Author Archives: Brent

401k Retirement Plans Explained

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401k Retirement Plans Explained

401k retirement strategies are unique kinds of accounts, funded through pre-tax payroll reductions. The funds in your account are bought using numerous methods.

Piggy bank

This is not suitable for your retirement funds.

Your funds can be invested through any mix of stocks, shared funds, and other investments, and it is not taxed on any capital gains or interest up until the cash is taken out or withdrawn. Congress authorized this retirement cost savings strategy in 1981, and its name was rooted from the area of the Internal Revenue Code which contains it, which is unsurprisingly, paragraph 401k

One terrific benefit of this retirement strategy is that the tax treatment is complimentary. Furthermore, taxes on capital gains, interest and dividends are not charged up until the funds are withdrawn.

Every employee can invest a personally chosen and specified percentage of his wage into a 401k strategy. Your participation, in addition to any collaborated contributions from your company, are then endowed into your picked funds. These funds will produce interest prior to being taxed, and can be withdrawn when you reach 60 years of age. At this moment, you should pay the earnings tax on the withdrawn funds. Additionally, there are techniques and processes in which you can take out your funds prior to age 60. Nevertheless, these early withdrawals regularly require an extra charge in combination with the payment of taxes.

In regards to its financial investment personalization and versatility, 401k retirement strategies provide workers and employees a substantial variety of alternatives and choices regarding how their residential or commercial property and properties are invested through time. Additionally, lots of services and business allow workers to acquire business stock for their 401k retirement strategy at a cut rate. Nevertheless, lots of retirement advisors are not in favor of holding a considerable portion of your 401k strategy in the shares of your employer or primary wage source.

A 401k retirement strategy is an employer subsidized retirement strategy, and it is classified into 2 groups: fixed payment or a fixed contribution. With this fixed amount strategy, the company promises to provide a defined amount to those who wish to retire and those who fulfil defined eligibility requirements and steps.

So what are 401k strategies? If you are similar to the majority of people, you most likely have concerns about your 401k retirement strategy. You might be questioning how a 401k in fact happens, specifically what a 401k retirement strategy is, or how you can be efficient in promoting the lessening balance in your 401k strategy. So how does a 401k strategy in fact work? If your business provides a 401k retirement strategy, you can accept sign up with. You can likewise have the choice of picking the quantity of funds you want to put in from a stock of funds provided in the 401k strategy. Your payment will consistently be subtracted from your wage prior to taxes.

Debunking the Myths about the Wealthy.

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Money clip with cash.
Money clip with cash.

Fatten your wallet

Many of the statements you regularly hear around the water cooler / coffee machine are just plain wrong and usually stem from ignorance.

I've been reading Influence the psycology of persuasion by Robert Cialdini recently and have learned a lot about the way we all work.

It's a bit scary how easily we can be manipulated to do what the skilled persuader wants us to do.

One of the ways is also handicapping us in our day to day lives and tends to keep us in the income range we feel comfortable in rather than stepping up to the income we would prefer to have.

This is the area of social proof.

The idea is that when we are unsure about how to behave in a situation we look to those around us to see what they do and then we follow along because 'if everyone else is doing it it must be right'.

What happens in group discussions about wealthy people is that, because we don't believe that we can get there ourselves and we don't see anyone around us getting wealthy then "they" must be different.

Since we are all nice people here "they" must be nasty, selfish, greedy people.  This is not true of course, there are just as many nasty, selfish, greedy people who are not wealthy and there are just as many nice, selfless, generous people who are.

No, the real difference between wealthy people and those who are not is how they manage their money.

Would you believe that it's not even a secret?

You can search all over the Internet, in your local library, talk to any qualified investment advisor or pretty much anyone who has a lot more money than you and they'll all happily share with you what they do and how to do it.

Really simple steps.  Get rid of the debt, live within your income, save a nest egg, invest in income producing assets, re-invest your earnings.

That's pretty much it.

This information was even mentioned in Great Expectations written by Chales Dickens in 1860.

Well then, if this information has been around and publicly available since the 1800s then why aren't more people wealthy?

There's the rub.

Turns out that it's not enough to know about this you also have to do something about it and that's not so easy.

It's even harder when all the advertising is telling you to buy now pay later, here is the latest wizz bang greatest thing since sliced bread and all your friends have one now so you had better catch up.

Credit is easy to get for almost anyone particularly for things you don't even need and probably won't use more than 2 -3 times.

The hard thing is to ignore all that crap and focus on getting your money where you want it to be.  If you have credit card or store debt you need to get rid of that because it's expensive debt to carry.

Go here if you need help with that.

The other challenge as it turns out is that it takes time to build up assets to serious wealth and in the early years it doesn't look like you're gaining ground at all.  You can find out how to work out this stuff on this site but an overview is that compounding interest on a savings account follows an exponential curve and takes approximately 14 years to really start to see the effect.

Interestingly it is the same regardless of where you put your money but most people give up after about 5 - 7 years and necer get to see compounding really kick in.

If they can remain disciplined everyone has the potential to retire a millionaire without anything but regular savings and safe investing.

But they wont.

They don't have the discipline.

The only short cuts that I know of is to inherit a large amount of money or to win X-Lotto.  Neither of these are classified as financial planning or reliable financial instruments so you can't rely on them.

In general those people who do inherit or win don't manage to keep it very long because they don't know how to handle it.

What you can do is take control of your money starting today.

Every little bit of reduction in spending helps, every time you choose to not add to your debts helps, every little bit of additional payment on your debts helps.

You can do this, sit down, do a tally of all income and all expenditure, work out where you can cut down the expenditure and how you can accelerate the payment of your debts.

Are you ready to begin the path to financial security and perhaps even wealth?

Leave a comment below on how you are going to manage it and by when.

 

No Cost Income Stream – Video Series.

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No Cost Income Stream

Are you the type of person who can learn new things and follow instructions?



The No Cost Income Stream is a series of videos and PDFs which take you step by step through what you need to do to to start making money online 5 different ways at no cost.

All you need to do is choose one and follow the steps.  Sounds easy doesn't it? 

The problem for most people is that they just don't have the background skills to make this work because they have never been exposed to them before.

So what I am offering you is access to group coaching via a Facebook group.  Inside this group you can ask any question you want about any one of these 5 online businesses.  You'll be able to access direct messaging to any person in the group if you feel that you need that.

These skills have been mastered by people as diverse as high school dropouts and the unemployed through to 80 year old pensioners.  Are you smarter and younger than these people?

If you want a brighter future you have to create it.  You are in the right place to start that process.

Membership gives you access to extensive training videos, PDFs and a Facebook coaching group.  All the training and help you could possibly need to make money online.  All your techy issues solved, all your questions answered, nothing held back.

What do you want to get done?

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How to become more productive.

​I'm currently reading Pre-suasion by Robert Cialdini and found a few things that might help all of us be more productive.

Productivity in producing content, making contacts, writing emails etc is one of the big factors in what will determine your success online or anywhere else.

I know that I get distracted easily and I have a number of half finished projects to prove it.

Most of us reading this know what it is that we have to do to make affiliate marketing work but our focus shifts and we lose time to things that are not productive. Those of us who are new to making money online will learn what they need to do by being here.

We are all told that we have to think about whether our current activity is business building or not to keep us focussed but the challenge there is that we all need to have time out from that to just enjoy our on and off line social activities.

All work and no play ...

So, what did I find that will help?

Firstly, instead of just developing a persona of our ideal customer we also need to find an image of that typical person, print it out and post on your wall in your workspace. If that isn't possible make it the desktop image on your computer. If you can find one where they are enjoying the results of your product so much the better.

Secondly, when you are writing content for your website, email broadcast, ebook etc. and you know you won't complete it in this session stop writing 1/2 way through a paragraph not at the end. This has the effect of agitating you to get back and finish it off as soon as you can.

Thirdly, set your goals using this phraseology. If/When ... then ... As an example, When I finish writing this post I'll get back to writing the program. Or, If I get 5 likes on this post I'll write another one like it.

You can use this for long and short term goals. This phraseology has the effect of setting up a trigger for an action so when the trigger happens the action must follow.

There you go then.  If you are struggling with your productivity and goal setting. I trust this will help.

How to make thousands selling someone else’s product, legally.

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affiliate training package
affiliate training package

Get the new affiliate training

Yeah I know that sounds dodgy but it isn't.  Not only is it legal and ethical but the product owner will thank you and perhaps pay you a bonus if you sell lots of their product for them.

Now that sounds pretty cool doesn't it?

OK, selling is a bit of a show stopper for some but with this stuff all you really are doing is finding customers for the product owner to sell to, you don't have to know anything about selling or even do any.

You certainly won't be making telephone calls or knocking on doors or any of the other crappy things usually associated with selling.

No, what you will be doing is...

Let me start by telling you about how the Internet was grown.

In the beginning any sort of sales activity was frowned upon but gradually those who wanted to keep the Internet pure from commerce realised that in actual fact commerce was the one thing which would make sure the Internet grew fast and would link the world.  To do that they needed money, lots of it, so commerce was accepted and everyone was encouraged to get involved.

The one thing which has grown the commerce side of the Internet fastest is Affiliate Marketing.

This is a form of marketing where an affiliate, that's you, shows a potential customer where to find a product they actually want or need.  If they buy it from the product owner you'll get paid a finders fee or a commission.  This is a bit like you telling a friend that there is a great special on at Aldi, except Aldi won't pay you anything for that recommendation, mean sods.

The great thing about this is that your friend won't pay any more for the product than they would have if they found it on their own, the commissions come out of the product owner's pocket.  They are happy to do this because you will find customers that they wouldn't have found so they think that it's worth getting a little bit less on the sales to get more sales than they would have without the help.

Does that make sense?  It does to me.  Even Amazon does this, they'll pay you around 6% on any sales you generate, it's partly why they got so big.  Google used to pay for new signups until they got so big they thought they didn't need any more help.

Why the hell have I spent so much of this page explaining all that?

Well I have managed to get access to a pretty cool product which tells you all about how to set yourself up as an affiliate so you can tap into this multi-billion dollar industry, yes I did say billion.  Like a slice of that pie?

Even better than that I have managed to get it for you for free, well almost.  I'll explain that later as well.

What you'll get in this package is a zip file which contains the product which is a pdf called "Affiliate Marketing Master Plan" but that's not all, I've also managed to score you the right to promote this as your own product, set whatever price you like and keep all the money or to use as a bonus for other products you may be promoting.

Now this type of package, which includes the sales page and all the images, with these rights can cost anywhere from $30 to $100 so this is an awesome deal for you. And you don't even have to give up your first born for this.

So, do you want this package?

Let me know in the comments below... Put a Yes and the reason why in the comments...

How to get the package.

OPEN

ACCESS DETAILS FOR "Affiliate Marketing Master Plan" - CLICK HERE

Important Tips for a Secure Retirement.

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Doesn't get any better.
Doesn't get any better.

91 years of life

Many people look forward to retire without being worried about who will pay their daily expenses and recurring bills. Living a financially secure retirement is the only way you can enjoy yourself as old age becomes an unravelling reality. The main objective of having a secure retirement plan is to help you maintain a preferred lifestyle even after you have left the job market. However, it can become challenging to implement such plans because it requires you to build your own pension as well as save for later years.

With the costly modern-day standards of living, many retirees find it almost impossible to live only on Social Security, while some may live comfortably through the years. The following are some of the tips to ensure you have a financially secure retirement including where to live, health cover, living wills etc.

Plan for high health care costs

As the health care sector undergoes many changes, it is important to set a plan for managing your health care costs and monitoring them accordingly. As such, you can adjust to the unforeseen changes in health care costs to help you maintain your retirement goals. Health care costs continue to skyrocket every year, which is a clear indication for future retirees to expect higher costs. When it comes to saving for long-term health care expenses, a secure retirement plan requires you to strategize for a longer life period.

If your employer requires offers a Health Savings Account (HSA), you should ensure it is always funded since it allows individuals to avoid paying for healthcare costs from their pockets. Furthermore, it is important to note that very few employers currently cover retirees for health care costs so it becomes a necessity to plan for it early enough.

Seek alternative housing options

Before deciding where to live after retirement, you should start researching on alternative housing to help you cut down on your bills. As soon as you leave the job market, you will have the freedom to choose many places to live. It is advisable to opt for a location with lower cost of living but comfortable enough to pursue your retirement goals. With a wide range of other factors to consider, such as family, price, and nearness to healthcare, choosing a residence during retirement can become overwhelming if not well thought out in advance.

You can choose to rent out your current home and convince a few like-minded retirees to join you in buying an outdoor space, which would act as a common place for group activities as well as for privacy. Generally, when you start pondering on where you desire to live after retirement, you must first choose a safe place that where you can easily access healthcare.

Consider a Living Will

However much you wouldn’t want to think about the end of your life while still young, death is an inevitable occurrence that has to be cushioned to minimize its effects on your family. Living Wills are prewritten directives that your family can use to honor your wishes when undergoing treatment before the end of life. Even though they lack meaning after death, they effectively serve as a reference to your decisions when you cannot communicate them due to illness.

Securing a retirement with a living will is one of the preferred ways of preparing ahead of time because it saves your family the agony of making difficult choices during a health crisis or emergency. You should ensure you have a living will, especially if you have acute illnesses, such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, stroke etc., since it is legally recognized when honoring your end-of-life care needs.

Avoid spending your retirement savings

Let’s face it! The urge to use your savings to fund emergencies can sometimes be irresistible. However, when it comes to retirement assets, resisting the urge to use them can go a long way to give you a tax-free growth, which will also help you accomplish some important goals in the future. Even though it has become a daunting task for many young people to sacrifice their salaries to secure their retirement, you should make long-term savings plans to avoid short-term spending. You should also try to maintain your lifestyle as you save for retirement so that you monitor the plan vis-à-vis the amount of savings.

Implementing these cue points will not only condense your retirement plans into actionable steps, but will also give you an overview of the lifestyle you want to live during retirement.

When is the Best Time to Invest in the Stockmarket?

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Watch the clock to see time pass.
Watch the clock to see time pass.

Time ticks but delay costs.

If you're looking for good investment options then now is a good time to enter the stock market. Despite the political noise, the stock market is growing at a steady rate thanks to a stable economy.

There's also the fact that entering the stock market is a lot easier than other investment options. Unlike real estate, for example, investing in stocks doesn't require large amounts of capital, nor does it involve substantial amounts of risk.

Moreover, the stock market also offers plenty of safe investing options, such as mutual funds, exchange traded funds and other similar instruments. Later, when you become more financially literate, you can try more high-risk, high reward options, like short selling, futures and various high risk funds.

As far as stocks go, there are plenty of opportunities for ordinary investors to choose from. So if you're interested in the stock market then here's what you should know.

What Does It Take to Start Investing in the Stock Market?

There are three things that you will need in order to start investing in the stock market. These include:

- An Investment/Portfolio Strategy
- Knowledge About the Stock Market
- Emotional Control

Your portfolio strategy will dictate how much of your capital/savings you should invest in stocks and how much should be invested in other items, such as real estate, bonds, futures and mutual funds for example.

Since we're concerned about stocks, your strategy should outline how you enter and leave each position in the stock market. Some strategies dictate that investors should only invest in stocks that grow by more than 10% per year, while other strategies require investors to look at company earnings, balance sheets and dividends.

How you choose or develop your investment strategy will dictate how much returns you can expect from each investment. So look at successful investors, and try to follow what they're doing. For example, Warren Buffet's more recent trading and investment strategies reportedly yield 25% to 30% returns. Other investors average higher using riskier strategies, but there are also safer options, though they offer fewer rewards. It's your call. Just remember that no successful investor ever entered the stock market without a strategy.

Next, you will need to develop your knowledge about the stock market. This process is divided into two parts:

- The Technicals
- The Fundamentals

"Technicals" refer to general trends of a particular stock's price. Is it going up or is it going down? Technical analysis uses stock charts to determine how high or how low a particular stock's price will go within a particular period of time. This information allow investors to determine the best time to buy and/or sell their stocks.

As for the "Fundamentals", this information is used to analyze the value of a particular stock. Take note that we used the term value instead of price here, and that's because some stocks are over-valued, while others are under-valued.

Fundamentals refer to those factors that determine a stock's value, regardless of its current price. For example, a company that has tripled its earnings in the last quarter but has stocks which are cheaper than those of its rivals could be called under-valued, since their stock's price does not match the actual performance of the company.

Likewise, if a company's stock price is around $100, but has lost money for the past few years, then its stocks may be over-valued, in which case, it has "bad fundamentals" since the stock's price doesn't match the company's actual performance. Mastering both the technicals as well as the fundamentals will allow you to pick winning stocks that offer good returns on investment.

Finally, you will need emotional control if you want to invest in stocks. What this means is that you never deviate from your investment strategy, and you never allow greed or fear to influence your decisions. It also means focusing on the facts alone, and never allowing a sudden spike or fall in prices influence your decision, unless such events are built into the actual strategy.

If you can master these three things then you will be able to invest in the share market without any trouble.

Getting Started

When it comes to investing, it's important to keep in mind that there's no such thing as a winning formula. Being a good investor is as much a product of experience and discipline as information, strategy and training.

Investing in stocks starts with a broker, but they will only execute your trades. They cannot teach you how to choose the right investments, nor can they help you develop, test or perfect your investment strategy.

You will need financial experts and communities to teach you these things. The good news is that the internet is full of such options, from blogs to newsletters to videos. So before you put any of your money into the stock market, be sure to consult these sources first, so that you'll get the best returns for all your investments.

Personal Finance Tips: How to Manage Debts and Enhance Your Income

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Track expenses.
Track expenses.

Your computer and a spreadsheet are your friends.

As far as personal finance is concerned, it is very important that you take control of your expenditure by always keeping track of your spending. Always. If you want to get rid of debt from your life and increase income, you must not only create a financial plan for your situation but also make sure that you stick to it. Regular tracking of your expenditure helps one follow up on their daily spending and always ensure that you don’t overspend. This way, you will be able to minimize your costs where necessary and be on your way towards financial freedom. Below we discuss Top Six Personal Finance Tips:

1) Build an Emergency Fund

There are so many things in life that can be unpredictable: getting ill, an unexpected firing from a job, accidents and even death. Although we can’t be fully prepared for all these things, we can at least be financially ready for some or most of their adverse effects on our lives. Build an emergency fund for your rainy day. You can either use conventional saving plans via banks or come up with your own DIY way of saving.

2) Work Towards Improving Your Debt Situation

When you are in debt, rather than whining and regretting, start by accepting your situation. Once you have accepted that you are in a challenging situation that needs a solution, then you can move to the next step: finding a solution. Hating and blaming yourself for being in excessive debt doesn’t solve anything. Clouding your mind with self-denial, regrets and self-pity will only make your situation worse. You need to put your entire mind and efforts into working towards making your personal finances better.

3) Minimize Your Monthly Expenditure

Look around your household. How many ways can you find to bring your utility bills to a lower minimum? For instance, you can buy a programmable thermostat that is capable of automatically switching on whenever necessary so as to reduce energy consumption. If gasoline prices go up, do you also let your monthly gas expenditure double at a time when you are also struggling with other costs and debts? Absolutely not! You could, for example, avoid taking unnecessary car trips to minimize on gas costs. Another way to reduce your monthly spending is minimizing your trips to the local grocery. Why waste money on gas to the grocery every single day yet you can buy stuff in bulk?

4) Supplement Your Earnings

In simple language, what we are saying is: get more cash into your pocket! Create or look for opportunities to make more money and increase income. For those bills, debts and expenditures you can’t avoid or reduce, then enhance your ability to pay them! In addition to your weekday job, get a supplementary weekend job. You can also work online alongside your other roles at work. Nowadays there are so many opportunities for online work. In addition to paying off some of your most pertinent debts, the extra income can help a lot towards improving your quality of life by adding to your regular income.

5) Get Rid of Unnecessary Costs

If you evaluate your lifestyle and personal finance carefully, you will find a number of unnecessary expenditures that you can eliminate from your life. For instance, if you are a stay-at-home mother, why should you enroll your children at a daycare center when you are available to take even better care of them at your home? You can also do without some expensive adult grooming like new manicures and hairstyles every week. You can also eat out less regularly, reduce entertainment expenditure and take fewer car wash trips. When things are tough financially, take steps to pamper yourself less.

6) Consider Shared Insurance

Insurance options are as many as you can imagine. In case you have been using an expensive health insurance, for example, and you find yourself struggling to pay up because you have been retrenched from your job, why not go for a cheaper option like shared insurance? As you look for a new job posting, such a less pricey alternative could help you minimize your monthly spending and manage your personal finances better.

PARTING SHOT

Now that the economy isn’t very pocket-friendly, you don’t have to stress yourself. Take steps to minimize your expenditure as much as you can, increase income, get rid of debts and generally work towards improving your financial situation. With good planning and a number of sacrifices in your lifestyle, you can still effectively manage your personal finances, avoid unnecessary debts and costs, and enjoy your life.

Do you owe anybody any money?

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Clearing debts is the key.
Clearing debts is the key.

The relief of the final payment.

It's a very rare individual who can honestly say no to that question.

Most of us have borrowed money from someone at some stage.

Now you probably have figured out that I'm not talking about the $20 you borrowed from your friend when you were out together.

No, most of our borrowings are for things like car, house, holidays, education etc.  And that's not even thinking abut the general expenses we put on out credit card every day.

Borrowing money is not a problem if you are able to pay it off at the end of the month. Not counting the car or house here.

If you are in the unfotunate position of not being able to clear your debts every month then you are in a financially precarious position.

Should you lose your source of income you would really need to scramble to reduce your debt load fast.  If not you'll be hounded by creditors and totally trash your credit rating.

OK, lets not think about losing the source of income but lets start reducing the debt load anyway.

Getting rid of risk once you have identified it is always the best way to go.

There are simple and easy steps you can take right now to take control of your spending.  You'll clear your debts in double quick time but you will have to do something you probably haven't done before.

You will have to write down everything you owe with the interest rate and the current payments you are making. This is not to frighten you but you can't fix something if the don't know exactly what needs fixing.

Also write down everything you spend money on each day, you may have to keep all your reciepts for a couple of days to find out but you need to know.

Would you believe that you are now ready to clear the credit cards and start down thr path to debt freeness (is that a word? should be).

Here are the steps, so simple you can do this. Clear up some extra money from your daily spending, you are probably spending $5 - $10 every day that you don't need to, most of us are (or were). Put this additional money onto your most expensive credit card. Do not add any more purchases to that card. Keep making the payments on everything else.

Once that card is paid off cut it up. You really don't need an expensive card.

Put the total amount you were paying off that card including the extra, into paying off the next most expensive card. While you are paying off one card don't use it, it just makes it harder to clear the debt if you keep adding to it.

In todays world it is difficult, if not impossible, to exist without at least one credit card. I have one credit card and one debit card. I mostly use both of them as debit cards so I can only spend what I have in the account.

Now you are on a roll, this method snowballs your repayments into the next most expensive debt until they are all cleared up.

Once you get to the point of only having a house mortgage to clear up you can split the extra repayment so some goes onto the mortgage and some goes into an emergency fund.

An emergency fund is just that, only for emergencies.  I don't know how much you need in this fund but I like to keep at least $10,000 available.

OK, that's it for this post and that is really all there is to clearing up debts.

Yep it can take years but believe me it's totally worth it.

Just the feeling that I can pay off all my credit card purchases at the end of each month is great.  No more worrying about what things cost because there is always money in my accounts.

Now it's your turn.  Get stuck in. Leave a comment on your progress.

Safe Investing for Retirees.

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safe investing
safe investing

Annual reporting for investing

Safe Investing in the Stock Market ... Really?

If you're looking for safe investing options then now is a good time to enter the stock market. Despite the political noise, the stock market is growing at a steady rate thanks to a stable economy.

There's also the fact that entering the stock market is a lot easier than other investment options. Unlike real estate, for example, investing in stocks doesn't require large amounts of capital, nor does it involve substantial amounts of risk.

Moreover, the stock market also offers plenty of safe investing options, such as mutual funds, exchange traded funds and other similar instruments. Later, when you become more financially literate, you can try more high-risk, high reward options, like short selling, futures and various high risk funds.

As far as stocks go, there are plenty of opportunities for ordinary investors to choose from. So if you're interested in the stock market then here's what you should know.

What Does It Take to Start Investing in the Stock Market?

There are three things that you will need in order to start investing in the stock market. These include:

- An Investment/Portfolio Strategy
- Knowledge About the Stock Market
- Emotional Control

Your portfolio strategy will dictate how much of your capital/savings you should invest in stocks and how much should be invested in other items, such as real estate, bonds, futures and mutual funds for example.

Since we're concerned about stocks, your strategy should outline how you enter and leave each position in the stock market. Some strategies dictate that investors should only invest in stocks that grow by more than 10% per year, while other strategies require investors to look at company earnings, balance sheets and dividends.

How you choose or develop your investment strategy will dictate how much returns you can expect from each investment. So look at successful investors, and try to follow what they're doing. For example, Warren Buffet's more recent trading and investment strategies reportedly yield 25% to 30% returns. Other investors average higher using riskier strategies, but there are also safer options, though they offer fewer rewards. It's your call. Just remember that no successful investor ever entered the stock market without a strategy.

What Do I Need to Know?

Next, you will need to develop your knowledge about the stock market. This process is divided into two parts:

- The Technicals
- The Fundamentals

"Technicals" refer to general trends of a particular stock's price. Is it going up or is it going down? Technical analysis uses stock charts to determine how high or how low a particular stock's price will go within a particular period of time. This information allow investors to determine the best time to buy and/or sell their stocks.

As for the "Fundamentals," this information is used to analyze the value of a particular stock. Take note that we used the term value instead of price here, and that's because some stocks are over-valued, while others are under-valued.

Fundamentals refer to those factors that determine a stock's value, regardless of its current price. For example, a company that has tripled its earnings in the last quarter but has stocks which are cheaper than those of its rivals could be called under-valued, since their stock's price does not match the actual performance of the company.

Likewise, if a company's stock price is around $100, but has lost money for the past few years, then its stocks may be over-valued, in which case, it has "bad fundamentals" since the stock's price doesn't match the company's actual performance. Mastering both the technicals as well as the fundamentals will allow you to pick winning stocks that offer good returns on investment.

Finally, you will need emotional control if you want to invest in stocks. What this means is that you never deviate from your investment strategy, and you never allow greed or fear to influence your decisions. It also means focusing on the facts alone, and never allowing a sudden spike or fall in prices influence your decision, unless such events are built into the actual strategy.

If you can master these three things then you will be able to invest in the share market without any trouble.

How Can I Get Started?

When it comes to investing, it's important to keep in mind that there's no such thing as a winning formula. Being a good investor is as much a product of experience and discipline as information, strategy and training.

Investing in stocks starts with a broker, but they will only execute your trades. They cannot teach you how to choose the right investments, nor can they help you develop, test or perfect your investment strategy.

You will need financial experts and communities to teach you these things. The good news is that the internet is full of such options, from blogs to newsletters to videos. So before you put any of your money into the stock market, be sure to consult these sources first, so that you'll get the best returns for all your investments.