Financial IQ: 3 Most Important Financial Numbers You Need to Know

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We need to consciously take steps to increase our net worth annually.


Are you getting the right answer to the wrong question? When people find out I used to run a hedge fund, they often ask me, "What is a hot investment right now?" Of course, I don't attempt to answer the question for a lot of reasons, the least being that I would have to ask them a series of probing questions about their finances. Besides, I am not a money manager. Either way, it always occurs to me that they might just be asking the wrong financial question.


I have built my company around the belief that people aren't really interested in money, but rather making their own lives richer, deeper, and more fulfilling. With that in mind, a better question to ask would be, "What are the most important numbers I need to know when it comes to personal finance?" It isn't the hot stock or right mutual fund that will make the biggest difference in their finances or help them attain their financial goals. What they should be looking at are their savings percentage, net worth, and credit score. For someone who is on their way to achieving financial success, each of these numbers will be trending in the same direction -- up.


Want to find out if you are on the right path? Here are three essential questions you should ask yourself:

1. What percentage of my income am I saving?
2. What is my net worth?
3. What is my credit score?

http://financiallyfit.yahoo.com/finance/article-112186-8684-3-the-three-most-important-numbers-you-need-to-know?ywaad=ad0035&nc

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Financial IQ: Frugal Ways Make a Comeback

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If you have time, read Millionaire Next Door and one of the habits of millionaires is frugality.


Throw away the cellphone after two years? Not so fast. Ditch the flat-panel TV for an even thinner model? Maybe next year. Replace the blouse with the hole? Darn it!


Consumer spending has picked up, but for some Americans the recession has left something behind: a greater interest in making stuff last.


For a number of products — cars, phones, computers, even shampoo and toothpaste — the data shows a slowing of product life cycles and consumption. In many cases the difference is mere months, but economists and consumers say the approach just may outlast a full recovery and the return of easy credit, because of the strong impression the downturn made on consumers.


It is hardly the stuff of generations past, those stung by the Great Depression, who held onto antediluvian dishware and stored canned goods until rust formed on the lids. But for the moment, many citizens of a throwaway society are making fewer visits to the trash and recycling bins.


In the case of Patti Hauseman of Brooklyn, that meant sticking with a five-year-old Apple computer until it started making odd whirring noises and occasionally malfunctioning. She and her boyfriend bought a new computer for Christmas — actually, a refurbished one.


“A week later, the old one died. We timed it pretty well,” Ms. Hauseman said with a laugh. Her cautious approach applies to other products: she is holding out on upgrading two seven-year-old tube-type TVs, and has taken to mending clothes rather than replacing them.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/In-Recessions-Wake-Frugal-nytimes-2844094476.html?x=0&.v=1

Financial IQ: 9 Ways to Build Wealth in 2011

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Nice article!!  Save as much as possible regularly and pay off bad debt as soon as possible.


Want to build some wealth in 2011? Revisit those New Year's resolutions.


You probably haven't thought about your pledges in more than a month. But odds are at least one of them involves getting rid of debt, increasing your income or building some financial security.


To help you out, nine experts in the fields of money, debt, real estate and consumer affairs have shared their best wealth-building tips for 2011.


1. Funnel That FICA Cut Into a Retirement Windfall


2. Look For Low-Cost Mutual Funds and Watch Those Fees


3. No Shortcuts: Year After Year of Consistent Savings


4. Get Rid of High-Interest Card Debt


5. Buy a Home


6. Balanced, Diversified Portfolio Plus Education


7. If You Have an HSA, Max It Out


8. Do Your Due Diligence


9. Start Your Own Side Business

http://finance.yahoo.com/retirement/article/112185/9-ways-to-build-wealth-in-2011?mod=retire-planning

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Financial IQ: Business Side of Love

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Good advice on pre-nuptial agreement. :)


Since it’s Valentines’s Day, I’ve decided to delve into the business side of love since this seems to be an important topic often overlooked by most people and most especially by emotionally charged younger people with stars in their eyes who think love conquers all.


My advice? Do not splurge excessively on your wedding like a fiesta to the detriment of your family future. The size or lavishness of a wedding does not determine the classiness or beauty of your celebration.  


Here are a few of my thoughts on the topic of love and money:


• Use the head, not only the heart, in choosing one’s spouse. As a history buff, I have studied the lives of many successful people and families — whether in business or politics — whose long-term success and happiness have been affected by their wise or foolish choices of spouse. How many people have ruined their lives and the future of their families with purely emotional and often irrational choices of spouses?


In Philippine business, those tycoons who’ve chosen good spouses that are great assets to their amazing entrepreneurial careers include John Gokongwei Jr., whose wife is the humble and simple-living Elizabeth Limsico Yu; Senator Manny Villar, whose wife is his University of the Philippines (UP) classmate — herself a humble business whiz — Cynthia Aguilar Villar; Metrobank Group boss George SK Ty, whose wife, Mary Vy Ty, is well-known as a humble and devoted wife who serves as Ty’s hardworking assistant on key financial matters such as the compensation of top executives; Filinvest Group and East West Bank founder Andrew Gotianun, whose wife is UP summa cum laude graduate and talented businesswoman Mercedes Gotamco Tan; SM Group founder Henry Sy Sr., whose wife, the self-effacing, religious Felicidad Tan Sy, successfully raised good kids who are not spoiled brats but hardworking and obedient children.


• Sign a prenuptial agreement. This is the one thing the public should learn from Kris Aquino (whose birthday is today) and her late mother, President Cory C. Aquino. Unlike Megastar Sharon Cuneta, who signed a prenup before marrying Senator Kiko Pangilinan, Kris last year tearfully and publicly admitted that she regretted not heeding her mom’s wise advice on first signing a pre-nup before she married basketball athlete James Yap. Kris and James are now separated and in the process of annulling their marriage.


• Be monogamous and loyal to your spouse for the sake of efficiency. A young tycoon once asked me if he should indulge in adultery or polygamy, and I replied — not using Christian moral values but talking to him in a straightforward business sense —that we human beings in general have finite physical resources, energy and time (only 24 hours a day).


• Heed the advice of parents and family elders. One of the most unappreciated and misunderstood facets of love in the modern era is the often very wise role of parents of previous generations guiding people to choose their spouses. Hollywood and even our Tagalog movies love to poke fun at or demonize this aspect, but in most instances, parents mean well and care. Also, marriage is not only between two persons, as it seems in the more individualistic Western view, but it also affects entire families and future generations ad continuum.


Business leader John Gokongwei Jr. once told me that in Chinese culture, it is believed that a person who played a successful role in arranging a good kaysiaw that ends up in a good marriage ideal for two lovers’ families would be blessed with good fortune.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=657128&publicationSubCategoryId=82