Baby Boomers Getting Deeper In Debt!

A recent article in The Globe and Mail has me slightly concerned about the financial well-being of our baby boomer generation. It appears that there has been a trend of late (from 2001-2006) according to census data that shows baby boomers assuming more debt.

Why This Concerns Me

At a time when many folks should be enjoying life and harvesting the fruits of their labor, they have assumed more debt. Why are taking on more debt?

It appears that many are completing renovations to their homes, and that is not all bad. If the repairs are needed to sustain the home for the rest of their days, like new windows, shingles, furnace etc. then so be it. However, taking out a second mortgage to add a sunroom or additional living space does not make sense for the majority of empty-nesters.

Even worse, some are taking out a second mortgage to buy depreciating assets like vehicles and may find themselves on the car loan treadmill for the rest of their lives if they are not careful.

Why This Is Smart

Taking out a second mortgage is smart if you are not planning on retiring until the mortgage is paid off because mortgages are the cheapest source of capital (next to student loans). There is no sense paying more interest that you have to, which is why I have a large line of credit on my home. The line of credit on my home is currently at 4.75% and is interest only. This works great for acting fast on “no-brainer” investing opportunities.

Another reason that this data might not represent a clear picture of a trend is that it is not indexed to life expectancy rates. You see, people of a certain age, even 10 years ago, had a much lower life expectancy that baby boomers do today. Not only that, their health and quality of life is much better than previous generations. What this means is that they may be working later in life and they expect to live a healthier and longer life being more active. All in all, today’s baby boomers may not be in as much trouble as this data may lead us to believe.

My Take

While I certainly don’t plan on having to use the equity in my home when I am in my 60’s (at least for anything other than investing), I suppose we never know what circumstances might present themselves in the future.

I am a relatively conservative individual by nature and I don’t really like to own “stuff” just for the sake of having something, so I can’t see myself wanting to increase my standard of living if I don’t have the additional income stream to provide it.

Have the baby boomers finally fallen victim to the consumer driven marketing ploys that have been so effective at convincing those of us in our twenties and thirties that we must keep up with the Jonses?

What do you think?

A Money Saving Trip To The Grocery Store

Saving Money On Groceries

My wife and I made our weekly trip to the grocery store last evening. We normally shop for groceries on Sunday evening, but this week was different.

It is important to take advantage of sales on items that we purchase on a consistent basis, especially those that do not spoil. The Simple Dollar has a nice coupon strategy for this type of shopping that can often allow you to get items for free by using multiple coupons on a sale item.

No Tax!

Yesterday evening from 5:00-9:00 PM our local grocery store was having a no-tax sale. This even happens maybe a couple of times per year and we always make sure to take advantage of it.

Our grocery store also has a gas program whereby each gas purchase gives you $0.05/liter in store coupons. We have been saving these coupons for the last couple of months in anticipation of the no-tax sale.

When we heard that the no-tax sale was coming up, we made sure to add up our gas purchase coupons and search for additional coupons on staple food items during the month prior to the sale. (See coupons.com etc.)

With the arrival of our new baby, we have been intensely developing a price list at several stores for essential items such as diapers, baby wipes and baby clothing. We buy most of our baby clothing used from a local classifieds site or garage sales, but diapers and wipes are constantly on our watch list and my wife is always getting diaper coupons in the mail!

The Perfect Savings Storm!

With crippling gas prices hitting the nation, even my household with our two gas-sipping Honda’s is starting to feel the pain!

Enter the best coupon we’ve had to date!

We just received a coupon in the mail last week that offers double the cash back on one fill per month from our grocery store gas bar. Sweet! That means instead of $0.05 per liter of gas, we will get $0.10/liter for one fill only.

Knowing that the no-tax sale was coming up, drove both of our vehicles until they were bone-dry and proceeded to use the double savings coupon.

I know what you are thinking- “I thought you said it was only good for one fill”?

The coupon actually states that it is good for one gas “purchase”. So, without hesitation I filled both vehicles from the same pump so that it read one transaction of ~88 liters, or $8.80 of store credit.

I view gas purchases as somewhat of a necessity, so the additional $4.40 in grocery store credit was certainly worth it to me.

Adding Up The Savings

When all was said and done, our grocery bill shrunk substantially from $86.48 all the way down to $53.11.

A savings of $33.37 just by using some simple planning and being aware enough to combine a few savings strategies into one shopping trip.

One of the many complaints that I hear about people who don’t use coupons is that it takes too much time in comparison to the savings that can be had. While I did not count the minutes that it took to decide on the choices to make in order to make this shopping trip, I highly doubt it exceeded $33.37 worth of my time.

Do you have any favorite money saving tips or tricks? If so, please leave them in the comments…I’m always up for saving a few bucks!

Are Dividend Investors Idiots?

In a recent article by John Heinzl (Globe and Mail) he asks himself if, as a dividend growth investor, he and all other dividend investors are idiots? Heinzl outlines the feelings that we typically have every so often as dividend investors. That is, missing out on the “multibaggers” that everyone is talking about around the water cooler at work.

Here is a quote that sums up how us dividend investors might feel at the moment:

…Because when everyone else is doing the logical thing and shoveling money into growth stocks that are shooting to the moon, only a big fat idiot would stubbornly sit on a portfolio of boring dividend stocks that are, for the most part, doing jack squat.

It’s interesting that he mentions high flying stocks like Potash Corp. and Research in Motion as being the ones that he missed out on, while he talks about owning our favorite dividend growers - banks, insurers, pipelines and drug makers.

How Far Can You See?

When investing in dividend growth stocks , it isn’t about making a killing this week or this month.

• It is about investing for the long haul and watching your dividend income rise consistently year over year while your “investor” counterparts are searching for the next hot tip.
• It’s about holding onto that dividend paying stock and not worrying about the stock price, as long as that dividend keeps growing.
• It’s about protecting your hard-earned money from inflation and making your money work for you.
• It’s about knowing the company can’t fake a cash dividend.
• It’s about money in your pocket.

Over the long term we know (and Heinzl reiterates) that dividend growing common stock prices also out perform those stocks that pay stable or no dividends.

So What Now?

There is a famous saying from Warren Buffett that goes something like this:

“Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful”

Of course this is easier said than done, otherwise we’d all be running a multi-billion dollar company like Berkshire Hathaway.

While it may take some serious resolve to start loading up on some of our favorite dividend payers, most notably banks stocks, sticking to a long term plan will make you rich in the long run.

So, to echo the words of Mr. Heinzl I’ll end with this quote:

Am I going to sell my dividend stocks to buy these high fliers now? Hell, no. If anything, I’ll be adding to my existing positions, and reinvesting the extra dividends in even more shares to take advantage of the magic of compounding.

So, don’t worry about the water cooler talk and stick to your plan. Soon enough you’ll be saying goodbye to the water cooler forever when the compounding effects of your rising dividend income begins to exceed your salary!

Here’s to your wealth!

How To Earn $ From Google?

I'll tell you how to earn $ from google.com, i think you know what is google??? Yes Google is the biggest search engine more than yahoo, MSN, altavista or another search engine, but i think not all people knows we can earn hundreds or thousands dollar a month from google. Its not difficult to get money from google, you even can do it at NO COST. Many people keep it secret, but here i'll tell you about google adsense work. You want to know why google pay us? yes we have to do little job to earn a lot of money from google. You only need to work 10 minutes - 1 hour per day and you will receive check from google after $ 100.

I"LL CREATE GOOGLE ADSENSE ACCOUNT AND PERSONAL WEBSITE FOR YOU IN ENGLISH & ITS READY TO USE

May be you ever buy business ebook about google adsense program. But after you buy it, you still feel difficult to start your google adsense business because you don't have a proper website that eligible to get google adsense account. So with buy google adsense ebook you only know about google adsense business opportunity, not more. Terrible, you have lost a lot of money but you get nothing???

INSTANCE WAY TO BE GOOGLE ADSENSE MARKETING

Account and Web Site in English Language

I'll give you the best solution so you can start your google adsense business. i give you google adsense account and personal website with marketable content for google adsense. You don't need to do anything!

CLICK HERE FOR WEB SAMPLE

I'll give you facilities for your google adsense business bellow :

1. I help you to create google adsense account. The account status is hundreds percent yours. I'll submit your acccount aplication register in order approved by google adsense. i have a special tricks so your account will be approve by google. very easy? yes! You only need to relax and i'll handle account registration in google adsense for you.

2. I'll give you a personal web page in English Support Language. The web content depend on your choice and of course the web already contain your google adsense code. You can choose your web content from 60 available catagory. So you don't need to buy a domain name and web hosting or create you own website. Yes you only need to sit and drink you coffee, i'll create your website with your google adsense advertising code for you. Click here to see example website with content that i'll give for your google adsense.

3. Facilities in your website : Marketable content, that have great selling point in google adsense business, Real time data Statistic (This is important to monitor your website visitor), and support system to improve your google adsense business.

4. Google adsense account is 100% your own, so you can use it for another website if you have. Its need to understand : google adsense rule is you can use one account in more than one website but you can put more than one google adsense code ( from different account ) in one web page.

5. Here is 60 available web catagory :


TOPIK WEB SITE

Adsense
Advertising
Advice
Affiliate programs
Autos
Business
Careers
Communication
Computers
Copywriting
Dating
E-Books
E-Commerce
Education
Email

Entertainment
Environment
Family
Finance
Fitness

Food
Gardening
Health
Hobbies
Home Business
Home Repair
Humor
Internet
Law
Management


Marketing
Marriage
Metaphysical
MLM
Motivational
Newsletters
Online Promotion
Pets
Politics
Psychology

Real Estate
Religion
Sales
SE Optimization
SE Positioning
Site Security
Social Issues
Spam
Spirituality
Sports
Technology
Traffic Analysis
Travel
Viral Marketing
Web Design
Web Hosting
Webmasters
Weight Loss
Women's Issues
Writing


For sample web : Click here Example 1, Example 2, Example 3, Example 4, Example 5

Contact: alexander_delpie@yahoo.com

Pay-per-click (PPC)

Pay-Per-Click search engines are an excellent way to get targeted traffic to your site. Think of them as search engines where you can choose your ranking in the results:

1) you decide under hich keyword phrases your site should appear when someone does a search

2) for those keywords, you decide how high you want to be in the search result (the higher, the better)

Overture
Overture, which was recently acquired by Yahoo, was the first Pay-Per-Click search engine. The minimum bid is 10 cents. Overtures offers a $10 bonus when you join.

Findwhat
Launched in 1999 under the name of BeFirst, Findwhat is a very popular Pay-Per-Click search engine. The minimum bid is 5 cents. Findwhat offers a $5 bonus when you join.

Kanoodle
Kanoodle was also launched in 1999. The minimum bid is 5 cents. Kanoodle offers a $5 bonus when you join.

Enhance Interactive (formerly ah-ha.com)
Enhance Interactive was founded 1999. The minimum bid is 3 cents. Enhance Interactive offers a $15 bonus when you join.

Increasing Sales Through Strategic Internet Marketing

The Internet has now become an important medium for product and service advertisements. Almost every company that can afford print, radio and TV advertisements have also ventured into placing ads on the Internet.

But with millions of websites out there being visited by millions of computer users, how can you make sure that your ad can be seen by your target customers and that your leads will be followed by these users? Here are a few tips.

1. Place an ad on the websites frequented by your target customers. Before doing this, you need to define who will be your target customers. Placing an ad on sites that they usually visit will increase the possibility that your ad will gain the attention and will be followed your target customers..

2. Placing ads on some sites cost some money. However, there are also sites that can place a link to your site, product or service in exchange of having their link being displayed on your site. This is also true about the newsletters sent by site owners to its mailing list members regularly.

3. Pay-per-click (PPC) is also a good method in Internet marketing. You will only need to pay for the ad if the link is clicked. If you prefer this method of advertisement, make sure that you are using services that set limits on daily expenses. There are also services that help you determine effective keywords and monitor the PPC results.

4. Choose your domain name wisely. It is still being debated if domain names matter when it comes to search engine placement. Whether it does or not, having product related domain names help consumers remember your domain, that they can go back to your site even without the links.

5. Make sure you have useful content on your sites. While keyword density is important in search engine placement, having useless information or annoying repetition of keywords will not increase your customer's confidence in your site. It may even affect your sites traffic and can get your site removed from search engines. So make sure that keywords are used strategically.

6. When thinking of keywords, think like your target customers. What do you think are they going to search so they can get to your site? Also, use specific keywords or key phrases. Submitting a single word or a very general phrase to a search engine will not get you to the top of the search results compared to submitting specific keywords that describe your product and services perfectly.

7. Track your ads. Always check how much you have spent on placing links on frequently visited sites and on PPC. There are services that allow you to monitor PPC transactions and how many of these end in sales. You always need to consider if the ads that you have placed on these websites are getting you to your target consumers and if these ads can lead to revenue.

Job Vacancy Resource

Networking: Your Most Important Career Activity
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Qualifications for Work as a Project or Program Manager
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Looking for Nursing Employment?
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Finding Varieties of Freelance Jobs
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Identifying Data Entry Job Scams
Data entry scams can be easily identified when a company demands money to be sent for a training kit etc. Employers pay money to the employee and not vice versa. Therefore warning bells should be heard while coming across such offers. Read on to learn how to avoid falling prey to scammers online.
Find a Career in Product Management
Product management is a broad area of expertise, that involves the planning of a particular product, its creation, development and distribution to specified markets. Therefore, product management is involved in all aspects of this product and its life cycle. Product management would usually make up a team, composed of a sales engineer, a marketing manager, a product planner and a product marketer.
Taking a Look at a Career in Personal Care and Services
Choosing a career in personal care and services opens the doors to a wide range of possibilities, as there are plenty of different paths to pursue in this particular field, including health care and physical fitness. To get an idea of the usual qualifications associated with this line of work, consider the following suggestions...

The Importance of Bedside Manner in Nursing
Ti - Craig Elliott 8-02-03 809 4-->The quality of the care you provide to your patients is important for them in so many ways. Of course you need to maintain a certain level of professionalism with patients, visitors, and the medical professionals you work with. But overlooking the importance of bedside manner in nursing reduces the quality of the care that you have taken an oath to provide to the patients under your care.