http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_02/b4115015697841.htm
As I read the list, many thoughts and emotions arose: sadness, horror, confusion, betrayal, stupidity, just to name a few.
Predicting the future is always a shot in the dark. Good people, with good intentions, attempt to give us a peek into the future. Some will be correct and some will not. We will only know in retrospect who was correct.Sadly, a large portion of the population uses these questionable predictions to make financial and investment decisions. There is a better way. First, we have to give up our goal of timing the market and knowing specifically what the future holds. The future has not yet been created. Our future is created from the choices we make today and it is tied to the collective. We are all making choices and our individual choices for how we spend, invest, and make money impacts the big picture. All those small choices add up to the world economy.
Often I hear people condemning “big business.” It is those “big businesses” that lie, cheat and steal, and make a mess of the economy for the rest of us. Of course there is an equal camp that shouts it is “big government” that is the problem. Were it not for “big government” our economy would work and everything would be rosy.Well the last time I looked, both “big business” and “big government” were run by people.
You may not think of them as people like you and me, but I can guarantee, that they get up in the morning and put their pants on one leg at a time like everyone else. They have families, fears, worries and joy, just like you and me. And their decisions are all part of the collective as well.
Without a blue print of the future, who can you create a prosperous future?
Follow my top 3 tips for the New Year and use my five never forget rules.
Here they are:
A. Stop trying to predict the future.
B. Accept, learn and use my five never forget rules of money:
- Cash is Queen/ King – Always have a backup plan that includes cash reserves. Always live within your current cash flow. If you are retired, make sure you have enough cash and bonds to sustain your lifestyle for at least 3 or better, 5 years.
- Use debt wisely. Just because you can get the credit, doesn’t mean it is in your best interest to use it. You have to earn a minimum of $1.30 to pay off $1.00 in debt. This makes debt, easy come, not so easy go.
- Investment markets are volatile. Great investors develop an asset allocation plan, diversify among asset classes, and stay the course in good times and bad.
- Investing is a long term game. Forget about picking a home run. You may get lucky, but more likely you will be broke. Long term is 10 to 15 years. Look ahead and stay out of the news drama of the day.
- Don’t follow the herd. Sheep make lousy investors. If you follow the herd you will sell low and buy high. Making money requires that you buy low and sell high, avoiding the stampede of the herd. (You can get killed out there!)
C. Create your own personal Prosperity Plan™ today. Do not wait. Do not tally. Your future is created by the choices you make today.
What choices are you making? Are these choices moving you toward what you really desire?
The Prosperity Planning™ process gives you these answers and more.
May prosperity be yours,
Mackey McNeill, CPA/PFS IAR
President and CEO
Mackey Advisors
859-331-7755
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