It Depends On Your What Your Goal Is

Some experts will tell you that there are all sorts of sound mathematical or tax reasons why you should never pay off your mortgage. Some people have multiple mortgages on multiple properties and obtain a positive cash flow for investment purposes. The reason why you choose to pay off your mortgage or not is quite simple, YOUR WHY FACTOR.

If your goal was to simply Pay Off Your Mortgage, then selling your house and downsizing to become mortgage free is the easiest way to achieve mortgage freedom. However if your goal to become mortgage free is to be able to spend more time with your family and less time working all that overtime then taking up the Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge becomes more appealing. It’s all about the WHY.

Perhaps you have played the property market to perfection, sold your house within the last few years getting a maximum return on your investment and are poised ready for when the house prices fall to snap up your next investment. All of things are perfect examples of a well thought out, well executed plan that plays a part in your personal goals and ambitions.

For as many people there are that say there is a mortgage crisis, there are people who say there isn’t. You only have to look at places like Motley Fool to see how opinions differ. Peoples opinions differ all the time, based on their personal circumstances. Whatever you choose to do over the coming weeks, months and years, ask yourself one simple question WHY? When you can find your WHY, everything follows, the motivation, the focus, the action … the how to bit you find out along the way.

Why did I Pay Off my Mortgage? It was part of the bigger picture, the one that I am able to work on every day that will end in achieving my personal ambitions. For more on finding out about setting goals, motivation and action check out www.i-believe.co.uk

Are Credit Cards Drugs?

The amazing thing about revisiting this Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge is that I can reflect on things that were not obvious to me at the time. I knew how annoying credit cards were to get rid of and I knew the system was designed that way to ensure the banks received a maximum ROI ( Return on investment ) on every card they dished out.

My question is, WHY is it so impossible to entertain the thought of life without a credit card to reach for every time you feel like buying something new, booking a holiday, having something you want now and paying for it later?

I have never smoked, I would never take drugs of any kind but I am partial to a glass of fine wine. However I would suggest that impulsive purchases on a Credit Card are in a very similar category to drugs and addiction:-

1. People have a NEED for them, a dependency to make themselves feel richer.
2. People tend to overlook, forget or do not want to add up how much they spend on Credit Cards in a year
3. If you try and go without them in your life, even for a week you will experience some kinds of “withdrawal symptoms.”
4. They are notoriously difficult to give up once you start.
5. If left alone over a long period of time, they can lead to ill health, stress, worry and depression.

Now I am not sure about you, but if there is a warning placed on a cigarette packet that “Smoking Kills” I would ask why there is not a similar amount of caution attached to borrowing on credit cards.

I Wonder Why There Are Less Books on Personal Finance in the UK?

I count myself very lucky that I have been able to travel frequently and extensively to many places in the world. They say travel broadens the mind and I know from experience that it has certainly played a part in broadening mine.

Two of my favorite destinations are Florida and Toronto, vastly different from each other, but immensely enjoyable for many reasons. I have on every occasion to either destination spent at least 2-3 hours inside book stores gathering books on personal finance, goal setting, business development, planning and organisation, motivation and mindset development. The staggering thing was the amount of reading material available on ALL of those subjects. I know they say everything is bigger in America, so I thought I would test the same scenario in Toronto. The answer was quickly found by passing a store named “The World’s Biggest Book Store” right next to the main shopping centre and crammed with every book, Audio Book, DVD and magazine you could think of.

The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne was everywhere you could look, available in all formats right off the shelf, next to several others on the same subject, written by Personal Wealth Coaches, Philosophers and Motivational Speakers that are household names in the America’s and round the world. This mindset is developed at a young age and is significantly different it would appear in the UK.

If I were to ask myself as a business person Why There Are Less Books on Personal Finance in The UK, I would have to reason that market research would show there is simply less demand.
With the current market conditions showing that you can’t simply rely on rising house prices to increase your Net Worth, I wonder how long it will take before people realise that self education in Personal Finance is the starting point in building long term stability and wealth.

Britains Greatest Product is Debt!

I am currently working on the Money 4 Life project Ebook, Upside Down Property Developing, and I have to report that my research is uncovering some horrible facts about Britain at the moment and in the future.

The Upside Down Property Developing manual is all about a positive angle on the diminishing property ladder in the UK. What my research has unveiled is rather more sinister and the problem for the UK could be altogether more problematic than people realise.

The multiple problems that the UK face in the next few months, and years is headed by it’s main problem being the LARGEST product we collectively as a country have produced is DEBT. That is correct the official statistics tell us that our debt levels exceeded our profit from other activities, so as a Nation on the face of it we are bankrupt.

If you think for one minute that Britain’s greatest efforts combined to be the worst debt statistics then we top the World. It is very unfortunate that as a Nation we think we are “great with money” yet clearly we are not.

If you have not yet been inspired to embark on the subject of Personal Finance Education then I would suggest that you read as much as possible in the coming months because if you just scraped by in the past, you are about to find yourself in serious jeopardy. I am not into melodramatics, I am researching what “The City” have to predict and it is not all good reading, if you are unprepared for an economic downturn then batten down the hatches, you are in for a rough ride

How Can I Keep This Up Until My Mortgage Is Paid Off?

I very often associate the Pay Off Challenge with dieting, the principles are extremely similar. Budgeting can feel restrictive, almost like denying yourself that bar of chocolate that you crave when you start out on a new diet. If you do not like budgeting, then Money 4 Life is a brilliant solution, and it reveals how to achieve total balance with your management.

What Money 4 Life and Control Freak a Recipe for Debt Freedom also cover in brief is goal setting. When you are starting out on a new challenge, the finish line can seem a long way off. However with focus and determination you would reach the finish line if you took one step at a time. After the initial few hurdles, you will find momentum takes over and carries you through at the end with very little effort. If you are interested in learning more about goal setting, I have another site dedicated to subject, visit I-believe.co.uk

How you can keep the Challenge up for the longer term is knowing what is waiting for you after you cross the finish line. If you can see how life can be without the burden of having to cover those mortgage payments each month and you believe you can achieve it simply by following the changes as we suggest every week then it is certain you will get there.

Motivation comes from knowing what is waiting for you, not just for a moment but for the rest of your life if you choose.

The Only True Alarm In Housing Prices Dropping Is If You Have No Equity Left

I am running the Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge Live to draw attention to the need for the vast majority of people to raise their financial IQ and it all starts with Kids Money Packs.

On the Pay Off Your Mortgage main site, I refer to Money Management Level 1 on the Money 4 Life Page as being the starting point, in other words it is the most basic level of money management you can possible start from and it is the area where over 95% of the population are right now. It is not anybody’s fault, it’s the way society is designed and as you can see over the last ten years, the banks have made millions of pounds profiting from it.

Control Freak a Recipe for Debt Freedom shows anyone, who wishes to get back in control of their finances a recommended way to go through Level 4 of money management.

If you are in a position to start investing in your own future, (which comes after Level 4), then you will realise that falling house prices create an opportunity to buy houses when they have fallen in price, then sell them again for Capital Gains as the market recovers, or hold them as an asset, or rent them for positive cashflow.
The only reason panic sets in, is when you are stretched to limit, or you have no equity left in the house and your whole investing strategy is based around climbing the housing ladder.

By gaining a better financial education, and you can do this through self education, there are many sources available to you, look for authors such as T Harv Eker, Robert T Kiyosaki and David J Schwartz to name but a few; you can then position yourself and your future regardless of what the housing market does.

Are You A One in 5 Million?

The financial website Uswitch has found that five million people, or one in 10 adults spend more than they earn on a monthly basis.The website said a further fifth of adults have no spare money left at the end of the month. It goes on to report that over half of those plug the gap with overdrafts and credit cards.

The crazy thing about getting yourself into debt is how much it actually costs. The whole world is geared up to make money from you and being in debt is no different. First there are bank charges, then comes the interest charges, add to that higher rate mortgage rates because you are considered a bad lending risk and then they top it all off with late penalty fees. Hopefully the bank charges will be reduced fairly soon, but in my opinion the banks will simply move those charges to other goods and services. The banks are the casinos of the high street world, you can play them but the house always wins in the end. I protest every time I think about that Monopoly Card “Bank Error in Your Favour Collect £200 Pounds”, from my experience there is no such thing.

What is vitally important to learn if you are in debt or have ever been in debt that no matter how you choose to get out of debt, be it bankruptcy, an IVA, selling your house and downsizing, none of these measures will be permanent unless you address your financial education. Once you can get back in control of your finances you will be the one earning interest from the banks, investing for your future and being stress free knowing you are on your way to a place few people ever reach.

It all starts with using the FREE to follow Control Freak tips on the website and blog throughout the Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge.

The Love Affair With The Mobile Phone

I will be covering Mobile phone savings this week on the Pay Off Challenge, having watched Martin Lewis this week completely swamp Anne Diamond with savings she could be making, was hugely entertaining.

For some reason we have at least 3 or 4 phones per person per household in this country. Suffice to say I think that ranks as an obsession. I am not against Mobile phones ( although I am not 100% sure that excessive use is actually healthy ) but I realise the benefits they bring.

What struck me about the Martin Lewis “interview” with Anne Diamond’s household bills was the belief on her face that all of her four children’s mobile phone bills were hers to pay!

In the same breath this week comes s surge in complaints about uncontrolled mobile phone bill downloads with unexpected charges attached. If you are a user of Kids Money Packs then you will have already come across this, addressed this, made the savings and have the situation well under control.

For parents who insist on letting their children simply run up a mobile phone bill then complain to the phone company that the bill is too high, I would suggest you think about switching the emphasis to some sort of joint understanding with the mobile phone user that they cannot have a blank cheque each month called “their mobile phone bill”. Ask yourself, do your children know how much they spend each month, then each year of what is usually your money on just mobile phones? Clearly Anne Diamond didn’t.