Simple Lifestyle Changes that will Save You Money!

The weather outside may be frightful, but here are a few ways to keep the inside delightful and not break the bank. With just a few changes in your lifestyle you can save the planet by cutting down on your energy use and save a little pocket change.

Energy Saving Tips for the Winter Ahead:

• Close up rooms that are not used on a regular basis, like a guest bedroom. Close the vents, turn down the thermostat, and close the door. There is no sense heating a room that is not occupied

• Turn down the thermostat and use space heaters in frequently used spaces. Turning down your thermostat even 1 degree can save you 3% on your energy bill!

• Minimize the use of ventilation fans. A bathroom fan can suck all the heated air out of the average home in little more than an hour.

• Keep your furnace, heat pump, or other heating equipment maintained and running as efficiently as possible. Look into purchasing a maintenance agreement. In the long run it could save your family lots of money.

• Ceiling fans do more than keep you cool during the summer; they can warm during the winter. It’s as simple as flipping a switch to change the direction of the blades, which pushes warm air down.

• Keep the water heater temperature at 120 degrees or cooler.

• When washing clothes always wash full loads and use cold water whenever possible.

• We all love those long hot showers in the winter, but by cutting your shower time in half you can save 33% on hot water costs.

• Let Mother Nature lend a warm hand. Open up the curtains and blinds on all South facing windows during the day and let the sunlight heat the house naturally. But be sure to close them before the sun goes down to keep the heat within the house.

By: Grace Mohr

Focusing on the “Important” and not on the “Urgent”

by Mackey McNeill

Several years ago, my weekly schedule was structured around working in my Covington office three days a week and in my home office two days a week. It was a transformative time for the firm, and it gave me the freedom to work ON my business rather than IN my business, focusing on the important and non-urgent matters of the firm rather than the daily tasks associated with its function. That much focus and attention paid to entrepreneurial, visionary work was time well spent and resulted in a new foundation for Mackey Advisors. In fact, it worked so well that I quit doing it! Maybe you have had a similar experience. Something worked so well, you think you’re finished and you return to an old routine.

My abnormal schedule drew questions from my peers, as its “normal” to go the office five days a week. People would ask me, “What do you do at home two days a week?” I would explain that I spent it working “on” my business by connecting with key customers, reviewing my strategic plan, updating my budget and projections and thinking through new ideas and processes. I would watch as they run my response through their judgment filter, thinking, “Mackey is goofing off two days a week.”

In Stephen Covey’s work, he calls it the Four Quadrants. Click here for the quadrant matrix It is Quadrant 2, focusing on the Important and Non-urgent matters, that allow us to make quantum leaps in our lives. During my work-at-home period, I focused heavily on Quadrant 2 activity, and saw tremendous growth and positive change in my business.

For 2010, I have lots of goals…and one big schedule change. I am ready to return to a regular work-at-home schedule, dedicating focused attention on strategic matters that will continue to define Mackey Advisors as the leader in innovative financial services.

As of January 1, 2010, I am going to schedule one work-at-home day per week. My goal is to be so effective with this strategy as to allow me to reduce my schedule to a four day work week (three in the Covington office and one in my home office) by July 1st 2010. The extra day I create will be used to play, garden, fly fish, and spend time on community projects relative to greening the environment and creating a more sustainable world. Some might see that as “goofing off”, but I prefer to see it as a way to nurture my creativity, to deliver results in additional areas for which I have passion, and to expand upon the legacy I wish to leave for future generations.

The new year is a natural time for new beginnings. Why not take an evening, or just a quiet hour to assess the Important and Non urgent matters in your business and your personal life, especially with regard to your spouse or your children? Find the one big change you will make in your life in 2010 and prepare to leap into a new vision of your life.

Know more about your Food

If you have an interest in local and organic food, grown using ecologically sound principles, consider attending the OEFFA conference this February in Granville, Ohio. OEFFA stands for Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association.

My husband and I attended the OEFFA conference last year and found it very informative. Some of the topics we learned about where: cooking local food, beekeeping, storm water management, traditional methods of farming and their impact on the environment, starting and growing a CSA.

This years conference features Joel Salatin, author of Everything I Want to do is Illegal.

Learn more at www.OEFFA.org

May prosperity be yours,
Mackey McNeill, CPA/PFS
Mackey Advisors
www.CultivatingProsperity.com

Favorite Holiday Tradition

Several years ago, I began a holiday tradition with my family. I bake them a tin of their favorite cookies, and they give me a list of their Top 10 Best Things of the Year. On Christmas day they read the list out loud, embellishing each item. One the performance is over, they get their tin of cookies.

Not only is this great fun, it makes wonderful memories. I keep all the Top 10 lists in a notebook. I never tire of walking down memory lane with the Top 10 list book.

My daughter always asks for Oatmeal Chocolate Chip. Below is the recipe I modified from my Mother's oatmeal nut cookie recipe.

Enjoy

Sarah’s Christmas Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
350 degrees, 10 minutes
• 1 C butter
• ½ C brown sugar
• 1 C granulated sugar
• ½ t vanilla
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 ¼ c sifted plain flour
• 1 t baking soda
• ½ t salt
• ½ t cinnamon
• 3 C oatmeal
• 1 bag chocolate chips
• ½ c nuts if you like
Turn oven on to preheat. Cream butter and sugar until smooth. Add vanilla and eggs and mix well. Sift flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add flour mixture to butter, sugar and egg mixture. Beat until mixed, but do not beat longer than what is required to mix. Add oatmeal and chocolate chips.
Drop by teaspoon onto a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

Mackey McNeill CPA/PFS
Mackey Advisors
www.CultivatingProsperity.com

The Top 10 Reasons People Don’t Live a Prosperous Life

By: Sandra Baptist

If it were easy, everyone would do it; everyone would have it. That “IT” is prosperity and we’re all trying to achieve that stage in our lives where wealth, health, success are a daily part of our lives.

So what’s the problem? Why aren’t some of us living a prosperous life? Read on, my friends…

1. Clarity: Many people don’t know what they truly want in life. They have not clarified exactly what they desire and where they want to be within a year, 5 years, or even 3 months. Because they don’t know where they are going they drift along with the daily grind, totally forgetting that they want to attain true prosperity.

2. A Clear Path: There are some that have a goal for their life, yet they do not know how to attain it. They go through the motions daily and never actually make a conscious decision to attain their goal.

3. Struggle: Many are desperately trying to live a life of happiness, wealth and success. They are focused on achieving true prosperity, but yet constantly find themselves struggling to attain it. It is this struggle that actually prevents them from being truly prosperous.

4. Fear: False. Evidence. Appearing. Real. This one four-letter word prevents us from going forward to achieve all that we desire. What will our family think? Will our friends still like us? A very high percentage of persons fear success because of how it will affect us and our relationship with others.

5. Conditioning: As children and young adults our environment affects a great deal of our “conditioning” and has a profound effect on the way we think, act and live. Our environment here could include our parents, our friends, television, politics, religion, school courses and our job. For example, the TV may constantly bombard us with images of prosperous persons as unhappy, as crooks or gangsters or as lonely and selfish. If we really believe this, who would want to lead a prosperous, successful life?

6. The Norm: “I can’t be bothered. This is too much work. It’s too hard” Some people cannot be bothered to achieve prosperity. They live each day in a trance, in a numb existence, going along with the status-quo and have no desire to change their lives for the better.

7. Out-Grow Your Peers: Some people don’t want to change. You may be hesitant to achieve your dreams, goals, your vision because once you do achieve true prosperity it may reduce your inventory of what is actually possible for you. It may mean that you grow beyond your partner, your friends and your family. What will that mean for you?

8. Negativity: Our lives are stuck by the negativity we are drawn to in our daily lives. A large percentage of people want to out do their co-workers or friends with the amount and magnitude of problems that they have. Most of us live our lives in total lack and shortage and that prevents us from achieving true prosperity.

9. Courage: It takes courage to be prosperous. It takes courage to make that change! We need to focus our thoughts towards our vision of true prosperity and hold to that vision. Once we have the courage and the beliefs, there is nothing we cannot achieve.

10. Beliefs: “It can’t happen to us. Prosperity is for other people. They were born with a silver spoon in their mouth”. We are programmed to think that being poor equals happiness. Our belief system totally affects how we live our lives. It is these beliefs that hold us back from our true potential and our true prosperity.

www.hinduwebsite.com

Fiscal Responsibility

Several times a week, I see articles suggesting if Americans don't start spending, then the economy will be derailed. Nonsense! This is akin to saying fiscal responsibility is a bad habit.

This recession was primarily driven my excessive use of credit, compounded by a zero or negative savings rate. This isn't a fiscally responsible way of living, nor is it sustainable.

There is good debt, for home purchases and to grow your business, and bad debt, for consumer spending. It is past time we learned to live within our means. It is also great news that our savings rate is up higher than it has been in 20 years.

Avoid reading articles like this one http://tinyurl.com/yjcsrxb which attempt to scare us back into being hooked on debt consumers. Put your own oxygen mask on first, keep reducing debt and saving.

Mackey McNeill, CPA/PFS
CEO of Mackey Advisors
www.CultivatingProsperity.com

New content added to Mackey Advisors Website

Click here to read an interesting article by Jeff Plungis on credit card companies charging inactivity fees.

Click here to view the PDF of Forefield's 2010 Key Numbers for tax planning. These numbers will help you with:

• Individual tax planning
• Marginal tax planning
• Investment planning
• Education planning
• Retirement planning
• Business planning
• Estate planning
• Protection planning

If you have any questions or would like more information call 859.331.7755