creative ways money flow

How will Creative Ways help my Money Flow?

Over the past year, I’ve been busy knitting together creativity with money (conceptually, not literally), and looking at what would increase our money flow. It’s more about what stops it and what blocks your creative thinking, than anything else. When we think of money and finance, we often get all crazy. Fear of not having enough, fear of investment losses, fear of missing out, and confusion over the array of investing choices seems to block our minds from truly thinking outside the money box. I’m concerned that many are blissfully unaware of the way they are running their financial life. Some of them are crossing their fingers that Bitcoin will run; some are neglecting their own Super or Shares, but flying to the US to see an income-generation guru; and some don’t realise that they can do something better with their home…
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Prosperous Future Self

Looking after your Prosperous Future Self

After all my learning through both painful experience and miles of research into personal finance over these past 12 years, I have come to this conclusion: If you don’t look after your money, no-one else will. If you think that your Super is someone else’s problem, don’t believe it. It’s yours to manage, with annual reviews to make sure you are on track to live comfortably, when the time comes. Keep the management costs low by selecting your Super Fund manager wisely, make sure you put in more than any life insurance and fees coming out, and if over 50, increase your sacrifice to super to make contributions up to 17% a year, if at all possible. (My own super fund has benefited from my active management, even if I cannot put in as much as 17%). Sometimes in hardship,…
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rich retirement

Want a rich retirement? You need creative money ideas!

There’s nothing that makes me madder than some journalist rabbiting on about sacrificing lots of salary into superannuation. Well, that is all very well if, a) you are employed; b) your employer is amenable to that; and c) you make enough money that you could easily miss 5 or 10 percent of it. But what about all of us in business? What about those retiring now? I don’t expect that people earning $120,000+ per year are going to be that interested in my 2020 book, Creative Ways with Money, and that’s absolutely fine. I’m writing it for people who are trying to manage on an average income, have fun, but also creatively earn more. These are the battlers who get caught in the headlights of spruikers. These are the smart ones, who are servicing others, building businesses, and rarely put…
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Setting Goals for authors

Setting Goals: Are you Doing it the Right Way?

If you take the step of setting a big goal that excites you, you’ll at least be putting it into your vision. But some stab at a goal without really considering all the factors. Are they aiming correctly? In 2003, I had two goals:  meet a man and write a book. I had a list of desired attributes and my write a book goal was written on a piece of paper, taped to the wall. Since dating and this blog have little in common, let’s quickly move to the book goal. What happened? By 2005 I was madly writing it. The resulting book was tiny; just 46 pages, but the underlying goal motivated me to bumble along the path. I wanted to finish and quickly; I had our baby crawling around, getting into things!  With a cover by a local…
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Writing Habits with AI

My Financial Life in Books

Oh, what have I done to deserve this wretched financial life statement?  This five-digit retirement fund? Did I not start and run a freelance business, had this book, How to Start and Run a Freelance Business, that served clients well with persuasive copy? ‘Planning is the secret to success’, you say?  Well, that is my middle name. So faithfully I planned, set goals, budgeted, paid myself first, sought education and read up on Money. Just in case it found me one day. Alas, you have to go seek it. So how does one Create a New Life of Abundance?  In 2008, I thought by sacking your financial planner. But later, I realised that that’s now How to Control Your Financial Destiny. No, I didn’t spend 28 years at the university of life, typing, editing and finessing thousands of words… snipping…
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keep positive

How do you keep Positive when all your Income Streams turn to Custard…?

My dear bloglings, I am so qualified to write this post that it’s not even funny! Circa 2008 – 2010 was tough, tough, tough. Going backwards is never fun. Positive thinking is lambasted, but what I write about is positive psychology and ideas to keep you motivated. I know we’re all trying to put on a brave and successful public face, but at times do you feel like you’re one key client account away from closing shop… or are you royally pissed off at your expensive marketing going nowhere? Been there, wrote the handbook. So, here are four tips for those freakin’ out times (and beforehand). 1.  Always have an emergency fund of preferably 3 months’ bills, and when that gets really low, only then look for a credit card with a low interest rate (e.g. 8.99% McGrath Community First…
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