Money

Parents Cost Us Money Too

Garth Beyer

Parents Cost Us Money Too (what we wish our parents would have told us) is now in a free downloadable PDF version which can be read on your computer or transferred onto your favorite eReader. Deep down,  this short 32 page eBook is my rant against how parents minimally or completely fail to empower their children with an education on money management. In reality, it sounds and reads nothing like a rant. I have written it purely to help kids learn what my parents never taught me and for the parents to learn what and how they can teach their kids about money management, goal setting, work & life lessons and much more. Everything you will read in this eBook has a face value but an even deeper meaning that is rooted to all the experiences I have had and often times wish I didn’t have.

In this free eBook you will find:

  • How to have an interest in interest
  • Nerf guns and sports cars
  • The realization that school does not educate students about money
  • My philosophy of prevention over clean-up
  • Hard work and working smart
  • Commission sheets, budgets and goal setting
  • The ages in which to teach the lessons
  • Personal stories, examples, and one chart
  • and much more

Please share your response or any ideas you get from the eBook in the comments section below. Feel free to share the eBook as well.

 

Stay Positive & A Step Toward Prevention, Is Still A Step

Garth E. Beyer

Despite What They Say

Garth Beyer

Now is NOT the best time to become a Financial Adviser.

I have always loved hearing “Now is the greatest time to be doing *insert any career here.*” Simply because, if you believe it’s the greatest time, then it is. If you go into something thinking it will be easy, chances are it will be…hard. BUT, it will be much easier than if you go into something thinking it will be hard.

Zig always said, Positive thinking won’t let you do anything, But it will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.

Lately the biggest reference is that Now is the greatest time to start a business in this down economy. I however, have been mentally fixed on an echo of “Now is the greatest time to become a Financial Adviser!” Why? Simply because of World Financial Group/Transamerica Financial Advisers which I mention in my post The First Hand Fails: This Is How The Second Hand Succeeds In Sales

It wasn’t until the second time that I watched and listened to WFG/Transamerica’s introduction-presentation that I noticed a flaw. The flaw was in their backing of their statement, “Now is the perfect time to become a financial adviser, there has not been a more perfect time.” They began their backup of the statement by introducing a timeline of the baby boomer generation, first explaining how when the baby boomers began popping that the baby food business rocketed, then the car dealership business sky scraped when all the baby boomers started to turn 16, then real estate shot straight up when they wanted to buy their houses, and now they are saying that financial advising is going to explode because all the baby boomers are turning 65+ and need to have advisers to make sure their money lasts them until their deathbed.

Do you see the flaw? I could not stop thinking how slow minded WFG/Transamerica was in their sales presentation to not catch both their worst and biggest selling point. If you are reading this, then you know that very few baby boomers are going to seek financial advice this late in life. They have gone their entire lives without it, earned and worked hard and will not spend money to have someone else tell them how they should manage their money. With that, baby boomers are the most stubborn people on the planet . Not to mention, the baby boomers will be dyeing off soon, so how does a dead persons money get to you as a financial adviser? It doesn’t. This was one of the biggest mistakes of WFG/Transamerica.

The second biggest mistake was that they used the wrong example to really persuade people to take up a Financial Adviser career. Give me a shot, and if I don’t have you agreeing with me in just a few sentences, tell me so.

Maybe you have read that the baby boomers will be  inheriting over 11 trillion dollars over the next 20 or so years, by the time they have this money they will either definitely not want advising on it, they are going to live out their last days in glory or they won’t end up getting what they expected with the lack of funds for pensions, the failing of social security, the fact they will work until “the day they drop”, etc, the list goes on, or the last option, they will be dead by the time they receive the extra money. Which leads me to my next reasoning.

In the world of financial advising, baby boomers are a lost cause, but not my generation (Y) and the generation after (Z). They are not. They are the hot button of financial advising. We are looking at two generations of poorly money management educated groups of young adults. Plus, you take the 11 trillion dollars baby boomers are getting and roll it over the second exchange of wealth to generation Y and Z and now you will have over 22 trillion dollars being handed down.

Even more so, my generation and generation Z are scared out of our freaking minds that the economy is going to blow up and become the next great disaster – the great depression’s depression. It is in that idea (fear) that Financial Advising will be the most prominent and income enriching career in the next 5 to 15 years. For once in time, Financial Advising will be looked on as a necessity and will receive the spotlight for its educating purposes. Financial Advisers will be able to teach those who will be handling the 22+ trillion dollars how to manage it for the next 50+ years instead of teaching 65 year old’s how to manage it for 5 years.

And I will end with, So what if teaching the youth how to manage money only earns Financial Advisers a large income for 5-10 years until money management becomes a part of the learning process in school and at home? With the average rate of people only staying at their jobs for 5 years before getting a new job, I see it as a perfect way to make big $$$ in a short period of time, teach the next generations money management so the world can prosper, and move to the next career path you want to try!

Final breakdown,

  • Now is NOT the best time to be a Financial Adviser
  • In 5-15 years will be the BEST time to be a Financial Adviser which includes being a teacher, a world changer, an economy improver, and all the other hats you get to wear
  • In a world that is set on fast pace, Financial Advising will make you money quick and allow you to move on to other things that you may really be passionate about.

 

Stay Positive and Do What YOU Think Is Best, Not What Someone Else Thinks Because It Will Always Be The Perfect Time

Garth E. Beyer

 

 

 

 

The Budget: A Priority Expense and Out-Of-The-Box Methods to Saving Money for it

The Budget: A Priority Expense and Out-Of-The-Box Methods to Saving Money for it

Garth Beyer

Hopefully you caught my post the other day about not being able to save money. In summary I inspired you to take the energy you use at focusing how to make your budget work and direct it at making more money. Now that you’re caught up, answer me this..

What  could happen today that would reap your budget meaningless? (Besides death, for you sarcastic followers)

Most Common Answers: Broken bone or hospitalization, House Fire, Broken down car

For the last 19 years of my life my mother has told me that “nothing lasts forever”. Yet this is true, can you pick one of the common answers that is the least likely to last a lifetime? Just by asking my friends, I found out the majority have yet to break a bone. Even older family members have told me they have never broken a bone. Next, I say that hospitalization happens maybe once every 25 years for a person and more likely to occur later in age. A house fire might happen once in your neighborhood of 20,000 people over the span of 10 years. I am sure you could agree with these estimates, its common sense that none of them occur too often.

Did I miss one? Oh right, the car

The number of occurrences of a broken down car is too many to count and far too many to give a number anywhere accurate to the truth.

So why is it that people still do not save money for it? To often people put the car as a separate category in their budget but they don’t prioritize it until “after the fact”. After something happens to it they end up going into their savings account, taking a loan, or begging parents and friends to help out. People rarely have money saved up specifically for their car, and if so, it is only enough for a car wash.

Why do we sacrifice our working budget and saved up funds for a car repair? Because we NEED our vehicles to get us places.

With the cold season upon us, I am certain you can agree with me that the most car breakdowns occur in the winter. Are you putting money aside to fund the unexpected need for a car repair?

Some quick out-of-the-box tips to lowering budgets in other categories so you prioritize your vehicle

  • Generic brands just started tasting better. A box of honey bunches of oats $4.45. Hyvee generic brand, $2.43
  • Instead of buying a new block building set for your kids, find something in the house to be creative with. For example
  • They call it junkfood, I call it junkfoold. Again, if you read my earlier post on saving money, you know that  I had to cut way back. I would not share this tip if it wasn’t effective enough to share.
  • Pull out that winter clothes bin and use it in the house. The average electricity bill in our apartment complex is 40-60 dollars. Typically 60 in the winter cold and 60 in the summer heat. I have spent as little as 20 dollars and as high as 46 dollars on our electricity bill. I am currently wearing her old black, white, and pink striped gloves to keep my hands warm instead of putting the heater on. *See above pic*
  • Cash for gold. I don’t mean just gold (Although my Dad and his lady got over 600 dollars from her grandma’s bracelet and a couple of earrings. They were creative with how to pay for their wedding) It’s time to let go of those items that you keep but never use. The sentimental value it may hold does not counter the terrible feeling of owing money and diving into your savings funds and having a budget you can’t keep up with.
  • Internet is not necessary at the home any longer (unless that is where your office is). I can bet that you can walk no more than 5 blocks from your house to get free wi-fi, as long as you don’t live in the country. I spent 16 dollars on a Droid application on my phone to get internet to my computer from my phone. That’s $16 dollars paid once compared to 40+ dollars paid each month for internet.
  • Stay following for a post on more out-of-the-box ways to save money.

Stay Positive and For those with a bike and not an automobile. Brownie points right to you. (Generic brand of course, but it’ll do)

Garth E. Beyer