Retirement Incomes

Here are 10 ways to think like a successful blogger.  

1.Stay Positive

Staying positive is one of the most important things you can do.  It makes your brain work better. Negative thoughts make us dumber not smarter. Negative thinking has the effect of shutting down the power of your subconscious mind. 

Positive thinking has the  effect of opening the power of the subconscious mind. If you want to be a suuccessful blogger you need to think like one. You need to be positive all the time if possible.

2. Affirmations

I like affirmations. Affirmations are postive statements.  You can actually change your own thinking for the better by repeating affirmations. 

Affirmations are my love language. They may be yours too.  If so you will benefit greatly from repeating affirmations.  I believe affirmations work.  I did an experiment once where I repeated affirmations that had to do with winning the lottery. You would think that you would have little control over winning the lottery.  However, after 7 days I won $10 spending only one dollar per day.  The odds were that it would take 100 days to win one time. I beat that by 93 days.

Some of my affirmations were like: I always win lottery money.  Winning comes easily to me.  I am a natural lottery winner.

To me this shows the power of changing your thoughts with affirmations. I don’t believe I would have won any money without using the affirmations.

Bloggers could use statemtnts like “I am a successful blogger.” ” I am making $1000 a month blogging.” These affirmations will improve your thinking . That will improve your results.

3. Daily Goals

Using daily goals is a very powerful technique for focusing your mind.  It helps you get things done by keeping clear specific goals in your mind.  Write them down. That has power to make them even stronger in your mind. This is one of the most amazing simple ways to keep focused and get things done.

Your daily goals could be related to three main areas.  They could pertain to things you do before you get taffic, during, and after you get traffic on your site.  Keyword research could be one thing you do before you get traffic.  Put that somewhere on your daily goal list.

4. Write Regularly

One way to write more is to set a time to write every day.  That does not work perfectly for me because my work schedule is irregular.  So I get as close as possible to a regular schedule. Perfection is not always possible. So be flexible in your sheduling if necssary.

Another thing is to have a set place to write.  You could also have a set number of words to write each day. It could be a daily goal or a goal for every day that you write.

Write about something that you are passionate about. That passion will keep you going when things get tough.

5. Read Regularly

Reading regularly will help give you ideas for your blog and will help you keep up with icurrent ssues.I love to read but sometimes I seem to not have time to read, So I deided to give myself a goal of reading so many minutes every day.

That should help.  I am giving myself permission to do something I love to do in order to make sure it gets done.

Reading will help fill your mind with ideas and information that you can use in your blog.

6. Keep Learning

It would be a good idea to set aside time for learning new things.  This will help keep you egaged and develop new skills.  Those new skills will help you make more money.  You can literally turn new ideas into CASH.

7. Make Lists

It is a good idea to make lists of things to do each day.  That will help keep up with everything that need to be done.

Make a list of 6 items or less.  More than 6 items is usually too much to get everything done in a day.  Prioritize your items on your list.  I use letters to let me know what is the top priority.  A is most important or urgent.  B is less important or urgent. “C” is next important and so on.

8. You “Can Do It” Attitude

Having a “you can do it” attitude will go a long way in helping you get through tough times when they come. Never give up your blogging dreams. You know it will take time to reach your dreams and make them a reality.  Believe you can and you will be half way to your goal.

9. Plan Ahead

Planning your topics in advice will make your writing come easier. You could even do a series of blog posts on closely related topics.  This will make your research go faster and farther. 

10. What to Do When You Get Stuck

There will be times when you may get stuck. You just don’t know what to do next. One thing you cvan do is to take a short break of a day or two.  Another thing you can do is to work on something that you find easier at the moment. Then you can go back to your problem that made you feel stuck.

Something else you can do is to ask for help.  You can find answers to questions online or or in books or a friend.  Look for help anywhere.  I recently was overwelmed by the number of emails I had.  I googled my question and found a helpful answer.  Ahh! Now I fell better. I have fewer emails too.

Good luck with your blogging.  One outstanding place to get training for blogging is Wealthy Affiliate.  Please see my review at Wealthy Affiliate.

Please comment below or ask questions. I will be happy to answer them.

If you like this please use the social media buttons below Thanks.

I recently came across an article that gives you an idea of where you stand in preparing for retirement.  It is “The Average Retirement Savings by Age” by Tim Parker. A 2015 Government Accountability study found that those between 55 and 64 have only $104,000 in retirement savings. That is far from enough to retire.  This should be a wake up call for people at different ages.

20s 

If you are in your twenties you have about $16,000 if you are in the median. That means have have more than half and half have less. Twentysomethings are dealing with student loans and starting salaries.  It is hard to save a lot.

I advised a man in his 20s to put 10% of his income into a retirement fund.  Then aim to make 10% a year on average.  That would lead to a million dollar retirement fund in 40 years.  I estimate that he has well over a half a million dollars now. He showed me his check stub and I saw he eally is putting away 10% and has been for 30+ years.

30s

If you are in your 30s you may have median savings of $45,000. Some of your issues are buying a house for example.  It is hard to save when you have just bought house.  Although if you are focused you can do a lot better than if you are not focused. Having clear wriiten goals make a big difference. My son is focused now on paying off his house early. He has a chart posted in the kitchen with a target date of 4 years.  That is one of the smatest things he could do. 

Pay early by paying 10% extra each month and make sure the extra is applied to principle not interest. Banks are known to make mistakes in this.

40s

The median savings for this group is only $63,000. This group is really behind. You may have student loans paid off now. If so put that money into retirement savings.  Start an IRA if you don’t already have one. You can save money and save on taxes at the same time. It is time to step up your savings rate.

50s

This group should have about $240,000, but actualkly only has $117,000. An income of $60,000 should allow a higher savings rate. Put away as much as possible for retirement here. You may be near your peak earning years so take advantage of that.

60s 

This group has a median savings of $172,000. That number may sound good but a $60,000 income would require about $360,000 to retire. You are getting close to that possible retire date so save as much as possible now.

I was in my 60s when we received some inheritance money.  We saved almost all of it and paid off the mortgage too.

Also remember social security. To get the maximum you would have to make $106,000 and wait to age 70.. The average recently was $1368 according to an article in Motely Fool.

Bottom Line.

Remeber it is never too late to start saving for retirement.  It is also never too early to start saving for retirement. So take action NOW no matter what age you are.

I came across an article online about themes that help you build your email list. Building an email list is a big deal because it helps your readers stay in touch with you if they are interested in what you have to offer. The article is called “25+ Powerful WordPress Themes Designed to Grow Your Email List” 

Decisions

Focus Pro

I am in the process of trying to decide which one I want to try.  Right now I am thinking seriously about “Focus Pro”.  It is simple but it has lots of options for customizing. It has a newsletter sign up form to the right. It is a reponsive theme. It is on the Genesis framework.. It allows for custom text, social media icons, custom menus, custom backgrounds. It has 3 color schemes and 6 different layouts. It is $99.95 total.

Just Landed

Another I am considering is “Just Landed”.  As the name suggests it is a landing page theme.  It allows for a/b testing of different landing pages so you can see which one performs the best. This is important to help you build your list faster. It also offers feature lists, testimonials, pay icons, social media icons, It allows you to easily integrate your mailing list with Aweber and Mailchimp support. It has very good customer service. This one is listed at $58.

Balance

This is another simple theme on the Genesis framework.It is balanced. It has a newsletter sign up form. It is priced at $79.97

As you can see there are many other options.  Some are even free.  Others are of the countdown variety to a new site .going live. I reccomend you read the original article for more details if you are interested.

If you are intested in building a good money-making website I suggest you see my review of Wealthy Affiliate.

Please comment on this if you will. I believe this will be helpful.

Share this on social media too. Thanks for reading this. I am trying help you retire richer.

I searched for paberback books on blogging and here is one of my favorites.

My Blogging Secrets: A Guide to Becoming a Pro-Blogger.

by Amber L. McNaught         $12.99 pb

I wrote about my experience signing up for Amazon Associates (affiliate program. Here I want to write about my experience with setting up the affiliate link.

First I clicked on the Become an Affiliate line at the bottom of the page after clicking on amazon.com. Next I entered the tittle of the book for which  I wanted to create a link. That was the book title above starting with “My Blogging Secrets.”

I found I needed to include the author on the search line on the Associates Cenral page. This will narrow down the list.  Each book or product will have it’s own code.  My code for my website is already included in the code. After I found the book there were was a lfew lines of code.  I clicked on the HTML orange button at the bottom of the code. This highlights the code.

The next step is to copy the code and paste it into the website page. To copy the code I held the control key and then pushed the C key. This copies the code. (I was afraid I might have retype all of the code. That was not the case.)

The next step I did was to go to my website page. Then I held the Control key and then hit V key. I placed it at the bottom of my page of my post on my blog. 

The lines of code were placed on my blog post page.Everything looked ok at this point.At one time there was image and text of the “My Blogging Secrets” book on my page. It said shop now.  I clicked on the shop now button.  I did buy the book.by the way. But the image and text disappeared.  I am still working on how to get a text link to stay on my page.

This will have to be continued on another post.I just tried the text code that is at the bottom of the page and it worked. Harrah. It went the the detail page for this book.

You can order My Blogging Secrets from Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod… Enjoy the book.  Please comment on this article or ask questions etc. Thanks.

I took the plunge for the second time and signed up with Amazon to be an affiliate. The idea is to earn commissions for referring people to Amazon to buy books I review on my website.

The process is simple

The process was fairly simple. I like that you do not have to be approved by a third party.

Persistence will pay

I learned to keep trying. I signed up for another website. I did not make any sales. It was my own fault for not putting my store ID code on the first website. Haha. Persistence will pay off though..

My Strategy is simple

My strategy is to review books that are already selling well for well known authors. That is not my only strategy, but it is a big part of it.

Five steps to Being an Amazon Associate

1. Fill out the forms. Put in your website name and your own name. Get your store Id code to put on your website. Use only alphabets and numbers, no hyphens etc.

2. Answer questions about how you advertise.  Offline, social media etc.

3. Answer questions on how and where to send payments.

4. Verify your ID. add your telephone number. You get a call to get your PIN number. Enter your PIN number.

5. Earn.  You have 180 days. If you have no earnings by then your sign up will be discontinued. Do not worry . You can try again with a different website. You can have up to 50 websites.

Amazon is #1

Amazon is the #1 retail website. It is trusted. Becoming an Amazon Associate is a good place to start. Amazon has millions of products to sell.  As you help promote different products, you get commissions for sales.  It is a win win. Focus on the type of products you like and understand. Don’t focus only on the money you will make.

Wealthy Affiliate is #1 High Paying Program

Another program that is high paying is Wealthy Affiliate. It pays over $100 average commission and is very high quality. You should check it out. You will be sorry if you don’t.

Do you want to know how to buy low and sell high when inesting in stocks or mutual funds? I discovered a book by Robert Lichello on how to make money in the stock market and reducing risk by taking emotion out of the process. His book is called “How to Make $1,000,000 in the Stock Market Automatically”.  It is available online for $5.99 on Amazon.

It is natural to want to buy when stocks are going up.  We also tend to sell when they are going down. This is the opposite of what we need to do to make real money in stocks or mutual funds

Mr Lichello lost a lot of money in the 1970’s during the worst recession since the Great Depression. He and many others lost about 50% in a two year period. That is what led him to write this book. There had to be a better way. Well he found it.Back testing showed very good results from Lichello’s method.

In simplest terms you buy more when the price goes down and buy less when the price goes up.  This leads to paying a lower than average price.

Eamples of how it works

Start with portfolio of $10,000 

Start with cash reserves of $10,000

Start with stock price of $10

Stock price goes to $8  the next month. Total value is $8,000. Add 10% which makes $8,800. Take $10,000 – $8,800

=$1,200. Since this is a postive number you need to add $1.200 worth of stock at $8 a share.which is 150 shares.

The next month the stock goes to $13. The stock is worth $13,000.

 Take away 10% or $1300 = $11,700  $10,000 $10,000-$11,700 = -$1700. 

Since this is negative number it is sending a sell signal.  

You need to sell $1700 worth of stock or 131 shares (approximately).

Each buy or sell signal is based on a + or – 5% change in price.

Back-testing results

I read an online article on Robert Lichello’s book with back -testing of stock prices. He used a period from January 2000 tp July 2016. He selected an ETF that is commonly used (SPY) mimics the S & P 500.

He concluded the AIM did a good job of giving good buy and sell signals.  It was not perfect because it missed a sell signal in October 2007.  It was accurate on all other signals.

For details see the article in https://toughnickel.com “Back Testing the Robert Lichello Automatic Investment Managememt  (AIM) System for Timing the Stock Market.”

Please commemt if you would. I love to hear  commemts on these topics. Thanks.

I found a great book by Jeff Walker, internet millionaire.  He writes from experience. He provides a lot of value on making money on the internet. The book is called  “Launch.”

Zero to Six Figures in Seven Days

Chapter 1 tells about Jeff going from nothing (no income) to six figures in seven days. Wow!

He was desperate to make a change in his life. His wife was working long hours to support the family whle Jeff stayed home to take care of the kids. He had been working a long time about seven years to make a change. Finally one single click of the mouse changes his life forever. He sent one email, less than 50 words, to his subscribers to an email newsletter.

About 59 seconds after his mouse click he got his first sale.By the end of the week he had made over $34,000 –almost as much as he had ever made in a whole year at the corporate job he left

What he learned that day not only changed his family’s life but the lives of thousands of other people’s lives too.

He had started a business that made profits right off the bat. But he empasizes his is NOT a “get rich quick” book.

but Jeff says” The reality is this: The internet has completely changed the game for anyone who wants to have their own business. It’s now easier, faster, and cheaper to start and run a business than at any time in history.”

Later, Jeff actually made $106,000 in seven days.  His system of product launches was still working–and very well.

A Million Dollar Day

He went to a seminar in Dallas in 2003. There he met some people who are his friends to this day. He also discovered that not everyone was doing what he was doing.  No body was doing product lauches the way he was doing them.

He helped a friend use his system and he made a million dollars in one day. After that friend thanked him for his help publicly,. others began to ask him for his help.  He started a whole new business showing others how to do product launches the way he was doing them. He developed a Product Launch Formula traning course. His launch for that brought in over $600,000 in a week.

Wouldn’t you like to know more about this system? Would you like to know how you could use it, too.?

 Please send a comment if you want to know more.

This is where I want to talk about the best ways to invest money..  Specifically I want to talk about what I learned from Ken Roberts a $50 million dollar man  several years ago. He may be worth much more now.

World’s Most Powerful Money Manual

Ken Roberts wrote a powerful money manual 20 years ago (?). It was about commodity investing. I tried it for a short time.  Commodity markets move very fast. You can make money fast. You can also lose it fast.  Most people lose money.

My experience was that I used one particular strategy. That was to trade only the narrow sideways channel.  This is when a commodity has traded in a very narrow range for a long time. I set it up with a broker that I would buy at a certain price ( a breakout) out side of the narrow range.  I traded sugar first. It worked beautifully. I had a profit of $800 within 3 days.

The problem was I did not take my profits then. I waited and the profits disappeared.  My strategy worked but my inexperience and a little greed caused me to make a mistake by waiting.

My advice  based on my own experience is:

1.Don’t try this unless your tolerance for risk is high.

2. Don’t try this unless you can do your investing any time the markets are open. If you have a full time job you don’t have time for this.

3. My advice is the same for trading options. This is less risky than trading futures, but it still moves too fast for me.

4. Don’t invest money you can’t afford to lose.

5. Subscribe to a service that guides you in what to buy, and when to buy or sell.

I bought some books by Chuck Hughes world champion investor 7 years in a row. His people advised me not to do the options investing since I was still working. There was not time to watch everything.as closely as neceassary.

How to Always Make Money

Ken taught me that there is a way to always make money in inesting.  That way is to always be in stocks, bonds and gold. At leaset one of those is going UP all the time. This is very important information.

When the economy is good stocks go up.  When there is recession bonds go up.  If there is a crisis or high inflation gold will go up.

Advantages of Mutual Fund Investing

1. it gives you automatic diversification. You might be invested in a hundred companies instead of one or two. This reduces the risk if something unfortunate happens to one company.  You can’t lose everything.  You will be protected from disaster.

2. You can own a small piece of the best companies in America.

3. You do not have to watch closely the daily movements of your stocks etc.

4. You can invest a little at a time.  That way you will not be hurt as much by a sudden drop in the value of your stocks, bonds, or gold.

Dollar Cost Averaging

Dollar Cost averaging is where you buy stocks at as little as $50 per month every month. Dollar cost averaging has the advantage of allowing you to buy at a lower than average cost. I will demontrate that ihere.

In this example you invest $1000 each month for 4 months.

                 Price             Shares        Total

Jan 1          $20              50            $1,000  

Feb 1          $15              66.66       $1,000

Mar 1          $10             100           $1,000

Apr. 1           $18             55.55        $1,000

The total number of shares bought is 272.21. You have spent $4.000 total. But at $18 a share your holdings are worth $4,900. So you show a profit of $900 even though the price is lower than the price you started with. Yahoo! This is exciting , right?

Dollar Value Averaging

Dollar value averaging is where you invest a fixed amount of value every month.  This also has the advantage of investing at a lower than avarage cost but it goes one step better. 

So suppose you are investing $1,000 in value every month. So when the value goes uo one month you will invest less so that you reach yout target value without going over.. Here is an illustration.

Suppose you want to have $7,000 at the end of the year.  That means you are adding $583 in value every month. If it goes down to $400 you will have to add $766.  That is $583 plus $183 to bring the past months up tp to $583.

If the value goes up the next month to $766 then you will only add $400.

The advantage of this is that you are buying at lower cost AND you are buying more when the cost is lower.

  It is not as simple as dollar cost averaging.  You also may run out of money to invest if there is a long drawn out downturn. 

Summary and Conclusion

My favorite strategy is dollar cost averaging. The benefit is buying at lower cost. The other big benefit is the simplicity. The is the best option for most people.

Dollar value averaging is my second favorite strategy.  It helps buy at even lower cost than DCA and it helps you buy more at lower cost. This is the second best strategy for most people.

What is your favorite strategy? Have you used any of these? What kind of results did you get? Was this helpful?

Please comment below. I will answer as soon as possible. Thanks.