Are you aiming for a career in the fast changing world of finance? Statistics will tell you that most of today’s college students who enter the workforce are not concerned with their company’s retirement product options. What they are concerned with is managing rent, student debt, credit card bills, and of course, having a bit of fun. All without overdrawing their checking accounts and owing the bank fees that add to their debt and financial frustration.

Where’s the way out? The simplest solutions sometimes really are the easiest. It comes down to basic planning. Ask any ten 20-somethings…or 30-somethings…or really, anyone regardless of their age, if they have a written out budget. My guess is the answer is no. What makes it so difficult for us to track our spending? A basic lack of willpower? We all want money. We all want the American dream…yet aren’t willing to work for it. All it takes is a bit of simple planning…and sticking to the plan.

Word to the wise: Don’t count on money that isn’t guaranteed. The old philosophy of not counting your chickens before they’re hatched is finally starting to make sense!

For information on having a financial counseling career, please visit the websites mentioned below:
Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc
American Consumer Credit Counseling
Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education

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Most people do not live with a financial game plan. Without a financial plan you are destined to be normal…always worried about finances, deeply in debt, unable to pursue your dreams because your bills are holding you back. Personal financial counseling is right for you if you want to develop an overall financial plan to ensure you are doing the best with what you have.

Some of the places online where you can get personal financial counseling:
Consumer Credit Counseling Service
Security Financial Management Company
AAA Fair Credit Foundation
Msfinancialsavvy is a personal finance website, about women and money.

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In all the financial problems, I am able to find a pattern. Believe it or not, people more often than not choose the problem by their behavior. It is easy for me to find a pattern and say, “Well you choose your problem, did you not?“

Your financial problems would have been caused by some (or all) of the following financial behavior:

1. Not planning: The single biggest problem for most people is that they just do not plan their finances. Even if they are not happy about the results of what they have done so far, they do not change the way things are done.

2. Overspending: Many people with not very high incomes have very high ambitions. Most of this problem is because the salesmen in most shops do not tell you the price of a product, they only tell you the EMI - so anything from a plasma TV to a luxury home on the outskirts of the city are made to look cheap!

3. Not talking finance at home: Children are kept away from the finance topics at the dining table. Finance is perhaps the second most taboo topic at home! So many children grow up without knowing how much of sacrifice their parents have gone through to educate them.

4. Parents spending on education and marriage: There are just too many kids out there who believe that they need to worry about savings, investment and life insurance only at the age of 32 plus. This means your father, father-in-law or a bank loan has funded your education and marriage. Kids should take on financial responsibility at a much younger age than what is happening currently.

5. Marriage between financially incompatible people: Most marriages under stress are actually under financial stress. Either the husband or the wife is from a rich background and the other partner cannot understand or cope with the spending pattern. It is necessary to match people financially before marriage.

6. Delaying saving for retirement: “I am only 27 years old why should I think of retirement“ seems to be a very valid refrain for many 32-year olds! Every year that you delay in investing the greater the amount that you will have to save later in your life. Till the age of 32 it might be feasible for you to catch up, but after some time the amount that you need to save for retirement just flies away.

7. Very little life insurance: With all the risks of life styles, travel, etc. illness and premature death are common. We all have classmates who had heart attack at the age of 32 but still pretend that we do not need life or medical insurance.

8. Not prepared for medical emergencies: Normally big emergencies - financially speaking - are medical emergencies. Being unprepared for them - by not having an emergency fund is quite common.

9. Falling prey to financial pitches: The quality of pitches has improved! Aggressive young kids are recruited by brokerage houses, banks, mutual funds, life insurance companies, etc. and all these kids are selling mutual funds, life insurance, portfolio management schemes, structured products, et al.

10. Buying financial products from “obligated persons”: This is perhaps one of the worst things you can do in your financial life. A friend, relative, neighbor, colleague who has been doing something else suddenly becomes a financial guru because they have become an agent! You are saddled with a dud product for life!

11. Financial illiteracy: Most people do not wish to know or learn about financial products. They simply ask, Where do I have to sign? So buying a mutual fund is easier than buying life insurance!

12. Ignoring small numbers for too long: What difference will it make if I save $100 a month? Well over a long period it could make you a millionaire! So start early and invest wisely. It will make you rich. That is the power of compounding.

13. Urgent vs important: Most expenses, which look urgent, are perhaps not so important - the shirt or shoe at a sale. That luxury item which was being offered at 30% discount is such an example. These small leakages are all reducing the amount of money you will have for the bigger things like education or retirement.

14. Focusing too much on money: Money is no longer a commodity to buy things. It is a scorecard of one`s life. That will cause stress, and yoga might help. However if you will seek a branded yoga teacher - so that your friends think you have arrived, yoga it self could cause financial stress!

PV Subramanyam is a financial domain trainer and can be contacted at pv.subramanyam@irisindia.net

Before signing up with a financial counseling agency, you must do your homework. Your goal should be to find a credit counseling agency that has satisfied clients, offers personalized service from trained counselors, can educate them how to make appropriate financial choices and will provide them with the tools they need to achieve financial security.

Some of the agencies from whom you can get financial counseling are:
Comprehensive Counseling for Consumers of America
Cornerstone Financial Counselors
PreBankruptcy.org
American Consumer Credit Counseling
Consumer Credit and Budget Counseling

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Once the wedding bells have stopped ringing, even well-heeled newlyweds like Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey need to be mindful of their finances. (Remember hubby Nick’s horror about his wife’s purchase of $1,400 bedsheets?) That’s because, of the roughly 2.3 million U.S. couples that get married annually, the median age of first-timers to the altar is between 25 and 27, according to Divorce Magazine. At that age, many couples are still hitched to student loans and credit-card debt accumulated as singletons. “They live for the moment and don’t think ahead,” says Nancy Langdon Jones, a certified financial planner in Upland, Calif. “For many couples, this period in their lives has the greatest impact on what will happen in their future.” Please read rest of the article at Forbes.com.

You might also want to check out this video on YouTube titled Marriage Counseling - Newlywed Financial Stability.

For the price of a soft drink each day, get 200 online video seminars of the World’s Greatest Experts. Get the success you want… Faster than you ever dreamed!

Financial Counseling and Planning (FCP) is a peer-reviewed journal published
two times a year by the Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education. FCP features original research and descriptions of effective approaches to education and practice concerning all aspects of financial
counseling and planning. Readers expect to find detailed recommendations for education and practice in journal articles. FCP also publishes book reviews.

Researchers are encouraged to submit papers on a wide-range of topics including both personal finance subject matter and counseling techniques and tools.

Financial Counseling and Planning is available free of charge as an Open Access journal on the Internet.

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The sites mentioned below are some of the places where you can find online financial counseling:
Consumer Credit Counseling Services
DaveRamsey.com
Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Buffalo
Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Greater Dallas

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Would you consider taking a blank check from your checkbook, signing it, and then leaving it on the counter at a convenience store? Would you leave a wallet full of cash lying around in public?

Of course not. In fact, these are ridiculous questions.

Nevertheless, many people carelessly extend an open invitation for strangers to steal from them by not guarding their credit card information carefully enough. Unfortunately, with just your credit card number and expiration date, it’s not that difficult for someone else to charge purchases to your account. That’s why credit card fraud is so high – it’s a combination of the lackadaisical attitudes people have toward their cards and other people’s willingness to steal from them if they make it easy enough.

The good news is that keeping your card number secure is relatively easy if you follow a few simple rules. Primarily, it involves changing your attitude toward the information on your charge cards, and respecting the potential for financial loss that comes with not keeping it secure.

First, don’t leave your credit card lying around – at home, at work, or at a sales counter, it doesn’t take long for someone to discreetly copy your number and expiration date. You’d never consider tossing several hundred dollars in cash on a sales counter, and then turning your back on it. You should have the same attitude about your credit cards.

Also, keep track of your credit card receipts and carbons, taking them from the cashier whenever you make a purchase. Letting the sales person throw them away means anyone with access to the store’s dumpster has access to your credit information.

Another good rule of thumb is to never tell anyone your card number over the phone, unless you initiate the phone call. There are quite a few unscrupulous companies that will tell you they need your credit card number to verify your identification or to claim a prize that you have supposedly won, and then make unauthorized charges to your account.

Never allow your credit card number to be used as identification for a check. This gives complete access to your number, along with your address and bank account number, to everyone who comes in contact with the check. That includes people at the store where you made the purchase, the bank the check is deposited to, and the bank the check is drawn from.

One of the more common things people do that leaves them open to credit card theft is to loan their card to a friend or family member. Remember that, every time that card leaves your possession, you run more of a risk of it getting into the wrong hands.

Finally, if you don’t use your credit cards very often, check your wallet or billfold periodically to make sure you still have them. One of the worst feelings imaginable is receiving your monthly statement and seeing hundreds or even thousands of dollars in fraudulent charges over a period of weeks when you didn’t even realize the card was missing.

Source: American Credit Counselors

For the price of a soft drink each day, get 200 online video seminars of the World’s Greatest Experts. Get the success you want… Faster than you ever dreamed!

For the price of a soft drink each day, get 200 online video seminars of the World’s Greatest Experts. Get the success you want… Faster than you ever dreamed!

1. Find equal opportunities. Don’t be a victim of the survival-of-the-fittest technique. Make yourself marketable.
2. Get a life-changing business education. Feed your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual needs. No, this doesn’t necessarily mean sitting in a college classroom. Get an education from life.
3. Latch onto friends who will pull you up, not push you down. Protect yourself from negative influences.
4. Find value in your network. The more people you can meet in business, the better.
5. Develop your most important business skill. Communicate, communicate and communicate.
6. Be a leader. Influence others by being a great teacher.
7. Don’t work just for money. Work to build wealth, not money. Invest.
8. Live your dreams. First of all, make sure you have dreams. Then make them a reality. You can be a successful businessperson and still make your dreams come true.

www.alwyncosgrove.com

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