The Importance Of An Emergency Fund when making Millions

Especially in today’s economy, establishing an emergency fund is a critical step on your journey to make millions. We all know that life happens, and if all of the sudden you needed cash quick, would you have it on hand? If not, do you know what the long term consequences could be? Here is a look at what an emergency fund is and why it is so important.

An emergency fund is simply a fund that you stash cash into in case of an emergency. Let’s face it, emergencies do happen. What if you came home one day and your furnace had died, what if you had a sudden accident with thousands of dollars in uncovered medical bills or what if you showed up for work, only to find out your job had been eliminated. What would you do? If you have an established emergency fund you can take the money from there without a lot of unneeded stress. If however, you don’t have an emergency fund you will be scrambling.

If you don’t have an emergency fund for when life happens, your options are not the greatest. You could cut into your monthly budget to get by, but what would you have to sacrifice? Would you have other late payments with tacked on late fees? Would you be able to pay your mortgage and put food on the table?

You could use your credit cards, but when would you be able to pay them off? Credit card interest and other fees add up fast, and the long term consequences can be financially devastating. Also, in today’s tough credit world, you may not have enough credit or even be able to get credit to cover emergencies.

Another option would be to take the money from your retirement, but that is not wise either. Most likely you will have early withdrawal penalty fees and depending on the account you may also have to pay taxes on the money. Not to mention that every time you withdraw from these accounts you are taking hard earned money away from your retirement.

The solution is to save some of your money in an easy access account for emergency purposes. The amount you save is really up to you. You need to look at your own individual circumstances. As a rule of thumb, many financial experts will tell you to save somewhere between three and twelve months worth of living expensed in your emergency fund. If you have a stable job, usually the three to six month range is good, but if you are in fear of losing your job, the more months you have saved, the better.

Where to keep your emergency fund is the next question. The key is to make sure it is accessible, while hopefully making a little interest. Some options include keeping the fund in a high yield savings account, , in short term CD’s (Certificate of Deposits) or in a number of CD’s using what is called CD laddering. The goal is to have cash at hand.

As a recap, an emergency fund will:

* Keep you financially prepared for unexpected “life happens” emergency events.

* Keep you from having to rely on credit and in turn prevent you from going into debt.

* Keep you away from your retirement accounts.

* Help keep you from experiencing financial stress.

If you don’t already have an emergency fund, start one today. Work to fund it quickly and then don’t touch the money except for emergencies. Having the protection of the emergency fund very well could help you achieve saving millions.

This article was the result of a joint cooperation with my friend and colleague,

Barbara Montgomery is a freelance writer who specializes in articles and blog posts on numerous topics including banking, finance, debt management, health, travel and more. She is a frequent writer for reliablewriters.com and a guest blogger for DepositAccounts.com, where you can compare savings account rates from dozens of banks in one place.

Keep your comments coming, with wise Investing and great ideas.

Greek bailout The Millions in the European Union (part two)

Back to the normal rutinary days followed by a great sunny day... I finally have time to express all the ideas on the objective of the Million Euros in less than 5 years. After taking a short trip to Amsterdam to celebrate their freedom day! and see a couple of friends in there I'm back the news are quite extreme, everything financially speaking circles around Greece and Europe, therefore I have to write a follow up article to my article writen on february 2010.

The follow up has to do with Greece and the final bailout that not so many were expecting including me, I still perceive a bunch of exagerated facts and issues let me explain:

The European finance ministers triggered a record 110 billion euro ($147 billion) bailout for debt-stricken Greece last week after Athens committed itself to years of painful austerity.

After weeks of tough talk and procrastination due to fierce public opposition to handouts for the Greeks, German Chancellor Angela Merkel finally threw her full support behind the EU/IMF package, vowing to fight for parliamentary approval.

Euro zone ministers, meeting in emergency session, approved the three-year package of emergency loans and agreed the first funds would be released in time for Athens to make a big debt repayment to creditors on May 19.

In exchange for by far the largest bailout ever assembled for a country, Prime Minister George Papandreou announced further spending cuts and tax increases totalling 30 billion euros over three years on top of tough measures already taken.

"It is an unprecedented support package for an unprecedented effort by the Greek people," a sombre Papandreou, told a televised cabinet meeting.

Merkel called the programme very ambitious and said she would work to achieve swift parliamentary approval of Berlin's share -- the biggest of any EU state at about 22 billion euros out of 80 billion -- of the rescue loans.

U.S. President Barack Obama told Papandreou on Sunday he welcomes Greece's "ambitious" reform program, the White House said. He also praised the "significant support" from the IMF and Eurozone members.

Euro zone leaders held a special summit on Friday to formally launch the rescue after obtaining parliamentary approval where necessary. International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn forecast the IMF board approved its 30 billion euro contribution to the package this week.

Greeks have already taken to the streets to demonstrate against the austerity drive and past governments have backed off from reforms to defuse often violent protests. But Papandreou, a Socialist with a strong personal approval rating, has insisted the country must face the bill for years of drift and graft.

"These sacrifices will give us breathing space and the time we need to make great changes," he said. "I want to tell Greeks very honestly that we have a big trial ahead of us."

The first rescue of a member of the 16-nation euro zone aims to stem a debt crisis that has shaken financial markets, dented confidence in the euro and begun to spread to fellow euro zone weaklings Portugal and Spain. Berlin's hesitancy has fuelled market panic.

The chairman of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, Jean-Claude Juncker, said that at Germany's insistence, all ministers would discuss with their national banking sectors the possibility of voluntary contributions to the aid package.

Some 10 billion euros of the overall amount was earmarked to help stabilise the Greek banking sector if necessary, EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said.

Greece is such a particular case that could not be compared to any other state. Now what really worries me behind all this propaganda is that The euro zone loans will carry an interest rate of about 5 percent -- just half the rate demanded by markets last week to buy Greek debt, but nearly 2 percentage points more than the rate on Germany's benchmark bonds. Here is my main question and concern. How would Grecee be able to pay a loan with a loan?

European Commission and the International Monetary Fund will monitor Greece's progress quarterly and loan disbursements will be tied to those reviews.

Telling angry Greeks to choose between the painful rescue or economic collapse, the government now aims to bring its towering budget deficit back to the EU limit by 2014, two years later than originally promised.

"These measures are tough and unfair," said Stathis Anestis, a spokesman for private sector union GSEE. "They lead workers to misery and the country deeper into recession."

Economists were more positive. "The aid package will help defuse the primary cause of concern for creditors which is the imminent risk of default," said Lena Komileva, head of G7 market economics at Tullett Prebon. But she noted that there was still a question mark over political approval across Europe.

The Greek rescue dwarfs the previous record bailout. South Korea -- a country with a population nearly five times that of Greece -- obtained a $58 billion rescue package from donors including the IMF during the Asian financial crisis in 1997.

Citing a choice "between collapse or salvation", Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou announced a three-year public sector pay freeze, further cuts in civil servants' benefits, higher sales and fuel taxes, an increase in the effective retirement age and reductions in pensions.

Papaconstantinou said the deal would cover a large part of Greek borrowing needs for the next three years. In return Athens promised to slash its budget deficit to the EU limit of three percent of GDP by 2014 from 13.6 percent last year.

Papaconstantinou said Greece's public debt would soar to nearly 150 percent of GDP -- a higher peak than forecast earlier -- but start falling from 2014. Both he and EU and IMF officials insisted there had been no talk of restructuring Greece's debts. It seems that there is some clear lack of specialization concerning finacial issues in this particular case, we basically have to consider some basics on financial matters. Austerity and stop the credit crunch lately the world has seen a bunch of financial bubles and here comes my second questions Why we just don't get it? Stop getting loans that you are not able to pay.

Economists say that if the rescue fails to calm markets, European countries could end up footing a bill of half a trillion euros ($650 billion) to save several other nation. I ask the Economist Who will be able to re pay those bills? why to go that far, instead we should go back to the basics of the market to learn to live between our means stop the credit crunch be environmentaly friendly and make a decent but multiple profit.

It seems to me that the Greek classics are comming back specially with the The Allegory of the Cave, also commonly known as Myth of the Cave, is an used by Plato in his work. The Republic to illustrate "our nature ". (514a) The allegory of the cave is written as a fictional dialogue between Plato's teacher Socrates and Plato's brother Glaucon, at the beginning of Book VII.

Plato imagines a group of people who have lived chained in a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to Plato, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to seeing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.

So it seems to me that maybe we should see what is going on behind the shadows, having in mind the following:

-Grecee is not the whole of Europe
-Greeks must be ready for long sacrifice
-Athens promises extra 30 bln euros in cuts over 3 years
-The bailout will have to be paid (with interest)
-In the past the USA approved 100 billion loan to IMF.
-Learn from the past and stay out of debt!

Final comment: Any heart weak investor should go out off the stock market immediatelly, others like me will stay inn strong waitting for the great oportunities to come, last month Nokia was around 11.30€ a share after all this news it came down to 8.40€ a perfect time to buy don't you think?

Keep your mails and comments coming and let's make it happen!

Here you have two different points of view:

Carlos Slim The richest Man on earth and a bit of Facebook

After spending most of my time celebrating in Mexico with family friends and people,and after organising some future Investment projects for Helsinki, and with my purpose of making one Million Euros in less than five years while reading the Forbes List I realized that the Richest Man on earth is Mexican and not to be so surprised he shares also my name Carlos.


Finaly in 2010 the richest man in the world is the Mexican telecom giant, Carlos Slim. That is according to Forbes magazine which has just released its annual list of the very rich people.

It is the first time since 1994 that an American has not led the ratings and it means he has knocked Microsoft founder Bill Gates into second place and the guru of Investing Mr. Warren Buffet.In his annual shareholder letter Buffett wrote, "We've put a lot of money to work during the chaos of the last two years. When it's raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble."
Finland this year welcomed its first billionaire.


The listings are not just for the curious, Steve Forbes who is the magazine’s Editor-in-chief said they are a snap shot of where money is being made and where it is being lost: “Carlos Slim is ahead by about 500 million, which in that atmosphere is pretty close, about 53 and a half billion to 53 billion.

Here is the top ten Millionaires of the world:

Carlos Slim Helú
William Gates III
Warren Buffett
Mukesh Ambani
Lakshmi Mittal
Lawrence Ellison
Bernard Arnault
Eike Batista
Amancio Ortega
Karl Albrecht

The interesting aspect of all this is that despite a world recession 97 new billionaires have been added to the ratings, 62 of them from Asia.

The world’s youngest billionaire is 25-year old Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, with a net worth of four billion dollars.

And now that suddently we ended up talking about facebook here goes an article that I wrote a month ago to be published in the Helsinki Times However as I did not see the results promissed here it goes right here...Enjoy:

FACEBOOK THE NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE SIDE OF IT

Facebook was founded in California in 2004 and has become the most popular online social networking service with more than 350 Million users, eclipsing News Corporation-owned MySpace. A few months ago it was revealed that a Russian Internet company is offering to buy $100 million worth of stock from Facebook employees in a deal that would value the fast-growing social network at $6.5 billion.

The Russian company, Digital Sky Technologies (DST), which invested $200 million in Facebook in May, is offering $14.77 per share of Facebook common stock.
Facebook's chief executive said at the time that the decision whether to sell stock was up to employees and that the offer "is recognition of Facebook's growth and progress towards making the world more open and connected."

US computer software giant Microsoft bought a 1.6 per cent stake in Facebook for $240million in 2007, a deal that valued the company at $15 billion.
While its number of users has grown at an amazing clip, Facebook, unlike other Web giants such as Amazon, eBay, Google and Yahoo!, has yet to prove how it is going to translate traffic into cash.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook would be cash flow positive by 2010 and the group is considering introducing more paid-for services to Facebook.
Today, more than 350 million people are using Facebook to stay updated on what's happening around them and share almost everything with the people in their lives.

But this unlimited type of sharing could bring Negative and Positive consequences for example the privacy issue: from last December onwards, all Facebook users’ status updates are made publicly available unless the user actively opts to change the settings and make it private. Users were alerted to changes via a ‘Notification’ posted in the bottom right hand corner of the site.

The site users were also given the opportunity to change settings on things like photographs and videos they upload to the site. However, the changes sparked criticism from internet users’ rights groups who said the move was a way for Facebook to facilitate more people making more personal information publicly available without realizing it.

The changes also followed agreements Facebook signed with both Google and Microsoft’s Bing, to allow people’s status updates (which are not set to private) to be indexed by both search engines in order to enable the search giants to provide real-time results creating an amazing marketing strategy targeting all ages and interest of people in real time.

But I don’t personally believe or buy everything that they offer me, so here comes the free will to accept the privacy settings or deny them, to buy all that is offered to me or ignore it, to be a part of facebook or simply skip it.
Another much more dangerous side of it could be found in Mexico by kidnapping people. When in June 2008, Fernando Marti a 14 year old boy was kidnapped and murdered; there was a great concern in Mexico. He was the son of a very prosperous business man in Mexico, owner of Sport City, a nationwide fitness center consortium.
While the parents waited to hear from the kidnapers, they find out that people were searching for information on facebook, at his son’s site, and circulating the life and style of his son through this social network.

Rumors were epidemically circulating thought the media, blogs, facebook and internet, about the high possibility that the kidnapers had gathered the information about their lives from facebook. Friends, family, trips, everyday social life, were all shown through this site.
While people spread out the word that facebook could be used to gather information for the kidnapers to select their victims, and many users remove their information or camouflaged their identity, there are other rumors concerning criminals searching for victims on facebook when they post in their status that they will be having a weekend off, then criminals come in and steal everything. All of this gives us an idea of the different issues that we have to watch out while choosing any of this sites or tools to communicate and share our information. We need to be careful, cautious and informed.
On a different end of events The fugitive Maxi Sopo, who is facing bank fraud charges in the US, was caught in Mexico after boasting on his Facebook page about 'living in paradise' in Cancun.
Mr. Sopo, 26, from Cameroon, spent his days on the beach and nights in clubs. But his fun on the run came to an abrupt end after he started to post Facebook updates about his exploits - and added a former US justice department official to his list of friends.
Because of that indiscretion, he is now in jail in Mexico City, awaiting extradition to the US. Federal prosecutors say he and an associate falsely obtained more than $200,000 from banks and credit unions in and around Seattle. "He was making posts about how beautiful life is and how he was having a good time with his friends,"

Of course there is also the Positive side of Facebook and one of it is the amazing possibilities of communication that it offers, real time information, contact with friends and family, for me it is a perfect tool of keeping my family close specially when they live on the other side of the Atlantic and I live in Helsinki.
Facebook is a perfect place to publish this blog (http://millionairedad.blogspot.com)and get more followers day by day, I sincerely believe that the future is in the net as long as it is used properly, it is true that sometimes the speed of communication could be dangerous but we just have to adapt to the new changes and make the best out of them. So if you want to add me as a friend on facebook don’t hesitate to do it on your free will: Juan Carlos Moya.

Keep your comments coming and see you back in Helsinki in a week...