Arm Yourself Against Scams

News about complaints from people who got victimized by money schemes is usual nowadays. Big factor that often lead to this kind of story is due to the investor’s lack of financial knowledge and the big temptation on earning easy money. Easy money is a sure thing in scams only if you are the schemer.

In most things in the world today, knowledge about what you’re doing is the best weapon you can have. And greed is the worst character you would want to carry while dealing with anything about money. It blurs your vision and logical thought to decide well on your finances. In any type of investment, it’s more about what your needs and investment goals are and less of what the other person is trying to sell you more. But you should also be open for other opportunities while being aware of your current financial capabilities.

Here’s a post from my other blog that might help you avoid from losing money from scams.

--> Stop Losing Money By Making Trust Expensive

Things You Need When You Die

One of the basic tenets of preserving and increasing your assets is by identifying your needs from your wants. This is a financial advice that you will always encounter. Once you get the list of your needs and wants, it will be easy. But what people find difficult is identifying what they truly need. This is true since we also at times create our own reasons to justify the unimportant a necessity.

Most of us think that needs are tailor made for each person. But basically, we are all the same species that supposed to have the same needs but society affects our perception of it which results in the differences. As we go along, there will be additional needs that come up in every stages of our life that we have to cover. But the sad part here is we keep on chasing these new necessities while ignoring the basic ones until we need them. And usually it’s too late. So how do we know which basic needs that we need to address as early as possible? 

You still have time

I use this simple formula that helped me recognizing my own basic needs which you can also try for yourself. To know what these basic needs are, I just ask myself the “what if <bad thing happens>?” series of questions. And these bad things are the inevitable ones.  A lot of these scenarios have high chances if not 100% of happening within just a matter of time. These questions get me into thinking of the post-scenarios. It also helps me prepare and create solutions to lessen the after-effect of these scary situations. So what do these questions look like? Here are some examples.

• What if I lose my job tomorrow? Or my wife's? Or both of us?
• What if I get into an accident that disables me?
• What if I or a family member gets a major illness?
• What if I die early?
• What if any of the above happens, what will happen to our mortgages, loans, etc?  my children’s education? my family’s future?
• What if I grow too old, will I have enough money to enjoy my long years of retirement? Or pay for my medical bills that come with age?  

It’s just right when we say that we need this new smartphone that can make our work easier, or a new car for a more comfortable and safe travel to your office, or a new dress or bag as additional investment needed for your career. We do need these things and we rightfully deserve to have these things for our hard work. So you buy these things. But what if some of these bad scenarios mentioned above happen? Are you prepared?

Do you have enough savings to cover the after effects of let’s say a lost job or an injury or an illness? How long can your family survive with that savings amount you have before you can get a new job or recover from your ailment? Or what if the worse happen? You die. Do you even have prepared for the high expense of death services? And what will happen to your family if you’re gone soon especially if you still have very young kids? What more if the properties you purchased like your car and your house are mortgaged, how would you leave your spouse with that burden? Did you prepared for it as well? These things are what we really need which we realize only when bad things happen.

What's your dream retirement?

Don’t worry as these are just example and are not yet happening on you. But who knows. It might be soon. But I hope it won’t, not on me and not on you. It’s not that I’m wishing everyone bad things to happen. But let’s be optimistic. Yes, optimistic. These things might happen but you read it here and you got reminded. So you haven’t prepared for these things yet? Good. I really mean good for you because for everything mentioned above, there are different types of investments you can get into so you will be able to shield your family from worst things after any of the scenarios above happen. 

It’s good that you realize your basic needs now and you still have time to prepare. I can share to you on what I exactly did to become ready for these things that helped me sleep well at night. We’ll discuss these things on the next posts. But if you are raring to start as soon as possible, you can contact me directly right now. Email me at laymaninvestment@gmail.com or at rogie_ylagan@yahoo.com .

The clock is ticking.  When will you begin? Please share this post to others if it helps you as it might also help them. Thanks!

Always Better Than Diversification

Diversification is one thing you'll hear a lot when you are just starting to get into investments. By the root word ‘diverse’, it is the act of spreading your money into different types of investment to reduce the risk of losing a lot when you just put it all in just one basket, as they say.

It's a great strategy practiced by many successful investors. Diversification itself is an easy thing to do. You just put your money in several types of investments available to you like in real estates, equities, mutual funds, trust funds and other traditional businesses like retailing then voila, you are already doing it. 

But remember that your main objective in getting into investments is to grow your money. Lessening the risk of losing it is just a feature you practice while doing it. If your main goal is lessening risk, go ahead and diverse as much as you can. Spread your money. Put a little on this and on that. Chances are, you’ll earn in some and lose in some. You might end up break-even. 

Diversification is a great strategy. There’s no question to it. But keep in mind that the more important thing than knowing how to diverse is why you are doing it. You can only achieve that by studying your investments. There’s no other way. And by knowing your needs and visioning your objectives, choosing the better investments for you will become easier. Always remember that diversification is a tool for your perusal and never your end goal.

Investing Is Good, But Which One?

I know. It's been 'years' since the last time I posted here. Let's pretend that I updated this blog yesterday then let's move on. I'm sorry.

Investment is a big word. I don't think any person would admit that he knows everything about it. But most investors, businessmen and entrepreneurs know something about everything and they invest in most of them but specialize in just one or maybe a couple of them. Generally, investing is good. But if you are to choose one for yourself, which one would be the best?

Where will you put it?

They will tell you that one thing is better than the other. But it's always more about who is talking than what he's talking about. We can't move away from biases since people will favor more about what they do and what they sell. But as the receiver of the information, you must be the one to gauge which of these facts you can put in use. But before acting up, ask yourself why you must do it. Don't do anything at all of if you can't answer this first.

For every type of investment, there will always be advantages and disadvantages. There is no perfect investment but there is that one or a combination of them that perfectly suits you. And it's true that there is one type better than the other but there's always an asterisk in the word "better" there. It will be based on your needs, objectives, capability, character and knowledge. There are many considerations before you start.

- How old are you?

- How much do you earn?

- Are you single? Married? With kids? A breadwinner?

- Are you planning to set up an emergency fund? Fund for your children’s education? Retirement fund?

- Can you tolerate big risks with your money?

- How much time you can spend managing and studying your investment?

Different answers to question above leads to different directions on which investment to take. It’s not that complicated as it sounds. You have to know what you need and what you want to do. That’s the fundamental thing since every plan you have in your life must start in knowing and familiarizing with your current status before deciding which move you can do next.

We can begin here. Put your answers to the comments section below, or you can send it to my email then let’s discuss which investment vehicle you need and you can start from. Email me at laymaninvestment@gmail.com. Thanks for reading. Expect more frequent posts in here from now on. I promise.