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Financial Freedom Requires a Plan

Once you get pass all of the food analogies, Robert Schlesinger makes some very good points about the benefits of having a Financial Freedom plan in his article “Sometimes You Have to Have Dessert.”

The problems with not having a plan are many, but ultimately the real downfall is not knowing the feeling of success. You can’t possibly know when you succeed if you can’t measure it against something. If you don’t keep score, you will never know who wins. If you don’t have a plan and you hit an unexpected soft spot, you won’t know how or what to adjust to get through the problem, mainly because you won’t know you are having a problem. Last but certainly not least, without a plan, you can’t deviate (have a fruit tart) and then get back to accomplishing what you hoped to accomplish: getting on the road to financial freedom.

In March, I resigned from a software sales job.  There are many pros and cons to sales, but it was the ideal job for me.  What I liked most, besides the money, was that it was measurable.  If I exceeded quota I had a great year.  If I didn’t – I had a not so good year.  Our yearly performance reviews were not very elaborate.  What’s the point of making subjective statements – when the results speak for itself.

How can you measure your success without a plan? Develop a Financial Freedom plan.  Make adjustments when necessary and enjoy the ride. 

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Would Steve Jobs Have Kick-Started Your Quest for Financial Freedom?

I have a bachelor degree and two master degrees.  I can’t remember one word from the Commencement addresses. Actually I skipped two of the ceremonies, but from the one that I did attend – I can’t remember a word.  I wonder if someone like Steve Jobs had spoken – would it have had an impact on my pursuit for financial freedom. The following is an excerpt from Jobs’ commencement address to Stanford’s class of 2005.

“I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle. “

Continue reading “Would Steve Jobs Have Kick-Started Your Quest for Financial Freedom?”

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Funding Issues and Options for Women Entrepreneurs

Source: Ladies Who Launch . com
by Victoria Colligan

Traditional Venture Capital

Problem: it is an old boy’s network and access to it is limited.

The traditional Venture Capital (VC) structure is not conducive to women’s businesses which tend to be passion-driven, and less focused on exit strategies requiring high returns in short periods (5 years or less). Women typically want to balance money with fulfillment and may focus less on high returns if this means giving up specific lifestyle characteristics.

Solution: Some venture capitalists that “think out of the box” and focus on funding women owned companies are alternatives to consider.

More ….

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Housing Slowdown Making it Hard for Empty Nesters

Parents whose children have grown up and are no longer living at home, often referred to as empty nesters, are not a very happy bunch these days.  Many are finding that their next phase of life is being held hostage by a giant albatross.  With the kids gone, their lifestyle is more suited for a luxury condo downtown than the suburban house with swimming pool.  However, until they can sell their albatross (aka home sweet home) – they are stuck dealing with the lawnmower and snow blower. 

Today’s Boston Globe really opened my eyes.  It used the dreaded four letter word that is often used in association with the housing market – GLUT.  It stated that September sales of single family homes were down 24% from last year.  The slow down has produced a glut of houses for sale, enough to last 13 months. The problem has been magnified by the baby boomers trying to sell to downsize.

The article mentioned the story of one couple that represents many people in the area.  They had just taken their home off the market after being on sale for nearly a year.  They had one buyer for their home last December for $419,000, but the offer was withdrawn days before the closing.  When they pulled the house off the market, the asking price was $329,000.  The price had been reduced over 20% and still no buyers.  The Boston market has seen double digit appreciation for past several years.  If you have been in your house for awhile you can afford to lower your price 20-30%, but how low can you go.  The couple stated that “no reasonable offer will be refused,” but still no takers.

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The Mergers Continue for the Base Metal Producers

Three weeks ago I woke up to a 10% hair-cut as Canadian Government decided to impose a tax on income trusts.  Today I woke up to a 27% gain as Freeport McMoRan made a bid for Phelps Dodge.  Needless to say, today was more fun.  If you are keeping count Phelps Dodge is the 3rd company in the Big-Build Out Portfolio to be acquired this year.  Xstrata’s acquisition of Falconbridge and CVRD’s acquisition of Inco were both just completed -  Falconbridge in October and Inco last week.  It is always to fun to own stock of the company being acquired.  Falconbridge and Inco closed out their existence as stand-alone companies with gains of 88% and 71% for the year.  With today’s bump, Phelps Dodge is now up 67% year to date. I am expecting consolidation to continue next year.  It is less expenses to acquire resources than to explore and produce.

Dennis Gartman, a well-known newsletter writer, was on CNBC today.  He has been betting heavily that cooper prices are coming down.  Instead of shorting the commodity, he used Phelps Dodge as a proxy for copper and shorted it.  Shorts are the people on the opposite side of your stock purchases.  They profit by a stock going down instead of up.  So, when a stock goes up – the shorts have to pay the piper.  Gartman and his clients lost a boat load of money today.  I have to give him credit.  He faced the music and appeared on CNBC today to talk about it. 

The reason I choose to mention this is that he said the first thing he did today was to unwind the position.  He didn’t try to rationalize that Freeport was paying to much for Phelps or that tomorrow would be a better day.  He immediately closed his position.  That is the exact same thing I did with Canadian income trust fiasco.  Traders act and ask questions later.