Seven Ways To Shore Up Your Finances
Investment advisers often want $5,000 or more for a detailed financial plan. But you might be better off with a 99-cent notebook.
Sure, it would be great to get sophisticated advice from a top-notch financial planner. But in the end, accumulating wealth usually comes down to more prosaic strategies, like saving diligently, raising financially responsible children and avoiding devastating investment blunders.
Want to improve your family's finances? Try these seven simple strategies.
1. Writing Wrongs
If you can't seem to save any money, pony up for that 99-cent notebook and thereafter write down every penny you spend.
This is, without a doubt, horribly tedious. But it can have an amazing effect.
First, you will come to grips with where all your money is going. Second, because you know you will have to catalog your spending, you will think harder about every purchase -- and that, by itself, will encourage you to cut back.
2. Taking Aim
While you have the notebook at hand, turn to a clean page and sketch out your portfolio's target investment mix.
You might settle on a mix of, say, 30% large-company U.S. stocks, 10% small U.S. companies, 10% developed foreign-stock markets, 5% emerging-market stocks, 10% high-quality corporate bonds, 10% conventional government bonds, 10% inflation-indexed Treasury bonds, 5% high-yield junk bonds, 5% foreign bonds and 5% real-estate investment trusts, or REITs.
Your portfolio could be much simpler than this, or far more complicated. But either way, settling on these targets, and then sticking with them, will make you a more disciplined investor.
For instance, whenever you come across an intriguing mutual fund or a hot stock, you will have to stop and consider how this investment fits into your target portfolio and whether you already have enough exposure to that sector.
More important, if one of your sectors takes a tumble, your portfolio targets will force you to stay the course.
Suppose REITs nosedive, falling below your 5% target. The newspapers are predicting doom and gloom and investors are panicking and selling. But thanks to your target percentage, you will be compelled to buy more, so you get your REITs back up to their 5% weighting.
3. 'Fessing Up
Let's say you tried the written portfolio targets and that didn't do the trick. It's time to haul out the big guns. Want to straighten out your investment mix? Tell your brother-in-law Fred that you want him to look over your portfolio and that, at the end of the week, you will send him a list of your investments and how much you have in each.
Make no mistake: Faced with almost certain humiliation, you will move rapidly to fix the mess. Out will go the rotten stocks and underperforming funds and, in their place, you will build a sensible, well-diversified portfolio. At week's end, you will tear a page from your notebook, detail your portfolio holdings and happily mail the list to Fred.
4. Testing Yourself
Fred approved. But now you are having second thoughts. You have this inkling that the dollar will bounce back, and that bonds will crash, and that emerging-market stocks are set to soar.
Instead of acting on these predictions, write them down in your notebook. A year from now, go back and look at what you wrote. With any luck, you will have enough foolish forecasts to nix all belief in your own clairvoyance.
5. Double the Fund
Still feeling uneasy about this investing thing? Bag the fancy portfolio. Instead, stash your entire nest egg in two mutual funds.
First, stick any cash you will need in the next five years in a low-cost money-market fund, and then stuff everything else in a life-cycle fund .
Life-cycle funds offer one-stop shopping for long-term investors, by combining a broad mix of stocks and bonds in a single portfolio. Check out the offerings from Boston's Fidelity Investments, Baltimore's T. Rowe Price Group and Vanguard Group in Malvern, Pa.
6. Matters of Principal
Looking for other simple strategies that will deliver decent returns? Consider making extra principal payments on your mortgage. If you add $100 to the monthly payment on a 6% fixed-rate mortgage, that $100 will earn a 6% pretax rate of return. True, you could probably do better with stocks and, true, you will reduce your tax-deductible mortgage interest.
Nonetheless, making extra principal payments strikes me as a great strategy. You will clock a decent rate of return and you know exactly what that return will be. And it's easy. After all, you have to write that mortgage check every month anyway, so it's no great bother to add a few bucks to the monthly amount.
7. Child's Play
Even if you have your finances under control, you could still find yourself in a tough spot if one of your adult children gets into financial trouble. To be sure, you could always say no. But as any parent can attest, that is awfully difficult to do.
Instead, try to ensure the issue never arises, by taking the time to teach your kids about money when they are young. On that score, the most important skill you can impart is the ability to delay gratification. If your children learn that skill, they should avoid the excessive spending that dogs so many adults.
My advice: Stop coughing up cash every time your kids want to purchase something. That gives them the notion that money is limitless and spending is painless. Instead, once your children turn age 12 or 13, set a monthly or quarterly allowance that covers all clothes and entertainment, and then leave them to make the tough choices.
As your kids learn to live within their new budget, they will buy all kinds of foolish items and make all kinds of mistakes. But at least they will make those mistakes now, while they are still kids and while the financial stakes are still small.
七条简单策略改善你的财务状况
要想得到一份详细的理财计划，你往往得向投资顾问支付5,000美元，其实你可能只需要一个99美分的笔记本就能做成这件事情。
当然，能得到一流理财顾问的专业建议固然不错，但财富的积累最终还是会落实到一些更为稀疏平常的投资策略上，像积极地储蓄、培养孩子的理财责任感以及避免犯致命的投资错误等。
想改善家庭的财务状况吗？不妨试试以下7条简单的理财策略吧。
1.记录支出
如果你感觉好像总是存不下钱来，那就先花99美分买一个笔记本，然后记录下你的每一笔开销。
这样做无疑会十分繁琐乏味，但会收到很好的效果。
首先，你将了解每一分钱的去处；其次，由于知道自己要记录每笔开销，你会对花出去的钱权衡再三，这样做本身就会鼓励你减少支出。
2.有的放矢
拿到笔记本后，你先找到空白的一页，在上面大致写下你想要的投资组合的构成比例。
比如，你可以像这样规划：美国大型股：30%；美国小型股：10%；发达国家市场股票：10%；新兴市场股票：5%；高质量公司债券：10%；常规美国国债：10%；通货膨胀保值国债：10%；高收益率垃圾债券：5%；外国债券：5%；房地产投资信托基金(REIT)：5%。
当然你的投资组合既可以比这个简单，也可以比它复杂。但无论怎样，你都要为自己设定一个比例目标，然后严格加以遵守，这样做会让你成为一个更加自律的投资者。
当你碰上一只诱人的共同基金或热门股票时，你就会静下心来，仔细考虑此项投资是否符合你的比例目标，你是否在这类共同基金或类股上已有过多的投资。
更为重要的是，如果你其中的一类投资亏损，你设定的比例目标将迫使你坚持目标持仓比例，而不是半途而废。
假设你的房地产投资信托基金暴跌，造成它在投资组合中所占的比例低于你设定的5%的目标，报纸也纷纷预测它将难逃厄运，投资者们一时乱了阵脚，争相抛售。但由于你设定了5%的比例目标，你就必须在这个时候买进，好让它的比例恢复到5%的水平。
3.公开投资情况
当你尝试了上面的第二条策略、但却毫无成效的时候，不妨再试试这条锦囊妙计。想改善自己的投资组合吗？那么就向你姐夫什么的说，你想让他看看你的投资组合，然后到周末的时候，你就依言寄给他你的投资组合清单，以及每项投资的数额。
没错，当你几乎确定无误要遭到别人嘲笑时，你会迅速修正自己的错误。你会把那些亏本的股票、表现不济的基金从投资组合中剔除，取而代之的是更加合理、品种多样的投资组合。等到了周末的时候，你就可以从笔记本上撕下一页，详细地写下你的投资组合状况，然后高高兴兴地寄给姐夫了。
4.自我测试
姐夫这一关算是过了。但现在你又有了一些新的想法。你隐隐约约地感觉到美元要开始反弹、债券价格将大幅下挫、新兴市场股票会大幅攀升。
但不要因此就贸然行动，将这些感觉写进你的笔记本里，一年后再看看你写的这些东西，你会发现，这些愚蠢的预测足以让你对自己的洞察力完全失去信心。
5.两类基金
仍觉得对建立好的投资组合没有多少把握？那么你还可以把所有的养老资金投入到两类共同基金中。
首先，将你在未来5年内需要用到的资金放入低成本的货币市场基金，然后再将其他资金放入寿命周期基金(life-cycle fund)中。
寿命周期基金可以为长期投资者提供一站式的投资方案，它在一个投资组合中将股票和债券广泛地结合在一起，你可以考虑由富达投资(Fidelity Investment)、T. Rowe Price Group和Vanguard Grou提供的此类基金。
6.本金问题
想寻找其他能带来丰厚回报的简单投资策略？考虑一下增加抵押贷款的本金偿还额。如果抵押贷款利率为固定的6%，你每月多偿还100美元，这100美元的税前回报率就是6%。当然，用这100美元投资股市可能会获得更高的回报，而且可以抵减税收的抵押贷款利息也减少了。
但不管怎么说，增加本金还款额在我看来是一个很棒的策略，你会因此获得不错的回报，而且你还能够确切地知道回报率的高低。这很容易办到，毕竟你每个月本来就要偿还抵押贷款，多还一些钱不会带来太大的麻烦。
7.教育孩子
即使你的财务状况控制得很好，如果你的一个成年孩子陷入了财务困境，你自己可能也会不好过。当然，你总可以对他们说不，但事实证明绝大多数父母很难狠下心来撒手不管。
你可以从小就向孩子们灌输理财的知识，尽量让他们避免在成人后出现财务问题。在此过程中，你能向他们传授的最重要的一点就是要勤俭节约。如果你的孩子学会了这一点，他们就不会像许多成年人那样挥霍无度。
我的建议是：当你的孩子想买什么东西时，不要每次都掏钱满足他们的要求，否则会让他们觉得有花不完的钱，花起钱来一点也不知道心疼。当你的孩子长到十二、三岁时，你每个月或每个季度给他们用来支付衣服和娱乐的零花钱，然后让他们自己决定哪些该买、哪些不该买。
在孩子们学习按照这种新方式花钱的过程中，他们可能会胡乱花钱，买各种各样没用的东西，不过至少他们是在现阶段犯这样的错误，还只是孩子，造成的经济损失也不会很大。
