Simple Ideas to Organize Your Finances

With the economy struggling and many Americans adjusting the way they spend, now is a great time to do some financial planning. But with so many things to consider, sometimes it's hard to know where to start. Organizing your finance doesn’t have to be something you dread. Start with a to-do list and work through each step until you’re done. You should feel better knowing what you're spending and saving and what you can expect in the future.

Consider getting your finances in order by completing the BEST to-do list -- budget, estate, savings and taxes:

Budget Analysis

It's important to create and maintain a budget and the New Year is a great time to review your income and expenses. This will be easier if you get in the habit of tracking the money you spend using a paper ledger or with your computer. Remember to account for any debt expenses you may have, such as credit card and loan payments and include changes you anticipate such as a pay raise or a new car payment in the New Year.

Think about ways to maximize your income and minimize expenses. If you need more income, you may decide to work a few extra hours at a part-time job in addition to your current job. Look for ways both large and small to spend less throughout the year. For example, you may be able to save a significant amount of money by bringing your lunch to work instead of eating out.

Estate Planning

Review your beneficiaries for your insurance policies, investments and retirement plans to make sure they are accurate and up to date. Review your will and trust documents to make sure they're accurate, too. If you had any life or family changes, such as a birth, adoption or divorce, you may need to revise your beneficiary designations.

Savings and Investments

Make sure you have adequate savings or at least a plan to save during the year. This includes a separate emergency fund which should have at least three to six months' worth of living expenses.

Set specific investing goals, such as retirement or college education, and review how much money you'll need to reach each of your goals. Adjust your investment plan or goals if needed to increase your likelihood of success. For example, you may decide to establish an automatic investment plan to invest toward your goals on a regular basis. Or maybe you planned to retire early but find you'll have a greater likelihood of retiring comfortably if you work a few years longer.

Tax Preparation

If you typically owe additional income tax each year or you get a big tax refund (which is essentially money you've loaned to the government throughout the year), you may want to consider adjusting your income tax withholding to have more or less withheld from your paycheck. You can adjust your tax withholding through your employer on IRS Form W-4.

Review the personal exemptions you claim for federal and state taxes to make sure they're accurate and up to date. Also, take advantage of deductions to reduce your taxable income. For example, why not maximize your state tax payments before year-end since state taxes generally are deductible from your taxable income? You can deduct interest on your mortgage payments and you also may be able to deduct charitable donations.

Don't delay in getting your finances organized and getting the peace of mind that comes along with it, it’s easier than you think if you take it step-by-step.

The Equity Scholar Team

7 Reasons Investors Should Trade Options

If you are a typical stock market investor, you adopted a buy and hold philosophy and own stocks or mutual funds. If you are a hand-on investor, you do research and carefully select stocks to own. It's difficult to beat the market, and most professional money managers cannot do it.

Historically, stock market investing has worked out well. But that provides no comfort for those currently invested. The market recently traded at 12-year lows, and even more frightening is the idea that many investors lost half their assets over the past year.

Why did so many people watch their investments shrink in value and do nothing?

That's a difficult question. Investors tend to be long. They own stocks. They don't know how to hedge, or reduce the risk of owning, investments. That's why options are so important. To me, it's a crime that so few stockbrokers help clients to adopt risk-reducing strategies.

Here are 7 great reasons why you should take time to learn how options work:

1.Hedging - Options allow you to reduce the risk of investing in the stock market. Imagine how investors everywhere would feel if they learned that the giant losses they suffered were unnecessary. By using appropriate strategies, those losses could have been trimmed by 50 to 90%.

2.Insurance - You can buy insurance that protects the value of your portfolio - just as you buy insurance to protect the value of your home or car. This insurance is expensive, but there are strategies that allow you to own insurance for little, or no, cost.

3.Income - By selling someone else the right to buy your stock at a predetermined price, you are paid a premium that you can consider to be a special dividend.

4.Leverage - You never have to trade a share of stock, and invest far less money than stockholders.

5.No Need to Always Be Bullish - Options allow you to create positions that prosper when the market moves higher, lower, or trades in a range. Traditional investors only prosper when stocks move higher.

6.Limited risk - You can adopt strategies with limited loss, but with high probability of success. The trade off is that profits are also limited. The limited loss nature of so many option strategies is the single factor that makes them so attractive, in my opinion.

7.Indexing - If you prefer to trade a diversified portfolio rather than individual stocks, the major indexes (e.g., S&P 500, DJIA, Russell 2000, etc) have options you can trade.

The Five Closely Guarded Secrets to Forex

Intraday Forex trading, as with any other online money making means, is draining and push for complete fundamental analysis. Not every trader acquires those features or could make extra days or even hours monitoring indefinitely at the Forex Charts.

Assuming you have a 8-5 Job, and after you come back home after a taxing Friday, the last "activity" you might want to carry out is make up a thorough analysis of an Euro/Dollar market and execute some Buy Limits. There are a handful of strong-willed people who would possibly still drag through that, but it definitely requires much more sleepless nights.

If you have hardship to evaluate the market, try consider to pick some forex signals service providers, that are plentifully advertised on the web. And if you are willing to explore, there are scores of great free forex signals that are genuine. In addition, you can also employ paid forex signal services. Normally those subscription fees are similar to one another: majority ask for about 100 dollars monthly, and others want 250 or even more.

These services might prove to be decent and could aid you in many ways, but as with all transactions via on line, traders should pay careful attention to scams! Here's some important points to consider:

1. Examine the time of delivery of your signals. Do they give you sufficient time to set up your trades?

2. Go for those signal providers with Intraday Signals, being Intraday Day Signals usually provides you plenty of time to set things up.

3. Check the Performance Records. I have signed up for a billion of Signal Services, and I can tell you this: Don't take their word for it.

4. When you subsribed, trade in humble lot sizes at the beginning. Ramp it up only when you are assured with the Signals.

5. Do pay close attention to the method your signals provider keeping track of their performance results. does your forex signal provider request you to trade multiple lot sizes?

This is one of the most common deception in Forex Trading that people seldom notice: For instance, you are trading 3 lot sizes each trade, and was given 4 TP targets, at +25 pips, +50 pips, +75 pips  and +100 pips, and only a single SL at 25 pips. And you are told to Scale Out of your profit trades.

Now most Forex Signals Services will only report a tiny loss of 25 pips, but if you hit Target 3 they'd report a winner of +75 pips. So following these 2 results, you've got a profitable trade at 75  pips and a loser at -25 pips, Have you indeed earn +50 pips?

You never did. The unforgiving truth is that, you suffered a loss of 25 pips mutiply by three lots entered, which is 75 pips, while you achieved 25 pips (Profit Target 1) and 50 pips (Profit Target 2) which is 75 pips. In conclusion you only won 0 pips instead of 25 - which is 250% of the real profit. Envisage the kind of gap this simple dishonest calculation can generate over the span of 80 signals!

There are certainly Forex Signals Services Providers that are genuine in their signals, but potential buyers should need to exercise better attention when it comes to picking the great ones.

How to Trade Forex 24 Hours a Day

You need income to live a comfortable life. You need money to supply education to your children. And, you need money to eat. For this reason people work, this is why individuals set up businesses, and this is precisely why people go to great lengths to create money.

One particular excellent money-making career that you should consider is trading in the biggest financial market on earth. Not only is Forex or Foreign Exchange the world's greatest financial industry, it's also by far the most liquid market on the planet that functions Twenty-four hours a day.

With trade exchanges which produces as much as 2 trillion us dollars a day, who wouldn't get attracted to operate within this incredibly liquid market? If you are a regular person having a regular job who is searching for a way to make additional funds, you can look at going into the Forex market and trade.

However, Forex has its pitfalls and individuals who have bought and sold in Forex without the proper knowledge and skill lost considerable amounts of money, and some have experienced great financial losses. Because of this, it is necessary that you have ample know-how and skills if you trade in the Forex market.

Today, there is a software available for one to use that can really allow it to become less complicated for you to trade in the Forex market plus bring in that additional income you need. This particular software is often known as the Forex trading robot.

Ordinarily, Forex trading robots will be accessed from the internet. It is very comparable to employing a Forex broker but rather than a broker being human it will be in a form of software. Because Forex trading robots don't get to sleep, this software can operate At any hour therefore, giving you the advantage of not missing any money making opportunities when the Forex market changes.

Just imagine, it is now doable for you to operate within the Forex market just like an expert. And, you can deal At any hour. With this particular advantage, you will never miss a further potentially money-making day in the Forex market. Additionally, you can even use this while you're at work.

All these are possible with the use of a Forex trading robot. However, before you decide to subscribe to a Forex trading robot, it's important to first determine if the software will surely work to your advantage. You need to determine if the Forex trading robot can definitely trade effectively and efficiently.

It's also wise to consider advanced trading capabilities that the Forex trading robot can offer you.

Below are a few of the characteristics you should consider in a Forex trading robot:

 24 hour a day operation - You need this attribute from a Forex trading robot so you can never miss a money making opportunity.