LivingReal

Are you beyond thinking about coaching and ready to jump in?  Not everyone is actually ready to be coached or even ‘coachable’.  Not everyone is serious about creating a life of their own design, to make deliberate and conscience decisions that will make major +positive + changes to how they live and enjoy who they are and how they interact with the world around them.

“There’s a difference between interest and commitment.  When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstances permit. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.”  Art Turock

If you are ready – use the coment section below to contact me and we’ll set up a free phone session to give you a sense of where we can go together!

Do It Now!

My wife and I recently attended a fantastic seminar for couples. Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage was straight to the point on so many important issues, presented in a fun, laughable and easily digestible manner, for both men and women.  check out this video clip: “>

It is a Jungle out there and with millions of Americans out of work the job market has become even more competitive.

Whether you are searching for a white collar, blue collar or no collar type of career it is survival of the fittest where Only The Strong Survive!

Don’t jeopardize your chances at an interview and a job by messing up on the basics!

I have combined my 12+ years working in the employment industry into a How-To manual for the job hunter. This is a no holds barred Field Guide explaining the what why and hows of a successful job seeker.

The Job Hunting Field Guide discusses the basics and guides you through setting up the consistent daily activities that create a structure for success.

Go to http://book.jobhuntingfieldguide.com/ to order your copy today.

If you order your Field Guide through this website – email me back at Steve@livingreal.net and we will spend 45 minutes in a phone coaching session to help you get started.

Let’s make this happen!

I have a great employee. She almost never complains, at least not about the work, does the little work I have for her after about the third time I remind her and although most folks would say I am paying her too much – it all works out for the best. At 12 years old she is the youngest employee on our staff of two, but she has been with the firm for almost 6 years and that gives her some seniority.  Since her food and lodging is completely covered I know she is making good use of her paycheck, putting it toward clothes, school supplies and a growing college fund.

And that is only one of the many benefits of my home based business. Hiring my daughter, and previously my son, are part of the benefits of owning my own business. Home based or not family members can be employees of your business and you can avoid certain rules and paperwork requirements needed for regular employees. While the salary I pay my children can not be outrageous the IRS rules are perfectly okay with this hiring practice. Whether emptying the garbage, sweeping the floor, filing or making bank deposits it is both a good learning experience for them and a great way to transfer profits out of the business and into the hands of deserving family members. Since these dollars are now removed from the net income for the business they are not taxed and staying within the limits of income for your child can make them tax free to him or her also.

In order to set up a relationship like this – (no tax advice being given here – please check this over with your accountant)
you must actually have work that your child will perform.
your child must actually perform the work
set up a written schedule of worked performed and hours worked(good for them and good paper trail for taxes)
Open a bank account for your child. While a savings account is all that is really necessary we found that by opening a checking account and getting a debit card we were now ready to help our children spend their tax free dollars on clothing, school supplies and other parent approved items
And the most important – you must actually pay them. You can only claim salaries that were actually paid. And it would of course be best if you paid those salaries on a regular basis throughout the year. This is not an end of the year tax reduction idea. Make regular paychecks out to your employee for actual work performed. This is good for their learning the value of work, it is good for your business and it is good for the IRS.

This is only one of the many benefits in owning your own business. But for many of us the idea of opening a business is both scary and over whelming. It is also a concern about where to open the business, what type of business and who has the time for such a thing as business ownership.  Fortunately  there are a lot of good answers to all those good questions.

The cost of opening a business can be anywhere along a wide spectrum – from little or nothing to hundreds of thousands of dollars.  On one end of the spectrum is the lemonade stand and on the other is a manufacturing plant. Since my guess is that you are closer to the lemonade stand of thinking  we’ll address a few points here and more in later articles.

A lemonade stand is usually set up with items you usually already have around the house. A table, some chairs, markers and paperboard for signs, pitchers, water, sugar, disposable cups and frozen lemonade. If you care to upgrade to a classier clientle the investment into real lemons is a possibility but lets assume we are working on a shoe string budget for capital expenditures.

Now that you have your products and location set up it is important to set up a marketing department. This would usually consist of a few friends who take your carefully designed marketing signs, stand close to the curb and yell at passing cars.  If business doesn’t take off according to plan you can increase marketing by getting more friends, yelling louder or send them down to the corner where traffic is heavier.

In all seriousness – it is possible to set up just such a business in the adult world. Internet marketing has a lot of similarities. You can start with items you already have at home. A computer, a place to work, an internet connection and a glass of lemonade. When it comes to marketing, rather than yelling at folks to stop and see what you have to offer, you can move your lemonade stand to a place where a lot of thirsty people are looking for something to drink and have them come to you, money in hand.

And once your lemonade stand is up and running the kids can  work around you, emptying the garbage, filing the papers and making bank deposits. Want to put up a lemonade stand?

I recently wrote (okay – I signed an on-line message that got sent) to my congressional representatives asking that the health care discussion not be lost in political in-fighting and party politics. Here is what I received back in an email from one of my senators:

Dear Mr. Fine:

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts about health care reform.  I have heard from thousands of Wisconsinites on this issue, and I want you to know that I understand both sides of the debate.  I would like to take this opportunity to let you know what is going on in the Senate regarding health.

Congress has been working together for over a year to change America’s health care system for the better.  On November 7, 2009 the House passed the “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” and on December 24, 2009 the Senate passed the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”  Work remains to be done before we pass a final health reform bill.  Now that both the House and Senate have passed their respective bills, we will be tasked with merging the two versions of health reform.  I hope we can come to a bipartisan solution to improve health care for all Americans and also in getting our economy back on track and more Americans back to work as soon as possible.

If you want to learn more about what I am working on regarding health reform, please visit my website at kohl.senate.gov for more information.

Thank you for your comments.  Feel free to contact my office again about issues that are important to you.

Sincerely,

Herb Kohl
United States Senator

Reality is that in our post modern western world carrying a little debt is almost unavoidable – so we believe.  But when whole industries are created to separate us from our hard earned money – well,  something is just not right.

Banks make money on Mortgages – and the more often they can convince us that refinancing is a good thing the more money they can make. Just like when financing an automobile our focus is drawn to the monthly payment by the lender. Imagine how different it would be if we as a population simply re focused our  paradigm to the Total Payments  section of the lending agreement.

A 30 year mortgage equates to paying the bank twice the purchase price of the home and then a little more.  Does the interest rate or the monthly payment really matter? It does if you are only a shortsighted person, but as long as you plan on living in a home (as opposed to your car, a tepee or a retirement home) your cost of putting a roof over your head is a long term financial obligation.

Too good to be true is the constant phrase used by folks who have begun the process of getting 100% out of debt, mortgage and all, using the Money Merge Account.  You owe it to yourself to find out more.  Click Here to learn more about the company United First Financial and to get your F*R*E*E personal analysis.  My family will be out of debt in 6.2 years as opposed to the way we were going which would have kept us paying the lenders for 17+ years.

I have been in the financial services industry for 27 years, testing and researching debt since 1996.  While many other methods can be used – the Money Merge Account is the surest way to experience true financial freedom.

Go to www.MyLifeIsDebtFree.com and click on the free analysis button right now.

A not too often used phrase but one with as much meaning today as it was long ago is Making Your Nut. Simply put it means that a person has the money that will be needed to pay the bills that are due. But where do terms or phrases like this come from? Here is the accepted version of the origin of this one:

Back in old England is the origin this phrase. There were gypsy circuses that would travel from county to county entertaining the townspeople. Before the city fathers would allow them to set up camp, they would come to an arrangement as to how much the circus would pay the city in taxes for the privilege of setting up. Once this amount was agreed upon, the city sheriff would take the large nut that secured one of the wagon wheels on the biggest circus wagon.

Until the circus was able to pay the amount, they would not get their nut back. This way the traveling entertainers could not sneak away at night without making payment.

Today this phrase is used when discussing whether or not there is enough cash coming in to pay your bills. As in ‘Because of too little work this month, it will be difficult to make our nut.’

Although we don’t often hear this phrase being used the situation is probably more common to most of us than we want to acknowledge. While taxes are inevitable (Another common phrase even today: ‘Only two things are certain  Death and Taxes’) we do have control over our other financial obligations: bills, loans, credit cards etc.

Here is the question Would you be willing to pay more taxes if you didn’t have to? I can’t imagine anyone answering Yes to that question.

Question Two  Would you be willing to pay more to your credit cards and loans (auto, student, personal) than you have to? Again  who would say Yes? And yet so many of us do pay more, everyday, month after month.

While the things that make up taxes are sometimes hard to break up (schools, city, county,etc) and we have no choice but to pay what we owe, the same is not true with our loans. Any loan mortgage, auto, student, personal  is made up of principal and interest. The principal is a true obligation that needs to be met. But the interest is money we agreed to pay in order to stretch the payments out over time. Now I am not telling you something that you didn’t already know. And yet it is all a matter of focus.

In today’s world our focus is directed to the monthly payments. Buy a car and the salesperson asks what you can afford monthly. Qualifying for a home loan is based upon your monthly payment ability. Can you make the Nut? What is just as important to our financial well-being is another number we have chosen to not focus on is the total cost of ownership  or the total amount you will have paid by making the monthly payments as they are laid out in the loan agreement Principal plus Interest.

Most loans allow prepayment of the loan without penalties which simply means pay it off early and reduce the overall total cost of ownership. Pay less interest. After all if we would not voluntarily pay additional taxes why are we so willing to pay additional interest. It is money you will never see again, your hard earned dollars going into someone else’s pockets and it just makes it harder to Make Your Nut each month.

Recently recognized by Forbes Investment Guide as one of the Leading Providers of  Wealth Management in the Central Region of the United States, heres what Wealth Expert Terry C Kingsberry, Owner of Financial Counseling Services, had to say about the Money Merge Account

One of the main reasons my clients validate my recommendations is because of the success they have concerning the Money Merge Account system, which they are using to reduce their debt, especially their mortgage debt. I spent numerous months conducting due diligence on United First Financial and the MMA software before actually producing an analysis for my own home. Since that exercise revealed the strength of the UFF
organization and the positive effects the program was having on consumers, I finally enrolled into the MMA program myself. To date, my 30 year mortgage has been reduced to around 8.7 years. Even though I am not the most proficient user of the software, I am still very pleased with the results and I look forward to always sharing them with people who question the validity of the MMA.  5/22/09

James Michner in his well known best seller The Drifters tells
the story of a group of 20 somethings who  meet and travel together
in Europe and beyond. Each chapter begins with a series of quotes
that make it worth the read all on their own.
I first read the book 30 years ago. Amongst all the quotes the 
Five Rules of Traveling are one of those profound thoughts that
have remained with me over the years, a template to live life by.
If you are a citizen of this world then you are a traveler who might
gain some insight here as well.   So I give you the 
Five Rules of Traveling along with my personal interpretations.  

Eat anything containing wild rice  A simple but wise reminder that
eating wholesome and natural foods should be a central part of a long,
happy and healthy life - Stick to the basics when it comes to food.
Fancy sauces, elegant feasts, all you can buffets and over processed
items all lead to ill health and rob us of enjoying all life has to offer.    

Never play cards with a guy named Doc The world is an exciting
place but being naive, gullible or ingenuous is not an excuse. Knowing
the rules and knowing the players is the first rule to being in the game.
Then realizing that there may be no rules and there is more to the
players than you first thought is a sign of maturity. Trust is important
in life but as a wise prophet once instructed "Tie your camel first, then
put your trust in Allah"  

Never eat at a place called Mom's While this might seem similar to
the wild rice rule it takes us a little further in considering all the things
that come into our lives. While food nourishes our bodies, Thoughts feed
our minds and relationships enrich our souls, We need to be fully aware
and fully responsible to make sure  that the thoughts we entertain are
not damaging to our energy and our actions and that the company we
keep is not toxic to our life.  Just because Mom said so is no reason not
to make wise choices on what we let in and around us and those we
love.   

Clean your clothes at every opportunity  Cleanliness is next to Godliness
and in this time of rampant bacterias and super viruses we would be  wise to
consider the importance of not only looking good but actually being good with
our hygiene and  other matters dealing with health and safety. Wearing seat belts,
not drinking and driving, watching our speed, keeping our important papers and
information secure, staying organized and keeping personal what is personal are
all part of  not letting stupid preventable things mess up enjoying life  

Never refuse an offer of sex So after all the previous advise of caution and safety
this rule might seem truly out of place. But get your  mind back under control and
see the meaning of sex as analogous to opportunity, calculated risk and a chance
to experience new things. We are reminded that life is meant to be lived and while
we all have to die someday not everyone makes an effort to really live. We should
make certain we live life and live it to the fullest!    

There you have it – now go out there and Live Real!