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Make Your New Year’s Resolutions Stick

            

Make this the year you finally take control of your money—instead of letting it control you.

With the New Year comes a new chance to get a handle on your finances, and though the task may feel daunting, it’s not impossible.

Today’s technology can make it a lot easier to manage your accounts efficiently. So vowing to simplify your finances in 2015 could end up being the most manageable resolution you make this resources of time and money.

For best results, concentrate on between three and five financial goals at a time.

And be very specific about what you want, says Ellen S. Rogin, a Northfield, Ill. financial planner and author of Picture Your Prosperity. Having a clear picture helps you figure out what actions you need to take to accomplish your objective.

There are many different ways to prioritize and clarify your goals. You could write each down on an index card in great detail, then sort based on your gut, for example. But Rogin warns about getting too wrapped up in the analytical approach.

She says it’s often more effective to spur your creative juices—journaling, meditating or drawing pictures of what you want out of life, now and in the future.

2. Make Good Habits Automatic

When people are left to their own devices, they are typically not very proactive about their finances, says Bob Wander, financial planner and founder of Wander Financial Services in New York.

“Thus, for saving money,” he adds, “it has to be automatic, whether 401(k) payroll deduction or direct deposit from a bank account.”

So if you really want to save for a goal, decide now how much you want to stash each month and have that money moved from your account on payday. If you never see it, you’ll never miss it.

With your 401(k), you may even have the option to automatically increase your contributions annually on a date of your choosing (the month you expect to get a raise is a good one, since you won’t feel any pinch).

To avoid getting hit with expensive late fees, Wander also suggests setting up automatic payment for your bills. This may take 30 minutes or so to set up, but then you’ll never have to worry about making timely payments again. (You will need to make sure you have enough money in your account, but steps 5 and 6 should help with that.)

3. Buy One Fund—and Be Done

Is the dizzying array of investment choices in your 401(k) paralyzing you from investing at all? Or do you own 20 funds in hopes of having picked at least some of the right ones?

Target-date mutual funds can be particularly useful for people who feel uncomfortable creating an investment strategy, says Kristi Sullivan, financial planner and owner of Sullivan Financial Planning in Denver.

You select one of these based on the year you want to retire, and with just one single fund in your portfolio, you’re automatically exposed to a variety of stocks and bonds. What’s more, your asset allocation is automatically rebalanced based on your time horizon until retirement, growing more conservative as time goes on to protect the money you’ve accumulated.

Two thirds of 401(k) plans offer target-date funds, according to the most recent survey from the Plan Sponsor Council of America.

4. Consolidate Investment Accounts

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. employees have a median job tenure of 4.6 years, and that number is even lower for millennials. Transitioning to a new job is exciting, but don’t forget about your old 401(k) during the move.

“It’s harder to understand your finances when you have 401(k) plans with three or four former employers,” says Andrew Tupler, a financial planner in Bridgewater, N.J.

You can rollover your 401(k)s into an IRA. And with all your old retirement funds in one place, it’s easier to divide your money into the most effective asset allocation, make changes to beneficiary designations or addresses, and to pull money out during retirement, he adds.

5. Get a Check and Balance for your Checks and Balances

It’s good financial practice to monitor your bank and credit card account activity on a regular basis, Wander says. That way, you can spot and report any fraudulent activity early (which helps limit your liability), make sure you’re not overdrawing your bank accounts, and prevent yourself from spending more than you can manage on credit cards.

But who remembers to check every day?

Fortunately, most banks and credit cards allow customers to set up online alerts that do much of the monitoring for you.

While you should still review transactions yourself periodically, these alerts can let you know when you’re approaching a certain balance and when any unusual purchases have been made. You may even be able to set the dollar amounts for balances or purchases.

Additionally, for credit cards, you can set payment reminders. That way, if you won’t get hit with a late fee (which averages $35, according to CreditCards.com).

6. Get the Bigger Picture

Online financial tool Mint.com allows you to see your bank accounts, investments, credit cards, loans, and credit scores in one place in real time. And you have the ability to access that information anywhere, whether you’re on your work computer, smartphone or home PC, says Jorge Padilla, a client advisor at Lubitz Financial Group in Miami.

This gives you a broader picture of your finances, and ensures that you have all your financial information at your fingertips if you need to make a decision at the spur of the moment, Padilla says. Plus, having your investments together will make it easier to match up gains and losses during tax season.

The tool also allows you to create a custom budget. But it makes the otherwise laborious task of tracking your expenses automatic, by categorizing your purchases for you and totaling up the amount you spend per category.

Additionally, you can print reports or export data into Excel or Quicken—which allows for easy collaboration with your tax preparer come April, Padilla notes.

7. Pool Your Plastic

Transferring credit card balances on high-interest rate cards to one with a lower rate may help you consolidate your monthly payments and save on interest—though keep in mind that some of these cards have upfront fees of around 3% of the balance that erode some of the benefits.

So, if you expect to be able to pay off your debt in 15 months, go forMONEY’s 2014 pick for best balance transfer card, Chase Slate. You get a rate of 0% for that long and no balance transfer fee if you move your debt within the first two months. But after the 15 months, the rate resets to an APR that starts between 13% and 23%.

Need longer than 15 months to zero out your debt? Lake Michigan Credit Union Prime Platinum Visa has no balance transfer fee and the ongoing APR starts at 6%—which is about the lowest out there.

If you do transfer the balance, you might be tempted to close the old account to ward off any future temptations—but this may do more harm than good, says John Ulzheimer, a credit expert for CreditSesame.com. Since you will still have the same amount of debt but less available credit, your debt-to-limit ratio will increase, and that’s a number credit agencies pay close attention to in calculating your credit score.

A better move, if you’re worried about using the cards again: Shred them rather than canceling them. You’ll still have the credit line in your name, but you won’t have the temptation in your wallet.

new way make money with your writing

                                

few people get rich writing. Yet once you become a writer, or think of yourself as one, it’s hard to stop. Like a dog with an itch, you’ve got to get to it — regardless of the uncomfortable contortions required and how momentary the relief between itches/stories.

Technology makes it seem easy to become a writer. Just as desktop publishing lured us into imagining we were graphic designers in the 90s, things like blogging and social media convince everyone with a keyboard and the internet they’re Hunter S Thompson. But digital technology has also made things tough for writers, particularly those whose incomes depend on every word they write.

With ever more readers accessing information from multiple online platforms for free, publishers have had to cut rates, word counts and contributors. It sometimes seems the quest for a sustainable business model for digital journalism is like the quest for the Holy Grail — a myth. But is it?

Funded by prize money won in the Google-International Press Institute News Innovation Contest and incubated by the Guardian Media Group, Sarah Hartley, Matt McAlister and Dan Catt launched the online journalism community, Contributoria, a year ago. The initiative is something of an online anthology-stokvel combo.

It invites writers (2 500 at present) to pitch stories, name their price (in points), get backing from other members, benefit from the editing recommendations of others during the writing process (while retaining individual copyright) and get paid within 30 days. Contributoria also helps facilitate sales of the work to other publications.

Although writers can join for free, paying R40 per month to be a "supporter" or R105 per month as a "patron" not only provides advanced benefits, it also helps boost the coffers from which writers are paid. Free membership gives you access to 50 points per month, while paid subscription options give you 250 and 500 points a month respectively. (Patrons also get printed editions of Contributoria.)

Points are an internal currency, which fluctuates according to how much money there is in the membership pool and other resources, including sponsorship. During its first year, 727 proposals were submitted to Contributoria, 344 articles were published and more than R2.5-million was paid out to writers. Fees ranged from R1 150 to R11 500 per article.

                          

Described by its founders as "community funded collaborative journalism", the site works as follows. Members submit proposals for stories for which they set a fee/goal in points. Other members use their monthly allocation of points to back the proposals they like. If the goal is achieved before deadline, the writer is commissioned to complete the story during the next "collaborative month". At this stage, drafts of commissioned work are visible to other members who can contribute editing suggestions.

Once complete on deadline (cycles are monthly), the article is published, becoming visible to all. The writer receives payment from Contributoria according to the original points value set as a backing goal/ fee.

The site makes articles (now edited and, in a sense, peer reviewed) available for re-use by other publishers, charging writers a small commission for the service.

Contributoria is valuable not only because it provides writers with another place to generate income and show off their work, but also because of what it teaches in terms of the business of writing. Generating an income from writing means identifying topics that intrigue and sell. Many successful freelance writers are also consummate salespeople.

Contributoria also demands unabashed self-marketing; you need to campaign to get the points before your story is commissioned. Once you begin writing, collaboration with others gives you the opportunity to learn and improve.

Above all, Contributoria demonstrates the hard work required by journalism. If you or someone you know is thinking about becoming a writer, take a look at the extent and depth of the articles published and proposals awaiting backing on the site. Writing, you’ll see, is an itch that requires more than a cursory scratch, technology notwithstanding.

                                   

Building wealth in 2015

                                    

The Indian stock market turned out to be among the world's best performers in 2014 with the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex rising 29% from 21,140 on January 1 to 27,312 on December 19. Most market players believe this stellar run will continue in 2015 on the back of reforms, strong foreign fund inflows, revival of manufacturing, improvement in the macro-economic situation and rise in corporate earnings growth.

Attractive Valuations

Despite the sharp rise, the valuation of the Indian stock market is still attractive. On December 12, the Sensex was trading at a price-to-earnings (PE) ratio of 18.5, marginally lower than the five-year average of 18.77. Yogesh Nagaonkar, vice-president, Institutional Equities, Bonanza Portfolio, says Indian stocks are an attractive investment if the person's horizon is three-five years. One reason is that the return on equity of BSE 200 companies is bottoming out. "Revival of growth of Indian companies, which were facing tough times for the past five years, is still at a nascent stage. Nifty 50 companies can see 16-17% earnings growth in the next one year. This may rise to 19-20% two years from now," he says.

"Indian companies have done massive restructuring over the last five years. Almost every business has become leaner and focused on efficiency. Because we don't expect further deterioration, we see operating and financial leveraging show its maximum impact in 2017-18," says Ravi Gopalakrishnan, head of equities, Canara Robeco Mutual Fund. If we look at the numbers, India's stock markets have risen quite a bit of late, but even then they are not very expensive. At present, they are trading at 17 times forward earnings for 2015-16. Though this is slightly above the long-term average of 15 times, it is not very high. Gopalakrishnan explains why. "Earnings pick-up in 2017-18 will trigger expansion of PE multiples," he says. 

                                       

New Themes

In every bull market, a new set of stocks performs well and comes on top. For example, around 2000, information technology (IT) stocks were everyone's favourite. Between 1 February 1999 and 13 December 2000, the IT index rose 94% on a yearly basis, as against 15% returns given by the Sensex. This period was followed by the era of infrastructure stocks in 2004-08. To see how much liking markets took to these shares, look at returns from DSPBR TIGER fund, an infrastructure fund from the DSPBR stable. Between 11 June 2004 and 9 January 2008, the fund returned 65%; the stock market returned 50% during the period. While in 2007-08 FMCG stocks did worse than the market, they were the darling of investors for the next five years (See The Best And The Worst). "The main constituents of the present rally will be different from what we have been seeing," says Vaibhav Sanghvi, managing director, Ambit Investment Advisors. He says Europe and Japan are not doing well and China is slowing. The US, he says, is the only big economy which is growing. In this backdrop, domestic industrial, material, consumer discretionary and financial companies are likely to do well, he says.