Paying Too Much Attention Can Cost You Money

Paying Too Much Attention Can Cost You Money

Sales and financial pitfalls. What do these two have in common? Let me give you two hints:

You walk into a retail store advertising 50 percent off store wide sale. You walk out the store after spending $150. Your budget was $80. Although it was over your budget, you did manage to walk out the store with more items for $150 than you could have without the sale.

When reading “financial crisis of 2008 to 2010” what images and emotions come to mind?

What they both have in common is fixation. For the majority of people, our minds are preoccupied with the idea of saving money on a sale and a memorable moment impressed upon our frontal lobe that seems to never fade.

The advertisement of a sale has no advantage unless you are saving money. Typically, we tend to overspend when there’s a sale which makes it difficult to save for retirement or other long-term goals. How many times have you or someone you know have said “oh, it’s only $40” (or another dollar figure) because, otherwise, the item would have never been bought for $80? It doesn’t stop there. Then, there’s something else that you have always wanted (it just happens to be that way because it’s a sale) and buy it. Next thing you know you are buying more than what you have intended. But you justify it because it’s a sale. But it’s up to you to not overspend. We anchor on the idea of a sale and automatically think we are saving money. Au contraire, a sale is an opportunity for the store to sell a higher quantity of their inventory.

Solution: if you want a sale to work in your favor where you are saving money, then set a spending limit. You will stay … Read More

Learning Financial Spread Betting

Learning Financial Spread Betting

Did you think that you must lay low during this financial crisis? Is it a tough time for making money? Actually, if you keep seeing your hunches turn into fact when you switch on the financial news, maybe it’s time for you to get into financial access betting.

It’s one way to parlay your guesses on local and foreign market movements, the strengthening or weakening of any currency, or how a basic commodity will be affected by nature’s changes, the market’s demands, or the market climate into money. And you do these free of taxes, too! While spread betting can make you a lot of money, that also means you could lose a fortune, too. Actually, you can lose more than what you already put in. However, it’s this type of speculation that is calling more than a few spread traders into the market.

One of the siren calls is that it doesn’t call for commissions nor taxes. Another is that spread betting doesn’t require a sizable amount of investment in order to start. It can be a very small amount of capital that is used in order to open an account to be able to trade across various types of markets. Whether the markets are going up or down, spread traders make money. Then, since you don’t actually own the shares you are speculating on, there are no commissions or taxes involved. The cash betting firm pays the taxes so it’s much more cost effective and efficient for the spread trader involved. All the spread betting firm gets from the speculator is the bid-offer spread, a rather low price to pay for the income a trader could possibly make.

The stock market is again becoming popular because the banks are not offering that much interest on their deposits. Money … Read More