How To Overcome Your Financial Stress

How To Overcome Your Financial Stress
We are living in a stressful world: stress comes from all
directions - health, work, relationships, and, above all,
money. Financial stress is responsible for other stress
factors in life. For example, if you have a hard time
making both ends meet, most probably you have frequent
arguments with your spouse over how much money to spend,
what to spend on, and when to spend. Financial strive is
the root cause of many breakups and divorces. If you are
financially strained, you may not have full health
insurance coverage, and any major medical bill incurred due
to medical emergency will put more strain and stress on
your finance.

Stress is an underlying cause of diseases and disorders.
Stress ages an individual hard and fast.

To overcome your financial stress, you must begin with your
core values in life, which should have little to do with
money. However, your core values in life affect your
financial priorities and your financial decisions.
Therefore, your core values must not be compromised under
any circumstance, because any compromise will generate
conflict and undue stress in your life. To illustrate, if
you value your health, compromising it with poor eating
habits will only create disharmony in your health.

One of the most important core values in life is integrity.
Life is all about living - it comes with some hard work and
simple integrity. Integrity is an important personal value
that has nothing to do with money. Integrity is an
important value that God has bestowed upon each of us, and
its availability is the choice of an individual. This
important personal value can influence your own value of
money. Essentially, it is the value of what life has to
offer, not the value of things purchased with money.

If integrity is an important value in your life, that value
will be reflected in your attitude towards your financial
success and financial priorities, and hence your financial
decisions.

You will do all you can, and do it. You will make the
commitment to do it. You will become more flexible to
change in order to make it happen. You will acknowledge
that you can do it in spite of the difficulties. Integrity
makes money become a means to an end, but not an end
itself. Integrity puts your focus on efforts, rather than
on results. This takes away much of your financial stress.

Financial stress is often caused by financial problems,
which are inevitable. Don't spend time on reacting to a
financial problem: reacting would only exacerbate the
stress. Integrity will make you seek a solution to any
financial problem you may encounter. You will not leave it
to chance, nor will you ignore it. You will do everything
you can to solve the problem. For example, if you find
yourself in debt, you will not ignore it. Instead, you will
have a plan, a budget, and a roadmap to get yourself out of
debt. Integrity alleviates your financial stress.

Because of integrity, you value money, not because it can
buy you things you may not need, but because you can use
money to help others who are in need. Because money has a
value, you will spend less, and save more, and thus the
financial stress due to overshooting the budget can be
avoided.

What is the real value of money to you?

If your financial priorities are based on accumulation of
wealth, then all your financial decisions and priorities
will be based on that flawed value system, which inevitably
will lead to financial stress down the road.

Changing yourself - especially your attitude towards the
value of money - can take the financial stress out of your
life.

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Stephen Lau is a researcher and writer. He has published
several books, including "No Miracle Cures" on natural
healing; "How to Teach Children to Read" on activities and
games to teach children reading skills; and "Blueprint for
Success in Affiliate Business."
The author has also created many websites on health, eating
disorders, mental depression, golf, and smart money
management. For more information, go to:
http://www.stephenlau.name

Avoid Being a Deadbeat by Eliminating Your Debt

Avoid Being a Deadbeat by Eliminating Your Debt
Deadbeat. The term is referenced in the dictionary as "One
who tries to evade paying debts". Even Black's Law
Dictionary defines the term as "A person who does not pay
debts or financial obligations". So is may surprise you to
learn that the credit card companies use this term to
describe people who actually pay their balances in full.
Every month. Month after month.

This of course is not official, just behind the scenes.
But for those of you who pay your full credit card balances
in full every month, the credit card companies don't really
like you. The reason of course is that they don't make
much money from you.

Sure, they make some money. If you pay your balances in
full, the bank's profits from "you" are really stripped
away from the retailer you buy goods and services from.
Which means this money is stripped out of the economy. So
if you really want to help the economy, use your debt card,
or better still, use cash.

Credit cards are just extensions of the banks. The real
profit for the bank is the interest you pay when you don't
pay your balance in full. To the bank, the perfect credit
card customer is the cardholder who pays just their minimum
each and every month. Most of that payment is interest.
This is "Free Money" to them. And we have all heard of the
outrageous interest rates being charged from credit cards
these days.

When you pay interest to the bank, it reduces your spending
power. This of course reduces the amount of money you can
and will spend. Which makes the economy suffer. But it's
a windfall for the bank.

So do the economy, and yourself, a favor. Become a
"deadbeat" in the eyes of the credit card company. Pay
your balances in full. At least stop using that plastic
card until you can rid yourself of these excessive balances.

If you cannot pay your balances, then it's then time to
look for a solution. There are many solutions out there.
Settlement programs, debt management, debt elimination,
consolidation, refinancing, and of course bankruptcy. Not
one solution is best for everybody. Each individual must
weigh the pros and cons for each solution to their own
situation.

People who find themselves in a cycle of debt need to find
a solution, and start now. The sooner you take action, the
sooner you will be debt free. The bank is not going to
take action for you. At least, not any action that is in
your best interest.

The hardest part may be to recognize that there is a
problem. A person may carry balances on many cards, each
with a seemingly manageable balance. Some people are
shocked when they actually add up those balances to find
their total credit card debt. This is when it hits home
that help is needed.

There is help out there, but you must go find it. Your
financial advisor is a good place to start. But educate
yourself. Don't just accept the solution of one
individual, even if that person is a trusted financial
"expert". Nobody is an expert on your needs; except
yourself.

----------------------------------------------------
Billed as The True Debt Advisor
(http://www.TrueDebtAdvisor.com), Jim Vrana's mission is to
educate and empower people to overcome their financial
challenges. The time-tested legal procedures used to
eliminate credit card debt have been used by thousands of
people with tremendous success.
Contact:
Jim Vrana
(800) 637-1785
http://www.TrueDebtAdvisor.com

How to Buy Life Insurance You'll Want to Keep

How to Buy Life Insurance You'll Want to Keep
Not everything in life works out, including, sometimes,
life insurance policies. If you stop paying premiums, your
life insurance policy lapses — meaning coverage ends.
If you stop paying for a term life insurance policy and
exceed the insurer's grace period (possibly 30 days), your
policy lapses. Make sure that's a consequence you intend:
You're not insured after the grace period and can't
"reactivate" the same life insurance policy.

If you stop paying on a whole life insurance policy, you
may have more leeway. If you have accumulated cash value
within the policy, your insurer will likely draw down the
cash value account to cover premiums.

According to the 2007 "U.S. Individual Life Insurance
Persistency Update" by LIMRA International and the Society
of Actuaries (SOA), the overall annual lapse rate is 3.5
percent for whole life insurance, 7 percent for term life
insurance, 4.6 percent for universal life insurance (UL)
and 5.7 percent for variable universal life insurance (VUL).

Some folks pay for decades and decades on their life
insurance policies and then throw in the towel and lapse
their policies. What happened?

There are countless reasons someone might decide to lapse a
life insurance policy. Most have to do with no longer
having the discretionary income to continue paying
premiums. John Dressner, Senior Vice President of LIFE
Foundation, a nonprofit consumer-education organization,
says, "Lapses are usually not for lack of desire for
coverage but because of financial conflicts."

Life insurance experts have seen people lapse life
insurance policies when a job loss, divorce, large medical
expense or business loss means budgets must tighten. Or
they buy a new television rather than pay their life
insurance premiums. (True story.)
Other times, policyholders are replacing their current
policy with a new one.

Sometimes the decision to lapse is more emotional: The
benefits seem too far off in the future.
And sometimes policyholders lose contact with the agent who
originally sold them the life insurance policy, so they
feel nobody is available to address their questions about
lapsing it.

Dressner points out that "someone bought it for a reason,
because they wanted the protection." If you're thinking of
lapsing a current life insurance policy, think carefully
about whether you'd want coverage in the future, when
buying a new policy may result in higher life insurance
rate due to your age and possible health problems.

While there are no studies on the exact reasons people have
lapsed their policies, we can learn from past life
insurance buyers who jumped ship. Here are some tips for
life insurance shopping based on lapses by other buyers.

Choose a guaranteed level premium for the entire period you
need coverage.

If you're looking at term life insurance, consider buying a
policy with guaranteed level premiums for the entire period
you want to be insured, rather than face an increase after
your guaranteed-premium period ends. The LIMRA/SOA study
shows that lapse rates spike after the guaranteed-level
premium periods. Perhaps policyholders were satisfied
paying the level premiums but weren't willing to continue
at a higher life insurance rate.

Consider this: Among buyers of 10-year level term, 40
percent dropped their policies when the guaranteed-premium
period ended, and 30 percent of holders of 15-year level
term stopped paying when the premiums went up.

Further, those who pay "substandard" rates (issued due to
ill health) abandon their policies in larger numbers after
initial rate-guarantee periods, according to LIMRA and SOA.

Buy enough life insurance coverage for your needs.
Are you buying a life insurance policy with a small face
amount? Think carefully about whether that policy is
sufficient coverage for you, because history shows that
almost half of people with whole life insurance policies of
$5,000 or under abandon them within the first year (over 45
percent do, according to the LIMRA/SOA study). People with
larger whole life insurance policies are far more likely to
hold on to them.

This trend extends to other policy types. For example,
buyers of annual renewable term policies under $200,000
lapse them more in the first five years than buyers of
larger policies. (After year five the gap closes.)

The difference in life insurance policy size is quite
noticeable with UL, where about 33 percent of those with
policies under $15,000 lapse their policies in each of the
first three years, as opposed to about 5 to 10 percent of
those with larger face amounts.
If you're buying whole life insurance, commit long-term.

The highest lapse rates for whole life policies are in the
first five years. After that, lapse rates settle down at
between 3 to 5 percent for whole life policies, according
to LIMRA and SOA. Don't throw away your money by paying
into a whole life policy for one to five years, only to
abandon it.
Make sure you understand what you are buying.
This is true especially if you are looking at universal
life and variable universal life, which can have many
"moving parts" that affect your premiums due and death
benefit.

Match your coverage to your life stage.
If you're under age 30 and buying a life insurance policy,
consider carefully whether you're committed to paying that
premium bill. Others like you, age 20 to 29, abandon their
policies in higher numbers than older buyers, according to
LIMRA and SOA.
Find the easiest way to pay.

Consider paying your premium bill through electronic funds
transfer from your bank account. Policyholders who pay that
way are more likely to keep their policies, perhaps because
they never have to sit down and write a check.

Add a "disability waiver of premium" rider to your life
insurance policy.

Life insurance experts see many policies lapse due to a
disability that puts the policyholder out of work. A
disability waiver of premium rider will cover your premium
payments in this case.

Shop for a good life insurance rate from the start.
If you will be issued a policy with a smoking or
"substandard" rate, make sure you can keep up with premium
payments. People in those rate classes lapse their policies
more often in the first five years. For example, about 18
percent of smokers with whole life policies lapse them in
the first year as opposed to 11 percent of nonsmokers,
according to LIMRA and SOA.

No matter what rate class you fall into, knowing that you
secured a competitive life insurance price will make paying
your premium bill easier.

----------------------------------------------------
Amy Danise is a staff writer for http://insure.com . Visit
http://insure.com for a comprehensive array of comparative
auto, life and health quotes, including a vast library of
originally authored insurance articles. Insure.com is
dedicated to providing impartial insurance information to
consumers. Visitors can obtain instant quotes from more
than 200 leading insurers, achieve maximum savings and have
the freedom to buy from any company shown.

Stack the odds in your favour when Forex Trading

Stack the odds in your favour when Forex Trading
Many people compare forex trading to gambling. Some who
follow the random market theory support this. However some
technical analysis experts would argue that technical
analysis Forex techniques stack the odds in the favour of
the trader. Sound risk management and money management are
another ways of stacking the odds in the favour of the
trader.

How much do the odds have to be in the favour of the trader
for them to make money? Many people think that a trading
success rate of 70% to 80% is required to make money. At
70% your gains would be $700 (assuming gains and losses of
$100 per transactions) and losses would be $300 resulting
in an overall gain of $400. Let's take a closer look at
this assumption.

In Forex trading, when the price approaches strong
resistance or support, the question is: will the price
violate the barrier or bounce back from it? Good channel
traders and support and resistance traders will tell you
that in general there is a 70% chance of a bounce and only
a 30% chance of a breakout. These are important statistics.

The other statistic is that when there is a false breakout
(60% of the time) it will only go say 25 pips past the
barrier and then be forced back. Knowing this statistic is
another big advantage for traders. Most indicators or
trading methods have these kinds of statistics.

The risk management tool that good traders use is the risk
compared to reward ratio. Many will only enter trades that
allow them to gain 200% of what they risk (their stop
loss). This is a particularly powerful way of trading as
they make $200 on successful deals and only lose $100 on
positive deals. This means that if they had a 50% success
transaction success rate, on 10 transactions, they would
earn $ 1000 on successful transactions and only loose $500
on unsuccessful ones. A gain of $500 in spite of only
having a 50% success rate. Much better than the $400 gain
calculate above.

Just like card counters who make money from BlackJack you
need to develop the skill of stacking the odds in your
favour when Forex trading. This means knowing technical
analysis very well and knowing the characteristics of the
forex market very well.

BlackJack card counters also use money management to make
money. When the packs are rich of high value cards they
would progressively increase the value of their bets. They
would bet very low or not participate when the odds are not
favourable. This is one of the most neglected aspects of
Forex trading and as a Forex trader you need to develop
this skill.

Remember the trader above who achieved a 50% success rate
and made money because a 200 to 100 return on risk ratio
was used. Now imagine that only 1 lot was used for higher
risk trades and 2 lots were used higher probability trades.
The gains will now be $2 000 ($200 x 5 x 2) and the losses
$ 500 ($100 x 5 x 1). A $ 2000 gain compared to $ 500
loss. Now we talking. Remember this is still at a 50%
success rate. This $1500 gain at 50% accuracy compares
well with the $400 gain at 70% accuracy.

The above is an introduction of how some traders do not let
losses bother them as they have the odds stacked in their
favour. Many trading firms (including ours) take their
traders through a course of Casino game gambling odds to
show them how easy it is to make money on the forex when
you stack the odds in your favour.

----------------------------------------------------
Learn from David Lloyd who is a trader at
http://www.forextradersupportservices.com

Know how to use
probabilities to stack the trading odds in your favour by
visiting

http://www.expert4x.com and having a look at the
Forex trading, Forex alert and Casino games based services
which will stack the odds in your favour. We have alert
services that have never had a losing day that apply the
above techniques.

Learn about Captive and Famishing Life Insurance Representatives

Learn about Captive and Famishing Life Insurance Representatives
This 1st survival of the fittest component is dedicated to
enrolling wet behind the ears insurance agents. On that
point are over 1,500,000 insurance agents presently
authorized through insurance departments within the United
States In our evaluation, this signifies an excess of more
or less a one-half million agents. Life and health
insurance agents that are either badly schooled, experience
an insufficient amount of prospective clients, or captive
life insurance representatives that should have never been
employed initially. Dismissing 500,000 newer captive life
insurance representative today would strengthen the entire
health insurance agent system.

Statistical outcomes present the excessive figures of
captive life insurance agents famishing. The numbers show
that 85% of agents will starve their way out of the
business. In sales, you have two types of agents, those who
can take an order (application) and those agents competent
to sell life and health insurance.

The career office is typically situated in an swanky,
uprising suburban region of a major city where the common
household incomes are the highest. The target customer for
the career life insurance representatives of the agencies
are the wealthy individuals and small flourishing
businesses. If the prospective career representative were
professionally tested prior to employing the captive agent,
fall by the wayside would right away turn downward.

How do you predetermine an achiever component? Easily at
the get got recognize that whenever the applicant is
already financially in debt, and holding the line to pull
through, this survival of the fittest rope won't turn
firmer, simply weaker and weaker. Determined
representatives possessing will power could promptly get
financially secure enough to survive. The career life
insurance representative brings from the very onset a
numbers racket heavily heaped in favor of the insurer and
career agency. .

During the 1st four years of just about any salesperson's
vocation there is instilled from preceding years, a
predictable comfort zone. In other words, the
representative is most well situated talking to and seeking
to sell prospective customers in an environment or income
layer that corresponds his own. The career agency however
wants their representatives to bring in large premiums
exclusively. Imagine the battle of a more wet behind the
ears career representative seeking to sell entirely those
individuals clearing at least $100,000 a year. If not the
career agent should solicit booming small-scale business
proprietors. The rap boils down to him as not attempting or
working hard enough. Had the agency originated him working
at a $40,000 class of clientele, the life insurance
representative may have figured out his mode to selling
greater earning pro

The career agency holds hardened mystical plans for
fulfilling the goal of the agency. That peculiar project
calls for delivering a token measure of life insurance
representatives to establish insurance selling their
career. It as well calls for trivial examination in their
employing routines. The life insurance agency induces their
agency sales managers to acquire $100,000 in premiums
(around 100 insurance applications) before representatives
start exiting. Within 3 years, the $100,000 produced by a
parted representative can net the insurance company and
career agency between $100,000 and $250,000.

So who is worth more financially to the company and agency?
Is it the captive agent famishing from low income who moves
on, or from the scarce life insurance representative who
has beaten the odds? There is no well-defined response
other than "it depends"

Sounds as though the insurance company and captive agency
land up a winner regardless which direction the coin lands.

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Don Yerke the firm's adviser and writer of a wide variety
of sales and recruiting articles.
http://www.agentsinsurancemarketing.com The profitable firm
provides marketers with the most refined lists of agents..
His telling of facts truthfully does not always smell like
fresh flowers. You want insight, not just of sweet aroma.
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