For Immediate Release

On Monday May 12, 2008 Paul Ferraresi presented a Retirement Needs Workshop in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The workshop was attended by local business owners, executives and investors. Topics of discussion included individual goals; income needs during retirement; minimizing income taxes; eliminating income taxes on up to 85% of Social Security benefits; and, creating a retirement income that one cannot outlive.

Mr. Ferraresi is chairman of Founders Group, a Financial Strategy and Retirement Specialty Firm, located in Houston, Texas. He was presenting the program in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with an associate that operates the Founders Group branch office there.

Company Website www.founders-group.net

Company Blog www.paulferraresi.com

Company Phone # 713-871-5919

For Immediate Release

Paul Ferraresi conducted a Career Enhancement Workshop on Tuesday May 13, 2008 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In attendance were Real Estate, Insurance and Mortgage Professional. Contents of the program were designed to assist professionals in maximizing their client’s current and future lifestyles. Topics included asset optimization, equity management and wealth empowerment.

Mr. Ferraresi is chairman of Founders Group, a Financial Strategy and Retirement Specialty Firm, located in Houston, Texas. He was presenting the program in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with an associate that operates the Founders Group branch office there.

Company Website www.founders-group.net

Company Blog www.paulferraresi.com

Company Phone # 713-871-5919

Hidden Money

 The Typical Way an advisor helps clients save for their kids’ college education involves a savings vehicle like 529 plans. Here are some lesser-known ways to ease the fiscal bite of college.

1.      Notify the auto insurance agent. A family auto insurance policy may cover the car that a child takes to college, as long as the vehicle is registered with the parent as the owner. Also, if the student’s education brings their car to a new locale, it might make a difference in your premiums. Furthermore, if a college-bound student resides at a campus at least 100 miles from home and is not taking the insured vehicle, you may be eligible for a reduction in auto insurance premiums.

2.      Graduate in three years instead of four. Some colleges offer accelerated programs that allow students to graduate in three years instead of four, saving you a year’s worth of tuition and related expenses. Some colleges offer a similar program that combines an undergraduate/graduate degree in five years. The student may have to take a heavier course load each semester and skip summer breaks to meet academic requirements, but it can help parents financially. Students can also participate in advanced placement test (in high school), internships, and job training programs to trim tuition cost and earn college credit outside the classroom.

3.      Save on college housing cost. To save on college housing cost, you can buy a rental property near the campus. In addition to the potential that the property will appreciate over the years, you can gain income by continuing to rent the property to other college students after their child has graduated.

4.      Buy it used. Students should buy used books whenever possible. There are many online bookstores that will give you a better deal that the campus bookstore. Used books are usually in good condition and cost about half the price of new books.

5.      Search early. Applications for most college scholarships aren’t due until the students’ senior year in high school. However, with talented children you should start searching for grants and scholarships their freshman year. By finding potential awards when they begin high school, the student can choose classes and participate in activities that will give them a better chance of getting free cash later on.

“Epiphanies”

With over 35 years in the financial advisory business…here are some things I have learned…

 1.      Most people who invest most of their capital in fixed income investments as they go into retirement will run out of money well within their lifetimes, and will die destitute and dependent upon their children. Equities: life. Bonds: death-in-life.

 2.      Optimism is the only realism. It is the only worldview that squares with the facts, and with the historical record.

 3.      Get a year’s living expenses in a money market fund as quickly as you can, even if you have to live on coffee and rice while you’re saving toward this goal. This will allow you to turn down a job situation or business that doesn’t feel 100% right to you. It will give you the strength to tell anyone to go to the devil, and make it stick.

 4.      The origin of all wealth is threefold: personal initiative, hard work, and thrift. Tell me the percentage of your income that you’re putting away, and I’ll tell you whether you’re going to achieve your financial goals.

 5.      The world does not end. It only seems to be ending. This time is never different.

 6.      Americans say they want safety and income. What they really want is all the income they can get, and the illusion of safety. More money had been lost in the quest for the chimerical combination of safety and high yield than in all the stock market crashes in history.

 7.      The only sane investment objective in retirement is an income that grows at a minimum of the same rate at which one’s cost of living is rising.

 8.      Disciplined diversification is a pact with heaven: I will never own enough of any one thing to be able to make a killing in it; I will never own enough of any one thing to be able to be killed by it.

 9.      All investment “new eras” end in ruin, because all inventions follow the same arc, from miracle to commodity.

 10.  Never take your business problems home with you. That way you can never take them out on the people who love you.

 11.  Price and value are inversely correlated. When the price of any investment sector is rising, its value is declining; the converse is also true.

 12.  The most fascinating aspect of all financial crises is their essential sameness.

 13.  Life is too short to work with anyone you don’t like, and/or who doesn’t like you.

 14.  What goes around comes around, even if it’s on a very long, elliptical orbit.

 15.  Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.

 16.  The iron law of the commodity cycle is: supply responds directly to price, even as demand responds inversely to it.

 17.  The advance is permanent. The declines are temporary. There have been twelve bear markets with a mean decline of 25% since the end of War World II. The first one started on May 29, 1946. That day, the S&P Index closed at 19.5 As I write, twelve ends-of-the-world later, it is 1400. Stocks are up seventy times over these six decades because earnings are up seventy times.

 18.  The dominant determinant of the real long-terms returns real people really get isn’t investment performance. It’s investor behavior.

19.  Every Christmas, assemble your entire family and watch the A&E movie The Crossing, about Washington’s attack across the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776. This, and not It’s A Wonderful Life, is the true American Christmas classic. Every April 13, assemble them all again, and watch Apollo 13.

 20.  Protectionism always raises consumer prices above where they would otherwise be; it also invariably destroys more jobs that it “saves.”

 21.  All investments are income investments. They are made for the production either of current income, or of future income, or of income for someone else. The only sane test of an investment’s long-term income-producing potential is its long-term total return, not its current yield. By that one sane test, stocks are a far better income investment than bonds.

 22.  The computer in your cell phone is a million times smaller, a million times cheaper, and a thousand times more powerful than the mainframe computer used by E.F. Hutton & Company on May 1, 1967. This is a billionfold increase in computing power per dollar. In the next quarter century, there will be another such billionfold increase, at which point technology will have essentially solved all our current problems: energy, the environment, poverty and disease. This is the exact worst moment in human history to turn pessimistic.

 23.  Freedom is never free.

 24.  The only sure way to be trusted is to be single –mindedly, relentlessly trustworthy. The only way to be sure you’re always absolutely trustworthy is to tell the pure, unvarnished truth all the time, and let the chips fall where they may.

 25.  And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

A Little Equation

Here is a GREAT article by one of my mentors… Chris Widener. I hope you will put it to use…

A Little Equation that Creates Big Results by Chris Widener

“The purpose of man is in action not thought” - Thomas Carlyle

Often people will ask me how I get so much done in my life. They wonder at how I am able to accomplish so many things. The answer is found not in what a great person I am, but in an equation I came up with a few years ago and remind myself of on almost a daily basis. And when I live this equation out, it produces big results. What people don’t seem to grasp is that this equation will work for anybody! Anyone can see results in their life if they will live it out!

This little equation, when it is understood, and acted upon, is perhaps the most powerful equation there is in regard to long-term achievement and accomplishment. Yet, this is not a complex equation. In fact, it is rather simple. So what is it?

Your short-term actions multiplied by time equals your long-term accomplishments.

If you want to see change in your life, see big results, the first thing you must do is change your current actions. Otherwise the old saying becomes a reality: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got!” But if we change our actions, we will see different results!

Most people want to accomplish a lot in their lives. Yet very few actually do. Why is this? It is because what they believe will equal their long-term accomplishments are wrong. Here are some of the things that people believe will create great accomplishments for them:

Beliefs
Vision
Big dreams
Ideas
Ideals
Values
Desire

The truth is that while these things are very important, they are not enough in and of themselves. We need to have the above underlying all that we do, but we need to actually do something! And this is where most people stop. We need to take action on our dreams and beliefs every day.

Here are some examples of how this works.

Who loses weight? The one who knows all about the benefits of exercise or the one who walks 3 miles a day?

Who retires early? The one who dreams of a house on the beach, or the one who invests $300 a month?

Who writes books? The one who desires to become a best-selling author, or the one who gets up early and writes for half an hour a day?

Who has the best marital relationship? The one who knows how much spending time with their spouse can improve their relationship, or the one who sits down and talks with their spouse every night?

 

Who makes the most sales? The one who believes they can become a great salesperson, or the one who makes 10 sales calls a day?

I think you get the point. When it all comes down to it, we must act upon our vision, beliefs, and ideals or we won’t see them come to fruition. I see too many people who know what is right, but don’t ever do anything about it. Imagine what a difference we could make in our own lives and the lives of others if we would simply begin to act upon on our beliefs!

When I get to the end of my life, I want to know that I have done all that I can to make this world a better place and to enhance the lives of those around me. I want to know that I gave it my best shot. And I am sure that you do to. I remember reading an interview with an author who has written numerous books that have sold in the tens of millions. They asked him how he did it. His answer was that he got up every morning before anyone else in his family and wrote, long hand, with a pencil, for an hour. Then he quit and went about his day. But his short-term actions piled up. 7 hours a week. 30 hours a month. 365 hours a year. After a while, he had lots of books!

Some questions as we leave:

What long-term accomplishments do you want to see come to pass?
What short-term actions will you need to do over time to see them come to pass?
What will you do today to begin seeing your dreams come true?
What will you do this week to see them come true?

 

You can have an awesome future, filled with great achievements and results if you begin today to take action and make it a reality!

One more time, so you can plug it in, memorize it, and live it.

Your short-term actions multiplied by time equals your long-term accomplishments.

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