by email or just new interest from someone who never cared much about you, if the new relationship is all about the money, make sure you are doing business with a monk! Do your due diligence and don’t be seduced by promises of guaranteed riches, guaranteed love or a fabulous lifestyle.

8. Switch-Hit: Do as much of your day trading as possible in a tax-qualified retirement plan, such as an IRA or even possibly a college fund or health savings account. That could help you are reduce the taxes you pay on capital gains.

9. Getty/Guggenheim Your Fab Self: Find out every tax-qualified account that exists and stock up your holdings in as many protected accounts as possible, including IRAs, 401 (k)s, health savings accounts, college funds and foundations!

10. Live the Rich Life: Wealth is not just money. Wealth is enjoying a happy, fulfilling rich life with people you care about, and investing in products and services that make the world a better place. Health is wealth, so get happy & exercise! Breathing is health, so invest in green! 

The Secrets to Making More Money

Who among us doesn’t want to make more? If we’re earning $50,000, we’d really like to be making $100,000. If we’re making $100,000, we feel we deserve to earn $200,000 – just like the boys. Perhaps you tell yourself that to make more you’d have to work longer hours, or that only doctors and lawyers really can achieve high incomes, or that you’ll need a degree from an Ivy league school to break through the glass ceiling. But what is really holding you back?

 

Barbara Stanny, author of “Secrets of Six Figure Women,” says the person holding most women back from becoming high earners is themselves. In her book, Stanny reveals that what you really need isn’t more education, longer hours or a different career – you just have to change your perspective.

 

“It’s entirely possible for any one of us, with average intelligence, to increase our income without selling our soul. No matter how difficult your circumstances or how discouraged you feel, climbing the salary scale is entirely within your grasp,” she writes.

 

Stanny should know. She interviewed more than 150 women who earn between $100,000 and $7 million. What she found was that these women didn’t share the same educational background, work experiences or professions. A couple women hadn’t finished high school, they started out in minimum wage jobs – yet somehow they overcame the obstacles and broke free from a life of under earning. In fact many of these six-figure women were once underearners. Stanny defines an underearner as someone who earns “less than they need or desire.”

 

Here are a couple of the secrets that Stanny discovered from six-figure women:

 

Education and Lack of Experience Doesn’t Have to Hold You Back.

One of the women that Stanny interviewed said, “I was destined for the trailer park.” While working as a meter maid in Beverly Hills she started meeting wealthy people – who first started talking to her to get out of their parking ticket. What she discovered is that knack for talking to people. Soon she was introducing the people she had meet to each other – mostly setting up dates. So, she put an ad in the paper, and now charges thousands as a matchmaker.

 

Another woman went from being a single mother working as a secretary to a graphic designer earning six figures.

 

What these women discovered is that the real secret is to set your sight on a goal and be committed to doing whatever it takes to achieve your goal.

Feel the Fear. Have the Doubts. Go for it Anyway.

Every woman Stanny spoke to admitted that at some point they had doubts, felt insecure or incompetent, but she says that’s just part of the game. You’ve got to be in it to win and winning means being uncomfortable.

 

“The process to getting there (earning six figures) was about going outside their comfort zone. You can have it all if you are willing to do what doesn’t feel comfortable,” Stanny says.

 

The key is to project confidence even if you don’t feel it.

 

Learn to Speak Up.

Part of being uncomfortable means you have to speak up. You have to be willing to demand a higher salary, charge your clients more and have the confidence to walk away when you feel you deserve more than you are getting.

 

One of the women Stanny interviewed pointed out that “You don’t get what you deserve. You get what you demand.”

 

For many women, getting outside of their comfort zone means they have to overcome their beliefs including the belief that women can’t be powerful or aggressive. And we don’t have to live in fear of being called a bitch.

 

“Being labeled a bitch is not a bad thing,” Stanny says. “That’s where our power is. When we are raising our children we are ferociously protective of them. We need to learn the same thing for ourselves.”

 

Instead of focusing on the needs of others, you need to find out what you want. Maybe a corner office isn’t what’s important to you. Maybe you’d really like to earn six-figures while working part-time.

 

Working Hard Doesn’t Mean Working All the Time.

Stanny found that many of the women she interviewed reached six figures after they took their destiny into their own hands.

 

One consultant Stanny interviewed decided that she wanted to make more money and work less. So she started raising her fees by a couple hundred dollars for each project. What she discovered was that her clients were willing to pay more. She learned that many women undervalue themselves and what they have to contribute. Consequently, they limit their true earning potential.

 

Each woman discovered her own unique balance. One woman opened a restaurant in her home. Many of the women began working out of the home and some even advance more slowly in their career in order to have more time for family, Stanny says. What these women learned is that earning six figures doesn’t mean work consumes your whole life.

 

“You don’t have to work 24/7. You can cut down your hours and make more money. It’s not how many hours you work; it’s the focus you have when you work,” Stanny explains. “Underearners tend to be scattered. High earners tend to be more focused. When they work they work. When they play, they play.”