Make Your Mind Work For You

By Christina Helwig

Your mind has two important control systems: the Conscious and Subconscious Mind. These areas control your everything you do, think, say and act on. They ultimately even control the results you have in your life. Understand that while these ideas may seem simple and easy to understand, they have a far reaching and profound affect on your ability to increase your income and change your life. They help dictate every aspect of what makes you who you are and will continue to control everything in your world until the day you die or until you choose to step up and take control of the way you think. The way you think is just as important as what you think.

The Conscious Mind is where you carry out your day to day thinking. This is where you make life choices and where you primarily go about your in normal life. When you talk to someone at work or you go to a store to buy stuff, you are using your conscious mind. Both the conscious mind and the subconscious mind think in little pictures or movies. If you think about your workplace a picture of it will flash on the screen of your conscious mind.

You also can only hold one picture on the screen of your mind at any one time. For example you cannot think of a banana and a watermelon in detail at the same moment. While you might be able to project them side by side you are not able to see the grain in the skin of the watermelon or the yellow in the peel off the banana at the same moment. You would ahve to blend the two together.

This ultimately means that you cannot think of a negative idea and a positive idea at the same time. While your mind might be able to flip back and forth between negative and positive ideas or images very rapidly, it is not able to hold those two images at the same time.

Most people would think that the Conscious Mind controls the Subconscious Mind, but this is not so. The Subconscious Mind is the real power source in our lives. The Subconscious Mind stores all our concepts about who we are, what we are capable of, what we are not capable of and every other detail we believe to be true about our world. We can refer to the Subconscious Mind as the emotional mind.

The subconscious mind operates in the background of your life and while you sleep. Dreams are a product of your subconscious mind. You can think of the subconscious mind as a computer program running without your help at all times. An example of this would be when you have suddenly realized that you have not been paying attention while driving and you are almost home from work.

The entire trip to and from home is a program that you have put into your subconscious mind through repetition. Your driving is automatic and takes very little mental energy on your part. In fact without consciously thinking about going to a cafe when driving that pathway you will drive straight home. Your programming will take over and you will "forget" to go to the cafe unless you hold the picture of the cafe at the forefront of your mind when driving home.

To convert the things you want in your life to reality you must understand how to use both your conscious and sub-conscious mind. This includes increasing your income. By continually thinking about the good things you want and visualizing the image of your dreams you will impress them on your subconscious mind. Over time your actions will change and you will start to move the things you want into your reality. Including more wealth and a better lie for you and your family.

About the Author:

If you can set aside a few minutes each day to work on and learn about how you can reach your goals you can make big changes towards increasing your earning potential and changing your world. Christina Helwig is an attorney and VP of Wealth Expressions, Inc. She focuses on helping people learn more about themselves to improve all aspects of their lives.

The rough guide to APR

By Jo Smart

APR stands for Annual Percentage Rate of charge. The APR of a credit card determines how much you have to pay each month. Put simply, the APR of a credit card is the monthly interest charge multiplied by twelve months. A simple example of this would be a credit card with an APR of 10.2%. Divided by 12, this would mean that the interest would be 0.85% of your outstanding balance that month. Therefore, monthly interest on a balance of 1000 with 10.2% APR would equal 8.50. The total amount of interest you pay over the year will depend on your outstanding balance and how much you pay off each month. It means that when choosing a credit card, you can use its APR to compare with different cards, but the annual amount of interest you will pay depends on your monthly repayments and balance.

APR can be used to compare different credit and loan offers and includes such important factors as: The interest rate you have to pay, how you repay the loan, the length of the loan agreement, frequency and timing of instalment payments and amount of each payment, fees associated with the loan, premiums for payment protection insurance that the lender may choose to make compulsory All lenders have to tell you what their APR is before you sign any agreement, and as the APR has a direct bearing on the cost of your credit card loan, it pays to shop around before you decide on one particular card. There are plenty of very good offers available, if you're prepared to do your homework.

Once an attractive APR has caught your attention, the questions don't stop there. First and foremost - is the APR fixed or variable? If the rate is variable, what may seem like an attractive offer could have a price once the 0% honeymoon period is over. Market forces (such as the Bank of England's base rate) heavily influence a variable rate and these forces can change dramatically. The consequences could be that you go from zero to hero-sized interest payments very quickly, pushing the cost of the credit card loan up considerably. If you're lucky the payments could go down. This random variable is what card companies are trying to avoid, so even flexible APR rates don't change that much. You'll only really feel the impact at the end of a 0% offer. With a fixed rate your interest charges stay the same regardless of market fluctuations.

Look closely for hidden costs that are not included in the APR, the most common being payment protection insurance. With some lenders this isn't an optional extra - it's a requirement. It can offer you a measure of protection should your circumstances change, but there's always the chance that you'll be paying for an insurance policy that you don't actually need. Again, these charges are fully disclosed by the lenders - it's up to the consumer to make the decision as to whether they need the additional insurance or not. It's also a good time to check that your finances could cope with the additional expense of a credit card and the repayments incurred. A longer term repayment timescale may seem tempting because of lower APR, but factor into that equation the length of time you will be repaying both the loan and the interest charges and it could work out more expensive than you thought.

Finance and credit lending are considered by many to be a 'dark art', and APR calculation is no exception. Financial regulatory bodies and the Government are aware of the concerns of consumers, and put safeguards in place to ensure lenders comply with strict guidelines including full disclosure. The lenders are happy to comply with this, as it promotes an open and accountable market. APR attempts to create a clearly recognisable interest figure on a loan, showing the consumer exactly how much they can expect to pay. The loan amount doesn't change (in the initial calculation); it's the APR that's the variable (unless you go for a fixed rate option). By doing some research before deciding on a lender, the savvy consumer can find a good credit card deal with an APR rate that suits their finances. Look past the initial 0% sweeteners and at the subsequent APR rate that the credit card loan will incur once the introductory period is over.

Without looking closely at differing APR rates, it is impossible to make quick comparisons between alternative financial products. All companies use different calculations to determine their interest and other charges. To get the best credit card deal, a little research into how each company calculates that interest will save the consumer being lured into an expensive honeytrap by the promise of an initial interest-free period, only to get stung by a high APR once the honey has run out. There are plenty of good deals to be had on credit cards, and a smart consumer will be able to find one that suits both their budget and their requirements.

About the Author:

Jo Smart is a financial author that enjoys taking time to break down the facts about credit cards and other personal finance options. You can find out more about Low APR Credit Cards and other Credit Cards here.

Don't Wait Until Age 65 to Think About a Retirement Plan

By Michael Geoffrey

Planning early for your retirement is one of the best things that you are ever going to be able to do for yourself in your lifetime. The earlier you start planning for your retirement the more educated you are going to be, the more ready you are going to be for your retirement, and the more money you will have set aside thereby allowing you to maintain the same lifestyle you are living now, if not better.

Where to Begin

The biggest problem that most people have when it comes to planning for retirement is that they simply don't know where to start. It is no wonder either, as there are so many different questions and issues that come into play when it comes to retirement. Retirement investing is an important topic for people of all ages, and the first thing you need to do when it comes to planning for retirement is to set some realistic goals for yourself.

Money for your retirement should be set aside from your income before you spend a dime on anything else. That money should be invested for future use.

It may be that you are knowledgeable about investments and retirement plans. That's good and you should use that knowledge. However, even if that is the case it is a good idea to seek professional guidance when setting up a retirement plan so you receive step by step direction.

A financial advisor will help you maximize your savings by guiding you to the best investments for you. They will instruct on tax laws and how these will affect your investment. Because they are the experts there are investments available that you may not be aware of. They can help you find these and invest wisely. You will find planning for your retirement less challenging with expert guidance.

No matter what your age you can start planning for your retirement. You are never too old or to young. But the younger the better so start now. Remember to use good logic and good judgement when planning for your future. It is one of the most important things you will ever do.

You can never obtain enough information about retirement plans and you can never be too prepared for your future. Stick with these suggestions and continue to learn about how you can create the best retirement plan possible for you.

About the Author:

Before you decide to cut up credit cards to help you get your debt paid off, you'd better understand how it can affect your credit. Find out what you'd better know first on the Debt Smackdown website at http://www.debtsmackdown.com