Things I Wish I Knew When I Was Younger

When I was asked to talk to at a Homebuyers Seminar, I decided to share a few things, I wish I learned when I was younger. Here are my views on personal finance, your most valuable asset and how to start building wealth. Here is a video of my talk and below are the notes. Let […]

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You Really Can Buy Happiness

Regardless of income, research has shown that those who spend in certain ways find greater levels of contentment. Apparently, to spend your way to happiness, you should follow these rules of thumb:1. Purchase more experiences, less “stuff.” Research from Dr. Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University reveals that spenders experience more long-term happiness and satisfaction when […]

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The Questions Wall Street Hopes You’re Not Asking

“Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” -Tony Robbins   Prosperity Economics urges people to take back control of their thinking as well as their money. This leads us to the last big investor mistake in this series: Mistake #10: Ask the wrong questions.(Or… ask the questions that Wall Street wants you […]

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The Banker’s Secret: Life Insurance as an Investment?

“Many banks have more invested in life insurance policies than they do in bank premises, fixed assets and all other real estate assets combined.” -Denver Nowicz, Equity4Profit Denver Nowicz was profoundly affected by watching how his family fared from following the traditional advice of financial planning. In spite of savings, investments, and pensions, Denver’s parents and […]

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Live Your Life Insurance Book

Startling book reveals centuries-old wealth-building method. If you knew about a 200+ year-old method to building sustainable wealth, safely and reliably, would you use it? Most people gamble their financial futures using typical approaches; but as the stock market becomes more and more unpredictable, the danger of these strategies is becoming painfully obvious. A powerful alternative to building […]

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Busting the Retirement Lies: Living with Passion, Purpose and Abundance Throughout our Lives

Work ’til 65… Stop working. NOT!Is it possible that everything you have been told about retirement – and retirement planning – is WRONG?  Is retirement dead? Perhaps not yet, but it’s on life support. The concept of retirement, as we’ve known it, is becoming a thing of the past. With the major economic, social, cultural medical, technological, […]

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Investing Outside the Box: Alternative Investment Options

 Posted on  by Kim Butler and Anthony J. Faso CPA  “There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can’t afford it, and when he can.” ~Mark Twain. The word “investments” has become almost synonymous with stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, to the point that a “diversified portfolio” is a misleading term. […]

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Is Gold a Good Investment? (Part 2)

“The commander of the imperial guard took away the basins, censers, sprinkling bowls, pots, lampstands, dishes and bowls used for drink offerings—all that were made of pure gold or silver.” – Jeremiah 52:19  In the United States, the gold standard ended in 1933 when the federal government halted convertibility of notes into gold and demanded that […]

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Passive Income: Why Cash FLOW is King (even if you’re not retiring)

By Anthony J. Faso CPA and Kim Butler and “Happiness is positive cash flow.” -Fred Adler, venture capitalist. From a financial perspective, the goal of retirement planning is providing passive income. Passive income is income that is not derived from one’s labor, though there may have been plenty of initial work to set the passive income in motion. In a […]

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Three Monkeys and a Cat: the Truth about Picking Stocks

  “A blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a newspaper’s financial pages could select a portfolio that would do just as well as one carefully selected by experts.” -Burton Malkiel, Asset manager and author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street. Economist Burton Malkiel hypothesized that share prices move completely at random, making stock markets entirely unpredictable. While his […]

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Inconvenient Truths about the Stock Market

“The person that is buying a share of stock is convinced he knows something that the other person who’s selling it to him does not know. There’s no zero sum game in Wall Street.” -Bernie Madoff No doubt you’ve heard this statistic: “Over time, the stock market averages 10% annual returns.” The numbers vary slightly, but financial planners, […]

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Life Settlement Investments: Pros and Cons and Facts

“This might be the best investment you’ve never heard of.” – Kevin Nichols, private equity fund managerAre You an Investor Seeking Stock Market Alternatives?  We think that people are tired of the word “investment” meaning only the stock market. In broker-dealer circles, even “alternative” investments often refers to products within the mutual fund world, such as […]

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Financial Flexibility: Saving Too Much in All the Wrong Places?

“More than 25% of Americans are dipping into 401(k) retirement accounts to pay for bills.” ~The Los Angeles Times, March 7, 2013   More people are raiding their 401(k)s than ever before, but not for retirement. According to CNBC’s report of a HelloWallet study, one in four Americans are borrowing from retirement accounts to pay bills, such […]

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Saving Right: Is Your Emergency Fund Prepared for Opportunities?

“The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.” -Benjamin Disraeli The Best Way to Save Money Only three years before the Great Depression started with the stock market crash of 1929, George S. Clayton published The Richest Man in Babylon, a classic personal finance books written […]

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How Safe is Your Money? FDIC Insurance and Fractional Reserve Banking

“You’re thinking of this place all wrong… as if I had the money back in a safe. The money’s not here. Your money’s in Joe’s house…right next to yours. And in the Kennedy house, and Mrs. Macklin’s house, and a hundred others. Why, you’re lending them the money to build, and then, they’re going to […]

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