When it comes to the best ways to use money, too many Americans operate under a key misconception, says investment adviser and financial planner Ike Ikokwu.

“Money is opportunity, and having a blind spot for maximizing investment can drastically reduce oneâ€s future options,” says Ikokwu, author of Winning the Money Game: Separating the Myths from the Truth (www.winningthemoneygame.net).

That blind spot is debt, he says. Just as Americans have learned that are such things as good fats and good cholesterol, so too is there good debt for a prosperous financial future.

“The three most common ways people in this country get rich all involve using debt,” he says. “They use it to launch businesses, invest in real estate, or pay for advanced degrees in order to become high-income earners.”

Some myths born from the idea that all debt is bad include:• Paying off your home mortgage provides financial security. • A 15-year mortgage is always the quickest way to pay off your home. • Putting money in your 401K or other qualified plan saves you taxes. • The stock market is the only place to generate high, double-digit returns.

Admonishments to “stay out of debt” prevent people from gaining financial independence, Ikokwu says. Investing in education, a new career in another state or a new business may be more lucrative than paying down a mortgage.

“My definition of being ‘debt-free†is to have enough money so that you can pay off your debt at any time – if you need to,â€â€ he says. “But you donâ€t necessarily want to do that. Good debt can save you money on taxes, increase your investment gains and allow you to take advantage of wealth-building opportunities. Bad debt, on the other hand, is like having a big hole in your money bucket.”

Ikokwu developed a new personal financial plan after a period of successful investing imploded following the market crash in 2001. After filing for bankruptcy in 2003, he rebuilt his wealth – using his new plan – in five years. Today he is financially independent and his wealth secure.

“To a greater extent than many Americans suppose, money is plastic,” he says. “That means you do not have to be rich in order to gain more wealth, and we do not have to follow old, outdated paths. We can all mold the money we have to a shape that yields better return.”

About Ike Ikokwu

Ike Ikokwu, “The Financial Independence Coach,” is a CPA, CFP and registered investment adviser. He holds a bachelorâ€s in accounting and a masterâ€s in personal financial planning. Ikokwu is president and CEO of Winning the Money Game with Ike, a tax and financial advisory firm in Cumming, Ga. While working for “Big 6” tax firms and buying real estate, Ikokwu funneled his profits into domestic and international investments, only to realize too late that they were Ponzi schemes. Forced to declare personal bankruptcy in 2003, he rebuilt his wealth by changing his approach to finances. Tune into Atlantaâ€s WGUN-1010 (AM) at 11 a.m. Saturdays for his weekly show.

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The post Money Views-Defending Debt – Why It’s Good first appeared on River View Observer.

3 Reasons Why Most People Will Never Earn More Money — And What You Can Do About It!

 This is a guest post by best-selling author and blogger Ramit Sethi.

For years, the most requested topic on my site, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, has been earning more money. Yet I intentionally stayed away because it’s almost always sleazy, attracting a ton of losers who simply want a silver bullet instead of actually working hard to earn money.

But if you’ve read my stuff, you know that I don’t spend much time on frugality, which I mostly consider a waste of time. Instead, I encourage people to focus on the Big Wins – automation, investing, negotiating, and understanding the psychology of money.

Source: TrenttheSimpleDollar.com & Manvs.Debt.com -  thanks to Jeffery Fry for the term Wantreprenuer

 




 

Iâ€ve always said that you canâ€t out-frugal your way to being rich. So after nonstop requests for posts addressing earning more, I decided to make 2010 the Year of Earning More. The past 7 months have been dedicated to helping people earn more money by earning more on the side, and the response so far has been massive. Hundreds of thousands of people read, commented, and Tweeted and otherwise chimed in on earning more. Everyone wants to make more money.

Great enthusiasm – but there’s just one thing wrong with this…

Most people who say they WANT to earn more… never will.

Many of the same people who say they want to earn more also say they want to lose weight…only they focus on the “I wish I could lose weight” part instead of the “I’m going to go the gym 3x/week and eat 25% fewer calories.” They’re delusionally goal-oriented, focusing on the end result instead of how to actually get there.

As much as everyone says they want to earn more – and sure, they’d try it if only they could – most people will never earn a single dollar beyond their regular 9-to-5 paycheck. Fewer still will ramp that one dollar up to $1,000, or more, in side income. The pattern is always the same:

• ‘Earning more’ is sexy, so they get motivated, “$1,000 extra dollars on the side? I want that!”
• They get started with the actual work of generating an idea, and figuring out their target market, but quickly realize things aren’t as easy as they thought, “How come nobody wants to pay me $500 a month to manage their Twitter account??” (The worst is: ‘I’m good at writing grants. Maybe non-profits will pay me to write grants for them!’ No, they won’t.)
• They alternate between chasing a million things, and taking no action at all.
• They eventually give up, putting off earning more until they have “the right idea” (i.e. never).

Enthusiasm and motivation are VERY powerful ways to get started, but they don’t carry you through to your first $1,000.

What does? A system that helps you identify ideas, test them for profitability, and then scale up your marketing. Compare this to most people, who think that earning more is about finding a magical idea that will somehow urinate money on them from heaven.

Why so much emphasis on that first $1,000? In my experience helping people to earn their first rounds of side income, I’ve noticed that $1,000 is the key earning threshold. Earning $100 is good, but it could be a fluke. Earning $500 is a better signal that you’re on the right track. After you hit $1,000, you know that you’re doing something right. After that, you can implement something I call The Tuner Strategy to “tune” your revenue up as much as you want – from $1,000 to $3,000 to $5,000/month, and more.

Interestingly, for many people who do reach the key-earning threshold, going from $0 on the side to $1,000 is harder than going from $1,000 to $5,000. But the biggest hurdle to get past is that first $1,000.

3 reasons why MOST people never get past the $1,000 hurdle

…and how you CAN earn more money.

Excuse #1. “But my situation is different.” Maybe their skillset (“But I’m not a programmer!”) or their background (“But I didn’t go to STANFORD!”) or the other demands in their lives (“But I have a full time job and a partner/kids!”) or ANYTHING (“But I have special motivation problems because my parents didn’t push me hard enough,” “But I get sick easily,” “I’m too young, too old, not smart enough, etc.”) It goes on and on, and it always starts with a “But…” and ends with the person doing nothing.

It’s natural to make excuses about our circumstances because it’s usually far easier than actually doing something about them.

The truth is, our problems are almost never unique. There are a litany of excuses we use to justify not earning more, but every day, someone is out there solving the same problems you’re facing now. So the next time you’re tempted to make an excuse, try an exercise I call Be the Adviser. ALL of the most successful CEOs and leaders around the world have key advisers helping them to problem-solve their way out of the toughest situations. Today, you are your own adviser. What is the first thing you say? What are the specific takeaways that you want your client (in this case, yourself) to walk away with? What are the results that would mean you did your job well as an adviser?

Excuses are us looking at our barriers from one standpoint – ours. Being your own adviser is a way of looking at – and tearing down – our barriers from an alternate standpoint.

This is like when you listen to a radio show and you hear a girl call in, saying her boyfriend has no job, is a slob, and drinks with his friends all day. “LEAVE HIM!!” we all scream. But when it happens to us, we’re not sure what to do.

We’re not unique.

Be The Adviser to yourself and see what concrete steps you could take today to change your situation, or simply ignore it long enough to earn more.

Excuse #2. “I’m still working on the perfect idea.” Are you really ‘working’ on it? Or are you waiting around with no plan, simply hoping that you’ll stumble across a magical idea?

Here’s an easy way to tell: In the last week, what have you done to find and refine your idea? If the answer is nothing, you’re not “working” on an idea, you’re being lazy and doing nothing.

Yes, your idea is important – to an extent. It enables you to get started, but the most successful people – the ones earning incomes to dwarf even fat corporate paychecks – NEVER stop at their first idea. Instead, that first idea is just a tiny launch-point for an ongoing process of refining and improving their service offerings, understanding and marketing to their audience, and scaling up their business. This is how you turn your skills into income.

Your goal is to make it to that initial $1,000 – NOT start the next Google.

Here’s a quick exercise that should get you going in about 10 minutes: Brainstorm a list of ideas, pick your favorite and start with that. If it doesn’t work, either improve it, or cross it off the list and move on to the next one.

If you don’t have any ideas at all, look around at the marketplace. You don’t need to be unique to make money, and you don’t even need to be the best (another HUGE misconception about freelancing and earning more). You do, however, need to be consistent and persistent, and laser-focused on just one goal…

Your only goal with freelancing and earning more is to get 3 paying clients. With freelancing, 3 is the magic number – you’ll know it’s not a fluke, and you’ll have a client base that’s significant enough to show you what you need to do to improve your offering for maximum impact. Even if the rates aren’t high (don’t worry about that just yet), you’ll learn invaluable insights that you’d never otherwise have gained.

It’s not sexy to say, but it only takes an average idea with above-average execution to win.

Excuse #3. “Should I set up a Facebook page??” and other worthless tasks that replace making money. People tend to treat starting a business like they’re packing for a vacation – you pick out all the fun (or unchallenging) stuff first. “Social media profiles, check. Business cards with fancy logo, check. SEO-optimized blog, check.” What ends up happening is they spend all their energy STARTING a business and never actually DOING business.

YOU DO NOT NEED SOCIAL MEDIA TO EARN MONEY ON THE SIDE. Let me say that again. I recently paid someone over $50,000 for a few months of work. He has no website. He has no significant social-media profile. What he IS good at is understanding my problems and solving them. He makes over $10k/month from me now.

Please listen closely because this is one of the most pernicious myths around right now. Virtually every “expert” is telling you you MUST have a full complement of social media profiles, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blog, etc. That’s complete BS.

How will Twitter get you paying clients? This is when people start hedging and coming up with ridiculous answers like “It will help me engage…and be a brand.” Your goal isn’t to build a brand. It’s to get 3 paying clients. Anything else is a waste of time.

There’s absolutely nothing inherently wrong with business cards or starting a blog or managing a Facebook profile, but be honest with yourself. Is that task mission-critical, or are you using it as a stand-in for talking to a real, potentially paying, client?

Key Takeaway: When you’re starting to earn money on the side, you only have one goal – get 3 paying clients. If you can do that, then you’ve proven not only your idea, but your execution, and you’ll be thousands of dollars ahead of today.
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The post Business -Are you a “Wantreprenuer?” first appeared on River View Observer.