Edwards Family Empowerment

 

How To Invest ~ Part 5 Written by Melica Niccole Author, Stock BossUp App Mentor, and Blogger  The  fifth step  is the most important step of the five. Have fun while investing. A great way to have fun is to only invest what you are able to invest and that can be used as recreational funding activities. If you are strapped for cash or only have money for rent and utilities, please pay your rent and utilities first. The stock market has been around for years and will be here after your responsibilities get paid. In order to have fun, you have to make sure your basic needs are met. As discussed in part 4, investing with friends and family can be fun; from discussing short term and long-term stock options to stock splits and reverse stock splits. The other fun thing is getting other people’s perspective about a stock. There are many different reasons why people invest in certain stock. Some reasons are because of price, history, future, volatility, and just because it seems ...

             Living below your means seems simple, but it can be challenging if you're just starting out.                I encourage you to still take the first step. It is a powerful tool towards wealth building.

My youngest son scored a 25 on his ACT. He met the academic requirements for a full ride scholarship, but not the score requirement of 30 on his ACT. I had to use my super Mom persuasive powers to convince him to take a $100 prep class at UAH. He groaned and complained the entire two weeks, but I give him credit, he went and he paid attention. He increased his ACT score and obtained the full ride (minus room and board) scholarship to UAH. He simply stayed home to reduce costs or the need for a student loan. My oldest son, did decently in high school. He didn’t fail, he passed his courses. He wasn’t as academically proficient as his siblings, (he’s just as smart as his siblings) so we were not surprised when he suggested that he wanted to enter the military for the GI Bill in order to obtain his education. This is an option that you can also explore with your kids. My son’s advice is to stick to your intentions when you’re in the military. It’s very easy to get side tracked with ...

College degrees are a small fortune now-a-days. They also are not a guarantee that you will be able to get a job in that field. However, most jobs that pay well require that you have a college degree. So it is a huge decision whether or not you invest in a college education or not. It takes careful planning on how you will approach paying for college. Baby Step 5 involves saving for your kids’ college degree. If you don’t have any kids, if your kids have scholarships, or your kids are grown, simply skip this step. You can continue to contribute to your retirement plan while saving for your children’s future. See below on how to calculate how much to save. Dave Ramsey recommends that you do your research about college before you begin this step. You should try to determine the costs of private, public, and trade schools. Then come up with a gameplan on how you will approach your kids attending college. The degrees that you get can be obtained affordably. Some tips are going to a c...

I used to think that if I made a little more money, it would solve all of my financial problems. It turned out not to be true though. When I was in the military, the first place where I was told to report to work was in Fort Lewis, Washington. My basic pay was about a $1,000 a month and my apartment cost about $700. Being in the military, I received money to cover the cost of housing and also money for me and my family to eat. This was before John McCain passed a law to increase the amount of money that military families made. This law was passed because Soldiers were paid so little they were eligible for assistance programs like food stamps and WIC. I’m not going to lie, all three of my children were on the WIC program. We lived in a small house. We could watch the front living room tv from the bedroom, but we made ends meet. The one thing we did (that I regret) was that as I got promoted in rank, and began earning more money, we began spending more money. Our tastes grew to suit our ...

Dr. Lynn Richardson, a financial coach for the stars, suggests that you do several things to improve your finances.  Some of the suggestions are simple, for example, spending less than you make.  My late brother-in-law, Levorn Sanders, used to say, “You’ve got to watch your money, because it can’t watch itself.”  I would suggest that you make out a budget to help you with this. Make a list of every bill you have and allot money you pay to each bill.  When you have done this, take your net take home pay and see how much money you have left over.  Does this amount match up with what you have extra at the end of the month? If it doesn’t, you should consider trying to track your daily spending. Tracking my daily spending has always been hard for me. I forget to log in an amount, or I draw money out and forget where I spent it.  To fix this I tried a free app called Mint. This app was supposed to track my every withdrawal from my accounts and also give me financ...