美国最经典理财教程连载

Martin

　　lesson1：Top things to know

　　1. Narrow your objectives.

　　You probably won't be able to achieve every financial goal you've ever dreamed of. So identify your goals clearly and why they matter to you, and decide which are most important. By concentrating your efforts, you have a better chance of achieving what matters most.

　　2. Focus first on the goals that matter.

　　To accomplish primary goals, you will often need to put desirable but less important ones on the back burner.

　　3. Be prepared for conflicts.

　　Even worthy goals often conflict with one another. When faced with such a conflict, you should ask yourself questions like: Will one of the conflicting goals benefit more people than the other? Which goal will cause the greater harm if it is deferred?

　　4. Put time on your side.

　　The most important ally you have in reaching your goals is time. Money stashed in interest-earning savings accounts or invested in stocks and bonds grows and compounds. The more time you have, the more chance you have of success. Your age is a big factor -- younger people (who have more time to build their nest egg) can invest differently than older ones.

　　5. Choose carefully.

　　In drawing up your list of goals, you should look for things that will help you feel financially secure, happy or fulfilled. Some of the items that wind up on such lists include building an emergency fund, getting out of debt, and paying kids' tuitions. Once you have your list together, you need to rank the items in order of importance (if you have trouble doing so, use the CNNMoney.com Prioritizer for help).

　　6. Include family members.

　　If you have a spouse or significant other, make sure that person is part of the goal-setting process. Children, too, should have some say in goals that affect them.

　　7. Start now.

　　The longer you wait to identify and begin working toward your goals, the more difficulty you'll have reaching them.

　　8. Sweat the big stuff.

　　Once you have prioritized your list of goals, keep your spending on course. Whenever you make a large payment for anything ask yourself: "Is this taking me nearer to my primary goals -- or leading me further away from them?" If a big expense doesn't get you closer to your goals, try to defer or reduce it.

　　9. Don't sweat the small stuff.

　　Although this lesson encourages you to focus on big-ticket, long-range plans, most of life is lived in the here-and-now and most of what you spend will continue to be for daily expenses - including many that are simply for fun. That's okay - so long as your long-range needs are taken into consideration.

　　10. Be prepared for change.

　　Your needs and desires will change as you age, so you should probably reexamine your priorities at least every five years.

　　lesson2：Identifying goals

　　You probably won't achieve every financial goal. But you can go farther than you think.

　　What are your top three financial objectives?

　　Most people, when asked that question, answer with general goals, such as achieving financial security.

　　The fact is, many of us haven't thought much about which financial objectives really matter most. Instead, we muddle through our financial lives, spending to meet the day-to-day expenses that dominate our attention.

　　That approach risks leaving your most important objectives unfulfilled.

　　That's what this lesson is all about: helping you identify the financial goals that matter most to you and making sure they happen.

　　That's not as easy as it sounds, since financial goals continually collide with one another. Paying for a child's braces may rob money that would otherwise go into his college fund, for example. And saving effectively for your kids' college can wipe out any hope of putting aside adequate money for your own retirement.

　　That's why to get what you want most you must 1) decide which goals will take priority and 2) work toward the lesser goals only after the really important ones are well provided for.

　　Fortunately, you have at least one ally in meeting your long-range goals: time. That's an advantage because of the power of compounding - the fact that even a small amount of money can earn interest, and that each year that interest gets applied to a growing sum of money.

　　Suppose, for example, you put aside only the cost of a single candy bar - about 65 cents - each day. Invested in a tax-deferred account paying 5 percent a year compounded monthly, that string of savings would grow to $3,073 in just 10 years and to $16,470 in 30 years.

　　To put the power of compounding on your side, you have to start early. Suppose there are two siblings who both invest in Individual Retirement Accounts earning 8 percent a year.

　　The sister starts at age 20, and for the next 10 years she stuffs $3,000 a year into her IRA. At age 30, though, she stops and never adds another penny.

　　Her brother waits until age 30 to get started, but then dutifully salts away $3,000 a year for the rest of his life. Which sibling do you think will be better off?

　　In this case, the early bird will always be ahead. The sister reaches age 65 with over $642,000, while her brother will have a little under $518,000 - about 20 percent less.

　　Of course, it's far better, to start early AND keep it up. If both siblings started saving $3,000 a year in an IRA at 20, and kept it up until retirement, each would end up with nearly $1.2 million.

　　The point is that to put time on your side, you need to decide early which of the many possible financial goals are really worth pursuing -- and start working toward them.

　　To get started, make a list of all the things that you'd need to feel secure, happy or fulfilled. These can range from the weighty (getting out of debt) to the luxurious (a Lamborghini). You don't need to prioritize them yet.

　　But you should try to put down all of the money-related things that will really get your motor started. And if you have a spouse or significant other, do this exercise together! Here are some common goals you may want to consider:

　　- Accumulating enough savings to handle an emergency situation

　　- Buying a house

　　- Getting out of debt -- and staying out

　　- Ensuring that your parents are comfortable and well taken care of in their old age

　　- Paying for your children's college education

　　- Amassing enough wealth to retire comfortably

　　Once you have your list in hand, push on to the next section where you'll determine which of these goals are most important to you.

　　Lesson 3 :Resolving conflicts

　　Retirement or the kids' tuition? Here are guidelines for making some tough choices.

　　After you've clarified your priorities, what do you do with your new insight?

　　Each time you spend more than pocket change on a purchase that doesn't help you attain one of your chief goals, ask yourself whether the outlay is really necessary.

　　For example, let's say your highest priority is achieving financial independence. And let's say you've saved $4,000 to take the family on a vacation. If you take the trip, you'll be an additional $4,000 from kissing the time clock good-bye.

　　(Further, actually, since $4,000 in savings would grow to nearly $20,000 invested for 20 years at a tax-deferred 8 percent - as CNNMoney.com's Savings Calculator would show.)

　　Of course, if your family has been expecting the trip for months, you'd be unfair to tell them that it's off. Instead, from the beginning you should have earmarked the cash for your investment portfolio and either planned a low-ticket vacation or worked a deal with family members to take the trip later.

　　Okay, you say, but that choice isn't terribly difficult. You're more concerned about tougher decisions -- choosing, for instance, among such priorities as health care, education, and savings.

　　All are important. How do you resolve conflicts among them? No single approach will work for everyone -- but here are some guidelines that help.

　　Is someone's health involved? If you believe that the ultimate purpose of money is to make life better, then you might decide that saving cash at the cost of your well being -- or of a relative's -- is a poor choice. For most people, someone's illness is the rainy day for which they've been saving.

　　How many people will be affected by my choice? Will one of your goals make your own life better while another will give equivalent help to two of your children? You could decide that when more people derive roughly equal benefit from a goal, its priority rises.

　　If two goals offer similar rewards, which causes the least harm? This method of selection is typically a last resort, but it can be useful when no other analysis helps you decide among options.

　　Most people, for example, have to decide between the kids' tuition and their own retirement savings. Well, if you know that you won't be able to live adequately on the money you expect from your pension and Social Security, then retirement savings should be paramount. As for the child in college, he can take out a tuition loan.

　　You can't put every nickel toward top priorities, of course -- nor should you. Instead, you need to set aside part of your income for current pleasures, so long as you have enough cash left over to put toward your long-range goals.

　　Also, remember that as the years go by, your priorities will change. You'll need to reexamine and rank your needs regularly in order to use your money most effectively.

　　When you can save a dollar, you need to decide why you're putting it away. In addition, if you acquire the habit of quickly rating the urgency of every big purchase against the primary financial goals you've set for yourself, you'll eventually find that your spending is under control.

　　Lesson 4: Making plans

　　Now that you've identified the right goals, here are some game plans that will achieve them.

　　Here are examples of plans you might draw up to meet three of the most common objectives: getting out of debt, paying for college, or financing your retirement:

　　Getting out of debt

　　If you struggle to meet credit-card payments every month, then face it: You probably need to shed or consolidate some of that debt.

　　For example, suppose you owe $3,000 in outstanding credit-card debt at a 16 percent interest rate and a $10,000 car loan at 9 percent. To pay off both these obligations in a year, you'd need to pony up $1,147 a month.

　　But if you are a home owner with equity in your property, you could borrow $13,000 on a home-equity loan at the same 9 percent and retire those other bills. Then your cost to pay off the home-equity loan in a year would be slightly lower - $1,137 a month - because you're no longer paying high credit-card rates of interest.

　　Moreover, because you can deduct the interest on most home-equity loans, you'd reduce your taxable income by $642 that year - a $212 saving for someone in the 33 percent federal tax bracket. In effect, the government would help pay off your expenses.

　　Of course, this kind of strategy works only if you also stop charging new items on your credit cards.

　　Paying for college

　　Tuition, room and board at a private college can cost upward of $30,000 a year, and that bill is projected to reach about $80,000 by the time this year's crop of newborns enter college.

　　Your children may qualify for financial aid either in the form of a scholarship or a loan, and many students work their way through college.

　　But if you want to spare your kids the burden of graduating in debt, there are a couple of good savings vehicles available to you. Most states now offer so-called 529 Plans - contributions go into in pre-selected mutual funds, grow tax-free each year, and withdrawals to pay tuition are also tax free.

　　You could also open a Coverdell Education Savings Account (previously called an Education IRA) that lets you put $2,000 a year, after taxes, into a bank account or other investments; earnings on that type of account are totally tax-free, provided the money is used for tuition when it's withdrawn.

　　It's amazing how far these plans will get you. For example, if you started putting $2,000 a year today into a Coverdell account earning 8 percent, after 18 years you'd have more than $80,000.

　　Financing a retirement

　　A popular rule of thumb says that retirees need only 70 percent of their pre-retirement income to maintain their lifestyle, since they no longer have to pay for such costs as commuting or for work clothes.

　　However, other costs go up in retirement, such as utility bills (if you're home all day), the price of hobbies and travel - and, of course, the cost of health care. In fact, some retirees find they need as much income in retirement as they spent while working.

　　Unfortunately, traditional pensions pay only a fraction of your salary, and Social Security won't make up the difference. In addition, the younger you are, the less certain you can be about how much money you'll receive at age 65 from any of the retirement plans you have today.

　　Why? Because Social Security benefits may be revised, and employers are free at any time to change their pension-plan formulas. (They can't do so retroactively - every retirement dollar that you've already qualified for is yours to keep.) Of course, Congress can change the laws governing retirement savings plans at any time.

　　Moreover, the bear market of the past few years has underscored the point that stocks can be extremely volatile in the short term, even if they remain among the most consistent performers over long periods. Thus, the stock portion of any retirement portfolio needs to take into account the possibility of sharp downturns.

　　To make your retirement finances secure, you need to contribute to as many different plans as possible. If you have a 401(k), 403(b), or 457 program at work, put in as much money as you can.

　　Most employers will match your contributions, giving you money for retirement that you won't get any other way. If you have no retirement plan at work, contribute to an IRA. Note that contributions to all of these plans are tax-deferred, so that you, Uncle Sam, and your boss together could be adding to your retirement stash.

　　Then to insure against possible new retirement-plan rules mandated by Congress, you need to have your own taxable savings plan as well -- ideally invested in stocks, bonds, or mutual funds, which can return more than bank accounts. Best of all, as your investing account grows, it can help you finance other goals.

　　Lesson 5：Making a budget

　　you should know

　　1. Budgets are a necessary evil.

　　They're the only practical way to get a grip on your spending -- and to make sure your money is being used the way you want it to be used.

　　2. Creating a budget generally requires three steps.

　　- Identify how you're spending money now

　　- Evaluate your current spending and set goals that take into account your long-term financial objectives

　　- Track your spending to make sure it stays within those guidelines.

　　3. Use software to save grief.

　　If you use a personal-finance program such as Quicken or Microsoft Money, the built-in budget-making tools can create your budget for you.

　　4. Don't drive yourself nuts.

　　One drawback of monitoring your spending by computer is that it encourages overzealous attention to detail. Once you determine which categories of spending can and should be cut (or expanded), concentrate on those categories and worry less about other aspects of your spending.

　　5. Watch out for cash leakage.

　　If withdrawals from the ATM machine evaporate from your pocket without apparent explanation, it's time to keep better records. In general, if you find yourself returning to the ATM more than once a week or so, you need to examine where that cash is going.

　　6. Spending beyond your limits is dangerous.

　　But if you do, you've got plenty of company. Government figures show that many households with total income of $50,000 or less are spending more than they bring in. This doesn't make you an automatic candidate for bankruptcy -- but it's definitely a sign you need to make some serious spending cuts.

　　7. Beware of luxuries dressed up as necessities.

　　If your income doesn't cover your costs, then some of your spending is probably for luxuries -- even if you've been considering them to be filling a real need.

　　8. Tithe yourself.

　　Aim to spend no more than 90 percent of your income. That way, you'll have the other 10 percent left to save for your big-picture items.

　　9. Don't count on windfalls.

　　When projecting the amount of money you can live on, don't include dollars that you can't be sure you'll receive, such as year-end bonuses, tax refunds, or investment gains.

　　10. Beware of spending creep.

　　As your annual income climbs from raises, promotions, and smart investing, don't start spending for luxuries until you're sure that you're staying ahead of inflation. It's better to use those income increases as an excuse to save more.

　　Lesson 6：The dubious joy of budgets

　　Most people avoid creating a budget and fewer still stick to one. But it doesn't have to be painful.

　　If you're the type of person who always has plenty of cash, knows exactly where every penny goes, and never has trouble paying bills, skip this chapter. You're either too rich or too smart to need it.

　　For the rest of us, unfortunately, making - and sticking to - a budget is the essential tool for ensuring that our money gets used the way we need it to. Even if you're in the happy situation of having plenty of income, the homework involved in drawing up a budget can be instructive, since you may find that you are spending more than you wish on items like DVDs, electronic gadgetry, or restaurant meals.

　　Drawing up a budget is usually pure drudgery enlivened only by the reality of staring your foolish spending habits in the face. In fact, one of the chief impediments to budgeting is that most people would rather not know how they really use their money.

　　It's bad enough to learn this kind of information on your own. It's even worse when a spouse or significant other finds out, since it usually confirms his or her worst fears - and provides new ammunition for future "discussions."

　　Take heart. Any spending mistakes you're making are probably common and not impossible to kick. Moreover, the bulk of budgeting's pains are at the beginning.

　　After you have a budget in place - and you've fine-tuned it with a couple of months of actual spending - tracking your expenditures becomes almost automatic.

　　If your boss at work were to ask you for an analysis of the department's spending, you'd figure it out quickly enough. Budgeting your household should be approached in the same businesslike fashion. A variety of electronic tools can make the process easier.

　　Lesson7 : Listing expenses

　　To build a realistic budget, start by figuring out where your money goes now.

　　There are three steps to creating a budget:

　　1) Identify how your money is currently being spent.

　　2) Evaluate that spending to see if it meets the financial priorities you specified in Lesson 1.

　　3) Track your ongoing spending to make sure it stays within those guidelines (or to understand how your budget needs to be revised).

　　If you happen to use Quicken, Microsoft Money, or other such software, you're in luck. These programs generally make it easy to draw up a budget.

　　In Quicken, for example, every time you make a deposit, write a check, pay a credit card bill, or dispatch an electronic payment you are asked to assign it to a particular category, such as "salary," "clothing," "groceries," "child care," or "health insurance."

　　You can also create subcategories, dividing "auto" expenses into "fuel," "insurance," and "service." The program comes with a set of categories that handle most of the basics. You can edit the list to create categories that make better sense for your particular household.

　　And if you're away from home, you can track expenses at the Quicken Web site and then download the transactions later.

　　The drawback, of course, is that entering and categorizing all of your income and outflow is a tedious chore.

　　You can reduce the tedium by judiciously selecting categories. Let's say you are only worried about tracking your spending for recreation and leisure pursuits. You could create categories that cover those types of expenses, and let everything else accumulate under "miscellaneous revenue" or "miscellaneous expense."

　　The problem with that approach is that you forgo the opportunity to spot problems in other spending areas that you may not even be aware of.

　　A better solution is to track expenses using electronic banking. That way, you can download your payments and deposits directly from the bank, rather than having to enter them by hand.

　　The downloaded banking transactions generally show up without any categorization - meaning you'll have to add the categories by hand. But if you use a credit card that is issued by a bank that permits electronic access, then the downloaded charges from your card sometimes do come with categories attached (they aren't always right, so check them).

　　Either way, once you've got your spending tracked by category, drawing up a report requires only a few clicks of the mouse. Even better, such programs often have an automatic budget-creation feature that scans your spending in the past in order to estimate how much you'll spend going forward.

　　If your finances aren't wired, you can still get a good handle on your spending the old-fashioned way. Start by getting all your records together from the past 12 months, including pay stubs, loan proceeds, withdrawal slips, canceled checks, and itemized credit-card statements. Then go through them and compile totals for your income and expenses in a set of categories that makes sense for you.

　　At the end of this exercise, you may still have a sizable lump of spending that's undocumented - typically, the money you withdraw in cash and then spend on day-to-day needs. If this portion of your budget seems to be getting out of hand, keep a journal for the next four weeks in which you record every nickel you spend. You can use those results to extrapolate how your cash is being spent throughout the year.

　　Now that you've got a good picture of where your money is going, you can proceed to evaluate which parts of that spending should be raised or lowered. You might start with our Ideal Budget calculator, which compares your spending with recommended levels.

　　Lesson8 : Setting goals

　　Analyze your spending habits to see where you need to make changes

　　Once you have a budget, it's time to go through your spending and figure out where you need to cut back.

　　This is especially urgent, obviously, if you spend more than you make - a scary position, for sure, but not uncommon. In fact, Labor Department numbers show that many families making $50,000 or less are spending at least a few percentage points more money each year than they actually bring in.

　　That doesn't mean that they, or you, are headed for bankruptcy. But it does show that Americans are in the habit of borrowing to cover both short-term expenses, like those on credit cards, and long-term ones, such as buying cars and homes.

　　Let's just say that if your spending exceeds your income, then your top priority in constructing a budget should be to slash your spending, pronto.

　　If your household runs in the black, you may still want to reallocate some of your spending. The calculator helps identify trouble spots by highlighting categories where your annual expenses are sharply higher or lower than average for households with similar demographics.

　　In some cases, a divergence will be perfectly reasonable. The average family spends only a few percent of its income on education, for example. But if you have a child in college or private school, or are taking some courses yourself, your education spending will be a lot higher -- and more power to you.

　　On the other hand, if the calculator shows that you're spending twice as much as the average family on meals away from home, and there's no obvious reason why that should be so, you may want to consider eating in more often.

　　When projecting your income, don't include money that you can't be sure to receive, such as highly variable year-end bonuses, tax refunds, or gains on investments. Instead, wait until the extra cash arrives, then save or invest it to produce more revenue for the future.

　　Your goal should be to reduce your spending to about 90 percent of your income, with the aim of plowing the rest of that money into the financial objectives you deem most important.

　　Once you've set your budget goals, you need to develop the habit of tracking your expenses on an ongoing basis - something that's most easily accomplished using personal-finance software. The aim here is to make sure the spending stays within the limits you've set.

　　But there's a second aim: Very likely you will discover that some of the goals you set were unrealistic. If so, ease them slightly. No point in giving yourself an unreachable hurdle, but neither should it be too easy.

　　Often it takes two or three revisions before you achieve a budget that you can really stick to. If juggling the numbers leaves you wishing you could free up some extra cash, push on to the next section of this lesson for suggestions.

　　Lesson9 : Cutting costs

　　How to reduce spending to free up money for use elsewhere.

　　The most common spending problems are caused by a house that's too large, a car that's too luxurious, or a credit-card lifestyle that's too lavish for your income.

　　Whatever your situation, here are some common ways that people can reduce monthly bills.

　　Eliminate trivial but needless costs

　　Look first for small savings - not because they'll end your budget problems, but simply because they're easy to find and take advantage of. For example, swear off that mid-afternoon Danish or expensive premium latte. Shop for clothes and household furnishings only during sales. Keep your house warmer in summer and cooler in winter. Take on chores that you usually pay someone else to perform, such as mowing the lawn or shoveling snow.

　　Seemingly inconsequential savings do, in fact, add up.

　　Reduce larger expenses

　　These recommendations are decidedly more painful. If you smoke, for instance, take steps to quit. Don't buy season tickets to anything. Trade in your luxury car or sport utility vehicle for something a lot cheaper to buy, fuel, and maintain (we did say this was painful).

　　On the assumption that those kinds of changes may be too wrenching, here are some other specific areas where many people can find savings:

　　Refinance your mortgage

　　If new mortgages are costing at least two percentage points less than the rate you're paying, refinancing may save you significant dollars; check our refinancing calculator to be sure.

　　Cut your taxes

　　Usually this means taking better advantage of itemized deductions, and it's a lot easier to do if you are either self-employed or have some income from work you do outside of a regular job. That opens up a range of new deductions -- from expenses for work-related items to a home office -- that are much harder to claim if you're an ordinary working stiff.

　　On the investment side, you can save some money by selling, and then writing off, investments that have lost money. You can use such losses to offset any gains you may have in a given year. If your losses outweigh your gains, you can deduct as much as $3,000 of investment losses from your ordinary income each year. Those with higher incomes may also be able to save some money by shifting money out of taxable bonds into tax-free municipal bonds.

　　Appeal your home assessment

　　If you're a homeowner, you may even be able to cut your real estate taxes by challenging the value that the local assessor puts on your property. You have to have good evidence, of course. You should call the assessor's office first to make sure you understand the formula for determining the house's value (the assessment listed on tax bills is often only a fraction of the real value that determines your tax).

　　If recent home sales in your neighborhood lead you to believe that your house is worth less than its assessment and a qualified real estate agent writes an appraisal in support of your claim, then you can file a grievance with the assessor's office and possibly get your bill reduced. The cost: $200 to $300 for the written appraisal. If an attorney handles the appeal for you, he or she will typically charge 50 percent of the first year's tax savings.

　　The above suggestions won't work for everyone, and you may have considered them already. But since you alone are privy to the numbers in your budget, you alone know how radically you need to cut. If our suggestions don't appeal, find your own alternatives.

　　One last word of caution

　　Over time, your income should rise as your career progresses and you manage to save money for investing. But, also over time, inflation will raise the cost of living. A mere 3 percent annual rise in prices will double the cost of everything within 24 years. At that time, you'll need twice as much money as you do today to live as well as you do now. So don't start spending your rising income on luxuries you've been denying yourself until you're sure that you're staying ahead of inflation.

danhua

满眼的e文，晕啊。。。。