Committed

Committed I recently watched the documentary, Monumental, and Kirk Cameron stated that the pilgrims had a 500 year plan. I think I am looking ahead when I do my yearly goals! They were not just thinking about themselves and what they could get, they thought generational. They had a dream about starting something so great that would be a blessing for generations to come, and not just to get them some quick relief and prosperity. They wanted freedom to pursue a life they felt God called them to live. A huge number of them died and they all suffered unimaginable difficulties, but they were committed to what they felt was a just cause. I am glad that they did, because we have all reaped the benefits of their unselfish life. I look back at what they did and realize if I had to do it now with others, it looks impossible and the country would not be here now. Their failures put them in jail; cost them their lives and possessions. We are ready to quit after a little hiccup, but they tried again and again until they succeeded. Their failure eliminated the wrong way to do things. They did not give up when things were bad, really bad. They obviously didn’t adhere to the idea that the government will handle it! As a nation that has had, is having and will have tough times, we need to plan and work for a future that will be a blessing to us and others, instead a quick fix. We were started by people who took responsibility for their own lives and obeyed God and stuck to what they believed. We wait for a candidate to improve the economy instead of getting control of our finances and living on a budget. We don’t step out in faith and start a business or pursue work that stirs our hearts and fulfills our calling because we think it’s safer if you stick to a “secure job.” During this economy we have found out that your only safety is in your ability to produce. You have to leave the shore to find a new land when the old place is unbearable! If we want things to change we are going to have to do hard things, sacrifice and invest for the future, and not just our future. What do you want America to look like in 200 years? We have the ability to shape what our country looks like. A boat load of determined people shaped what our beginning looked like. The best time to plant an oak tree for shade was 50 years ago. The next best time to plant one is today! We may not get any shade from that tree but our children’s children might. I hope your great grandchildren have a wonderful country to live in. I also hope you wish the same for mine. How about let’s leave them with the same blessing we have had, a wonderful country where they are free to pursue what God has called them to do on earth. We will have to sacrifice but they will reap a great blessing. Just a few proverbs for wisdom; “In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has.” Proverbs 21:20 “The plan of the diligent lead surely to plenty, but those of everyone who is hasty, surely to poverty.” Proverbs 21:5 “Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6 “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” Proverbs 16:3 “A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children, but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.” Proverbs 13:22 “May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.” Psalms 20:4 I will be doing a free budgeting class, Checkbook checkup on October 6th. Let me know if you are interested. Let me know if I can help! Tim West Go West Coaching

Get started

Get Started To get anything accomplished in our lives we must have a starting point. Once we get started we must continue the journey. I have noticed getting started can be extremely hard at times. When working with people and their finances everyone wants to have a monthly plan to get control of their money, but we can always find an excuse or something else to do instead of a budget. It can be the same in losing weight or even cleaning the yard. All of these tasks can look overwhelming before we start but we will never finish them if we don’t start. We know if we don’t start we will not finish, that’s obvious. But that still does not motivate us to start, so we have to be reminded. If you are doing a budget it can take about three months to get all of the kinks worked out. When we hear that we tend to want to not get started. Or we think we can’t do a budget until we get more money to work with. We must start where we are at with what we have. Doing a budget for the first time can be a little time consuming. Most of the time we don’t know how much we spend in certain areas, this is why it takes about three months to get a budget to flow. If you are married sit down with your spouse and go line by line and put in an amount for the areas that you will need to spend money on for the month. Don’t panic if you don’t have enough money to go in all of the item categories. Feel free to download a budget here for free. If you run out of steam the first time you sit down, don’t panic, just pick back up later and continue. After about three months you can do your budget in about 15 minutes. Now remember the next most important thing in this process is tracking what you actually spend. This can be a part that is hard to follow up on but it is vital to get your finances under control. If you don’t know how much you are spending you will all ways chase your expenses and guess how much you spend. I suggest you pick one day a week and enter all that you spend in your budget and that will let you know how much you have left in each category to spend each week. If you like you can save all of your receipts and go through them weekly. Remember to just get started! You will never finish if you never start. I will be doing a free budgeting 101 workshop this fall. Let me know if you are interested. Let me know if I can help! Tim West Go West Coaching

Health Insurance

Health Insurance: You will get it and like it! Health insurance is a great thing to have and is much needed because of the cost of health care. The only thing that grows faster than health care costs is the national debt. With recent legislation it looks like we will get taxed if we do not have a government approved plan. If your employer offers health insurance you are limited to what they offer unless you go at it on your own. I have had to provide my own health insurance for the last 8 years. When you pay for your own insurance you learn more about health insurance than you can imagine. I generally have to shop for it every year to keep my rates as low as possible. You have several options such as a HMO, Health maintenance organization; it is a prepaid health plan. As an HMO member, you pay a monthly premium. In exchange, the HMO provides comprehensive health care for you and your family, including doctors' visits, hospital stays, emergency care, surgery, laboratory (lab) tests, x-rays, and therapy. You also have a POS, POS: Point-of-Service Plans Many HMOs offer an indemnity-type option known as a Point-of-Service or "POS" health care plan. The primary care doctors in a POS plan usually make referrals to other providers in the health plan. But in a POS plan, members can refer themselves outside the plan and still get some coverage. If the doctor makes a referral out of the network, the health care plan pays all or most of the bill. If you refer yourself to a provider outside the network and the service is covered by the health plan, you will have to pay coinsurance. PPO: Preferred Provider Organizations The preferred provider organization, or "PPO", is a combination of traditional fee-for-service and an HMO. Like an HMO, there are a limited number of doctors and hospitals to choose from. When you use those providers (sometimes called "preferred providers", other times called "network providers"), most of your medical bills are covered. And I will cover one more an HSA; this is a health savings account. This is a tax sheltered high deductible plan. I would recommend this one if you do not go to the doctor a lot and you cover your routine trips to the doctor out of pocket. One advantage to this is that you can save your deductible in a tax sheltered savings account and use it on approved health care expenses. I will not recommend which one you need but I will give you a few tips for helping you decide. Determine how often you and your family go to the doctor for routine care, if you have young kids or go to the doctor a lot an HSA may not be best for you. HSA’s, on most of them, cover 100% after you meet the deductible. Now to save on your premium and co-insurance amount, increase the deductible. The whole idea in insurance is if you take on more risk, or pay more, you will not have to pay the insurance company as much money. In health insurance you have to deal with your maximum out of pocket expenses or in their lingo the stop loss. This is the maximum out of pocket you will pay. Like the 80/20 plan. They pay 80% you pay 20% maximum of your medical expenses. If you increase the 20% to 30% you premiums will be lower. So decide what you and your family needs. Pick an independent agent that has the heart of a teacher. Make sure you understand what you are buying. When it comes to insurance you have to shop it often, I suggest yearly on health. They are like cable companies; new customers get the best deals. The new health care law has yet to be figured out completely other than it’s a tax. People often ask; when should I implement insurance in my financial plan? I suggest ASAP. Having insurance shifts the financial risk from you to the insurance company. If you do not have proper insurance it can cause a huge financial burden or even bankruptcy. Email me any questions or comments you may have. Thanks for reading. Let me know if I can help! Tim West Go West Coaching

Life Insurance: What do I need and how much?

Life Insurance: What do I need and how much? Insurance is that thing you spend money on every month and see no results, until there is an accident! The only time we appreciate insurance is when they do what they are designed to do, protect us from risk. Insurance transfers the financial risk from you to the insurance company. Proper insurance is very important. If you do not have proper insurance you might have a huge bill that will cause you financial difficulty or even bankruptcy. I will discuss different types of insurance in several blogs. Today we will talk about life insurance. Life insurance is one of those things we put off until we realize we will die one day. It is not as pressing as automobile and home insurance because you are not required by law to have life insurance. We need to view life insurance as taking care of our family or loved ones, financially, after we are gone. The goal of life insurance is to replace you financially when you die. There are two types of life insurance, term-life and whole life, also called cash value or universal life. Term life is for a specified amount of time, it is cheaper and it has no savings plan built into it like whole life. Now, whole life, cash value, or universal gives you a payout when you die but it also has a savings plan built in to it as well. It costs more monthly because you are saving in the process. I never recommend whole life, universal, or cash value unless you cannot get any term life. Insurance sales people will tell you that you can convert it so you can have permanent life insurance. You don’t need permanent life insurance if you have a solid financial plan and save and invest through good mutual funds and Roth IRA’s and not cash value insurance. You should be able to self-insure if you save and invest throughout your life. The reason why so many insurance sales people push whole life is because it pays them quite well or they don’t understand what they are selling. I prefer using term life. The goal with term life is to buy it for 10, 20, or even 30 year term. You should get 8-10 times your annual income. The reason for 8-10 times is because you can invest that whole amount and get a 10% annual return and replace your income. Example- if you make 50,000.00 a year you would get 500,000.00 in term life insurance. If you were to die your loved ones would get the 500,000 and invest it at 10% annual return, which would be 50,000 a year. You would have replaced your income if you were to die and your family would be able to financially continue on. A 35-40 year old can get 500,000 for 30-40 dollars a month. Most people will tell you that you cannot get 10% returns on an investment, but the average return for the stock market is almost 12% over the last 75 years. You have to take some time and make an effort to get the results you want. You may ask why not whole life if they can make 12%? The returns are historically low on cash value insurance. They have a lot of hidden fees and costs. That’s why it’s a good deal for them when you buy it. They may make the 12% but you get only get 3- 5%. If you have cash value insurance when you die, and let’s say it is a 50000.00 policy; when you die lets say you have built up 65,000 in the account, you get 50,000.00 they get the rest. Not a bad deal for them. They use your money to make money for them. Like I said the only time to get whole life is if you cannot get term. I recommend buying only term for you and your spouse. If you have children only get enough to cover funeral costs. Let me know if you have any questions. Also be sure you buy from an agent who can fully explain the product you are buying so you fully understand it. Let me know if I can help! Tim West Go West Coaching

Money Problem If we are having a money problem do we need more of what we are having a problem with? Would it be like being in a tornado and wishing a strong wind would come along and blow the tornado out? Sure if we were having money problems and someone gave us a lump sum amount of cash it would help out temporarily. But I have said this along with others, if I ever get out of this situation I will never let it happen again. Then some time later we find our self in a similar situation. So how do we change a money problem or any problem in our life and not return? With a plan! We most of the time get into these situations by not paying attention to what we are doing and follow the banks financial plan they have for us. So I suggest that we learn how to handle a little money and manage it so we can learn how to handle a lot. If we cannot handle a small amount and do irresponsible things with it, we will just do it on a larger scale with more money. If you are having problem weather its money or something else make a detailed plan and start from where you are at and determine where you want to go. It’s just like unpacking a suitcase, one item at a time. Sit down and spend every dollar you have on paper and follow your plan out. Get yourself in good shape so you can handle more if you get it. Remember it’s a life style not something you will just do for a few months. Let me know if I can help! Tim West Go West Coaching

Tough Times or Learning Opportunity

Tough Times or learning opportunity If you are human you go through tough times and problems. Dozens of books have been sold with techniques and principles to help you avoid them. But, somehow we still have tough times no matter what advice we follow. If you are a Christian, like me, we sometimes have been led to believe that if we try hard enough or believe more we will be rescued from trouble and tough times. In the book, When Hard times come, Dudley Hall says God doesn’t offer escape as His solution to difficulty, but rather grace. The grace provided through the gospel of Jesus Christ embraces trouble and transforms it into a display case for Gods glory. That is one thing I need to do is embrace trouble and learn to grow from its training. We should look at our tough times as training; instead we view them as an obstacle we cannot get over and begin to count it as an injury and walk with a limp. We make excuses such as; I will save money when I make more. I will look for work I like better, when the job market improves. If you listen to the news as your indicator of when things get better they never will. Bad news makes the headlines juicier. We think everyone who has reached the levels we want to reach did it without many problems. Something encouraging, for me, was Dan Millers Living Loving Working, Dan and Joanne share a lot of problems they faced that prepared them for what they do today. I want to encourage you to look at the problems you have today and recognize that no matter how long you have been going through them that you are getting the strength to handle the success you have been dreaming of your whole life. Another thing I have to recognize is that you are either going into a trial, in the middle of one or coming out of one. Professional athletes don’t have to get in shape one time for their whole career; they have to do it every year and battle through the injuries. Don’t just focus on the problem but on where you are going. If we focus on the problem, that is all we see and it becomes an idol. Keep on keeping on and learn from your tough times. Also share them, it helps us who are going through similar issues and gives us hope!! As Dennis Peacocke says “Power is guarded by Problems.” "The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears." Let me know if I can help! Tim West Go West Coaching

Inflation and National Debt (The quick and easy version)

Inflation and National Debt

We hear about inflation and the national debt so much in the news and on news talk shows that we get to where we tune it out and assume we understand what they are talking about. We also may not care what they are talking about and just worry about what is going on in our own little world. I will try not to bore you with too much nerdy information but hopefully explain it better than the news. I will start with inflation first.  Inflation is an increase in the amount of money.  At first glance that doesn’t sound too bad.  Inflating the supply of money seems like it would be a good thing because a lot of us could use more cash.  When we inflate, or print more money we are actually making each dollar go down in value. It would be like adding air to a tire. It looks bigger but it will burst easier because it has less integrity.  When money goes down in value you will need more of it to buy the things you want. Prices rise as a result. When more money is printed you need more of it to buy things because money has less value.  The way we do things now is print more money whether we have gold in the bank to back the money.  When the government wants more, like they always do, they inflate money to get what they want and we re-elect them to reward them for devaluing the money.   Therefore if worse comes to worse you could use your paper money to start a fire to stay warm because it has no precious metal backing it. But if things were that bad I would not trade a loaf of bread for a bar of gold.  So save your money and don’t spend all you have. Hopefully our country will wake up and act responsible.  If money becomes worthless you can use it as kindling.  If you would like to learn more about inflation go to this website. http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

Now all of our wants and bail outs by the government have led to a huge national debt with the help of inflating the dollar. The national debt is almost 16 trillion. That is 16,000,000,000,000.  We have heard this number so much it sails right by our dock and never unloads.  When we use the number trillion, it sounds like we are studying space, not money. In his book, What ever happened to penny candy Richard J. Maybury explains it. He says, imagine Columbus when he discovered America. As soon as he stepped ashore he would have had to begin borrowing money at a rate of 20,000.00 per minute and by the year 2010 he would still not have borrowed enough to reach the national debt. (It was 12 trillion at the time he wrote this.)    I still stay it is very important to live on less than what you make or you will have what we have to day, 16 trillion in debt and no plan to get out. Let me know if I can help! We can help our national debt by electing people who want to pay it off.

Tim West

Go West Coaching