Nov 29 2011

Shopping online – hints for every age group

Category: Alliant Group — admin @ 11:44 pm

Every age group has its own unique needs when shopping online — some people simply want the best price on fashionable clothes, others want to find exclusive styles that they’re friends won’t be wearing, and others are simply window shopping and looking for an appealing deal. But each of these groups can benefit from a few basic hints when using the internet to satiate that desire for a new look.

1. Teenagers: Be Unique

The younger online shoppers among us tend to congregate in large groups; these large groups tend to wear the same set of brands, day after day, year after year. Yet each of these teenagers is trying to be unique and stand out in a crowd — different enough to be noticed, but similar enough to blend in. That’s where online shopping can make the difference for teens.

Offline retailers operate online stores that are bursting at the seams with exclusive styles that won’t be found on bricks-and-mortar clothes racks.

They’re available only for those who take the time to peruse the website and find them, and that means a savvy teenager can wear the same brands as their friends but stand out among them at the same time.

2. Budget-Conscious Parents and Adults

It’s no secret that perhaps the number one goal of parents and most every adult is to create a budget and stick to it, spending frugally and saving for bigger and better things — like holidays and retirement. So how can these older online shoppers get the most out of their buying experience? The answer is simple: online coupon clipping.

Online coupon sites take advantage of the fact that more and more people are falling in love with online fashion shopping. Australia is dominated by retailers who offer promotional codes for everything from free shipping to free shirts. They aggregate each deal for Australian shops into one website, searchable by the retailer’s name, and allow parents and all online shoppers to save on their clothes purchases and keep their budget in check.

3. Window Shopping via Comparison Sites

Young and old shoppers alike can benefit from using comparison shopping websites to compare prices on their favourite apparel — anything form surfy brands to the more dapper looks of Austen Brothers. These sites list each retailer’s hottest products along with a side-by-side comparison of price from multiple retailers and outlets, combined with customer reviews of each item. It’s a great way to do a so-called “pre-shop” and get a good idea of what your purchase will cost you, in money as well as effort, before you’ve actually committed to making it.

Online shopping makes everything easier: fitting in, standing out, saving money, and planning what to buy or where to buy it. These tips are an easy way to take the guesswork out of shopping for — and wearing — a new outfit.

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Mar 24 2011

Reasons to Get Reverse Mortgage

Category: Helpful Info — admin @ 11:44 pm

Are you about to have retirement within only months and you are confused about the way to keep yourself receiving monthly income while you don’t have work anymore? If so, you might need to start soon applying for reverse mortgage. Reverse mortgage is actually a loan but it comes with different policy and requirements. While secured loans require us to give any kinds of pledges as long as the property is ours, reverse mortgage loan only receive pledges in the form of private house. So, if we don’t have house, don’t think about getting it because it is totally impossible. Another requirement that we should do is we have to be able to proving that we live in the house. Reverse mortgage actually works as loan that buys our home equity value. So, in the other definition, it means that we sell the house to the agency. But the difference is that we don’t get the money once, but we can arrange for how long we want to keep receiving it and how much money we want to have in every month. So, if our home equity is high, we have chance to get more money. And to prevent us from getting unfair price for our house, we should really conduct the calculating using reverse mortgage calculator. We surely don’t have to worry how to do it because it can even be done online.

The most important thing we need to always remember in getting it is that is we have to find the finest and most reliable reverse mortgage agency. The best one even offers us to purchase reverse mortgage calculator so we don’t have to do it by ourselves.

Despite its benefits, just like any other kinds of loan, reverse mortgage also has disadvantages but it doesn’t mean that it’s not good. The smart thing needs to be done is minimizing the risks and consequence and it certainly is able to be done by obtaining the best type of reverse mortgage loan. This defines for HECM saver reverse mortgage. Among all types, it’s the only one that allows us in getting low upfront cost and in ignoring prepayment penalties. So, if we want to know more about it, we can just conduct HECM saver calculator anytime we want through internet. And once we have the answer we need, we can start applying for it.

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Sep 21 2010

A Complete Guide to Financial Planning

Category: Financial Planning — admin @ 12:19 pm



For most people today, financial planning isn’t optional. Unless you were born rich, it is necessary to have a financial plan to see you through buying a home, sending kids to college, and retirement.

Some people will employ the services of a professional financial planner, and that is a good thing to do. People who are in a position of knowing what the best investments are can be of a great deal of help to those who are trying to develop a viable financial plan.

It isn’t usually until a bit later in life before people realize that they could use the services of a professional financial planner. Most of us struggle along for years just using our own best judgment.

The first step, of course, is to set goals. There’s an old saying, “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail,” and it is true about finances. You need to know where you are going first. You need to spell out your financial goals in black and white so that you and your spouse or significant other are on the same financial page, so to speak. Make sure both of you are going in the same direction with the same goals in mind.

The next step is to make a financial plan for achieving those financial goals. If you want to buy a house, then start setting aside a specific amount of money out of each paycheck so that you can make a substantial down payment. If you want to send your kids to college, set up a college fund for each child. Don’t forget about retirement.

You’ll want to keep some funds in savings accounts that you can easily lay your hands on in case of emergencies, but you will need to make investments that will grow over time as well.

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Sep 03 2010

Clear Debt – Good Vs The Bad

Category: Credit / Debt Management — admin @ 11:44 am



In modern America, it is difficult to get through life without taking on some kind of debt. Most people cannot afford large purchases such as a house or education early in their lives, and so they take out loans to help them acquire these things earlier. Not all debt is harmful to your financial health, but it is important to make good decisions early in your life about what kind of debt to take on and what kind to avoid. Taking on too much debt with high interest rates can permanently destroy your hopes for a rich life and good retirement.

Good Debt

Loans which help you to invest in yourself or develop assets that don’t depreciate are good debt. Student loans, mortgages and loans for necessary medical procedures are all examples of debt that provides future returns in heightened income or lowered expenses. Loans for these items can usually be found with low interest rates, and when used wisely, can help secure your future wealth. Of course, you should always make sure that you will be able to afford the payments when they come due before taking out any loan.

Bad Debt

Consumer debt with high interest rates and no future return is the kind of debt that you should avoid. A good rule of thumb is that if you can eat it or wear it, you will not have any future return to show for it. Some credit card interest rates run as high as 25%, and if you only make minimum payments, you might end up paying more interest than principal over the decade it may take you to repay the card.

Try to evaluate debts as you would any other investment. Make your money work for you, and you will have a comfortable retirement to look forward to. But if you fail to carefully consider the kinds of debt you take on, your hard work will go towards paying credit card companies rather than yourself.

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Aug 02 2010

Why You Need to Rebalance Your Portfolio

Category: Banking / Loans — admin @ 6:00 am



We have been through some of the volatile markets in decades in 2009. The housing market collapsed. The stock market saw its worst decline since the Great Depression. After the last couple of years, you should know your risk tolerance when it comes to investing.

As with all storms, the darkness has dissipated (at least for now) and some sectors made tremendous gains. Emerging markets have seen gains of 75% or more. Stocks such as Apple rose almost 148%. If you were fully invested in 2009, you saw gut wrenching drops only to be followed by many indices making new multi year highs. If you started out properly allocated, chances are your portfolio is now out of synch.
Why you need to be properly allocated?

What is Asset Allocation? If you agree with the saying “buy low, sell high”, chances are you agree with the theory of proper asset allocation. In short, you are selling those stocks or indexes which have appreciated the most and replacing them with stocks or indexes which underperformed. Once you have chosen your portfolio, it is paramount to review it at least once a year. Depending on your outlook on asset allocation theory, some argue to rebalance every 6 months. The value of the various assets within your portfolio will change, affecting the weighting of each asset class. Failure to reallocate and make adjustments will result in a portfolio that is volatile and will not serve your retirement needs.

Although past performance does not guarantee future success, proper asset allocation has been incredibly effective. The tricky part though is trying to find YOUR proper allocation. A 20 year old who has a 40 year time horizon before retiring will be allocated differently than a 55 year old with just 5-10 years from retirement. Don’t take enough risk in your portfolio and your investments will be ravaged by inflation. Take too much risk and you could suffer huge losses (2008-2009) which you may never recover.

How do I Make Sure I’m Properly Allocated? There are numerous factors to take into account when determining how your assets should be allocated. This is where an experienced financial planner will help tremendously. A planner will take into account your lifestyle, accumulated savings, risk tolerance, health and other factors to determine how you should be invested. Below is a list of investment sectors which you should consider as part of your overall portfolio:

- Cash-Such instruments can include Cds, money markets or high yielding checking accounts
- Bonds: Bonds can be broken down into several categories:
- Corporate Bonds-These may be high quality bonds or low quality (junk/high yield)
- Foreign Bonds-You have the ability to purchase bonds of foreign countries
- Municipal bonds-Bonds of individual states, municipalities, or governmental agencies
- Treasury/US Government bonds-These can be purchased in short, intermediate or long term
- Foreign currencies
- Natural resources such as oil or natural gas
- Precious metals such as copper, silver or gold
- Real estate/Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS)
- Stocks: Stocks can be broken down into the following categories:
- Small cap
- Medium cap
- Large Cap
- Growth
- Value
- US domestic,
- Emerging markets
- Foreign stocks

Of course there is also the matter of determining which mixture of stocks is appropriate. Will you chose to allocate money to small cap emerging market stocks or Large cap US Growth stocks? As you can see, simply dividing your money among a two to three market sectors will not achieve proper diversification.

Portfolio Correlation
Each of the above market sectors will outperform the other sometime during the economic cycle. Small cap and emerging market sectors tend to outperform large cap stocks when the economy is starting to emerge out of a recession. Gold and metal stocks tend to do well when there is economic uncertainly. It is extremely difficult to guess what type of market you are in while it is happening.

Where is the market going? I haven’t got a clue Some financial pundits and economists were calling for the Dow Jones Industrial average to reach as low as 5000. Others were calling for a modest recovery off the lows of 6500. There is a very good chance you didn’t call a 4000 point rally in the Dow in March. Get 50 economists in a room and chances are you will have 50 different answers on where the stock market will reach in a 12 month period. Asset allocation will assist you and help take out the guesswork of what economic cycle you are currently invested in.

Owning Many Asset Classes Won’t Insure Against a Down Market
Asset allocation will not insure you against a market collapse. If you are invested in 10 different market categories and they are all correlated, chances are you will suffer right along with the general market. However if you have non correlated investments such as US stocks, emerging market stocks, gold, bonds and investments in overseas currency, chances are your portfolio may outperform a single indice such as the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Should you suffer a 50% decline in your portfolio, your returns will have to DOUBLE just to break even.

What percentage of return can I expect? There is no mathematical formula or anyone who can absolutely guarantee you will receive a 10% return by investing in stocks. Over a long period of 50 years, yes stocks have returned about 9%, however as seen by the last decade, the return of stocks have been close to 0%. In fact, those 100% invested in the S&P 500 (the standard benchmarks of the US stock market) have seen returns of.9% including dividends. If you invested 100% in stocks, you lost to inflation and would have seen better returns by investing in boring government bonds. However, you probably didn’t have a crystal ball. This is why you need to be properly allocated.

If you’d like to see some long term calculations on what you can expect your investments to grow to, check under the term “monte carlo simulators” with your favorite search engine. If you are a customer of Fidelity, they have a great one.

Wrapping it Up In closing, there is no way to absolutely bombproof your retirement. As we’ve seen by this decade alone, your investments will be prone to outside forces you have no control over. There will be recessions, perhaps a depression, political unrest, a terrorism event either here or abroad which will rattle the markets and affect your personal financial well being. The key to surviving and prospering is hiring great people. This would include a financial planner and an accountant to guide you and take advantage of situations as they arise. After all, there are some investors who purchased Citibank at.97 and Apple at $30.

There is always a way to make money in whatever economic condition you are presented. Think smart, invest wisely, keep your cool and drown out the unwanted noise. If the guys on CNBC were THAT smart and successful, they would be retired sipping mojitos on the beach. Well, at least that’s what I’d be doing. Happy investing!

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