Now to Improve Your Financial Life in 5 Minutes

We meet so many people in our daily life who keep on complaining about how difficult it is for them to even think about getting their financial issues straightened out. No need to spend too much time or need to do any hard planning, what you need to do is just spare 5 minutes to take necessary actions to get your financial life back on track.

It is important to understand the basic secret that one need to devote some time to each of the financial issues on a constant basis and this will make sure that that slowly and steadily your financial life gets back on track. Here some of the simple 5 minute examples have been listed which will help you to regain your control on your financial life.

1. Remember to balance the checkbook on a daily basis: - With people relying on the online banking; they usually forget if they have issued any checks. People have become lazy and they don’t want to take time to check on the status of their issued checks. You need to make sure that none of your checks get bounced and you end up paying an additional fee for the bounced fee. But apart from this spending 5 minutes on online banking will ensure that you are going overdraft on your account and using your account in an appropriate way.

2. Always remember to cross check your bills before making payment: - With the increasing busy life, people don’t get time to even stop and check their bills and the amount they are paying for. They fail to check if the bill is accurate or not. It is important to remember that computers are not always reliable and even they can make mistakes. This is not limited to, your medical bills, but even your regular bills require attention from your end to ensure that you are not being overcharged. There are recurring charges involved with mobile phone and even cable bills, so it is important to ensure that you are spending at least 5 minutes to check on your bills.

3. If you have invested in mutual funds, check investment fees: - One needs to remember never to go just by the word of mouth or even recommendation from the friends to buy mutual funds. These funds can charge in different way to affect your overall returns and its possible that can end up with unexpected returns in negative way, hence it required you to spend 5 minutes of your time to understand the fund policy.

4. Always question yourself before overspending: - There are times when we see a new product in the market and get excited to purchase it. But, stop for 5 minutes and think if you really need the product, do you have any use of it, is there any other item which offers the same features. It is important not to spend on anything that you will regret later on.

It is always important to ensure that you keep a track of your investment and keep a regular check on it. Don’t keep any investment in your mind; keep a set record to check regular changes in the investment. It is said that prevention is better than cure, so it is important to take time out to consider these actions to avoid adding to your current financial problems.

Are You Monetarily Ready For Your Retirement?

It is important to remember that once you are reaching the retirement stage, you should manage your income goals through your current portfolio and make your money last for as long as possible. There are many tactics that can help in securing your future in terms of finance and some of them are given below

1.One should make sure that they create a balance between their debts and the savings


2. People can contact authorities to check any means of retirement pension so they can adjust their expenses according to that. This way you will be able to invest your savings into funds, bonds and other methods of increasing the amount.


3. Another means will be to invest in insurance policies which will complement your social security and other 401 (k) saving plans. There are investors will be ready to take your lump sum amount and give you directions for investing the money in the right way.

Why money is so important in retirement?
 
Today, everything is depending on money, if you want to go to the supermarket; you need money, if you want medical care; you need money. When you reach the age of retirement, it is important that you have saved money aside for this time. Retirement is not a phase, but it will extend for a very long time and you will face many situations wherein you might get a question in your mind- “Have I saved enough”?

Before you can develop any strategy for your retirement, there are some important rules that play a very important role.

Understand what will be your monetary requirements:
 
Industry and financial experts that they a person should save at least 80% of their current income towards their retirement. But is this really possible? There are people who end up spending more than what they earn and instead of saving they end up in debts. On the other side, there are people who spend less than what they earn and they will be able to save way more than what will be required for retirements. The best thing to do will be to keep a track of the yearly expenses.

Amend your future needs:
 
When it comes to retirement, nothing goes as planned. It is vital to consider every side of finance. There will be expenses in every part of the life, expenses will keep on getting added every day and there will be expenses that will no longer burden you. Expenses related to your commuting, work and mortgage will no longer be an issue, but travelling, medical care, supporting family members and home care will become an added cost to your retirement funds.

Understand the future expenses and income:
 
Once you know an approximate amount that will be required in the future, planning towards it, is important. There are various sources of income like pensions, social security, investments, income through renting your home, etc.,. The general rule of thumb is to multiply 25 with the income you get every year to understand a retirement income.

Life never goes as thought, it is vital to consider unexpected expenses and events while calculating finance after retirement.

Bank of Japan about to Bring Trillions of Dollor into Their Economy

If reports have to be believed, the bank of Japan is expected to bring in $705374400000 per year in their financial system and this is primarily through buying of government bonds. This can be considered as one of the measures to fight against the rising threat of deflation in the country. According to the Japanese policymakers they are planning to invest more in the Japanese economy; this has not only come as a surprise but also brought out happiness among the international investors.
What is the plan?

According to Haruhiko Kuroda, who is the bank’s governor, policymakers have tried every trick to avoid facing deflation again and they want to make sure that the same can be avoided for a long period as it has affected the Japanese economy for decades. Policymakers will try to do everything possible to tackle deflation.

The Bank of Japan has completely has taken a U-turn and increase response towards their quantitative easing (QE) programme and looking for further expansion. This is a week after the US Federal Reserve had made the announcement that it is the correct time for the bond-buying programme. The central bank in Japan was before bringing in about $525085800000 to 612600100000, in their economy and this has indicated a halved growth according to the forecast.

What was the impact? 

If the effect of the increases Sales tax from 5% to 8% in April is removed, the yearly inflation came down by 1% in September which is exactly half the target which was set by the central bank. Further, they are expecting inflation to come down due to the decreasing price of the oil and also the decrease in the spending from the consumers due to increase sales tax.

Although this move from the central bank is considering the Japanese economy, there decision indicated a floating international market and thereby affecting the value of the Yen which saw near-seven-year low when compared to the US dollar.

This decision also impacted the Asian markets, which closed at a higher rate and this was due to the Japan’s Nikkei 225 index which showed an increase of 4.8%. With the all the indices showing an upward trend which included UK’s FTSE 100, again up by 1%, investors around the world has a lot to cheer about. If reports have to be believed the value of the US dollar against the Yen was at 1 dollar= 111.53 yen and this was the highest value reported for the US currency since 2008.

According to a global economist, Anna Stupnytska at Fidelity Worldwide Investment, the decision of the Bank of Japan to expand their monetary easing programme came as a surprise which added to the fact as it was just weeks after Federal bank’s decision to end their quantitative easing.

But she also stated that on a broader spectrum, this actually doesn’t resolve the decreasing growth expectations on a long term basis, which is the main reason behind the decreasing wage growth and negative investments. Monetary policies are a short term answer to the current economical issues, but can’t be considered as a permanent solution.

Will The Eurozone Inflation Lower The Deflation Concerns?

According to the EU statistics agency, “Eurostat”, they made a first estimate that in the month of September, there was an increase of annual inflation of 0.3% when compared to 4% last month. This was very close to the target set by the European Central Bank of about target marking of 2%. This inflation was actually pushed by the increasing service sector prices, higher prices for food, tobacco products and alcohol prices. There was a marginal decrease in the energy prices when we compare the October month to that of September.

Decrease in the core inflation: 

When it came to core inflation, which has a higher effect on the food and energy prices saw a fall in the percentage, the core inflation came down from 0.8% to 0.7% in October. Eurozone inflation saw a slight increase in the month of October but the market economists have already raised an alarm that this will only help the policymakers slightly to defend themselves against the single currency bloc deflation.

According to Martin van Vliet, an economist at ING, even a slight increase in the core inflation will definitely take off a bit of pressure of the policymakers who are working at the European Central Bank (ECB). Deflation risks in Eurozone might see issues with the decrease in the core inflation during the month of October. This will force the ECB to take preventive measures as they will see increased pressure.

Actions from the ECB: 

According to Martin, depending on the recent decrease in the commodity prices they are not anticipating an increase in pressure in terms of energy and food prices in the coming couple of months. However, they are certainly expecting a decrease in the pressure down the line.

Depending on the current scenario and the Eurozone economic growth losing its charm, pressure is sure to stay over the European Central Bank. The ECB has taken precautionary measures to tackle the sudden changes in the Eurozone economy and to prevent any further damage from the deflation to both consumers and businesses. There are chances where people might want to hold on to their purchase hoping for a decrease in price.

According to a senior economist at Berenberg, Christian Schulz, the current situation of the economy can further impact the change in the inflation. Berenberg is planning to discuss further methods of easing the pain in their upcoming meetings.

Unemployment: 

According to the reports published by Eurostat, the unemployment rate in the Eurozone remained at 11.5% in the month of September. As per the chief European and UK economist Howard Archer working at IHS Global Insight; even though there was a decrease in the number of unemployed people, the employment rate in the 3rd quarter of October 2014, was lower than September. The employment rate was dropping continuously in the month of September and this was credited to the current state of the economy and also the decreasing in the confidence of the businesses.

According to report there was a decrease of 0.2% in the German GDP as well as the slow growth rate of the Eurozone, and the recession was indicating prospects of growth. The current economical situation indicates that the Germans and Western continental Europe will have a pretty bad moment

While on one side Eurozone is lessening the monetary policy to battle against the deflation; the central bank of Russia has raised their key interest rates from 8% to 9.5% to fight against the inflation.

New Regulatory Guidelines for UK Banks on Risk Assessment

According to the reports the Banks in Britain are getting prepared for one of the most anticipated news at present. With the declaration of new regulatory guidelines from the Bank of England, all the banks are expecting that they might have to raise any extra capital to meet these guidelines.

This can have serious negative impact on the customers in terms of their cost of borrowing from the banks. Thread needle Street is expected to give out the details on the methods for setting leverage ratio and this will be given on Friday around 2PM GMT.

Leverage ratio is the method which measures the financial stability and strength of a particular brand, but this doesn’t allow the banks to carry out any assessments of the potential risks that they might face in the future.

Sir John Vickers, who chaired the independent commission on banking, in the year 2011 had recommended that having a 4% leverage ratio will allow the banks to able to borrow nearly 25 times more than the value of their assets.

This recommendation was not readily acceptable to the Government as they were looking for a more convenient ratio of around 3%. But still the Bank of England consulted others to determine the different means to measure the leverage ratio, they have analyzed if the bank need bigger lenders to hold their capital or they can rely on the smaller lenders as well.

They consulted as to how the banks can gain the ability to additional amounts depending on the market conditions. Although this is expected to take complete coverage in the next couple of years, but the lenders are pretty much ready to the leverage ratio of 4%. While the regulators United States of America have set the level as high as 6%, Switzerland has set a ratio of 4 percent for their banks.

According to George Culmer, the finance director at Lloyds’, he is expecting the leverage ratio is to start with 4% itself. At present Lloyds Banking Group has reached the leverage at 4.7% when compared to the 3.8% last year.

On the other hand Barclays Banks have managed to reach 3.5% and the Royal bank of Scotland is at 3.9%. All the high street banks are taking possible measures to reach the set leverage ratio. With the leverage ratio starting at 4%, one needs to worry about the pricing factor.

According to the British Bankers’ Association, they fear that this change might impact the banks first as they might be dealing with businesses having large mortgages.

This will have the impact in such a way that the banks might be forced to either increase the cost of new mortgages as well the risk taking ability of the banks. This seems to be going in exact opposite direction to what the makers of the policy have in mind.

This was the main reason which attributed to the change of high end societies to bank in the past couple of decades.