Struggling Financially? Blame The Fog!

Nicola Cairncross from The Money Gym here, and I’m writing to you today, on 29th December 2009 in the middle of the worst credit crunch anyone can remember.

Can you remember more difficult financial times?

I certainly can’t.  We never imagined it could get this bad, did we?

All around the world people are worried for their jobs, businesses are going down and banks, while taking money from their governments certainly are NOT lending it out again to consumers.

Even if you pay off your credit cards, the companies are taking your available balances right down or even taking them away and don’t even get me started on the interest rates they’re charging!

People are so confused……….so worried………so stressed about money……….they have NO IDEA what to do, which way to turn…………they are stumbling along in the dark, in the fog, they feel overwhelmed and incapable of taking action..

Even if they knew what action to take!

BUT !!

Would it surprise you to know that there are people out there who are not only NOT hurting, who are not confused, or overwhelmed…….. but who are actually thriving financially?

People who are making more money than ever before, who are starting successful businesses, who are getting online, who are creating multiple streams of income, who have control of their cash, people who know on a week by week basis, what’s coming in and going out, and WHAT TO DO with what’s left over?

People who are not phased by changes in the economy, who just switch their strategy to one that suits the times and just works better?

People who have a whole TOOLKIT of financial strategies to fit the moment, the situation, the need.

Who are these people?

Financially Intelligent People, that’s who!  You could call them FIPS for short!

Now, I just bet FIRSTNAME that you would love to find them, join them and become a Financially Intelligent Person – who wouldn’t?

Well, now you can…..

Because we have created a brand new video that can get you started down the road to becoming one of the Financially Intelligent People – right now.

Come on over, watch this exclusive new video and get some FIP savvy!

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/silverelite/

Warm regards

Nicola, Judith & The Money Gym Team

P.S.      Watch our video to find out how to beat the credit crunch, throw off that overwhelm and become one of the Financially Intelligent People today!

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/silverelite/

Have You Taken Up Residence On Your Couch For December?

Sitting on my couch, among my new set of cushions, reflecting on 2009 and thinking ahead to 2010, I’m struck by how certain times of year lend themselves particularly to this kind of introspective thinking.

Easter, with the promise of spring and new life, September with the start of the new school year (and even us grownups still remember that feeling!) and of course Christmas with the impending New Year.

Funny old days, in early December, are they not?   It’s very, very dark, at both ends of the day, and recently it’s felt like it’s never going to stop raining.  One can hardly remember the sun or the sunny days of Summer and it seems an awfully long way off to next summer, that’s for sure!  The couch seems the best place to be, with Strictly or X-Factor on the TV and the heating on full.

The New Year is coming quicker than lightning but all we want to do is wind down to Christmas!

On the one hand some of the country go into a spending spree and Christmas decorating spasm, and on the other hand, some people are quietly emailing tales of woe, stories of quiet desperation and harsh self-criticism about another year gone by – wasted!  Months of procrastination, prevarication leading to …………….absolutely no results.

Do you secretly feel really cross because your 2009 has not progressed you to where you want to be, financially?  Perhaps you have been one of the pension holders or property investors affected by the credit crunch in some way or other and you rather hopefully had all your eggs in one basket?

Read more..

“Relationships and The Credit Crunch” by Susanne Jorgensen

Nicola says: We are currently on holiday with ex-Money Gym and ex-mentoring client of mine, founder of The Singles Gym, Susanne Jorgensen, and as I’m feeling very lazy in my last few days, I asked her if she had a nice money orientated article for you.  Her first book “Get Real: Relationship Success Is An Inside Job” is about to be published this Autumn, via my publisher Bookshaker.com, so there is a nice rosy glow of achievement (and reflected glory) around her at the moment – she’s thrilled about getting her first ISBN number……..little things!

Relationship Coach Susanne Jogensen says:

“Everywhere you turn the words ‘credit crunch’ and ‘recession’ are being used.

Read more..

Fully Financed Deposit Anyone? Government Practically Gives You Yours!

There has never been a better time to buy property, using more alternative methods, if you are flexible and have some nerve.  And I’m not talking about risk here, but the nerve to look and then take action outside the box.

In addition to the excellent model of securing your next home for todays lower prices on an option to buy in the future, while living in said future home and having your rent deducted from the eventual purchase price (aka rent to own or rent2own) you now have another very attractive alternative.

We have recently heard about a brilliant – and not very well publicised yet – scheme that the government have launched, to help first time buyers get onto the housing ladder – totally different from shared ownership schemes and which means that you can CHOOSE the property you want to live in, and then get help to buy it  Anywhere!

Open Market HomeBuy is a low-cost government-backed home-ownership programme that aims to help people to secure 100% funding of the value of their first home. It is a flexible equity loan scheme designed to help households earning up to a maximum household income of £60,000 a year to buy their own homes on the open market.

There are two Open Market HomeBuy products, which are designed specifically to help local authority and housing association tenants, key workers and others who are not able to afford to buy a suitable home in an area where they live or work without assistance.

Both products are available throughout England and have been designed to suit a wide range of personal circumstances.

MyChoiceHomeBuy / Ownhome

Ownhome is provided by a partnership between Places for People and the Co-operative Bank and is part-funded by the Government. Places for People is an equity loan provider in its own right.

Key features of Open Market HomeBuy

• You can choose between two distinct products, MyChoiceHomeBuy and Ownhome;
• You can borrow between 15% and 50% of the value of the property at a low, or no, interest rate;
• If you qualify for a mortgage of £110,000, for example, you could potentially purchase a property worth up to the current national house price average of £220,000;
• If you took up MyChoiceHomeBuy, you could get your conventional mortgage from a range of lenders; and
• If you opted for the Ownhome product, you would have a five-year interest-free period on your equity loan.

For both products, when repaying the equity loans, you would have to share any increase in the property’s value with the equity loan provider.

READ MORE HERE >>>

There are private initiatives doing a similar thing, and there is a company in Manchester, established 16 years ago, who offer a similar service to first time buyers, except that the interest amount paid on the deposit loaned is EVEN LESS!

And they offer a similar service to investors.

Why would they do that, and how do they make their money, I can hear you ask?

I’m like you – I ALWAYS want to know how folks make their profit and once I do, I feel a whole lot more comfortable.

By buying large job lots of property, wholesale, from the banks and building societies where they are repossessing, and then selling onto investors at a profit – but still essentially at wholesale prices.  That’s how.

Find out more about that here >>>

Exciting time ahead in property methinks.

Only Business Sector NOT Suffering From Credit Crunch

Helen Loveless, in The Mail on Sunday reports on the ONLY business sector not suffering from the credit crunch … can you guess what it is?  She says:

Beat Credit Crunch – Sell Your Home!

Bet you never thought you would hear that advice about beating the credit crunch from us eh?

I was moodling around Google Trends today, looking at the interesting key words and phrases thrown up around the phrase “credit crunch” and I came across something – by a “So-Called EXPERT” – that absolutely incensed me. Have a read below and then carry on to hear my thoughts on the subject……!!

(This article is was featured on the Money Week website and was taken from “Merryn Somerset Webb’s free weekly personal finance email, Money Sense)

Merryn says: We’ve heard that 41% of people paid for some part of Christmas on their credit cards; that more people than ever before will go bankrupt this year; that repossessions are likely to keep rising all year; that mortgage rates are going to keep going up even as base rates fall; and that the average person only has enough cash to last 12 short days should they leave their jobs.

Hot on the heels of this has come a plethora of articles telling us what to do about it. Anyone who doesn’t know how to consolidate their loans, find an interest free credit card, cut their utility payments, create a budget spreadsheet (you can download one here) and get a cheaper mortgage by now clearly hasn’t been listening to the personal finance experts properly or spending enough time on the Moneyweek website.

But reading – and writing – all these money makeover articles this month (see also: How to give yourself a money makeover), I’ve been beginning to wonder if for many people the best way to survive the credit crunch and free up a lot of cash in a hurry might be to stop bothering with financial micro managing, dump their mortgages altogether and rent somewhere to live instead.

Why it makes sense to rent, not buy.

Selling to rent (STR as it is now known) has made some financial sense for some years now in cash flow terms – i.e. rents have been generally cheaper than mortgage payments on most properties. But now that the chances of making a capital gain on owning a house (the only reason to have bought over the last 3 years) look pretty low, it seems to make more sense than ever.

READ MORE HERE >>> (If you can bear to…..)

Right then, deep breaths all round!

Any Money Gym client will be spinning on their mouses (mice? meece?) right along with me because we all know something that the majority of the population does not seem to know….or believe……or worse……they seem to forget in times of TEMPORARY crisis like these….

Property doubles in value every 7-10 years in the UK on average, and it’s quicker in the South East. Even taking dips in growth (because that is what this is, a dip in growth).

The GOVERNMENT for heaven’s sake, have recently upgraded their estimates of ANNUAL GROWTH of property in the UK, for the next ten years, from 5.5% per annum to 8.5% per annum. And that’s the whole of the UK. The South-East historically has risen at around 14% over the last 50-60 years.

So, when your average family home is worth around £240,000, and the family who lives in it is set to make another £240,000 over the next ten years, without having to work for it, or even pay tax on it……..

HOW CAN IT POSSIBLY MAKE SENSE TO SELL IT?

How else could they make that money? That’s £24,000 a year…..more than many people make per annum in their JOBS.

Sorry, I’m shouting I know, but I’m bloody furious!! If I had my way, old Merryn would be taken outside and shot at dawn. With a paintball gun obviously, but publically and with dayglo paint balls that HURT a bit. While wearing a sign that says “STUPID ALERT: DON’t BELIEVE A WORD I SAY”

Even if this fictitious family have to borrow some money to keep up the mortgage payments or GOD FORBID, GET A SECOND OR THIRD JOB to keep up with their payments, surely that’s got to be worth doing?

My business partner Judith Morgan gave up two properties in London in the early 90’s because it was that, or let her business go down the tubes. She subsequently sold the business for well over six figures, but now she says she should have kept the properties, and DONE EVERYTHING in her power to do so, because they would be worth MILLIONS to her now. And have taken a lot less work!!

Read Judith’s story here – and she’s an accountant, so she knows.

Unlike Merryn somerset Webb, MoneyWeek editor who doesn’t know, to the point of being dangerous.

Her biography reads thusly:

Merryn was a senior scholar at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where she gained a first class degree in History & Economics. She then became a Daiwa scholar and spent a year studying Japanese at London University. In 1992 Merryn moved to Japan to continue her Japanese studies and to produce business programmes for NHK, Japan’s public TV station. In 1993 she became an institutional broker for SBC Warburg, where she stayed for 5 years. Returning to the UK in 1998, Merryn became a financial writer for The Week. Two years later, in 2000, MoneyWeek was launched and Merryn took the job of editor.

She writes a FREE weekly personal finance email called Money Sense and has recently published a book on personal finance for women, Love is Not Enough: The Smart Woman’s Guide to Making (and Keeping) Money (HarperPress, 2007).

Note: Nowhere does it say she’s a professional property investor. Oooooh, were those all JOBS she has had? Methinks they are. High paid jobs, but jobs nonetheless.

Money Gym’ers……….avoid this woman like the plague! In her articles credits she lists one article called “Your house is not your pension” – I have read it and I tell you now, you should not.

In the third paragraph, she says “But if your house isn’t your pension, what is? Personally, I think it is a nice savings account backed up by a SIPP (Self Invested Personal Pension) into which you put a variety of low cost exchange traded funds which you then hold for 20 years”.

Hahahahahhahahahahahahh – the sound of hysterical yet still FURIOUS laughter echoes round Money Gym Towers, startling the seagulls and the children of the beach. All very well if you have excess income over expenditure and you have 20 years till you want to retire. Which most people – most women – don’t!

God almighty, comment by clicking the link below, will you Money Gym’ers?

Let me know I’m not alone in my fight to save the ordinary people – particularly women – of the UK from being trapped in their “Just Over Broke’s” and total financial poverty in old age?

Credit Crunch Beating Tool #1 – The Internet

Nicola here, with a very important and time sensitive message that will help you beat the credit crunch. As we head into the time of year when, traditionally, people start to think about their life and their future, I’m writing to you because I want you to think seriously about THE most amazing wealth creation opportunity I believe we have seen for the last 150 or so years. One that will help you to stop caring about small hikes in fuel costs, slight increases in the cost of living, a half per cent rise in your mortgage rate.

I’m talking, of course, about the internet. Now, before you pooh pooh me – listen up!

I’ve been mad about the internet as a marketing medium for years, but principally for marketing real world businesses.

Real World Success #1:

I was taking bookings online at my boutique hotel, The Acacia – see the old website here www.TheAcacia.com – before the builders had even started!!

Real World Success #2:

I built the Money Gym (www.TheMoneyGym.com ) from an idea to a six figure turnover business within just 3 years, with a website, an ezine and some business cards that I never used!

BUT….

As we go to all the big Internet Marketing Conferences, we kept hearing stories of people who made a million in a day with selling one ebook, but were never able to duplicate that incredible success for ourselves.  And for those facing the credit crunch right now….wouldn’t it be nice to make enough extra cash that any vagaries in our economy didn’t matter so much?

We – and many of our clients – regularly make smallish and regular amounts of money from esoteric niche sites, but even when we explored apparently really hot niches, like guinea pig whispering, or brown recluse spiders, or restaurant business plans, or Bed In A Bag sets, the millions still eluded us.

Looking back, that was mainly because of three things:

WHY DO SOME FOLKS NOT MAKE A GREAT LIVING ONLINE?

1. Not enough attention to detail – we just were not setting up the backend systems needed to automate sales

2. No viral growth element to our business – and no idea how to make it so

3. We DID split test some elements (one headline against another for instance) but we had no idea how to expand on that till we had the ultimate super-model performing sales webpages.

But now we do….we have the skills and we have the tools. And we want to share them ALL with you.

We have the skills to help real world business harness the power of internet marketing, and we have the skills to help people with just one ebook on a specialist subject wring the most money out of that product, while building up a virally charged email list of people who will want the next product being prepared (notice I didn’t say created, because we know where you can get quality products to adapt and make your very own).

As I say, we really want you to be able to help you make money online too.

Our Internet Marketing Home Study System is a great video based 12-step tuition for those just getting started online but to reflect it’s value, we have been charging £1497 for it – and it’s still worth many times that. Check out this recent testimonial from an 18 year old…

“Hi Nichola, Thank you once again for your giving me the internet home study program for a free trial, when I met you at the Institute of Directors meeting where you were doing your speech. I have been through the program once now and would like to give you some testimonials as to the quality of the program. I would have been lost without it! Many thanks, Mark Williams (the young lad with his mum)”

But we want to make it more affordable and available to more people.

GET YOUR HANDS ON THIS STUDY SYSTEM – FOR FREE!

So we are going to make it available – totally free of charge – to all Money Gym Silver members, for as long as they stay current members. This offer is available to fully paying Silver Members.

To this end, I want you to seriously consider upgrading your Money Gym Club membership to the full Silver Level, which involves an investment of just £27.50 a month.

You are getting a product that sells regularly at £1497 plus all the Money Gym Silver benefits for £27.50 a month.

In fact, it’s better than that, because if you buy our ebook for just £25.00, you get the first month Silver Membership free – a saving of another £2.50.

(Well, every little helps!)

The reason I’m writing to YOU specifically is because I think you want:

1. To learn how to make money online from a passion, hobby or interest

2. To learn how to market your real world business online more effectively

3. To find out if all those stories you hear about making money online are true!

SILVER MEMBERSHIP ALREADY INCLUDES:

* £50 off any of our acclaimed Money Gym workshops – this is
worth up to £450 a year if you come to six MGP and all three LTM days

Find out more here: Let’s Talk Money | Money Gym Presents

* Live wealth coaching by webinar once a month (recorded for MP3 download)

* Mixing with millionaire experts at the events and on the Forums

* Get your questions answered whenever you need support or feedback

* Instant downloads, audio and video, bucket loads of advice on wealth creation right away

* 24/7 access to our private and exclusive wealth creation Google Group

QUESTIONS?

Click the comments link below this post and ask any questions you have about this offer – I’ll be there, and will reply on the blog.

GUARANTEE

I want you to be completely without risk…so here’s my guarantee:
If you don’t think your Silver membership is worth it at any time, you can just email steve@themoneygym.com and he will downgrede your account back to the Free Level at any time.

HOW DO I GET STARTED?

It’s really easy to upgrade and get started:

1. Just visit our ebook sales page at http://www.themoneygym.com/book and click the button at the end to buy a copy for £25.00 (if you already have one you can give it away as a present or a competition prize)

2. Then click here http://www.themoneygymclub.com/subscribe and subscribe – use a NEW EMAIL ADDRESS if you are already a member – using the promo code you will be sent by email.

3. Email steve@themoneygym.com with the email address of your old account, and he will delete it for you. (If you are promoting us already via an affiliate link, skip this step and leave your old account running).

WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?

You will gain immediate access to the “All Members” homepage, just click on the Silver button or the Internet System button to go to those areas.

You will ALSO receive an email giving you your affiliate code. This will help you promote Money Gym Silver Level and earn £10 a month on a recurring basis.

DO YOU HAVE TO BE 18 YEAR OLD TO GET ONLINE?

No, of course not! Ann Harrison is just a touch more mature and she got a LOT out of the Internet Marketing Home Study System…

“A couple of years ago, I signed up for Nicola’s “Internet Marketing Home Study System” and this is where I learned almost everything I know about having an on-line presence – building a website, Google advertising, blogging – the lot!” Ann Harrison http://contemporaryretirement.typepad.com/

OK, that’s it from me.

I want you to join The Money Gym Silver Level to enable us to help you.

We can’t help you if you don’t join!

Are you going to take action?

http://www.themoneygym.com/book

See you inside the club site!

Nicola

P.S. LIMITED TIME OFFER! No it really is. You need to do this right NOW because we are split testing this offer and may withdraw it from new customers at any time. Once joined, you however, will have access for life, as long as you keep your membership current.

Credit Crunch Blues – How To Survive & Thrive

It’s a plain fact that not everybody suffers in a credit crunch or downturn, there is often more money to be made;  while others wail and gnash their teeth, some just take responsibility for their own success and get on with becoming rich.

Wealth Coach Nicola Cairncross releases The Money Gym Listmania guide to surviving & thriving in a Credit Crunch.  View your copy here >>>

If you want to find out more about how it came about, Wikipedia describes a credit crunch thus…..

“A credit crunch is a sudden reduction in the availability of loans (or “credit“) or a sudden increase in the cost of obtaining a loan from the banks. There are a number of reasons why banks may suddenly increase the costs of borrowing or make borrowing more difficult. This may be due to an anticipated decline in value of the collateral used by the banks when issuing loans, or even an increased perception of risk regarding the solvency of other banks within the banking system. It may be due to a change in monetary conditions (for example, where the central bank suddenly and unexpectedly raises interest rates or reserve requirements) or even may be due to the central government imposing direct credit controls or instructing the banks not to engage in further lending activity…..”  READ MORE HERE >>>

Is A Property Boom The Death Of Entrepreneurialism?

This week I posted a blog posting picked up from another site, about whether the property boom had meant the death of entrepreneurialis

Read it here >>

The author seemed to be putting forward the view that entrepreneurs had been getting lazy and flocking to the property market – they put their premise forward thusly…

“The net effect of this (property) boom has been one where the incentive to become truly entrepreneurial was significantly reduced – why try and create a new product or service if there was a guaranteed high return from property development? Similarly, from an investment point of view, why consider any other investment opportunity if there was a perceived guaranteed high return from property development?”

Interesting how they slipped that “perceived” in the second sentance eh?  Do they mean that the return being gurarnetted

Let me give you a bit of context for my fascination for this….

In 2003 I bought my hotel The Acacia.  Property investment and business in one I thought.  A big TICK x 2 on the Lanes of The Wealth Highway.

I created an E-Myth’d business, one which would run without me, whereas I could market the place from anywhere in the world. Which was based in a building that would appreciate in value.

Then I met Andy Shaw and Greg Ballard, no strangers to business or property themselves.  They started to come to a lot of our Money Gym events at The Acacia and we used to spend time in the breaks in the back garden, because some of their team smoked in those days, and we could talk to Steve (the Manager / Chef at the time) through the kitchen window while he prepared his latest sumptuious feast for the clients.

I’ll never forget the day, when one of them uttered the following immortal words ….

“Of course, this place will never make you a good enough return in terms of profit, to make up for how much effort, worry and risk you have put into this place”.

They were not being unkind, just honest, and they knew what they were talking about, because they had had a big business;  two factories, over 100 staff who got up in the morning to cause them grief, over 100 pieces of equipment and a fleet of vans that did likewise.  They realised that, in their first property deal, they had made more profit than they had made in half a year in their business.

So they sold the business and went into property.

They suggested I sell the hotel business and concentrated on the virtually virtual coaching company The Money Gym, my internet marketing activities and property investing – but focusing on simple little one bedroom flats.

I was in a hurry to get out now, becuase the scales had fallen from my eyes in terms of the best use of my time and efforts.

Then I discovered the other problem – that Andy and Greg had also experienced – nobody wanted to buy my business when I wanted to sell it.  Or perhaps I didn’t know how to go about selling a hotel business properly.

And there were other people’s jobs depending on me – you can’t just walk away from a business if there are othere people working in it – your employees.  You have a responsibility.

Grim.

Anyway, with time it all resolved itself – not easy but we got there.

Because at the end of the day, as I never tire of saying, wealth creation is a simple matter of deciding where your best return on investment is, and putting your money, time (which is money) and efforts there. If you don’t know how to work out your return on investment (ROI) here’s one of my previous articles on the subject, which tells you how to work it out, and how to compare different opportunities, and make chalk like cheese for the purpose of comparing different opportunities.

Aye, but, here’s the rub.

We all have our personalities and emotions to deal with and that can muddy the waters.

We find that our Money Gym Gold clients

have distinct preferences about which one or two Lanes of the Wealth Highway they want to work with first.

Analytical people like the idea of the Stockmarket, women are always keen on property and often have a business idea (or existing business / self employed venture going already) while techie and marketing types are drawn towards the internet Lane.

The skill in the early days, as their coach, is in finding out if that is, indeed, their fastest route to the money, as Judith would say.

Because our main goal in The Money Gym is that we want them to recoup their investment as quickly as possible, then go on to create oodles of cash so that they can re-invest it and create more cash, and re-invest it………..you get the idea.

And here is where I get back to the point – hurrah!

We want them to do it as quickly and easily, and effortlessly as possible.

Because why would you want to flog your guts out creating something new, and trying to bring it to market, when you can make pots of cash from following a tried and tested system, a step by step process, one that is proven to work, with colleagues alongside you, and mentors who have gone before, to hold your hand and stop you making painful and costly mistakes?

Why would you go it alone?

I suspect the article was written by a “Creator” in Roger Hamilton’s “Wealth Dynamics” and as one myself (Creator / Star profile moi!) I can almost sympathise.

Almost, because I wasted 38 painful, poor years, trying to create a new business, and bring it to market.

I now harness my creativity into making money out of thin air, created great win/win deals, helping others to create wealth, and finding new ways to make our marketing better.

Who said wealth creation had to be hard work?

And unless your business can create a better return than the property market, why would you go there?  Current blips notwithstanding, the property market appreciates at an average of 10% per annum and the more sophisticated investors create an infinity return on their investment.

Most businesses don’t even break even.

Now, I can hear howls of protest from Judith in the distance (takes a while for sound to travel from Streatham to Shoreham) so I will finish up by saying that we are not anti-business in The Money Gym.

But we are anti-hard work.

So bring us your business idea and we will help you shape it into something that will run happily alongside your property empire building.  We will help you harness the power of the internet to market your business automatically, and then, only when you have nothing to do, will we let you look at the stockmarket.

Unless you want to start there, of course!

Client led coaching, with laser like focus, with a right old boot up the bum, that’s The Money Gym.

Come join us!

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/Gold

PROMOTION:

Talking of whom, one of the supermodels of the property investing world, Greg Ballard, will be joining us tomorrow to tell us how to get an infinity return on your investment.

Then I will be sharing how to make money from property without buying any.

Then Maria Davies, another star of the property world, will be showing us what she’s buying, and sharing how to buy a luxury holiday home in the Caribbean AND create a monthly income, for just £1000.

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/MGPresents/property2.htm