Never ever procrastinate when it comes to monetary matters. You could postpone buying a designer dress or even a good piece of furniture. But never ever compromise on money matters. I did , I procrastinated and I paid a heavy price. What I could get at a much lower rate five years back, I got the same for ten times the price today.

Then again it matters whether you would buy when the price becomes tenfold. Yes, you should. Whatever the price rise be, the investment should never stop. This is because what you save today is going to be beneficial tomorrow however small and amount. Even if the umbrella cost 10 times more today, I didn’t hesitate to get it this time as I felt it would now or never.

Rule No. 2 is never ever hesitate to invest. It might not be as beneficial as it should have been yet it is the only way you could start. It is the starting point of a race that is important. Unless you arrive at the starting point how would you be part of the game. In life, there are two types of people – the audience and the players. The players play the game and do not care for the results. The audience watches the players play and comment on their performance. You have to decide whether you want to be the audience or the player.

Financial investments are a part of our life and they form the backbone to our existence. The amount is not important, the action is. So budgeting wisely is important  and ensure that you get into the habit of investing in the right thing. These days with the price of gold and silver increasing it is a prudent habit to invest in that. Don’t panic if the price you bought it for, falls. Today it will fall, but the best way to invest is to wait over a period of long duration so that it will withstand all the rises and falls and then eventually stabilize.

Budgeting could be imbibed even in the kids. It is okay to say a No occasionally and make them realize the value of money. Budgeting encourages children to value money and they begin to understand that nothing comes without a price. So invest well and wisely.

With the rules of budgeting finely ingrained in your grey cells, just go and take a survey and invest in what you feel is secure.

It doesn’t matter that you make less money than your to be better half. After all, money isn’t what brought the two of you together, now was it? (if it was, sign that damn prenup, they know your game and they’re onto you). Assuming you’re marrying someone who is reasonable as well (and if you’re not, a prenup is just the beginning of your angst), you could actually use a prenup in your favor instead of just ranting to your friends about how angry you are about having been asked to sign a prenup.

Be open about money

Money can, and has, ruined many a good relationship. Talk openly with your fiancé(e) about finances and money. After all money is just one part of the equation that makes marriages work. You should never allow money to be a source of contention for your marriage, so talk about money and negotiate the terms of the prenup if needs be. Neither partner should feel short-changed by it.

Set financial conditions

A prenup is a chance to improve your financial worth if you’re the poorer of the couple. Perhaps you can negotiate terms in which your money goes towards building a nest’s egg for yourself while your spouse handles living expenses. Alternatively, they could reach upon a number of agreements, such as an outright transfer of money at the start of the marriage, or at pre-specified points in the marriage. Each prenup agreement can be entirely unique in its clauses.

Get it out of the way

In the event of a divorce, I think it’s fair to say that you will be kinder to the other person if the terms of settlement are created when you were in love. Also consider that your spouse’s family might not bother about your interests and that you should protect yourself from early on. Forget about the state looking out for you; protect yourself and get your worries out of the way by drawing up the terms early.

All too often, we end up giving money to people without running a background check first. What’s worse is the fact that they believe they’re not getting full value for their money but do nothing about it. Here are the warning signs you should look out for.

They don’t know what you want

If your financial advisor doesn’t know what you want, how will be able to guide you along? Imagine heading into a surgery without letting your surgeon know what the problem is. Every problem, to be solved, needs a diagnosis. If this doesn’t happen on the part of your financial advisor, chances are that he has his own interests in mind over yours.

They don’t let you about payments

Financial advisors can make money in many ways, but knowing whether he is fee or commission based is important. If he takes commissions, I’d be wary of him since he’d be keen to sell you something you might not want or need at some point in the future.

He pushes you along

If you feel rushed, push the advisor away and get someone else in. You don’t want to be stuck with someone who’s pushy and doesn’t respect your needs or wishes.

They lump everything together

Not diversifying your investments is dangerous business, so when an advisor doesn’t do this the alarm bells should start ringing. Diversification is the most basic mantra of the financial advisor and if your advisor wants to put all your eggs in one basket, something wrong is afoot.

Changes? What changes?

If you aren’t informed in advance of changes to your holdings, change advisors. You don’t want to find out about this by reading the papers or news; you want to be told about it directly by your financial advisor, so make sure he doesn’t drop the ball.

Checks made out directly? I don’t think so…

Never write a check out for the advisor, and if he asks you to do so show him the door. If you don’t listen to this simple piece of advice, you could be exploited and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.

Where’s my advisor?

If your advisor doesn’t return your phone calls at all, there’s a problem. There’s no reason you should wait any more than 24 hours for an answer. If your advisor is a procrastinator, get rid of him, now!

Of course, many got suckered into buying mortgages that they couldn’t really afford, but mortgage brokers are as much to blame as the buyers themselves. The terms of their agreement were clearly penned into every single contract. That no one understood its grave implications is just indicative of the lack of knowledge we have on the subjects that really matter. Gone are the days when people looked to gather money savings tips, this is an age to spend freely, who cares if you don’t have the money? A simple look would have told someone better informed that their credit scores would qualify them for better rates if they used a fixed rate loan. But that never happened.

Whenever anything goes wrong for you financially, an education is a great defense since knowledge can truly be power when it comes to all things financial. But the tragedy is that many colleges don’t really look to help you understand the financial basics that we all need. Basic personal finance is very often ignored and sometimes old really is gold. There are colleges now that are beginning to offer lectures in financial literacy, and students would be well advised to not only tune into that learning but also know exactly when to apply it in real life. That is perhaps the more critical factor.

Just because I know my nuts and bolts when it comes to money matters doesn’t mean I will never ever make a money mistake. I too will goof up at some point or the other and come to think of it, I’ve made several errors that I look back at and realize I could have easily avoided. In the years to come, I want to remember these mistakes that I have made so I can make a bigger success of myself in times ahead. In a way, I think that acceptance of these old mistakes is key to understanding things and living a better financial life.

Money, after all, is nothing more than a thing and it should serve as a means to an end. Nothing less, nothing more. Looking at things I have done wrong is a good thing in itself, but I must not (and you must not) obsess over details. This is not a witch hunt or some blame game either. I intend to look at my money decisions (and my money mistakes) calmly, coolly, objectively and then learn the lessons to be had and move along. As someone who writes a lot on finance for a living, my own financial failings end up becoming magnified several times over in my own yes.

But why should it be so? I’m learning to enjoy the present and avoid mulling excessively over the past. And you can understand how that becomes a banana when I either initiate or get dragged into a conversation revolving around money matters and the role it plays in our lives. With time, I have learnt how to draw a line in the sand and say “no more”. I’ve not perfected that line drawing technique yet, but I’m getting there in time. I hope to see you there sometime soon.

Let me explain that further, soldiers do battle and combat drills to prepare for multiple scenarios. Similarly, you need to be able to ready for multiple scenarios. When an unexpected expense comes up, are you prepared for it? Doe sit throw you out of gear? Questions like these need to be asked. Similarly, what if you lose your job? For how long can you get by without finding a new job? A month? 3 months? 6 months? You need to know these answers so that you don’t become a rabbit in the headlights if something unexpected happens to you in a financial sense.

You have to be ready to face up to the unexpected because you never know when life doesn’t follow the script you gave it. When I switched jobs a few years back, I had contingency plans in place to tackle my personal finances if I were to be unemployed for 3 weeks, 3 months or even up to a year. My state of unemployment did not worry me since I knew that I was well taken care of and that I was going to be fine financially in any number of scenarios. You too need to take stock at some time or the other (preferably sooner rather than later) and know exactly where you stand with your personal finances, so that you can be ready when the unexpected strikes.

My favored technique for getting passive income is to establish sites with niche content that attracts a steady stream of traffic over time. With time, this traffic can generate revenues for you by way of advertisements, leads and referrals as also affiliate commissions. With time, I have learned to branch out by investing in real estate and earning rental income or investing in small businesses and having a monthly profit sharing model. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other ways out there waiting to be discovered that I don’t know of or don’t have the time to learn of. But then I don’t need to since I am quite happy with the way my multiple streams of passive income are working for me. As yet, I don’t feel the need to grow it and if I feel that I need to generate more I will certainly tap into alternative resources.

I am going to try and mention other opportunities for you to generate passive income, but don’t take these as an absolute. There are plenty of examples that can be taken on beyond these and like any other subject, I suggest you do you research to see what suits you the best. And like always, be open to the opportunity when it presents itself. Musicians can sell their music on royalty free websites, while writers can turn to articles banks that pay per article. Similarly, there are sites that buy stock photos and sell them on for you, giving you your cut of the proceeds. Computer artists can use websites that sell computer generated art to those that want it. Programmers too can sell their code at sites like Envato.

Examples of passive income and its streams are innumerable. I could go on and on but the fact of the matter is that you must pick out something close to your heart or your skill-sets and pursue it when the opportunity presents itself.

I’m not a conspiracy theorist; I don’t feel as if people are out to get me. But I do feel that while everyone is out to make money, some do it ethically and some don’t. It’s the unethical ones that make me fearful of absolutely everyone. And as an investor, there are tales I’ve heard about woe and misery that have kept me up nights thinking “what if that happens to me?” and I end up spinning an epic tale of love, lust, friendship and betrayal in my head. All in one night. If I made a set of books out of it, I’d be the next Archer or Rowling. Really. I just don’t trust banks and financial institutions and stock brokers. They just seem so unscrupulous.

Maybe I’m alone, but I’m just not comfortable with the idea of going to sleep one night with my value at ‘X’ and waking up the next morning to find that my value is now at ‘X minus one zillion’. Stock broker fraud is something that scares the ever-loving shit out of me. And yes, some of it might be my own fault, but then I look at how the financial crisis ravaged us as a nation and as a global community and feel as if the greed of stock brokers and banks can know no bounds some times. The financial industry was in on the subprime lending mess and the shambles that followed. It’s why I’ve kept a close watch on my stock broker.

Dishonest stock brokers can look to

• churn your account
• give you the wrong advice
• steer you away from a “breakpoint”

If you stay on your guard, you can notice things going wrong long before it goes tits up and while you don’t have to watch your account around the clock (even I don’t do that!) regular checks and questioning won’t hurt. If something doesn’t add up, get a second opinion from someone trusted. Follow your gut when it comes to dealing with potential stock broker fraud; it’s better to be safe than sorry.

It might sound good on paper, but it only takes a few minutes of digging for you to realize that Groupon, and by extension Groupon deals, are celebrated by many and hated by an equal number of people. It’s hard to place a valuation on these internet businesses, but some estimate that Groupon is worth as much as $3 billion. That’s a lot of dollars by any stretch of the imagination. But sample these blog comments that talk about Groupon.

“It’s not for me. There’s no value in it.”

“The financials are skewed in favor of Groupon. It doesn’t add up for us.”

“Groupon is the worst marketing decision I ever made.”

“Groupon deals never benefit businesses, only customers and Groupon themselves.”

“Groupon is ok. It helped us get new customers, but it offers nothing by way of margins.”

So even when someone has something good to say about Groupon, there’s not a lot they say that is much good. I have friends that have tried Groupon (over and above traditional advertising) to grow their business. I’ve had people tell me all sorts of things about Groupon deals. Some say it’s terrible, some say it is terrific. One thing is for sure though. Groupon is an absolute that is growing at the rate of knots and crosses. What else can deliver 2,000 customers to your business just like that? It’s a beast that can really drag your business onwards and upwards, but it takes more than its pound of flesh. Do you need groupon deals? That depends on a couple of things.

For one, do you know how many customers in your area don’t know about you? Can you handle excess capacity? Are you okay with the reduced margins Groupon offers? Other issues revolve around branding; do you want to be seen as a giver of discounts, because that sets a precedent. It’s a personal decision, but it’s a direction I know I’d be very hesitant to take. Once you get started that’s a slippery slope that keeps on sucking you in and your customers will always expect discounts. At the end of the day, going for Groupon deals or not is a judgment call. A judgment call that costs money since you are losing money from sales, so it is effectively advertising. That can mess with you if you’re profit-oriented. Good luck to you, no matter whether you choose to go with Groupon or not.

But King was alarmed at the results of his inquisition. He found out that the richest 1% of the nation earned an alarming 15% of the nation’s income. This was a time when the great families of America dominated our social landscape. The Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts and the Carnegies were just a few of these names, and their presence created what we know today as income tax. It had to be implemented, otherwise there was a very real danger that the disparity in income distribution would create a European inspired aristocracy, with power and wealth being concentrated in the hands of the few. Class warfare never seemed more likely in American history than it was at that point, and something had to give. Too much wealth was being concentrated in too few hands.

Cut to today, and the scene is no different. If anything, it is worse. The richest 1% of America’s population accounts for 24% of the income that the nation produces. That’s an astounding quarter of all wealth flowing to 1% of the population. What are the causes of this inequal income distribution in the United States? The technological revolution, immigration laws, trade laxity, government policies, education, lifestyle – all of these are factors that affected this skew. And this inequality in income distribution is something we should all be worried about. Indeed, Paul Krugman, one of the pre-eminent economic minds of our times, acknowledges that the ordinary man does not know of the extent of the problem.

Through the ’80s and the ’90s, the US experienced two periods of sustained economic growth that were dubbed as the “seven fat years” and the “long boom”. Even so, over the course of 25 years spanning from 1980 to 2005, 80 % of the increase in income went to this top 1% of the nation. That means that the increases that were seen were not by way of wage growth but growth of wealth in a few pockets. Wages for lower and middle income groups just did not grow at all. America believes in its values, that no matter where a child is born he can grow up to be president of the United States. That is perhaps why an inequality in income distribution is not worried over. But it is something to ponder over, and it is a matter that could yet come back to bite us.