Deep in my heart I reached the ideal of becoming Millionaire my family is the beginning, my life is on its way with all the positive acomplishments of humanity make this one be a way with heart a practice of will power. One million in less than five years...Welcome to my journey.
The person who declares they need no assistance whatsoever when it comes to managing money is most definitely the first person who would stand to benefit the most from such help. Even if you stick to prepaid debit cards and coupon cut like crazy, you'll never know whether or not you could improve your personal finances without checking it out. While paid financial advice and accounting is expensive, online tools and resources are almost invariably free. Specifically, free calculators that you can find on the World Wide Web are especially useful when it comes to managing money better, considering their accessibility and reliability.
Here are a few to help get you started:
Tax Withholding: While fat refunds in April are great, there's no guarantee you're going to get everything back if you rakishly withheld more than you needed to all year around. To reduce the amount of money you send Uncle Sam that gets lost in the system, use the IRS withholding calculator.
Credit Card Repayment: It's hardly in your long-term best interest to be paying massive amounts of credit card interest through low-to-minimum monthly payments. Use the Federal Reserve's credit card repayment calculator to find out how much you need to be paying every month to pay as little interest as possible.
Fuel Economy Finder: Before buying your next vehicle, or any vehicle you ever purchase in the future, use the Department of Energy's Fuel Economy Finder to find the most fuel-efficient and therefore cost-effective automobile in your price range. With gas prices going nowhere but up, this is a critical step toward living a more economical lifestyle.
Retirement Planner: What may seem like a reasonable amount of money being squirreled away for retirement every month may wind up being a paltry retirement plan if you didn't take the time to browse all your options. Use the Bloomberg Retirement Calculator to accurately project how much you're going to need to save relative to specific plans.
Home Energy Saver: Built for the Department of Energy, the Home Energy Saver is one of the most widely used online services provided by the federal government. Utilizing the data you enter regarding your energy usage habits at home as well as the cost of energy in your region and any and all steps you're taking to lead a more energy-efficient life, this handy calculator will recommend ways for you to further reduce energy waste in your home.
You may think you're doing everything you can to be smart with your money, but don't be so certain until you run your numbers through online calculators. These objective, autonomous, and above all free tools are certain to show you ways you could be doing more to save and handle your personal finances more responsibly.
This week seemed memorable for me in many ways: the coldness in Helsinki -22, meeting with entrepreneurs, feeling the buzz of the neurons working and new information flowing, I even changed to the newest version of facebook the so called TIMELINE as strange as it sounds we are living memorable changes I predict that someday not soon we might even have to pay even if it is one $1 per month to keep our facebook accounts. Would you pay it to save and rescue your memories and your pictures? or it might be that the site stays free and keeps making Millions on advertising and gaming... The day my TIMELINE went public Facebook made a much-anticipated status update on Wednesday: The Internet social network is going public eight years after its computer-hacking CEO Mark Zuckerberg started the service at Harvard University.
That means anyone with the right amount of cash will be able to own part of a Silicon Valley icon that quickly transformed from dorm-room start-up to cultural touchstone (and believe me if you have the money we have to do it... be ready).
Facebook will probably make its stock-market debut in a week, a month or maybe even three or four months but it will become one of the world’s most valuable companies. Facebook, which is now based in Menlo Park, Calif., hopes to list its stock under the ticker symbol, “FB,” on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq Stock Market.
In its regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Facebook Inc. indicated it hopes to raise $5 billion in its IPO. That would be the most for an Internet IPO since Google Inc. and its early backers raised $1.9 billion in 2004. The final amount will likely change as Facebook’s bankers gauge the investor demand.
Joining corporate America’s elite would give Facebook new-found financial clout as it tries to make its service even more pervasive and expand its audience of 845 million users. It also could help Facebook fend off an intensifying challenge from Google, which is looking to solidify its status as the Internet’s most powerful company with a rival social network called Plus.
The intrigue surrounding Facebook’s IPO has increased in recent months, not only because the company has become a common conduit to share information about our lives.
Zuckerberg, 27, has emerged as the latest in a lineage of Silicon Valley prodigies who are alternately hailed for pushing the world in new directions and reviled for overstepping their bounds. In Zuckerberg’s case, a lawsuit alleging that he stole the idea for Facebook from some Harvard classmates became the grist for a book and a movie that was nominated for an Academy Award last year.
Following the model of Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Zuckerberg set up two classes of stock that will ensure he retains control as the sometimes conflicting demands of Wall Street exert new pressures on the company. He will have the final say on how nearly 57 percent of Facebook’s stock votes, according to the filing.
Even before the IPO was filed, Zuckerberg was shaping up as his generation’s Bill Gates — a geek who parlayed his love of computers into fame and fortune. Forbes magazine estimated Zuckerberg’s wealth at $17.5 billion in its most recent survey of the richest people in the U.S. A more precise measurement of Zuckerberg’s fortune will be available once the IPO is priced and provides a concrete benchmark for determining the value of his nearly 534 million Facebook shares
The IPO will also mint hundreds of Facebook employee as millionaires because they have accumulated stock at lower prices than what the shares are liked to be valued at on the open market. Facebook employed 3,200 people at the end of last year.
Depending on how long regulators take to review Facebook’s IPO documents, the company could be making its stock market debut around the time that Zuckerberg celebrates his next birthday in May.
The IPO filing casts a spotlight on some of Facebook’s inner workings for the first time. Among other things, the documents reveal the amount of Facebook’s revenue, its major shareholders, its growth opportunities and its concerns about its biggest competitive threats.
The documents show, as expected, that Facebook is thriving. The company earned $668 million on revenue of $3.7 billion last year, according to the filing. Both figures nearly doubled from 2010.
“The company is a lot more profitable than we thought,” said Kathleen Smith, principal of IPO investment advisory firm Renaissance Capital.
Although she considered Facebook’s numbers “very impressive,” she said Facebook needs to talk more about where it sees its growth coming from.
“What new areas of business is it expecting to pursue beyond display ads?”
What’s not in the documents, yet, is Facebook’s market value. That figure could hit $100 billion, based on Facebook’s rapid growth and the appraisals that steered investors who bought stakes while the company was still private.
Facebook heads a class of Internet start-ups that have been going public during the past year.
The early crop has included Internet radio service Pandora Media Inc., professional networking service LinkedIn Corp. and daily deals company Groupon Inc. Most of those Internet IPOs haven’t lived up to their lofty expectations. The list of disappointments includes Zynga Inc., which has built a profitable business by creating a variety of games to play on Facebook. Zynga’s stock fell 5 percent below its IPO price on the first day of trading.
Facebook stands apart, though. As it rapidly expands, people from Silicon Valley to Helsinki Finland people use it to keep up with news from friends and long-lost acquaintances, play mindless games tending virtual cities and farms and share big news or minute details about their days. Politicians, celebrities and businesses use Facebook to connect with fans and the general public.
It’s becoming more difficult to tell whether going to Facebook is a pastime or an addiction. In Europe, Facebook visitors spend an average of four hours per month on the website each month, more than doubling from an average of 2 hour per month in 2008.
More than half of Facebook users log on to the site on any given day. Using software developed by outside parties — call it the Facebook economy — they share television shows they are watching, songs they are playing and photos of what they are wearing or eating. Facebook says 250 million photos alone are posted on its site each day.
To make money, Facebook sells the promise of highly targeted advertisements based on the information its users share, including interests, hobbies, private thoughts and relationships. Though most of its revenue comes from ads, Facebook also takes a cut from the money that apps make through its site. For every dollar that “FarmVille” maker Zynga gets for the virtual cows and crops it sells, for example, Facebook gets 30 cents.
For all of Facebook’s success, the company has had its share of troubles. It went through a series of privacy missteps over the years as it pushed users to disclose more and more information about themselves. Most recently, the company settled with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over allegations that it exposed details about people’s private lives without getting legally required consent. And the legal fights over Facebook’s origins have been embarrassing and sometimes distracting, though Zuckerberg has consistently denied allegations that have depicted him as a ruthless weasel.
Zuckerberg has made it clear he isn’t especially keen on leading a public company. He has said many times that he prefers to focus on developing Facebook’s products and growing the site’s user base, rather than trying to hit quarterly earnings targets in an effort to keep investors happy.
In a letter included in in Wednesday’s filing, Zuckerberg paints a rosy, idealistic picture of Facebook.
“Facebook aspires to build the services that give people the power to share and help them once again transform many of our core institutions and industries,” he wrote.
Zuckerberg also pledged to stay true to Facebook’s scrappy roots even on the road to becoming a multinational corporation.
“The word “hacker” has an unfairly negative connotation from being portrayed in the media as people who break into computers,” he wrote. “In reality, hacking just means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done.”
Zuckerberg has surrounded himself with other savvy executives, who are often more experienced. They include Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who helped build Google’s advertising business before Facebook lured her in 2008. Facebook’s finance chief is David Ebersman, a former executive at biotech firm Genentech.
Amid the buoyant optimism about Facebook’s prospects as a public company, some analysts see troubling parallels to the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, which turned into a devastating bust in the early 2000s. The biggest fear is that some investors will become so enamored with Facebook’s brand and brawn that the will try to buy the IPO share with little financial analysis or recognition of the risks so let´s all be aware.
On my quest of making one Million Euros in less than five years, I have to share with you that my spirit is raised and I have doubled my energy during this last 50 days, I have been thinking to write this post for a long time. Every time I remembered my early days when I was 12 years old and as soon as the lessons were over, me and my then friends ran out to the streets and I would organize random fights outside my school making random bets and circulating a hand made newspaper presenting my young friends fighting outside the school I still remember that I even had to jump for the challenge to keep my honor and small enterprise going.
Back then I thought this is better than boxing. 20 years later someone added skills and made it a functional money making machine the UFC, see the video at the end of the post to see How this happened.
UFC fighters are among the toughest athletes competing in sports. Fiercely competitive, they enter the octagon knowing they could be cut, bruised or placed in submission holds that could render them temporarily unconscious. With each fight, they run the risk of suffering career-ending injuries.
But mentioning "fighter pay" to this same group of men brings forth a completely different side. They become consumed with fear. Flight instincts take over.
"Career suicide," one current fighter said when approached for comment.
"It would be the end of my career," said another current fighter, a former champion, when asked for an on-the-record interview about the UFC's fighter pay scale.
The men who run the Ultimate Fighting Championship are benefiting from unprecedented revenue growth -- the company purchased rival Strikeforce in March for $34 million, further tightening its stranglehold on the mixed martial arts industry. Recently, the UFC inked a seven-year deal worth a reported $100 million annually with FOX, its first significant broadcast agreement with a major network.
The UFC, $44 million in debt as recently as 2005, according to chief executive officer Lorenzo Fertitta, is today widely believed by industry insiders to be worth north of a billion dollars.
While paydays for top draws like Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre can run into the millions (St. Pierre recently told Agence France-Presse he earns between $4 million and $5 million per fight), entry-level fighters who compete under the banner of the UFC do so for as little as $6,000 if they fail to win their first match.
"We're basically fighting for crumbs," said one current UFC fighter, a veteran of more than a dozen years in the sport who also asked that his name be withheld for fear of reprisals from UFC management.
"The top 5 percent [of fighters] are definitely making good money, but you've got to look at the guys at the bottom of the card," the fighter said. "They can't fight anywhere else. If they make $10,000 a fight and fight every six months, they can't make ends meet."
"We're definitely not getting our fair share of the cash," said another fighter currently under contract with the UFC. A fan favorite, he, too, refused to be named, citing concerns about the reaction from UFC management.
"Any opposition, they [expletive] crush it," said the fighter. "Until somebody starts a union, we're all sort of at their mercy."
Fertitta, CEO of Zuffa LLC, the parent company of the UFC, said dissent among fighters is not only commonplace but tolerated.
"Anybody can talk about anything. We've had plenty of situations where fighters have come out and made statements. … Have they been blackballed or banned? Absolutely not," Fertitta said.
UFC management has had public disagreements in the past with some of its top fighters over the issue of compensation and image rights -- former heavyweight champion Randy Couture and top welterweight contender Jon Fitch to name just two.
Both were eventually welcomed back into the fold; Couture after a bitter legal fight with the UFC, Fitch after he was cut by UFC management and then reinstated a day later.
"Outside the Lines" recently conducted a wide-ranging interview with Fertitta about the issue of fighter pay and other aspects of the UFC's business.
Among items Fertitta noted:
• Since 2005, the first year the UFC became profitable, the company has paid more than $250 million to its fighters.
• 39 UFC fighters have become millionaires as a result of their earnings from the company.
• 29 fighters on the current roster receive a cut of pay-per-view profits.
• Since 2005, fighter pay has grown at twice the rate of revenue growth.
What Fertitta won't say is how much revenue the UFC currently generates. As the head of a private company, he's not obligated to disclose those figures to anybody, including the roughly 300 fighters with whom he and UFC president Dana White negotiate contracts.
According to a May 2010 "Standard and Poor's" report, 75 percent of the UFC's revenue comes from live pay-per-view events. The remainder comes from merchandising, distribution agreements and other live and taped television broadcasts (the UFC's contract with Spike TV to broadcast live events and "The Ultimate Fighter" ran through 2011).
When asked what percentage of that revenue goes to fighters, Fertitta said it's "not far off what the other sports leagues pay as a percentage of revenue."
Revenue-sharing formulas in the NBA, MLB, NFL and NHL give athletes about 50 percent of revenue. "[It's] in that neighborhood, yeah," Fertitta said.
"That's an absurd statement," said Rob Maysey, an Arizona-based attorney who in 2005 founded the Mixed Martial Arts Fighters Association. Largely powerless, the UFC has taken the tack of ignoring the organization, which claims about 50 fighters and trainers as members.
"The UFC is in the neighborhood of the major professional sports in terms of payout percentages compared to revenue generated in the same way as I am in the 'neighborhood' of challenging for Anderson Silva's middleweight title," Maysey said.
After examining pay-per-view numbers, live gate proceeds and other revenue streams, Maysey estimates the UFC has annual revenues between $350 million and $450 million.
Yet the median per fight income for fighters remains low, between $17,000 and $23,000, figures he said he obtained from his many conversations with current fighters.
Fertitta said that fighters have the potential to substantially boost their earnings through the company's incentive-driven pay model.
"We pay discretionary bonuses. No different than any other company that may be out there," Fertitta said. "We pay you for performance."
During each pay-per-view event, fighters are eligible to receive bonuses for either the submission of the night, knockout of the night or fight of the night. In addition to those structured incentives, which have ranged from $65,000 to $135,000 in recent years, the UFC also awards discretionary bonuses, Fertitta said.
"We've had guys that maybe were making $200,000 and said, 'You know what? This guy promoted the heck out of the fight. He performed. Write him a check for a million dollars,'" Fertitta said.
Even taking the unreported bonuses into consideration, Maysey said the 50 percent revenue-sharing claim is not accurate.
"The [UFC's] payout percentages in terms of revenue generated are far from the percentages paid to athletes by the NFL, MLB, NBA or NHL," Maysey said. "If I'm taking all revenue from all sources, I would put it around 5 percent."
"Outside the Lines" interviewed dozens of sources about the issue of fighter pay -- current and former UFC fighters, managers, agents, rival promoters and former UFC executives. On average, they estimated the UFC pays fighters roughly 10 percent of the revenue generated from its live events, essentially the inverse of the boxing business model.
"I think they have a tremendous business paradigm," said Lou DiBella, a New York-based boxing promoter who spent more than a decade as a programming executive running the boxing division of HBO Sports.
The percentage of event-generated revenue that goes to a boxer could be as high as 85 percent, DiBella said.
"A 70/30 deal is completely common," DiBella said, meaning 70 percent of the revenue generated from the fight goes to the boxer, the remaining 30 percent to the promoter.
Under the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, a federal law DiBella helped author, promoters are required to disclose to boxers how much money their fights generate. No such law applies to the sport of mixed martial arts.
"You have one industry that's not disclosing and thriving, and another industry that is disclosing and dying," DiBella said.
Fertitta likened that comparison to apples and oranges: "What you have to understand is that our model is different. We are everything. … We're the promoter. We're the television producer. We're responsible for all the costs that go into the production, and you're talking millions and millions of dollars.
"We employ well over 500 people just to make this machine run."
Within the sport there has been talk of a fighter's union, and for the past three years, Maysey has been aggressively pitching fighters on the benefit of bargaining with a unified voice.
Maysey has traveled the country at his own expense, speaking to small groups of fighters and trainers, touting the merits of joining the MMAFA.
Among other things in his presentation to fighters, Maysey highlights the percentage of revenue the fighters receive from the UFC's live pay-per-view events.
He's gone so far as to venture into Fertitta's own backyard to make his pitch.
In early May, while UFC management was hosting its two-day "fighter summit" at the Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa in Las Vegas, Maysey booked a room at the same hotel. Red Rock is one of 19 gaming properties owned by Station Casino Group (Fertitta and his brother, Frank, also own a controlling interest in Station Casinos).
Maysey held an impromptu meeting in his hotel room, which, he said, quickly grew from four to 19 fighters as word spread through the hotel.
"There were fighters who were in the room who, if they thought their presence would be publicized, they wouldn't have gone," Maysey said of the gathering, which initially occurred under the radar of UFC management.
According to Maysey, he did not sell the fighters in attendance that day on the idea of starting a union, but rather an association, which he said would resemble the Major League Baseball Players Association or the Screen Actors Guild.
"I'm going to guys and saying, 'You have a very slim sliver of ancillary rights left. Join together. All the other sports figured that out,'" Maysey said.
It's a hard sell.
"The vast majority of people I meet with want to do it, but 75 percent of that majority fear repercussion, so they won't," Maysey said.
"The only way that you can get a union is to get all of the top 30 fighters in the UFC … all of them to agree that 'we're going to stand together and do this,'" said Iowa-based promoter and manager Monte Cox.
"If it's the top five, they [UFC management] can kill off the top five and still keep going," Cox said. Cox currently manages 70 fighters, 16 of whom are under contract with the UFC.
Talk of a fighters union is nothing new. Former UFC welterweight champion Pat Miletich remembers similar discussions brewing back when he was competing, shortly after the Fertittas purchased the company in 2001.
"To organize a fighters union I think would be a colossal undertaking to be honest with you," Miletich said. "That's really going to depend on having the right money behind it, powerful people to be able to put it together."
For his part, Lorenzo Fertitta claims he's neutral on the issue.
"I'm not pro union, I'm not against a union. If the fighters want to form a union, that's fine," Fertitta said.
In practice, the Fertitta brothers have had a contentious history with organized labor.
"Station Casinos is an extremely anti-union company. It has been running an aggressive and nasty anti-union campaign," said Ken Liu, research director for the 60,000-member Culinary Workers Local 226 in Las Vegas.
For years, the Culinary Workers Union has been trying to organize service industry employees at the Fertitta-owned Station Casino properties, which largely cater to the local market in Las Vegas.
In an August letter to the FTC's Bureau of Competition, Liu attacked the UFC's restrictive business practices and claimed the company violated federal anti-trust laws.
"As a result of Zuffa's contractual restraints, athletes who compete in the UFC are denied the freedom of movement available to athletes in other professional sports. … These contractual restraints can have the effect of forcing some athletes under contract with the UFC to negotiate with one buyer, depriving them of any real bargaining power and depressing pay below competitive levels," Liu wrote.
On the surface, Liu acknowledges it may seem an odd pairing -- a union that represents cocktail waitresses, bus boys and chambermaids, among others, taking up the cause of UFC fighters.
"For us there's an eerie parallel in how the Fertittas treat their workers at Station Casinos and how they treat fighters in the UFC," Liu said. "As a union we have to continue to put pressure on this company from all conceivable directions."
In September, an administrative law judge with the National Labor Relations Board found that Station Casinos engaged in unfair labor practices more than 80 times.
The judge's 151-page ruling details alleged threats, bribery and interrogation tactics used by Station Casino management against employees who had engaged in union-organizing activities.
Station Casinos is appealing the decision.
In a statement on its website, the company dismissed the union tactics as "an ongoing campaign of harassment."
"The Culinary Workers Union filed baseless charges alleging violations of employee rights. … We are confident that the National Labor Relations Board will find that in no instance did Station Casinos violate any aspect of the law," the statement reads.
The case is instructive for Maysey, who's come as close as anyone to taking on the task of getting UFC fighters to organize.
While Maysey remains hopeful UFC fighters will one day join forces to negotiate better deals on their image and marketing rights, he is less than optimistic they'll ever mobilize into a full-fledged union.
Becoming a millionaire isn't just about making money. Part of becoming a millionaire also involves saving money. As a classic rule of business, you can't be spending more money than you are taking in – especially if you want to experience any form of success. That's just common sense.
So if you are looking for ways to save money in the New Year so that you can increase your net worth, consider some of the following:
Renegotiate Premiums
Each year, insurance premiums, whether they be car or health, cost us hundreds of pounds. To save yourself money this year, shop around before recommitting to your current providers. There are a dozen sites showing cheap insurance quotes online so you are able to find cheaper rates than what you are paying now, and by bundling your homeowners insurance with that of your car, you can save even more.
Cut Out Vices
Cigarettes, alcohol, and other vices quickly add up. In fact, these types of vices are often the biggest unnecessary expenditures most of us face. To save yourself a substantial amount of money in the new year, in addition to doing something good for your health, give up those smokes, that after work drink, or those other indulgences that are robbing your pocketbook dry.
Lose Weight
Losing weight affects your wallet in more way than one. In addition to often spending more on food due to eating out, having extra weight can cause you to spend more on your health insurance and even on gas as your car is forced to carry around your extra pounds. If you want to save money, do your wallet and your health a favor and lose some weight.
Easy on the Coffee
While we all love our caffeinated beverage in the morning, stopping by the local coffee shop every day can quickly add up. If you want to keep some extra dollars in your pocket, brew your own coffee or tea in the morning and avoid the extra dollars spent every day at the local coffee shop.
Ditch the Car
In reality, having a car isn't a necessity for all of us – especially those of us that live in the city. If you have a short commute or live close to a public transportation stop, consider getting rid of your car or becoming a one car household. Not only will you save money on gas, but you will also save money on car insurance and general maintenance.
The new year is upon us and for many it means making some tough life changes. However, by choosing to save money, it will bring you even closer to your goal of becoming a millionaire.
They speak of my drinking but never think of my thirst
This is the last day of the year and we all are wondering about our New Years resolution and considering that I have a commitment to make one Million Euros in less than five years I want to share with you, that the challenge is here and its coming true.
I just realized that I need more than one lasting personal goal or project, I have to be into something always at all times it is my nature, and what I have written is certainly too short to do it full justice; but at least I have touched on many aspects therefore I have decided to reform a habit.
I will go 365 days without drinking I know this will require making a conscious choice each and every time I’m confronted with the temptation. It’s not so much about setting a 365 day plan, but rather setting and living a moment-by-moment plan. It is my hope all of these moments of making the deliberate decision to resist the temptation will all contribute to the final result I’m seeking. I want to test my will once again I want to see if I'm able to have that never ending spark while sober if I can resist temptation... I can easily answer yes it is a simple task and I will do it. Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.
You may notice the headline for this last post of the year in the form of a statement. The reason for this is because I want it to be clear.
I have always experienced the gap, the thin line in my soul between alcoholism and sobriety as paper thin and always in danger of being erased, I used to always confront myself with the never ending existential problems while having a hangover, and I hate that lack of energy as a result of it. There is plenty of family history to suggest both a propensity and a genetic pre-disposition for alcoholism to surface inside me at any given time. It is a disease I have narrowly escaped most of my life – and I want to continue to do so.
My attempt to go 365 days without drinking a beer or having a glass of wine or Champagne will not erase my tendencies to drink for the wrong reasons and it certainly will not give me any moral ground to stand on if I am indeed successful. I just want to see if I can do it.
Too often, I have reached for alcohol to sooth my anxiety or to make me feel more comfortable when I’m with people I don’t know well. I associate going out at nights with drinking beer, champagne and wines and I eagerly look forward to that first Friday after-work drink, too.
Now, I want to try to experience all of these things without the usual assistance. My inner voice, my inner wisdom, has been suggesting this to me for some time now. Specially realizing that I lost some considerable money during my wild partying. Now It’s time to listen.
Day One started twenty days ago, Dec 11. 2011 Day 365 will be on Dec 11.2012. How I live the days in between will be the challenge. I really don’t have a roadmap or any past experience to draw on for these 365 days. All I have is determination and a hope I will learn new things about myself.
My hope is old wounds that sometimes open and fester with insecurity when alcohol is the instigator will begin to close. I will not be healed or fixed in these 365 days, but there is hope I will have gain valuable personal insight that will help me get the real major goal of a Million Euros.
I’m not sure what will happen on Dec 11. 2012 I can’t say if I will drink again or at what level and frequency. I do, however, have faith and confidence in whatever happens between now and then will be the right thing for me. So, a leap of faith begins.
By making this very public announcement, I’m asking to be held accountable for my actions. Some things in our lives are much bigger than we are. And I am already pleased with all the beauty around me.
Pride and arrogance contribute to our failure when we fail to ask for help. Ironically, it takes confidence and courage to ask. Confidence in that we believe there are people in our lives who care enough to listen and support us. Courage in the sense we want to keep moving forward in spite of the obstacles and pain.
It will be difficult finding alternatives for the Sunday afternoon glass of wine or the cold draft beer during a dinner out. For me it’s just been a matter of habit; a matter of comfort.
Just as the physical act of drinking is a habit, so is the dependency on the calming effect the alcohol provides. Therefore, I may substitute a beer for a glass of cold water, but more importantly, I will need to discover alternatives to finding comfort and peace. This will be the biggest challenge and hopefully the greatest opportunity for me.
Investing more time in reading, writing, investing, improving relationships, exercising and just thinking are seem to be the likely candidates right now. I know a certain degree of peace in my life can be rejuvenated and restored by focusing in these areas. I’m also certain I will find comfort by learning how to take better care of myself.
The thought of truly feeling all of my emotions without the faint haze of melancholy draping over me is invigorating. I’m looking forward to going into a Friday afternoon with the knowledge I can be at peace and content by just being Me; no other assistance will be required.
I know by heart that if I can manage this challenge I will have a clearer perspective and more energy to focus on my main goal and by now you all know what it is...so let me wish you the Best New Year ever!!! don't forget to let all your dreams come true, keep writing to me, keep investing and above all keep positive the real secret is that there is no secret!!! Happy 2012 and see you on the other side!
Now that the snow is starting to make its presence in Finland and the Christmas feelings are all around I want to share what happened to Comedian Louis C.K. He was annoyed that he never saw a royalty check from sales of his standup specials through traditional outlets like DVD or iTunes. So he produced his own recent special, sold it online directly to fans for $5 -- and made a cool million in just 10 days. That is one of the great advantages of technology during this times, and this is just the beginning, many cases like this will flow during 2012
Louis C.K. announced the sales milestone on Wednesday night's episode of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon."
Louis C.K. began selling the special, filmed at New York's Beacon Theater, on December 10. He put up a simple website that directed customers to "buy the thing" through eBay's (EBAY, Fortune 500) PayPal for $5. A footnote explained that the file has "no regional restrictions, no crap. You can download this file, play it as much as you like, burn it to a DVD, whatever."
Louis C.K. called it an "experiment" when he launched the sale. Wednesday's $1 million milestone showed that it's paying off.
Jimmy Fallon asked: "You just said 'Hey, everyone who wants to see the show, you give five bucks'?"
Louis C.K. paid to produce the special "out of my own money," he responded. "So I had it. And I said, I can just give it to people for a little bit of money."
A friend told him "everyone's going to steal it...so I just wrote a note that said, you know, please don't do it," Louis C.K. said, as the audience laughed. "And they didn't. So it made a lot of money."
Louis C.K. said he was shocked as he watched the orders come in -- and then began to feel guilty about the amount he'd netted.
"I've never had a million dollars all at once. I grew up pretty poor and I was like, this is not even my money," he said. "This is just a five-dollar impulse that 220,000 people had, and now I have it. And I felt uncomfortable about having that much money."
So Louis C.K. set aside $250,000 to cover the cost of the expenses of producing the special, then doled out another $250,000 in bonuses for his staffers.
He then donated $280,000 to five charities: The Fistula Foundation, The Pablove Foundation, charity: water, Kiva and Green Chimneys.
"I was going to [donate] $100,000, but it's like blackjack -- I just kept dishing it out," he told Fallon.
That leaves $220,000 left over.
"Some of that will pay my rent and will care for my childen [sic]. The rest I will do terrible, horrible things with and none of that is any of your business," Louis C.K. wrote in a statement posted on his website.
A $220,000 profit is plenty, he added.
"I never viewed money as being 'my money' I always saw it as 'The money.' It's a resource. if it pools up around me then it needs to be flushed back out into the system," he wrote. "If I make another million, I'll give more of it away."
Great idea to end the year...Hope all the celebrations are full of hope and love keep witting the objective of 1 Million Euros in less than 5 years is closer than ever!
Investments advisers support clients on how best to save, invest, and grow their money. They can help you tackle a specific financial goal—such as readying yourself to buy a house—or give you a macro view of your money and the interplay of your various assets. Some specialize in retirement or estate planning, while some others consult on a range of financial matters. The idea of this blog is to give you an idea on what to do with your money to get the Millions, but what if you already have them? Then the best idea is to find someone to manage your money and assets in such a way that keeps them growing.
I recently received an e mail from a 45 year old couple asking me advise on Where to go and Who to see, of course my advise helped them for some time, but when they started searching for an adviser to manage their mid-six figure account, they learned that charges of 1.5 percent -- about $7,000 per year -- weren't unusual.
The good news for people like them is that there are less expensive solutions out there, even as investors transition away from commission-driven advice to fee-only, or fee-based approaches.
More advisers than ever are now following some sort of fee-driven approach in which investors pay for the advice and management they get directly, instead of having those fees hidden in higher investment costs that show up as commissions. Fee-only advice is generally considered to be a more conflict-free approach, and individual investors are starting to appreciate that.
From 2007 through 2010, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped a total of 17 percent, the average adviser's assets in fee-based accounts rose 24 percent, according to PriceMetrix.
But, as many people discovered including myself, those fees can be hefty, and, paradoxically, the less money you have to manage, the more it can cost you, therefore try to do it yourself until you can really pay for it. In the world of investment management, size matters. "Larger accounts are usually more cost effective for advisers than smaller ones," It's kind of like the financial services equivalent of getting a volume discount."
Indeed, half of portfolios in the $250,000 to $500,000 range pay annual fees of 1.5 percent or more, and one-quarter of them pay annual fees that exceed 1.75 percent. Those with $1 million-plus accounts fork over a much tamer 0.92 percent. On average, expect to pay fees of 1.32 percent of assets under management.
Now, a growing group of financial advisers are coming up with ways to charge half (or less) the amount of the industry average with flat fees. By doing so, they say they can shave $1,000 or more in charges a year for every $100,000 in the portfolio. Their services appeal to those who don't quite fit into the high-net-worth category, but who want complete oversight rather than just investment and allocation recommendations. An annual fee typically covers setting up the portfolio, phone consultations with an investment manager at least once a year, the cost of executing trades and periodic re balancing. I always offer cheaper ways to execute trades and periodic re balance as well as phone consultations twice a month, but my accounts are much more smaller.
The firm the couple choose, Flat Fee Portfolios, is part of MACRO Consulting Group, a New Jersey investment advisory and financial planning firm. The service, which includes semi-annual phone reviews by a manager assigned to the account, costs a flat fee of $199 a month. As a result, the Colons now pay a shade less than 0.5 percent a year for investment management fees.
Accounts of less than $250,000, which pay $129 a month, get a pared down version of the higher-priced service.
Another low-cost firm, Troy, Michigan-based Portfolio Solutions, charges 0.25 percent of assets to assemble and manage a portfolio of index-based exchange traded funds and mutual funds. There's a minimum annual charge of $2,500 per household, and the firm doesn't accept accounts of less than $500,000.
Another way to keep advisory costs low is to pay by the hour for just the advice you need. The Garrett Planning Network in Shawnee Mission, Kansas provides referrals to advisers who charge hourly rates. Consider an hourly plan to offer to your clients if their finances aren't especially complicated, once wrote to me Kent Grealish, partner at Quacera in San Bruno, California and a member of the national 329-member network.
Grealish, a former stockbroker with 38 years of experience, pegs the initial cost to set up a simple investment plan at around $2,400, based on his rate of $240 an hour. That comes to just under 1 percent for a $250,000 account. In subsequent years, when he needs to put in less time, the charge typically falls to $480 to $720.
In reality my clients only pay for the work I put in and a 50% of the profit I make, not by how much they have in the account. "That makes a lot more financial sense for most people than the traditional assets under management model."
While most discount brokerage firms offer investment management services, their charges vary widely. With Fidelity Personalized Portfolios service, fees start at 1.5 percent on the first $500,000 in assets, and the service requires an investment minimum of $200,000. Vanguard charges 0.70 percent of assets on the first $1 million, but has a $500,000 minimum and $4,500 minimum annual charge. And if a discount brokerage firm has its own brand of mutual funds or ETFs, it's likely those offerings will figure prominently in their recommendations.
Even if published fees appear high at first glance, there is often room for negotiating discounts, especially if it's likely you'll be adding money to the account over time or are in a position to help build business through referrals. (Vanguard doesn't discount its published fees for investment management, according to a spokesperson. Fidelity has no official policy on negotiating published rates on an individual basis, but says part of the fee is credited to the account if the portfolio holds Fidelity funds or any of the funds in the firm's brokerage network.)
People with $25,000 to $100,000 accounts who want investment management have a more limited menu of options to choose from. One of them, E*Trade's Managed Investment Portfolios, has an investment minimum of $25,000 and cost 0.75 percent of assets a year for amounts up to $100,000. Another smaller investor option, MarketRiders Managed IRA program, charges an annual flat fee of $495 and uses index ETFs and mutual funds to implement its recommendations.
Of course, fees are just one thing to consider when choosing an advisory firm. Lower-cost services focus almost exclusively on investment management and may include automated programs, so they tend to work best for people who don't need lots of hand holding and have low-touch, simple financial situations.
"One of my clients who used to pay $1,000 a year for investment management told me he missed getting calls from his adviser every couple of weeks,". "This guy was paying thousands of dollars for a lot of telephone calls he really didn't need."
So pay attention on How to find the best option and once you find it you should know that every conversation you have on any investment advise, could help you in the future, therefore here is a great tool to record any Skype conversation you want
Riviera for Skype is a Skype call recorder. It automatically records Skype calls and conversations to MP3 files. It is also very convenient for recording interviews, tech talks, conferences, audio casts, pod casts for learning later, etc.
Let the Christmas magic festivities begin! keep investing here and now, it is time...and keep writing. I had a big setback during this weekend but now I know and I feel I learned the lesson keep in touch...
