penantang.com

The whole idea of investing is to get to the point where your money does the work and you can afford to relax. But you may get there faster by learning to relax now.

Excitement, anxiety and expenses can trap you in cycles of greed and fear. Instead, try breaking out by using a few financial and physiological tricks. It can make the whole process more relaxed — and more profitable.

1. Commit now to doing something later. Stake out the companies that interest you, and set a price you consider a bargain. That way, you’ll be ready to pounce at the next market downturn.

When the downturn comes, you may be too scared to pounce, like everybody else. But if you’re confident now that a company is stable and has good long-term prospects, consider putting in a standing order to buy it at a set price (it’s called a limit order). That way your brokerage will automatically buy the stock when it hits your price, without your having to work up the nerve.

2. Save more tomorrow? Pre-committing is also a good remedy for the tendency to procrastinate. Employees at one midsize manufacturing firm knew they needed to save for retirement — but not just yet because saving felt like a loss of disposable income.

Read more »

Even if money is tight, this is the time to start stashing away money. Start small, start now.It’s easy to understand why retirement doesn’t loom large on the horizon for 20-somethings. Young workers are more concerned with kick-starting careers, not ending them in the long-distant future.

But it’s worth noting that the very fact that you’re young gives you a huge edge if you want to be rich in retirement. That’s because when you’re in your 20s, you can invest relatively little for a short period and wind up with far more money than someone older who saves much more over a longer period.

Read more »

Blend three ingredients — a paycheck, discipline and time — and, you, too, can be a millionaire. It’s not always easy, but it’s simple. And you have no excuse not to do it.
Here is the single most important thing you will ever hear about investing: Getting rich is simple.

Not easy, but simple.
And here is the second most important thing you will ever hear about investing: You have no excuse not to do it.Only three ingredients are needed: income, discipline and time. Chances are, you already have two of them, income and time. All you need to do is add the third, discipline. And armed with the following knowledge, that key third ingredient may be a lot easier to find.

Here’s how it works: Say you start with nothing, invest $500 (of your income) a month (a healthy discipline), and let your money ride (over time) in diversified investments. Long term, the stock market returns at least 10% annually. Assuming a 10% return, you’d have $102,000 after 10 years, $380,000 after 20 years, and $1.1 million in 30 years.

Here’s a similar scenario: If you start with a nut of $50,000 and add only $250 per month, you’d have $180,000, $516.000 and $1.4 million after 10, 20, and 30 years, respectively. All this happens through the power of regular investing and a simple-but-powerful concept called compounding.

Read more »

Don’t just dream about striking it rich. Learn from those who did.

Twelve years ago, Julie Aigner-Clark was looking for a way to expose Aspen, her 18-month-old daughter, to music and the arts. So she and her husband, Bill, shot a video in the basement of their home. “We borrowed equipment from a friend, put up a black velvet background and used the toys my daughter liked,” she says. The star of the video is a dragon puppet that Aspen used as a washcloth. Other scenes feature Julie’s hand slowly turning the crank on a jack-in-the-box. It’s all very low-budget but also quite soothing. Can you imagine the path to becoming a millionaire starting with such a mundane project?

Read more »

Spirits are high among U.S. distillers –- they’re expanding production to meet surging demand overseas and among a new generation of American drinkers. To Wild Turkey master distiller Jimmy Russell, the piercing sounds of a warehouse rising in the Kentucky countryside are the sounds of prosperity. “As long as you see work going on — and the construction, and increasing your size — you know your business is doing well,” said Russell, who started working for the bourbon maker in 1954.

Distillers are expanding their bourbon production and storage and dispatching sales teams around the world, bullish for a traditionally Southern beverage gaining popularity worldwide. Surging exports, the weak U.S. dollar and rising popularity among younger Americans are driving the boom. “It’s an exciting time to be in the bourbon business,” said Max L. Shapira, president of Heaven Hill Distilleries, a family-owned liquor company based in Bardstown, Ky “Most of the time that I’ve been in the business — up until about the last 10 years — everybody was trying to consign the bourbon category to that great liquor store in the sky.”

Read more »