Paid Off Faster

The Good News: Rebuilding on a Solid Foundation

With all the bad news we hear continually about the economy let me focus on one of the best positives I see. We seem to be learning from our mistakes and rebuilding, this time on a foundation that can be sustained.

It is good news that subprime lenders won’t lend to the unqualified. It is good news that lenders and borrowers alike won’t be tempted to allow people to buy homes way above their means to sustain that home. It is good in the long run that the pendelum will eventually get back somewhere in the middle on lending criteria. 

In the last few years America actually had a -2% savings rate. Today we are back in positive territory. See the chart below. How did we get to that unhealthy point?

 

The most likely cause for the decrease in saving over the last several years was the multiyear increase to home values as well as the stock markets. As people’s net worth (at least on paper) grew people “felt” wealthier and became unconcerned about saving outside of retirement. We now see how quickly one’s “net worth” can change and the home equity ATM would shut down.

According to data from the Federal Reserve and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis economic boom times that result in greater net worth  are usually accompanied by saving rate declines. The opposite holds true too. When home values and the economy stagnate or drop  personal saving usually increases as it has recently. 

So let’s learn from history. Let’s not trust in our net worth on paper. The stock market and housing values WILL go up. Today’s news reports both “Housing prices in 20 major cities fell at record monthly and annual levels in January, according to a private report issued Tuesday, with prices down 2.8% from December and 19% from a year earlier.” and “The National Association of Realtors said that existing home sales rose last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.72 million million units, up 5.1% from a rate of 4.49 million in January.” The bad news is prices are down but the good news is sales are up. When there is less inventory the prices will rise again. When this happens is beyond our control. 

But what is well within our control is the wisdom to follow a consistent and proactive saving and investing plan to build wealth.

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”

Mileage Confessions

I must confess I have wasted money for years by not taking mileage expenses that were available to me. Why you ask? Because it is such a pain to keep track of that I thought it wasn’t worth it. Our new accountant convinced me otherwise when we met on Saturday. 

As many of my previous posts declare this is the year of all years to stretch every dollar we have. That includes me, hence, my mileage confessions. I felt very bad I was so out of sync with my blog. So today I spent HOURS (thank God for Mapquest and Outlook) tracking 2008 mileage. I wanted to pull my hair out. 

Those days are over for me! Just in time for me to know I won’t have to do this next year United First Financial is launching Bizpack next week.  One of the features I am looking forward to using to save both time and money is UDeduct. It will help me track all my tax deductions and keep them organized so my experience today will NOT be repeated next year. It has several other features to help me expand my business without blowing my budget or my balanced life, all part of true abundance.

Lower Your Taxes Increase Your Cashflow

There are three questions on people’s minds right now…

Do you like to pay taxes?

Would you like to keep more of the money you earn?

How can you increase your cash?

Generally most people consider their mortgage their greatest expense. But the truth answer is taxes! As taxes, whether in property tax, gas or road taxes, or income tax increase our cash flow goes down. In contrast, if our taxes decrease our cash flow increases. We like that, don’t we?

We are all trying to stretch our dollar to the max, especially now. In a previous post I detailed the benefits of a home based business.

To qualify as a home based business there are three very important factors.

· There must be profitable intent

· Consistantly working the business

· Accurate keeping of records

What if there was one all-in-one location with just one login to perform all your technology tasks relating to your business such as marketing, contact management, autoresponders, the ability to do webinars for up to 1000 people, AND having a web-based storage system of all your business expense records so there is no chance of loss due to fire or theft? The revolutionary Udeduct feature of this business bundle will transform a business owners cash flow by making full use of all the tax deductions made available by the IRS.

Learn more about Bizpack right now. The pre-launch is days away from its end.