Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Reviewing Your Balances
First off, I would like to welcome every one to The Interns Blogspot from Dorsey, Wright, and Associates in Richmond, Virginia. I want to commence with a brief introduction of who we are and what we are trying to achieve. I am Charlie Shiflett and I am graduating from the University of Virginia in May. Some of the other interns you will see contributing to the blog or in our You Tube videos are Ben Jones of Virginia Tech, Joe Grim of Virginia Commonwealth University, and Amy Kemp of Virginia Tech. We are all interns at Dorsey, Wright, and Associates, which is a financial research firm based out of Richmond, Virginia. The company allows the summer interns to come back and work while we are back for Christmas break and this year while conversing with some of the senior analysts, we decided now is a better time than ever to focus on educating the “millennial generation” on gaining control of our personal finances and beginning to invest and save so we are in a better financial position further down the road in our lives.
Now that you know who we are, and what we are trying to do, it is time to get down to business. I’ll start off with a brief exercise. If you are near a television, turn on CNBC (make sure the volume is down because you might be startled to find Jim Cramer blowing your speakers filling your ears with ridiculous verbiage), if you are not, just type in CNBC.com and spend one minute reviewing the headlines of either media outlet…Finished? OK, now answer this: in that one minute was there any mention of economic optimism? Probably not. Most likely what you heard or read is how terrible the economy is and how the world is going to end tomorrow (Okay, a slight exaggeration, but its hard to not think along those lines if you spend more than fifteen minutes on either the website or cable channel). The United States is experiencing a huge liquidation stage right now, which is evident in the fact that cash levels are at quarter century highs and investors are bunkering down, preparing for the worst to hit. Here is where the bad news stops. Yes, we all know that times are tough right now, but rather than continuing to focus on the negativity, we are treating this as an opportunity to start fresh.
First things first. Before we can start thinking of investing and letting our money work for us, it is vital to gain control of our personal finances and especially spending habits. This has been the focus of several of our You Tube videos you can view through our blog and I want to go into a few aspects of that here. Regardless of how much debt you are in, or how much money you have, the most important step in getting ahead is knowing where your money is and how you are spending it. This entails getting the balances of all your checking accounts, credit card accounts, investment accounts, and savings accounts and putting them all out in front of you so you can realize your personal net worth. For some, this might be a rude awakening, but if it is, that is TOTALLY FINE. Like I mentioned earlier, we are staying optimistic here, and we are treating this as an opportunity for improvement, not dwelling on negativity. Let’s say for example, you are in debt or are really strapped for cash, how do you go about addressing this situation?
There are several ways to go about it, but I think one of the best ways is to start by going back through your purchase history by viewing your on-line statement from your credit or debit card. You want to seek out purchases or expenditures that in essence were not that vital to your survival or livelihood. Did you really need that new iPod, or could the old one have sufficed for another year? Was a $300 bar tab all that necessary (even though you probably don’t remember it), or could you have called it quits at 200$? Hey, don’t get me wrong, I am all about going out and having fun and enjoying life while we’re young, but if you go back and look at some of the dumb purchases you’ve made, I guarantee you will be able to cut out a lot of useless “acquisitions” and you will become much more aware of what you are buying and how bad you need, simply by looking back on how you’ve spent money in the past.
On the next piece, I am going to focus on the different ways in which we can set a budget including a simple pen and paper method, Microsoft excel, and for those that are tech savvy some different on-line methods. For now, just take ten minutes and go over your debit and credit card statements and enjoy a cold one while you’re doing it if you’d like, because even with all the bad news, the world isn’t over and I am confident our generation is going to take this recent setback in stride.
Now that you know who we are, and what we are trying to do, it is time to get down to business. I’ll start off with a brief exercise. If you are near a television, turn on CNBC (make sure the volume is down because you might be startled to find Jim Cramer blowing your speakers filling your ears with ridiculous verbiage), if you are not, just type in CNBC.com and spend one minute reviewing the headlines of either media outlet…Finished? OK, now answer this: in that one minute was there any mention of economic optimism? Probably not. Most likely what you heard or read is how terrible the economy is and how the world is going to end tomorrow (Okay, a slight exaggeration, but its hard to not think along those lines if you spend more than fifteen minutes on either the website or cable channel). The United States is experiencing a huge liquidation stage right now, which is evident in the fact that cash levels are at quarter century highs and investors are bunkering down, preparing for the worst to hit. Here is where the bad news stops. Yes, we all know that times are tough right now, but rather than continuing to focus on the negativity, we are treating this as an opportunity to start fresh.
First things first. Before we can start thinking of investing and letting our money work for us, it is vital to gain control of our personal finances and especially spending habits. This has been the focus of several of our You Tube videos you can view through our blog and I want to go into a few aspects of that here. Regardless of how much debt you are in, or how much money you have, the most important step in getting ahead is knowing where your money is and how you are spending it. This entails getting the balances of all your checking accounts, credit card accounts, investment accounts, and savings accounts and putting them all out in front of you so you can realize your personal net worth. For some, this might be a rude awakening, but if it is, that is TOTALLY FINE. Like I mentioned earlier, we are staying optimistic here, and we are treating this as an opportunity for improvement, not dwelling on negativity. Let’s say for example, you are in debt or are really strapped for cash, how do you go about addressing this situation?
There are several ways to go about it, but I think one of the best ways is to start by going back through your purchase history by viewing your on-line statement from your credit or debit card. You want to seek out purchases or expenditures that in essence were not that vital to your survival or livelihood. Did you really need that new iPod, or could the old one have sufficed for another year? Was a $300 bar tab all that necessary (even though you probably don’t remember it), or could you have called it quits at 200$? Hey, don’t get me wrong, I am all about going out and having fun and enjoying life while we’re young, but if you go back and look at some of the dumb purchases you’ve made, I guarantee you will be able to cut out a lot of useless “acquisitions” and you will become much more aware of what you are buying and how bad you need, simply by looking back on how you’ve spent money in the past.
On the next piece, I am going to focus on the different ways in which we can set a budget including a simple pen and paper method, Microsoft excel, and for those that are tech savvy some different on-line methods. For now, just take ten minutes and go over your debit and credit card statements and enjoy a cold one while you’re doing it if you’d like, because even with all the bad news, the world isn’t over and I am confident our generation is going to take this recent setback in stride.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
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