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DISCLAIMER - I am not a Financial Advisor and do not work for any Brokerage Firm. The opinions given are my own and are not to be used as professional advice. These are my findings and can hopefully help you to make informed decisions on investing. Consult a Broker or Lawyer before making any investment. In one of our earliest articles post on investing, we covered how that one of the best methods to invest is by using an IRA account. There are many advantages of this over just opening a brokerage account. One of the biggest is the tax ramifications of buying and selling stocks, mutual funds, or ETFs. (Exchange Traded Funds). We discussed bonds in a separate article. Definition of a Bond These 3 are very similar and are all invested in the stock market. (Some mutual funds and ETFs do invest in bonds.) Continue Reading on BLOG
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DISCLAIMER - I am not a Financial Advisor and do not work for any Brokerage Firm. The opinions given are of my own and are not to be used as professional advice. These are my findings and can hopefully help you to make informed decisions on investing. Consult a Broker or Lawyer before making any investment.
The Total Money Makeover This is definitely the top most important investment book I have ever read. The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey probably is not your normal investment book in relation to how to invest your money. But if I had not read it or adopted his methods of running my personal life, I would never have had the funds to invest the way I do today. In my previous posts, I have explained how I spent years trying to overcome my huge backlog of debt and failed. Finally, I found this book. It is available in most libraries, but if you want a copy, you can buy it on Amazon: The Total Money Makeover Dave Ramsey has coached millions of people on how to live and manage their finances. His way works. Many do not like his method as it is in your face and he sees no reason to ever use a credit card. (Debit cards are fine.) If his approach is too radical for you, you can try your plan by mixing his method and yours. I did it that way for over 10 years, and if I had not finally said “ENOUGH”, I think we would still be battling a huge unwinnable battle. Continue Reading in Blog DISCLAIMER - I am not a Financial Advisor and do not work for any Brokerage Firm. The opinions given are of my own and are not to be used as professional advice. These are my findings and can hopefully help you to make informed decisions on investing. Consult a Broker or Lawyer before making any investment.
The Power of Full Market Indexes The stock market is full of varying types of investments. Few make more money in the long haul than the Full Stock Market Indexes. About 12 years ago, I read the book “The Little Book of Common Sense Investing” by the late Jack Bogle. Jack Bogle was one of the great minds in the investment world and his Vanguard group of investments is still one of the best. In his book, he explained that only 2% of the people making marketing decisions on Mutual Funds can outperform the full stock market index. And if you invest your money with one of those in the top 2, next year they will not be in the top 2% slot. One exception to that rule was Peter Lynch and his fantastic Magellean fund. He consistently outperformed the market for many years. But the truth of the matter is that no matter how smart you are, you are hard-pressed to beat the ‘average’ of the whole stock market. I really took this to heart and over the past 12 years, the full stock market ETFs in my portfolio has outperformed all other investments. Over the past 15 years, the stock market has consistently put out average yields above 12%. Years like 2022 are a misnomer in that we have so many things wrong in our world that there is no consistency to the market. Continue reading in Blog DISCLAIMER - I am not a Financial Advisor and do not work for any Brokerage Firm. The opinions given are of my own and are not to used as professional advice. These are my findings and can hopefully help you to make informed decisions on investing. Consult a Broker or Lawyer before making any investment.
DIFFERENCES IN IRAs All of us have to start somewhere with investing. I have found that you can be successful in investing in many different ways. Some people want to simply put their money to work and do not want to be involved in any decisions. Let's begin by discussing how to invest in the stock market. SIMPLE NO INVOLVEMENT One of the easiest methods is to use a robo-type investment platform. One that my wife and I use is www.wealthfront.com We both have Roth IRAs at Wealthfront, and they let you decide the level of risk you want to take. As money comes in, they set the percentages to allow you to have a diversified portfolio. As certain categories grow, they reallocate your money to keep so much in safe investments like Bonds or Dividend Stocks. Continue Reading on Blog HAVING A STRONG UNMOVING MINDSET
Having a proper mindset in life is so crucial. When you think right, you live a life of freedom and make good decisions. When I started on my minimalist path, I knew it would help me to cut costs. But once I got started, I found that it freed up not only my time but put my mind at ease. Each possession we have requires cost and maintenance. Many obtain so many possessions that their lives are tied up in taking care of the ‘things of life.’ I have heard that the 2 best days in a man’s life are the day he buys an RV and the day he finally sells it. The same can be said of any expensive toy such as a boat or any unneeded high-cost hobby item. Not having to maintain all the unneeded possessions frees up our time to do the things that are most important in life. Sometimes just learning to control ourselves and say NO to unneeded desires is important. Article on Learning to Say No. Realizing that a joyful life is more about experiences and family and not about acquiring things is very important. If our lives please God, we live a more confident life. To be able to concentrate on most important things allows us to live a simple life of freedom. It begins by seeing things right, and that is where mindset comes into play. Continue reading in blog Each year in my first devotional of the year, I discuss my Resolutions for the New Year. This year I am going to discuss a slightly different topic which I will be using for Resolutions this year. God makes it clear in His Word that we should make clear logical plans. Luk_14:28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Luk_14:31 Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Thinking right is crucial. We must try and think like Jesus Christ and strive to do the Father’s will in our lives. Php 2:1 If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Php 2:2 Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Php 2:3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Php 2:4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Php 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Some think resolutions are pointless. But the bible is clear we should have plans and look to God daily for help. I have read that only 3% of people make goals, but those 3% accomplish more than the 97% who do not. My wife Denise and I have had clear written goals over the past 3 years which I put on the wall. Writing it down makes you 42% more likely to achieve the goal than to just speak it. With clearly written goals, there is a clear target to hit. Without a goal, you will hit it every time. But by having written goals, we have been able to meet those goals for 3 consecutive years. Continue reading on Blog There are a lot of ideas about what minimalism can do for us. When you cut out the excess “stuff” you have more free time. You have less to keep up with, and your expenses are lowered. Today I want to discuss a word that all of us should really learn and strive to make part of our day-to-day mindset.
While perseverance and determination are very important and closely interweaved, this attribute is one that we really need. If we can get this attribute into our daily action steps, believe me, it will allow us to have a more consistent life. I want to talk about the word: Resilience The dictionary defines resilience as: 1. the power or ability of a material to return to its original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity. 2. the ability of a person to adjust to or recover readily from illness, adversity, major life changes, etc.; buoyancy. 3. the ability of a system or organization to respond to or recover readily from a crisis or disruptive process. If you watch NFL football, in the middle of the 2023 season I watched the Philadelphia Eagles perform some real resilience. Against the Kansas City Chiefs in Kansas City, they were down 17-6 at half-time. By playing excellent defense and holding Kansas City to 0 points in the second half, they were able to score twice and win that game. Continue reading in Blog Market Cap Movers in 2023
DISCLAIMER - I am not a Financial Advisor and do not work for any Brokerage Firm. The opinions given are my own and are not to be used as professional advice. These are my findings and can hopefully help you to make informed decisions on investing. Consult a Broker or Lawyer before making any investment. I read an interesting article last week on Market Moving Trends. According to their research, 7 stocks in 2023 have been responsible for 73% of the Market Gains in 2023. I try to stay with tried and proven Dividend Growth Stocks that give at least a 4% dividend return and potential upside gains in price of around 5% or more. However, I could not ignore the fact that just 7 stocks had such movement in them in 2023. Continue Reading on BLOG The Path to Investing Using ETFs
DISCLAIMER - I am not a Financial Advisor and do not work for any Brokerage Firm. The opinions given are of my own and are not to be used as professional advice. These are my findings and can hopefully help you to make informed decisions on investing. Consult a Broker or Lawyer before making any investment. Learning how to invest is sometimes a scary thing to many people. If you are young (or old) and have never invested before, determining where to start is difficult. I remember opening my first investment account back in 1973 at Merrill Lynch. I was the tender age of 22 and thought I was ready to get started. Immediately I realized that Investment houses and stock brokers talked a whole different language than I did. I was blessed to have a good broker, and he bought me a copy of “The Intelligent Investor” by Benjamin Graham and suggested I read it. It has been years since I read it, so I have not done a book review on it. In the book, Mr. Graham spends a lot of time explaining how to read company financial statements and how a person should try to buy a company’s stock when its price is less than their Net Asset Value. Continue reading in BLOG The Importance of Learning to say “NO”
One of the great things about minimalism is that it allows us to eliminate things that are time wasters and put our focus on the important things in life. To do this, we must learn to determine what is important and be able to say NO to those things which are not. Most of us live in a world where our daily lives have become too busy. To be pleasing at work to our employer or more importantly pleasing to the Lord, we have to learn to do those things most important and not do those that are of little importance. Jesus desires us to be people who are about God’s work. Continue Reading in BLOG |
AuthorDavid Parham Archives
February 2024
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