New Year’s Resolutions are notorious for being kept … for about 6 days. But there are several resolutions worth keeping this new year. One of them really should be to set up an investment account with an online brokerage house.

Why set up an investment account with an online brokerage?

Most people struggle so mightily with just setting up a 3 to 6 month emergency fund that they can’t conceive of actually putting money aside into any type of investment. If you’re still working on that emergency fund, keep at it and maybe get some ideas of how to save more from 17 Sneaky Savings Strategies.

But if your crisis fund is in place and you’re regularly putting aside money into a savings account, it may be time to consider investing – remember the saving vs investing distinction?

Discount brokerages exist today for two reasons:

1. The Internet made them possible.
2. People were sick and tired of the stranglehold that traditional brokerage houses held on their ability to invest in various markets.

Investing today is vastly different than investing was just 15 short years ago! You have the ability to research, the ability to buy just one share (in the old days you were required to buy 100 or more), the ability to execute trades on your schedule, and the ability to pay far less in commissions.

Why don’t more people invest with discount brokers?

One holdup that many new investors fret over is which brokerage house is best. There are a lot of choices out there when deciding which brokerage firm to use for your investments. I personally use Scottrade and E*Trade .

Scottrade Review

Scottrade houses my personal Roth IRA as well as another taxable account and there are a lot of reasons I use them. For one, their interface is ridiculously easy to navigate and for another, their fee structure makes investing a lot less taxing on my account. Fees can erode away your cash very quickly but Scottrade keeps them in check very well.

Top reasons to use Scottrade?

• Only $500 to open an account.
• Online trades are only $7.
• No account maintenance or inactivity fees.
• Over 400 brokerages nationwide in case you need to speak with someone in person or attend a seminar.
• No-Fee IRAs! Also over 2,800 no transaction fee mutual funds!
• CDs are available.
• An incredible Knowledge Center with educational resources, interactive learning, and help/how-to. Scottrade customers have access to the Reference Notebook where they can save Knowledge Center content for quick reference.

E*Trade Review

E*Trade Financial was one of the first major online brokers and now has millions of customers in more than 40 countries worldwide. As one of the nation’s largest online brokerages, the company provides financial services that include retirement, trading, and investing. E*Trade accounts include: No-Fee Roth IRA, No-Fee Traditional IRA, and Rollover IRA accounts. Opening an account is quick and easy, and just takes a matter of minutes.

Top reasons to use E*Trade?

• $9.99 or less stock trades.
• 7,000+ mutual funds (1,000+ no–load, no–fee).
• Dedicated 24/7 customer service teams.
• Use Quick Transfer to transfer funds between E*Trade accounts in a heartbeat. Even enroll external accounts and move money to and from other financial institutions with just few clicks.
• No mark ups on 30,000 bonds and fixed-income securities.
• Target retirement date funds for easy hands-free investing.
• FREE independent analyst research

MORE online brokerage options:

TradeKing

TradeKing is an online broker providing low flat trading fees with no minimum account requirements and no hidden fees. At TradeKing, you will pay just $4.95 a trade plus 65 cents per option contract. Period. They don’t have any account minimums or hidden fees and even charge the same price for broker-assisted trades. SmartMoney and Kiplinger’s both gave TradeKing’s Customer Service their very highest ratings in their latest broker surveys.

• Low Flat Trading Fees with No Account Minimums
• No Hidden Fees
• Access Trading Tools and Advanced Research

Zecco

Zecco offers free stock trades, powerful investment tools, excellent customer service, and a groundbreaking financial community. Get 10 free stock trades every month when you maintain a $25,000 balance or execute 25 trades each month. Otherwise, it’s just $4.50 per trade.

• Zecco offers free stock trades, powerful investment tools, excellent customer service, and a groundbreaking financial community.
• Your money is safe with Zecco

tradeMONSTER

tradeMONSTER™ is an innovative online brokerage that launched in 2008 and is geared towards stock and options traders. Differentiators of other online brokerage firms include a completely customizable trading platform, real-time streaming quotes and charts for accounts accounts including paperTRADE, one click order form from anywhere on the trading application and unique trading tools like spreadMAKER, Exit Plan, tradeLAB and strategySEEK. Their unique services are intended for the proactive investor who is looking for a disciplined approach and high value for a low price.

• Brand New Powerful Trading Platform
• Competitive Pricing
• Innovative Trading Tools
• Low Transparent Commissions

Get started sooner rather than later

Whichever of these investing platforms you choose, the main key is to educate yourself on investing, trust your instincts, let go of emotions, and use solid research to make a decision.

This post was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance #294 at Control Your Cash. Thanks for the inclusion!

Links to products or services may be affiliate links. See my disclosure policy on the site or on my About page.

How do you know you’re effective, that you’re “hitting the mark?” Do you have a way to measure each goal you’ve set for yourself? Let’s face it, it isn’t easy setting all those New Year’s Resolutions only to see them fall by the wayside just a few days into the new year. You originally thought you’d effectively hit each one. How can you get back on track?

If you’re like most people, you have all sorts of goals –  plans or wishes really – and many of them overlap each other in some way. YOU may be effectively juggling all those plans, but have you been effective in what you’ve completed?

If you want to improve your effectiveness, these 5 simple tips can help you:

1. Make the most of your down time or unscheduled time

Humans need down time. We have to take some time for ourselves every now and then to collect our thoughts, to set some goals, to work out how to put plans in motion. Unscheduled time allows out creativity shine and helps us concentrate on solutions to problems. But the only way you will be likely to find time for yourself is if you actually schedule some downtime. So schedule it ,,, and take it.

2. Be results oriented

You only get one chance in life, so it’s crucial to set both personal and professional goals to help you to achieve your dreams and ambitions. But don’t just set them – demand results from yourself. Setting goals costs you nothing but a little time and thought, but failing to set any goals can result in failure and regret.

3. Make your strengths work for you

Find work that allows you to make some use of your talents and interests and you’ll find that you’re happier, healthier and much more effective. If, for example, your talents and interests lie in working with people, find a job that allows you to take best advantage of those strengths. If you’re just NOT a “people person, ” please don’t think you need to go into sales. Oh and “finding” the work you truly enjoy may be a job into itself … but that’s okay!

4. Focus on one or two tasks at a time

“I’ve got so many things to do, I don’t even know where to start!” Felt this way recently? Probably. When you are overwhelmed with work, it’s imperative that you prioritize your tasks and then focus on the one or two most important tasks. Devote your full attention to them, so you can complete them, get them off your plate and move on to the next prioritized task. A tasks completed rarely comes back to bite you!

5. Make good decisions

When you must make a decision, get all the information you need, ask others for their input and suggestions, consider all the alternatives and then make the decision. Remember, to not decide is to decide.

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New Year’s Resolutions are notorious for being kept … for about 6 days. But there are several resolutions worth keeping this new year. If you’ve “had it up to here” with your job, or if you’re currently unemployed, finding new or better employment opportunities is a resolution you have to WORK for … rarely does a new or better job come searching for you.

There are two tough parts to finding a new job:

1. Actually finding an open position
2. Interviewing well enough to get the job offer

Finding open positions

The first step is to decide what it is you want to do. What are you passionate about? What motivates you to do your best work? Back several years ago I wrote an article about how to discover your passion. Those 20 questions are essential keys to helping you discover what it is you love to do.

After you reach a few conclusions about your passion, you’ll have to uncover which companies work in that area. You probably already have an idea but there are other sources and options for finding an open position or which company specializes in it:

• Your favorite search engine – Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.
• Your network of professional contacts
• LinkedIn – allows you to build a network of professional contacts. It’s a great tool for job-seekers (thanks to Janet for pointing out my omission of this resource!)
• The Ladders ($)
• Vault.com ($) – Vault has job boards and allows you to research companies.
• monster.com
• Executive Search Online
• CareerBuilder
• Job.com
• Snagajob (mostly hourly positions)
• Executive recruiters in your industry – check in trade journals or online
• Your newspapers classifieds

Learning to interview

Finding an open position is like finding a gold nugget. You better make the most of it when you uncover one. That’s one reason I wrote The Inner View of Your Interview. Interviewing skills are almost non-existent with many candidates but that doesn’t have to be the case with you.

Once you learn how to tilt the interview in your favor and how to say what you need to say so you are the natural fit for the interviewer’s open position (both are covered in the book), you’re in a much better position to get the job offer!

Get started today on your resolution to get a better job!

The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll be working at a job you love, one that fulfills you, that challenges you, that you look forward to each and every day. Make part of your resolution to create a personal action plan and stick with it. Don’t wallow in self-pity, get out there and MAKE something happen. It all starts with you and your action!

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Understanding how to set goals helps you achieve them. Stated another way, the right goals, pursued in the right way, leads to positive actions.

Setting an outcome goal

Outcome goals are big. They’re the “I want to get better at X” or “I want to lose weight” type of goal. An outcome goal is the end result of what you want. It’s the big picture goal. While it’s critical to more adequately define the exact outcome you desire, you can achieve an outcome goal without the exacting detail demanded by most goal gurus. How? By setting a “process goal.”

How a process goal is different

Process goals are the daily mini-achievements that help you move toward your outcome goal. They are the goals that you absolutely CAN control, that you can guarantee reaching. These smaller goals are the building blocks of your outcome goals and they DO need specifics. The more specific, the better. You may have to hit several process goals to achieve your outcome goal. Here’s how these two goals work:

Losing weight

Outcome goal: lose 25 pounds this year.
Process goals:

• consume no more than 1,500 calories per week, 400 per meal with three small 100 calorie snacks each day
• exercise for 30 minutes per day
• eat bread and red meat only once or twice per week

Getting out of debt

Outcome goal: pay off my credit card and one student loan this year
Process goals:

• make extra money to apply to my debt
• budget double payments for these two debts
• use 17 Sneaky Savings Strategies to find even more money to pay towards debt

Develop a stronger network

Outcome goal: become better linked and networked
Process goals:

• identify the people I can help and the people that can help me
• attend a networking friendly event
• make one call each day with a networking intent

Making more sales at work

Outcome goal: get 10 new customers each month
Process goals:

• call 5 new clients before lunch and 5 after
• pass the new proficiency test for product knowledge by next month

Finding a new job

Outcome goal: find a new job and get hired
Process goals:

• update my resume, designing it several different ways for different employers
• prepare for interview questions
• network with people in my industry to find a job

If you don’t develop your process goals, hitting your outcome goal becomes a matter of fate or fortune. The reason those process goals are important is that you never want to assume that you’ll always be in the same motivated state of mind, that you’ll always be on a goal high, that you’ll always remember why that outcome goal is important.

Process goals let you sneak up on and ambush your outcome goals. Set them right, work on them every day with purpose, and you’ll hit that outcome goal.

Photo by ogimogi

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Negotiation. Bargaining. Arbitration. Compromise. Negotiation is communicating with another person to find a mutual agreement on an issue or transaction. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word negotiate originally meant “to tackle successfully”, as in “to clear on horseback a hedge, fence, or other obstacle.” Today, we negotiate to overcome the objections that keep us from achieving our goals.

Whether you know it or not, you’re in a negotiation process more often than you think. It can pop up when you receive a wrong order at a restaurant. It can pop up when you’re buying a vehicle, a home, or anything at a garage sale. Negotiation is a process, and the more familiar you are with it’s moving parts, the better you’ll be at clearing those fences.

1. Know What You Want

Remember: always consider what’s in it for you financially, emotionally, intellectually, physically, or professionally. Knowing where you want to take your horse may mean that the hurdle in front of you isn’t even necessary to clear. Carefully outline your objectives and remember that getting there doesn’t mean you have to go in a straight line.

2. Know What Your Counterpart Wants

Understand the financial, emotional, intellectual or physical resolution that he or she is looking to walk away with. That hurdle is there for a reason. If you can understand why it’s there (and it isn’t always obvious), you may be able to find a resolution that is a win-win for both of you.

3. Anticipate Objections

Make sure that you have relevant evidence at your fingertips with which the other party can identify and relate to. The more you understand about the other party in the negotiation, the better you can anticipate those fences and craft your responses in terms they can understand.

4. Identify Concessions

Determine your absolute non-negotiable items and desirables and what you are willing to give and take. This gets back to knowing what you want. You also must know what you could do without. Your counterpart doesn’t know what those items are, so when you concede a point, you appear willing to compromise and your counterpart will probably reciprocate.

5. Determine Your “Walk-Away”

Define the point at which there is no need to proceed with the negotiation. Not all negotiations end with a sale, or with you getting exactly what you want. That’s why the best negotiators know what concessions they’re willing to make up front (Hint: ask for more than you expect). If your counterpart stalls or asks for too many concessions, you’ll know it’s time to move on.

To get the most out of negotiations and to learn a great deal about the process and how you can almost always tilt the odds in your favor, read Secrets of Power Negotiating by Roger Dawson. For more information you can read my review of the book!

Photo by J.harwood

Links to products or services may be affiliate links. See my disclosure policy on the site or on my About page.