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5 Tips to Prepare for Retirement

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You may be young, but it’s never too early to prepare for retirement. According to a study via the National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI) and the Retirement readiness Rating, 43% to 52% of Americans are not going to live their retirement years in the standard they’d hoped, according to their current living standards?

So what’s the best way to be prepared for the life you want to lead when you retire?  Start planning now. Check out the following five tips to do so.

1.      Contribute to an IRA or Your Employers 401(k)

So you’ve started working for an employer who has a 401(k). You may feel you don’t have the money to spare to contribute, but you’re losing out on more by not contributing. For one, it’s an excellent tax deduction, reducing your taxable income. Also, most employers offering this plan offer some matching contribution. Don’t leave behind that free money on the table. These savings plans handcuff you from quickly accessing this money, so saving it up is a breeze.

2.      Save Up Automatically

Here is another way to start saving towards retirement. You can use this in combination with putting money into your IRA. Start saving money into a savings account by having it pulled automatically from your paycheck each pay period. Talk to your human resource or payroll department about taking a specific dollar amount or percentage, and deposit it into this designated account. This is a guaranteed way to get it in monthly.

3.      Live Healthy to Save More

It’s said living healthy is costly, especially if you eat organic foods. However, organic products aren’t the only road to good health. There are other things you can do such as regular exercise, cut down on your fat intake, and stop smoking. The results: you reduce the chances of developing cardiovascular or lung diseases and live longer. This helps you save by eliminating excess doctors’ visits, hospital stays, prescriptions, and as a bonus you’ll also save on not purchasing excess, unhealthy items.

4.      Start Eliminating Debt

Getting rid of debt now will help you prepare drastically when you retire. Not having to worry about a mortgage, car note, or credit card bills help you have money for future lifestyle and vacation plans. The sooner you pay these off, the faster you can start saving for an emergency fund to use instead of your retirement savings for emergencies.

5.      Start a Side Business

In a study called Work in Retirement: Myths and Motivations, they studied 7,727 adults regarding their position on returning to work after retirement, 30% said they would go back to work. Instead of working for someone else, prepare now to work for yourself. This will help you enjoy your retirement years as you want, when you want.

Don’t feel it’s too late to prepare for retirement. Implement the above five tips now and keep on target for future goals.

How to Finance Your First Car

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How To Finance Your First Car The Free Financial AdvisorAccording to NADA’s Annual Financial Profile of America’s Franchised New-Car Dealerships, dealerships sold or leased more than 15.5 million new cars and trucks in 2013. That accounts for a 7.5 percent increase from the year before. As car sales grow and everyone you know seems to be driving around the newest model, it’s tempting to jump in, buy it and speed off the lot with the wind in your hair. Despite the relative ease of purchasing a vehicle, it’s important to know your options, find the best financing available and negotiate a price in your favor. Here are some tips to get started.

Set a Budget

It’s impossible to know how much car you can afford without a budget in place. Make a monthly budget and see if you can stick to it for a few months before diving into an auto loan or car purchase. Make a list of your fixed expenses with a generous amount left over for emergencies and recreation. Use an app like Mint to help keep track of your budget and alert you on when you’re overspending on set categories. Remember it’s not enough to just plan for your auto loan. Consider the cost of your tag fees, car insurance, fuel, ongoing maintenance and extras like getting your car detailed or replacing a flat tire. As a rule of thumb, don’t devote more than 15 percent of your household income to transportation.

Know Your Credit Rating

Get a free credit report from a site like Annual Credit Report to check your rating. Your score can directly impact your interest rate on an auto loan. Your credit report can also alert you to any erroneous information, credit fraud or mistakes. Your rating is calculated with a combination of factors from your credit history, outstanding debt and payment history. Your score ranges from 350 to 800. The higher the score, the better loan you can probably get.

Shop Around for Funding

The upside to securing funding through an auto dealer is taking care of your loan and financing in one place. The downside, car dealers are often paid a commission for it. Instead, consider a dealer like DriveTime where sales advisers aren’t paid on commission, making it easier to trust their advice. They also offer a 30-day limited warranty, 5-day return guarantee and auto check history report on all used cars they sell.

Going with the car dealer’s loan offer or big bank isn’t the only way to secure a car loan. A community credit union generally offers lower rates and is more sympathetic to borrowers with lackluster credit history. Credit unions are known for offering more intimate customer service. Since they’re funded by their customers, they work for their members and aren’t motivated to sell you anything for their own financial gain. Profits from credit unions go back into their services and member offerings.

Negotiate the Price

Regardless of how you pay for your first car, remember the price is negotiable. Consumer Reports suggests purchasing a New Car Price Report to find out what the dealer paid and using it as a springboard for negotiation. Be warned, dealers like to lump everything together from financing to trade-in you might be offering. It can be difficult to figure out the numbers once it’s lumped together. Negotiate one thing at a time and stick to the monthly amount you want to pay. Start with your rock-bottom price and let the dealer work you up slowly to a reasonable price you can drive away with.

Cutting the Cord: How and Why You Should Eliminate Cable TV

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Nearly everyone has seen a sci-fi or futuristic movie that shows a dystopian future where television has gone out of control, featuring thousands of channels with nothing worth watching. Unfortunately, that future seems more realistic every day, and with the continuously rising prices of cable and satellite television, many people are choosing to cut the cord and switch to other alternatives. The FCC recently completed a study showing the average basic cable bill is over $64 per month before taxes and surcharges, and that doesn’t include any premium shows or channels at all.

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The most obvious extreme is to stop paying for television all together. Whether you realize it or not, every major city in the country still transmits television over the air at little to no cost to you. Basic channels are still available to anyone with a regular antenna, and for a one time minimal charge, you can pick up an HD or digital antenna to get the local shows in high definition.

If you’re looking for something a little more than what an antenna can provide, the obvious choice is to turn to the Internet. Whether you choose to watch from your computer or have the ability to connect your TV to your computer source, there are a few streaming options that can save you loads of cash every month.

Hulu Plus

This service is great if you’re looking to watch TV shows right when they come out. Most are usually up and running on their website no more than a day after it premiers on cable, and they have a wide variety of both TV shows and movies available for streaming.

Cost: $7.99 per month with a free trial available.

Netflix

If you aren’t worried about watching new releases right when they come out, this is a great option. With a wide variety of complete seasons of television, a huge selection of movies and several critically acclaimed original programs, you can watch whatever you want whenever you want. And, with their focus on cross platform streaming, you can use nearly any device.

Cost: $7.99 per month with free trial available.

Amazon Prime and iTunes

The advantage to these two options is that you can stream shows from your devicesand download movies and episodes to watch even when you might be out of Internet service.

Cost: Amazon Prime is $79 per year with 1 month free trial; iTunes varies per purchase.

Roku Streaming Player

The Roku streaming media player plugs directly into your television and uses your Wi-Fi to connect you directly to Hulu. There are a variety of options ranging from a simple USB Streaming Stick to the new Roku 3, which has Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, HBO Go and others.

Cost: $49–$99 with various free trials.

Apple TV

This product from Apple will essentially turn your TV into a streaming machine without the need for a direct connection to your computer. With access to all the major streaming services, you also can connect directly to your iTunes account, giving you access to purchased songs and streaming from iTunes Radio.

Cost: $99

Ultimately the choice is yours, but with so many options available to you, the decision to cut the cord just makes good financial sense.

Dream Salaries: Great Paying Jobs and How to Get One

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With the economy on the rise, many people are tired of surviving by just making ends meet and are ready to start living with a great paying job. Whether you’re just starting out and want to live large or you’re ready for a career change, it’s exciting to know that there are great paying jobs available with or without a degree. Here are 5 rewarding careers that would make Mom proud.

 

Image via Flickr by gtalon

1. Police Officer

Requirements to become a police officer vary depending upon jurisdiction. Generally, you can expect to need the minimum of a high school diploma or equivalent, along with formal police training through a police academy program or through a college degree program in criminal justice. You’ll need to pass a physical examination and a physical agility test to qualify. Many jurisdictions have age limit requirements, so don’t wait too long to become a police officer. The annual median salary for police officers is $58,720.

2. Emergency Medical Technician

As an EMT you’ll respond to emergency calls and transport patients to necessary medical facilities while also performing any needed medical care on the way. To become an EMT you’ll need to become certified. Certification can take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years, depending upon the program of choice. The annual median salary of an EMT is $31,020.

3. Nurse

There will always be a demand for nurses in the healthcare field and this is a job that pays amazingly well. Educational requirements to become a nurse depend upon the nursing level that you’re training for. CNAs can train in just 6 weeks to care for patients, while LPNs train 1-2 years (part-time or full-time), and RNs even longer. To become a RN, you’ll need the minimum of an associate’s degree. The annual median salary for RNs is $69,110.

4. Social Worker

The world will always need good social workers to make a difference by mending the homes of broken families. To become a social worker you’re going to need the minimum of a bachelor’s degree in social work. The annual median salary for social workers with a social work degree is $56,060.

5. Teacher

It’s never too late to become a teacher. The educational requirements needed to teach will depend upon the age group that you’re interested in teaching. Generally, you’ll need the minimum of a bachelor’s degree to work with elementary, middle school, and high school kids, whereas, to teach college students you’ll need a master’s degree and maybe even a doctoral degree.

To learn about the steps and degree requirements that are necessary to become a teacher, read this .

The annual median salary for a teacher ranges from $53,090-$68,970.

When choosing between a degree program and a trade program, consider cost, program length, and what you’re passionate about. To learn more about great paying jobs and how to get one, contact your local college, vocational, or technical school. If you’re unable to afford tuition upfront, speak with a financial advisor to find out if you qualify for financial assistance or to finance your education through a generous lending program.

Review: Mobile Landlord App

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The pace of telephone technology amazes me. Only 30 years ago you were the exception if you carried a “cell phone.” Now you can do pretty much anything on your phone. You can check the weather, do your grocery shopping online, have a business meeting seeing your client’s face on video without having to travel eight time zones, and even dictate a text so the phone writes it for you when it gets too complicated to thumb it. The pace of change has been fast and has dramatically changed how we use technology.

mobile landlord app
Some say being a landlord requires a little liquid “help”

Well guess what? I’ve just been introduced to another app that’s been added to the list, allowing you to manage your rental properties on your smartphone as well. The mobile Landlord app from Direct Line for Business helps you stay on top of every aspect of managing a rental property.

New landlord clients always told me that the process of becoming a landlord was overwhelming. It can be, if you aren’t organized. There are lots of things to remember, your tenants may be needier than expected, asking you to come over every time a window doesn’t close properly, and some of the most basic tasks may skip your mind, such as the furnace’s annual inspection before winter, creating hefty bills you could have avoided.

That’s where the Mobile Landlord app comes in.

It helps you keep all the important information about your rental in one convenient place: your phone. No more browsing all around for that paper rental agreement, or having to wait until you come home to contact your tenants, it is all there with you all the time.

Here’s How It Works

You can get the Mobile Landlord app on iTunes, it is free to download and install in just a few clicks.

You will be offered a quick tour of the areas the app covers.

Once you reach the home screen, the property tab will ask you to register up to five rental properties, complete with their name, address, the name and contact details of your tenants, how long they are renting and other details of the tenancy (such as the rent amount). You can also add important contact details, such as the repairman, the maintenance company of the building, the neighbors for when you are on holidays and have an emergency, or the council’s.

On a second tab called “reminders,” you can enter any alert concerning your rental property, like a prospective tenant’s visit, a plumber coming over, or a bill that needs to be paid by a certain date.

Finally, the last tab of the Mobile Landlord app is called knowledge centre, and offers an array of small articles directed towards landlords who want to have more information about certain aspects of their rental investment. The articles offer tips about maximizing your rental income, minimizing your costs, the rental trends, and much more.

In just a few clicks, you can locate the people you need, calculate the yield of your investment, and enter a reminder for the next time you need to pay the house a visit.

With all the time you just saved by automating part of your property management, you can use the free time read the third tab’s articles, learn more about investing and make the most of your rental property.

Cash Flow Issues? Fix It Now and Forever

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Here’s a problem: you’re at the end of your money and there’s three days left before you’re paid. Where do you turn?

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Maybe you’ve been there…I was in this situation in my early days as a financial advisor. It was horrible. Here I was, telling people about how to manage their money, and I was sweating every meeting, just praying that they’d sign on the dotted line. One time I even ran out of gas on the way home and had to search frantically for money under my seats.

There are two solution levels: “Right now” and “Never Happen Again”. Let’s tackle both.

Take Care Of The Problem Right Now

Raid the cupboard – It’s time to get creative on your meal plan. In my “broke days,” if I could get through without buying any food, I was golden. That thing in the freezer that I wasn’t sure whether I could still eat it? Time to find out. Those crackers that are slightly stale in the back of the pantry? They’ll go great with the chicken broth I’m using to make a creative soup.

Find alternate transportation – Heading to work? If you live close enough, it’s time to walk or ride a bike. Walking is—of course—free. The bike? You made an investment in it at one time, but it’s good for your pocketbook and your wallet to dust it off. Live too far away? Explore ride sharing options. Hopefully, your new ride-mate will let you pay for gas on Friday….once you’ve been paid.

Explore Ways To Get Cash – God forbid I had an emergency….. if that happened, I’d attempt to borrow money from relatives for a few days, offering them a good interest rate. If nobody bought (near the end of my rope those people were exhausted from continuously loaning me money, although I always repaid them), I needed to find other ways to get cash. When I’d need cash, none of them were especially attractive, so that’s why I always thought about….

Making sure it “Never Happens Again”

The great part about making mistakes is that they allow you to learn. If you fall forward, it’s not quite so painful.

Build An Emergency Fund – On my personal blog, Stacking Benjamins, I talk about automating my savings as my big money “a-ha.” No matter how painful, putting a few dollars away for a rainy day fund is vital. You had to raid the fund? That’s what it’s there for! Now, go and rebuild.

Sell Your Junk – Clutter, whether it’s in your closet or your mind, creates confusion. If you’re going to focus on ways to earn more money, you’re going to need to clean the slate. Use eBay, a garage sale, or Craig’s List to dump as much access stuff as possible. Use that money to fund your rainy day account.

Build a Better Budget – Ask yourself “what went wrong” this time and fix your budget to avoid that the next time. You needed tires for your car? Why isn’t that built into your plan? Your furnace died? Why don’t have you a strategy for that? Sure, you won’t be able to fix every potential problem, but there are always ways to fix your plan so that you’re more prepared next time.

Ask For a Raise – Studies show that most workers could get a raise if they just asked their boss the right way for more money. You’ll need to come armed with statistics and you’ll also need to prove that you deserve it. What do you do if the boss says no? Look for new work. The quickest way to make it up the ladder is to find a new boss who’s willing to pay you what your worth. Often, that’s a much quicker way to more money than settling for little raises at your current job.

photo: Sharon Hahn Darlin

Start Saving for Retirement Now (Yes, You) With These 5 Simple Tips

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Six out of 10 Americans don’t use a budget or track their spending, according to the 2013 Harris Interactive Consumer Financial Literacy Survey. This statistic jives with HelloWallet’s report from last October, which found that 60 percent of households are accumulating debt faster than retirement savings. No matter what stage of life you’re in, you need a plan to save for retirement. Start with the following tips:

Schedule Planning Time

As people grow older, they’re more willing to pay attention to their finances. Thirty-eight percent of Americans ages 25-32 say they’re too busy to think about long-term financial goals, and that number steadily declines to 13 percent for those over 66, Northwestern Mutual has found. However, the number who feel too rushed by society’s pace to stick to long-term goals grows from 61 to 75 percent over the same age margin. Together, these numbers paint a picture of an aging population increasingly aware of their urgent financial needs but too stressed out to take appropriate action.

To counteract this trend, make a commitment to yourself and your finances. Set aside some time to review your goals, ideally with the help of a professional advisor. Then get in the habit of taking 15 minutes a week to review your budget.

Retirement planning on The Free Financial Advisor

Steer by Long-Term Financial Goals

Use your long-term financial goals to guide your short-term budgeting. Fidelity Investments offers various calculators and tools to help you estimate how much you need to set aside each month to reach your retirement goals. Wells Fargo provides a worksheet to help you break down your financial goals into intervals of one year, two to five years, and five years and over.

Use a Budgeting Strategy

Yes, you need a budget. Consider following financial expert Elizabeth Warren’s 50/30/20 rule: Put 50 percent of your monthly after-tax income toward essential living expenses, 30 percent toward discretionary spending and 20 percent toward savings and debt repayment.

Pursue Saving and Debt Repayment Strategically

According to financial advisor Dave Ramsey, you should initially put the savings and debt repayment portion of your budget toward a $1,000 emergency fund and paying down your credit card balances before pursuing retirement and other savings goals. When applying this strategy, you can save for retirement faster by reducing your debt obligations. If you receive regular payments from an annuity or structured settlement, consider contacting a company that purchases future annuity payments for a lump sum of cash now. You can then use this money to help repay your debt.

Invest Your Savings Productively

To grow your savings, check if your employer offers a 401(k) plan or another retirement savings plan, and start contributing—especially if it’s a matching plan. If not, invest in a traditional IRA or Roth IRA. After that, the next place to invest is an index mutual fund, suggests the Wall Street Journal.

How I Learned To Love Pie Without The Charts

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You attend your first ever 401k meeting….and they hand you some pie charts.

Oh, no.

First of all, I should say I love pie. Especially apple pie.

But I hate generic pie charts in retirement plan books.

Pie charts stink! The Free Financial Advisor

I can’t tell you the number of boring-ass financial meetings I’ve attended where some dude in a suit is plowing through a bunch of pie charts while his clients pretend to be awake.

Rule one of asset allocation:  Chuck the pie chart.

Most of the time, these charts are based on your age and risk tolerance. Nothing like putting a few square pegs in round holes, huh?  I’m sure yours will fit just nicely into this….oh, wait, it won’t fit?  Let’s just

Jam it home.

What about your goal? What about “How much do I really need my money to earn?”

Nope.

Asset allocation, or (to use the five dollar word) “diversification”, starts with what you want for yourself, doesn’t it? Don’t you think you should try to achieve your real goal?

So, here’s the rocket science of 401k planning:

1)      Write down what you want.  I know that may seem like a shock to you. The National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE), The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the College for Financial Planning (FPA) all recommend starting with your goal.

You want to use a generic pie chart instead?

Good luck with that the next time the market drops.

2)      Here’s the next amazing step:  read through different types of investments to see which ones actually have historically met your goal.  I think my head just exploded.  Really?  Who thought that you could actually look back at investments and see what they’ve accomplished?

Some thoughts:

Gold and Collectibles:  Good for people who can actually predict the future.  Ms. Cleo and Nostradamus should have loaded up.  Gold is five times more volatile than the stock market. Think you know where it’s headed?  Think again.  (This doesn’t mean I don’t like gold.  It means that you can’t tell me it’s going to be through the roof in three years, moron on Twitter…..).

Stocks:  This is like saying that you should always have cake after dinner, but generally, ten years or more and you’re looking good with stocks.  If you need the money next year, you’ve done about as well at the casino.

Bonds:  Depending on the type, over five years.

….and so on.

Get the point?  Real diversification, dear readers, is going to be based on your personal end-game. Start there.  Or not.  Avoid pie charts, but load up on pie.  Yum.

The Market’s Coming Back! I’m Panicking Again!

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Here’s a quick lesson in human behavior:

Fed quantitative easing, problems in the Ukraine, soft volume numbers in the stock market. It seems like a recipe for more downer days in the stock market. It’s also a recipe for worriers to worry even more.

…Yet the market continues to roar back.

Did you get caught?

Did you move money to the sidelines when the market was low and then miss out on the upswing (essentially losing money and locking it in….).

A better question might be: did you do anything at all?

Down markets bring out worried investors. TheFreeFinancialAdvisor.com

….and Action!!!!!

When I was an advisor we had some clients who wanted to see some action if the markets sank. We should be doing something, dammit!

The more experienced guys in the office insisted that we talk about re-diversifying the portfolio with our clients like the guy helping ease the suicidal lady off the window ledge. It didnt matter that we already had damned good diversification in our portfolios.

When the markets moved, here’s how we’d end meetings:

We’d move a few things around to prove to clients that we were doing something about it.

That was “the show.” Let me tell you what we were really doing:

…we were watching the market very closely and hoping that it rebounded soon. That way, the phone calls from clients would stop and we could quit pretending to be market gurus (even though we’d been insisting with our clients that we weren’t market gurus….AND that there’s really no such thing……).

At first I thought this was nonsense.

The Truth About Client/Advisor Relationships

 

Why would we move a few funds around if we believed they were the right places to invest? Why would we abandon the strategy?  A friend of mine, we’ll call him Joe, told me everything I needed to know about human behavior my second year practicing.

He said, “Either they’ll get rid of the fund they don’t like or they’ll get rid of you. Which would you prefer?”

You know the answer to that one.

So, answering my own question, it was nonsense for the client, but made perfect sense for the advisor. Sadly, most clients thought that it made sense also.

Let’s set the record straight.

If you have a good fund with a track record and your long term diversification says to keep that fund, you should hold on to it. Don’t just hold on with your eyes closed and teeth clenched; hang on while knowing what you’re doing. Here is what you should know:

1)      Make sure your fund is keeping up with its benchmark. Some funds track the S&P 500, while others follow the NASDAQ or a certain sector of the market. Use Morningstar.com to find out what your fund tracks and to see if it’s keeping up with ‘the Joneses.’

2)      Is your goal still the same? If you have a fund, it’s really only a fuel for your goal, isn’t it? When your goals change, your diversification should also change. If you’re in the best fund in the wrong part of the market, you’ll never be able to use the fuel.

3)      Pay attention to taxes and turnover. If your fund is outside of tax shelters, track a metric called turnover (also found at Morningstar.com or any of the reliable search engine sites). Turnover show how much of the portfolio your manager is churning to keep his head above water. This movement can create taxes and unnecessary expenses. Turnover of 100 percent means that all of your positions are changing in a twelve month period.

So the market’s been moving around…..what do you do now? Check out your funds to make sure you’re in the right spot to meet your goals, and then do nothing.

The 14 Leadership Traits of the Marine Corps and How They Can Make You a Better Investor

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Once upon a time, I stood on the parade deck a mere stone’s throw from the San Diego airport.  My mom, grandma and grandpa, and best friend’s sister were in the stands, but I couldn’t find them.

Eyes. Straight. Ahead.

After all the pomp and circumstance, we heard the final phrase we had been waiting to hear for nearly 14 weeks, “Marines!  Dismissed!”  To which we replied, “Aye-Aye, Sir!” took one step back, about face and done.

I had earned the title Marine.

One of the things we learned in the Marine Corps were the 14 leadership traits – they were beat into our brains (sometimes quite literally)– so they’ve stuck with me for almost two decades.  Undoubtedly, my time as a Marine shaped who I am today, and despite the fact that I’m not active any more, I still talk with Marine buddies, and quite often reflect on my time; the acronym JJ DID TIE BUCKLE ringing in my head.

Without further ado, here are the 14 leadership traits, as taught to me by Uncle Sam, complete with their definition, and how I think they can make you a better investor:

  • Judgment: The ability to weigh facts and possible courses of action in order to make sound decisions.
  • Justice: Giving reward and punishment according to the merits of the case in question. The ability to administer a system of rewards and punishments impartially and consistently
  • Dependability: The certainty of proper performance of duty.
  • Initiative: Taking action in the absence of orders.
  • Decisiveness: Ability to make decisions promptly and to announce them in a clear, forceful manner.

Marines Semper Fidelis

  • Tact: The ability to deal with others in a manner that will maintain good relations and avoid offense. More simply stated, tact is the ability to say and do the right thing at the right time.
  • Integrity: Uprightness of character and soundness of moral principles. The quality of truthfulness and honesty.
  • Enthusiasm: The display of sincere interest and exuberance in the performance of duty.
  • Bearing: Creating a favorable impression in carriage, appearance, and personal conduct at all times.
  • Unselfishness: Avoidance of providing for one’s own comfort and personal advancement at the expense of others.
  • Courage: Courage is a mental quality that recognizes fear of danger or criticism, but enables a Marine to proceed in the face of danger with calmness and firmness.
  • Knowledge: Understanding of a science or an art. The range of one’s information, including professional knowledge and understanding of your Marines.
  • Loyalty: The quality of faithfulness to country, Corps, unit, seniors, subordinates and peers.
  • Endurance: The mental and physical stamina measured by the ability to withstand pain, fatigue, stress, and hardship.

Which of these should you practice while managing your investments?

Knowledge is an easy one, but which others?

I think Judgment and Decisiveness are most important in my investing plan.  It’s important to know what to do (knowledge), exercise sound thinking on when to do it (judgment), but most importantly, you need to act (decisiveness).  I can see many other leadership traits that would help me (and others) become better investors.  This is a useful list for your investment plans and for your day-to-day interactions with others.

A lack of decisiveness holds people back too often. When you have multiple options, and they all look good, it’s important to pick one and move. In the Marines it’s a matter of life or death. Luckily for us, in investing, it’s a matter of compounding interest!

While not life or death, missing out on a few days of interest, over long periods of time, has an increasingly damaging affect on your money. Missing $100 today could be a couple thousand dollars lost during your retirement years.

Other than the ones I listed above, do you see any leadership traits that if applied would help you be a better investor?

photos: Semper Fidelis – Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections; Marine Engineers Resting After Firefight – DVIDSHUB