A Convenient Way to Buy and Sell Gold

There are many ways to get exposure in the precious yellow metal market. However, this article will tackle physical gold investments and not gold-backed ETFs or mining stocks.

Traditionally, people bought gold with the help of a broker. This is still being done today, and with it are the fees investors need to shoulder not only for the broker premium but also the shipping and storage costs of gold. Premiums for the precious metal can go as high as 15%. For coins, the lower the denomination of gold content in each coin, the higher the premium.

Germany is the second-largest gold holder in the world and those who keep themselves in the loop with gold news would be familiar with the fiasco the country experienced in 2013.

BullionVault reported that the country ordered a repatriation program for some of its reserves that are stored in the U.S. However, apart from political issues, one of the problems that the country is experiencing is the sluggish repatriation of its reserves. In 2014, which is after a year of the repatriation order, the U.S. was only able to return a trivial amount of 5 tons to Germany. If investors can’t get a hold of their gold fast when they need to, gold investments would lose its sense as a good hedge to a bad economy.

Thankfully, there’s a new way to buy gold today, and it’s cheaper and more hassle-free.

The physical gold and silver market for private investors online, more commonly known as the “Internet peer-to-peer bullion exchange market”, is a trading site for physical metal investors. Some of these sites strictly follow the regulations of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) – the center of the world’s trading of gold bullion – so investors can be assured that they’re only buying and selling good delivery gold. The Internet peer-to-peer bullion exchange market started in the UK and boomed in 2005. The good thing about this type of trade is that people can buy gold via the market and the provider will handle the shipping and storage fee of its customers. In addition, people won’t need to pay for high premiums since transactions are made directly between two people. It’s like being on Ebay where two people transact and after a deal has been reached, the site will direct both parties about the shipping and handling of the product.

Do you have reservations for the online trading of gold and silver? Have your say in the comments section below

12 Easy Ways to Make 2015 Your Best Money Year Ever

It’s 2015.

You’re excited for the New Year, the fresh start, and for conquering your goals.

But in previous years, you didn’t live up to your resolutions.

Last year, you worked hard for a month, maybe two. You made some progress, sure, but ultimately, you ended up losing interest or dropping your goal before you reached it.

You can shrug it off as the New Year’s resolution game that everybody plays. Nobody ever reaches their goals, right?

Wrong.

One Reason You Never Reach Your New Year’s Resolutions

There’s a funny force at play that prevents you from reaching your resolutions.

Sure, part of it’s laziness and lack of follow through on your part, if we’re being completely honest.

But that’s not the entire picture.

There is one big, fat reason that you never reach your resolutions and get to that final goal..

You’re thinking too big.

Yes, I know, BHAGs (big, hairy, audacious goals) are the new big thing and you should be reaching for the moon, blah blah blah.

It’s great to think long term, to think big and to have crazy goals. Challenging yourself is awesome, and everybody should do it.

But when you plan for an entire year – when you resolve to do something for 365 days, or stick to one thing for 12 months, you are setting yourself up for failure.

By setting New Year’s resolutions, you’re essentially saying that you’ll stick to these goals through thick and thin – hot and cold, vacations, down time, holidays, birthdays, and unexpected turns and events.

Is that realistic? No, not really.

So, how can you reach your financial goals without resolutions?

How to Set Goals You’ll Actually Reach

Just because you probably won’t stick to your New Year’s resolutions doesn’t mean you won’t ever be able to set goals you will reach.

There is a two-pronged approach to actually reaching your resolutions or goals:

1) Create a habit

2) Generate small-wins

Here’s how to do set these into place to ensure success in 2015 with your money goals:

1) So you want to actually reach your goals?

Hands-down, the best and only way to do it is to build habits around your goals.

If you don’t build habits, even if you reach your goal, you’ll slip down the slope of relapse again:

If you reach your goal of losing 10 pounds without creating better habits for good, you’ll gain it all back.
If you reach your goal of paying down $10,000 of debt without creating better habits for good, you’ll slip into debt again
If you reach your goal of saving $4,000 without creating better habits for good, you’re savings will remain at $4,000 forever.

With that in mind, the next step of generating small-wins and creating monthly goals has to be for the purpose of creating habits. For good.

2) You already know all about generating small wins, because you’ve read my article on Add Vodka about them.

If you haven’t, click on this link and have a read.

One great way to generate small wins and rock your money this year is by setting monthly goals. Something new to impelemnt as a goal each month that you can work toward over the course of the four weeks.

One month is short enough to be realistic but long enough to achieve something, generating a small win for yourself and keeping the momentum going. Plus, a month goes by and a habit begins.

Download the Suburban Finance 2015 Financial Resolution Worksheet by clicking here to get a list of goals I’d suggest for each month.

Don’t Forget to Reflect and Review

Too often, we get excited for the New Year and abandon the past year completely.

Instead of doing that, too, stop and reflect on the past year. Consider:

What did you accomplish?
What could you have done better with?
What key events impacted your finances the most throughout the year?
What does your financial snapshot look like now?

Doing these things will set your whole year up for improvement on the last, and you’ll know more about what you need to do to make the year the best yet.

I help you through these questions and more with this free workbook to make 2015 the best year ever!

Why You Shouldn’t Tap into Your Retirement Fund to Finance a Home

With easy, large home equity loans no longer an option for many homeowners, tapping into 401Ks and other retirement funds has become the way to finance large purchases or bills, including college tuition, medical payments, or even vacations. Many buyers also tap into retirement savings to increase down payments on homes, making it more possible to finance bigger mortgages during times that are less favorable for lending. According to CNBC, the IRS collected around $5.7 billion in early withdrawal penalties in 2011 alone, which means individuals withdrew a total of $57 billion from retirement funds in a single year. Financial experts are beginning to warn against using this tactic to fund home and other large purchases.

Tapping into Funds Decreases Value

The penalty for withdrawing from retirement funds before reaching the age of retirement is 10 percent. If you withdraw $20,000 for a down payment on a home, you’ll pay the IRS $2,000 in penalties for the year. That’s $2,000 lost from the value of your fund without any real return.

You can borrow from some retirement accounts without paying the 10 percent penalty, but that means borrowed funds are no longer invested in money-bearing accounts. In most cases, it takes years to repay large loans to your account. According to a study from TIAA-CREF, over half of individuals who borrow from retirement funds also reduce contributions to the fund while paying back the loan. Reasons for this include financial strains that caused the need for the loan in the first place or the fact that individuals reduce contributions because they are also making the loan payment. The overall impact to final retirement numbers can be thousands of dollars or more in lost interest.

Immediate Gratification Can Damage Future Financial Viability

Covering today’s needs with tomorrow’s money can damage future financial stability, especially for individuals who borrow from retirement funds later in life. Borrowing a substantial amount ten or fifteen years prior to retirement to fund a home purchase could put you in a situation where retirement payouts are not enough to cover mortgage payments, for example.

Is it Ever Okay to Tap into Retirement?

Some situations may be favorable for tapping into retirement, especially if you can borrow from your fund without incurring the 10 percent tax penalty. Using retirement to cover schooling that could substantially increase income potential might lead to a situation where you can increase your retirement fund quickly in the future. Younger individuals funding a home purchase with the help of retirement funds often have plenty of time to pay back the loan so there isn’t as large a final impact to retirement numbers.

It might also be a good idea to tap retirement funds in emergency situations where the alternative is bankruptcy, serious debt, or failure to take advantage of something like necessary medical treatments.

Planning Is Essential

Whether you’re leaving your retirement funds alone or thinking about tapping into them for today’s needs, planning is essential for success now and in the future. Find out more about investing for retirement to grow your funds for future stability or to make up for today’s spending.