From Apple Pay and Google Wallet to bitcoin: the end of cash

You may be familiar with the phrase “cash is king,” but with cash alternatives like credit cards, PayPal (PYPL), Venmo, Apple Pay (AAPL), Google Wallet (GOOG, GOOGL), and bitcoin flooding the market, the king might be about to lose its crown.

So is this the end of cold, hard cash? Not quite—but we’re getting there.
Last year, a study by Bankrate found that 40% of American consumers carried less than $20 in cash on a regular basis. About 9% of those surveyed said they didn’t carry cash at all.
According to the Federal Reserve, cash still accounts for 40% of all U.S. transactions but only 14 percent of the value of total payments. That means people are still using cash, but mostly for low-cost items like their morning cup of coffee.
Sixty-six percent of consumers use cash for purchases between $0 and $10, but less than 12% of consumers use cash for purchases of more than $100.
The new king(s)?

So what’s replacing cash? Well the obvious answer is debit and credit cards. Together those account for about 42% of all transactions and 34 percent of the value of total payments.
There’s also a new crop of mobile and electronic payment methods—Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Venmo, PayPal, and more. About 14% of U.S. households have linked their credit cards to Apple Pay, and there are more than 173 million active PayPal accounts.
What would Sweden do?
Americans might not be totally cut off from cash, but let’s take a look at a society that’s nearly cashless: Sweden.
There are currently about 80 billion worth of Swedish krona in circulation, down from 106 billion in 2009. Between 2010 and 2012 alone, more than 500 bank branches went cash-free and four out of five purchases were made electronically.
Credit Suisse writes that the rule of thumb in Scandinavia is: "If you have to pay in cash, something is wrong."

So will America be the next Sweden? Probably not. For one thing, the U.S. has a population of 319 million compared to Sweden’s 9.5 million.

There’s also the small fact that about 29% of Americans still keep at least some of their savings in bills and coins.

Culled  from Yahoo Finance

10 things you need to start doing 5 years before you Retire-Odunze Reginald C

1 Good relationship with your family, the period of retirement is always a period of seclusion, therefore an intending retiree should be up and doing in having a good relationship with his or her family especially his spouse.

In an article in Yahoo Finance captioned “7 ways to Retire happy” Mandi Woodruff observed that “Happy retirees are more likely to be married” As common as divorce is in the U.S. today, the overwhelming majority of happy retirees were married (76%) and only 9% were divorced. Less than half of unhappy retirees were married, while one-quarter were divorced, Wes Moss found. This is right on par with what past research has shown about levels of satisfaction in married and unmarried people — over the long term, married couples are much happier. It’s fairly obvious why two may be better than one in this scenario — dual incomes can make a huge difference in a couple’s financial outlook. On the flip side, divorce not only reduces both parties’ income but is also expensive to go through. 

2 Build a house where you are retiring no matter how small it is: in an article on pension destinations, analysts are of the view that it is always good to have a house before retirement. The agony of retirees using their retirement money to build a house cannot be quantified. And in building a house it is always essential to consider her retirement destination. In an article in pensionsbenefit.blogspot.com ( PensionsBenefit.com ) Odunze :2014 noted that destination planning is an essential part of retirement planning, it is always pertinent to consider this in planning for retirement. I have seen retirees who build houses in some areas and later discovered that they could not stay in such areas.

3 Make sure you start offsetting your debt, Debt has been a part of some people life, especially in organized countries where they transact with credit cards, it’s imperative that  the intending retirees offset any debt that will affect his life or her during retirement.

4 Start kick starting a business or a vocation that will keep you busy during retirement; a recent Merrill Lynch survey found that nearly three out of four people over 50 said their ideal retirement would include working. Which is fine. Staying connected to the work world in some way can not only offer financial benefits, it can also keep retirees more active and socially engaged”  In kick starting a vocation it is always important to watch out for opportunities and according to Victor Hugo noted “that there is nothing than an idea whose time has come”

5 Start adjusting your life toward old age and start shedding harmful habits: Harmful habits are injurious to life, they include, a life of smoking, drinking and other related life pattern that affects ones health and life, it should be noted that one of the serious bills affecting senior citizen is increasing medical bills, as old age has with it issues pertaining to health and medical wellness.

6 Update your relevant information: information is key and it needs to be updated at every point in time, this will ease the retiree’s application when accessing his benefit.

7 Get a will; experience has shown that it takes up to six months to get a letter of Administration, added to the high cost of court and the legal charges of the lawyer facilitating it. But if there is will, it becomes increasingly easy to access the fund, where the contributor has joined his ancestors

8 Plan to increase your contribution, the main aim of additional voluntary contribution is to increase the pension pot as in the United States and Europe and Retirement Savings Account balances in Nigeria, reduces the tax burden and make retirement a safe haven for retirees.

9 Start having positive attitude towards life, even if you don’t feel it, Some people have that mindset that they will not live to see their pension and like the Biblical Job what they fear most always comes to them.

In my experience in talking to people about pension, some will always say will I    live to  have the pension? I always tell them, to maintain a positive attitude towards life.

Henry Ford said “Think you can, think you can’t, either way you will be right”

10 Develop a special relationship with your God: Nothing is more important than an existing good relationship with your maker, there is inner sense of joy and happiness when you are in tune with God.

Odunze Reginald is the Lead Consultant, Chareg Consulting, a management and marketing  consultant  a social media and social marketing consultant , you can visit our twitter anchor @regydunze, find us on Facebook @ Reginald odunze and reginaldodunze.com, at google+ @ Reginald Odunze and at Linkedin@reginald odunze.

How successful will your Retirement Be- Odunze Reginald C

Image credited to premier

How successful will your retirement be, is a very big question and may take years of careful planning, to achieve.

But retirees do not envisage a life that is not successful, they believed all will be well.

Dona Rosato in her article captioned “5 Secrets to a Happy Retirement” noted that Towers Watson happiness survey found that retirees who rely mostly on investments had the highest financial anxiety. Almost a third of retirees who get less than 25% of their income from a pension or annuity were worried about their financial future; of those who receive 50% or more of their income from such a predictable source, just under a quarter expressed the same anxiety”

Continuing Rosato noted that “More money makes you happier. Once you amass a comfortable nest egg, though, the effect weakens, says financial planner Wes Moss. For his recent book, You Can Retire Sooner Than You Think: The 5 Money Secrets of the Happiest Retirees, Moss surveyed 1,400 retirees in 46 states. The happiest ones had the highest net worths, but Moss found that money’s power to boost your mood diminished after $550,000”

So how do you make the best out of retirement?   Maintain a positive attitude towards life and pension inclusive; according to the book of job what people fear most always comes to them. And according to Robert Schuler, in his book , “the power of positive thinking “ he noted that  one of the basic ingredient of success is maintaining a positive outlook to life, believe that you will make it and you will definitely make it, believe that you will not , and you will definitely not”

Therefore maintaining a positive attitude in all aspect of life is a pre requisite for all facets of life and Le Boeuf (1987 :21) noted that “your world is a mirror and your mind is a magnet what you perceived in this world is largely  a reflection of your own attitudes and beliefs. And life will give you what you attract with your thoughts. Think, act and talk negatively and your world will likely be negative. Think, act and talk with enthusiasm and you will attract positive results”.

According to an article in Yahoo Finance captioned “7 ways to Retire happy” Mandi Woodruff opined that  In a new book, “You Can Retire Sooner Than You Think,” Atlanta-based investment advisor Wes Moss, offers an alternative to the traditional line of thinking. Rather than focus on a dollar amount to reach for, Moss decided to figure out what retirees needed to be truly happy in retirement”
“I wanted to go beyond simple income numbers,” Moss says. “I wondered what it really takes to get somebody to a point where they truly feel they have a cushion and they are also enjoying life.”
“In 2012, Moss conducted an online survey of more than 1,200 workers who had either already retired or were fewer than 10 years away from retirement. He asked them questions about what type of cars they drove, where they shopped, how much their homes were worth, and, of course, how much they had saved for retirement. But he also asked about their passion projects, how often they went on vacation, what types of volunteering they enjoyed, whether or not they were satisfied with their lives, and how much time they put into their retirement planning before calling it quits. (Moss did not ask participants about overall debt levels like student loans and credit cards, but did include questions about their mortgage debt).”
What he found was that more money doesn’t equate to more happiness. The happiest retirees didn’t all drive BMWs or take 12 European cruises a year, either.”

That brings us back to the important idea about what gives happiness, happiness is within, it’s a product of contentment, feel contented about what you have, you will discover that you will be happy, feel otherwise, you will discover that you will be sad, all the days of your life.  As Dolly Paton noted in her song “Coat of many colors”, that she was as rich as she could be in her coat of many colors” and she tries to make to understand” linked to contentment is happy married life.

The more a retiree stay connected to a happy love life, the better for him. In a research carried out in the United States has it that people tend to be happy when they are married than when they are not. And as they say that divorce is more devastating; coupled with the financial implications and the legal battle that comes with it. It went on to say that people are more likely to commit suicide when they are disconnected with their love life or life partner.  But I will also add that men are likely also  to commit murder when they are disconnected from their love life and the emotional torture of such act can also drive them to take their own lives.  A horrifying story is “ Zola ‘s Therese Racquin, where the couple Therese and Laurent who had murdered Therese’s first husband so that they could come together, become so consumed by guilt and remorse at the act that their relationship is utterly poisoned by hatred and they decided to murder each other” Sweeney ( 1979:31)

 And according to Eileen Sweeney ( op cited) in her book titled “Another country” Sweeney noted that “marriage was something more rounded than mere infatuation, and once a man had built his home, things were different with him. He must still need his home and would never be the same without it”

But does it relate to Africa, where men are more likely to marry more than one wives. But archival Europe’s observed that men are more likely to commit suicide than women, as they have unwritten maxim it is only a disappointed man that hang himself on a tree, a disappointed woman do not hang herself on a tree but on the neck of the nearest man. But I am seeing it from the view that men are more pressed with financial problems than women as the social mobility of a woman is a straight line graph and the social mobility of a man is undulating graph depicting the full structure of a normal curve.The students of Statistics , Demography are conversant with this.

 What then is the most vital ingredient that ushers in happiness, to me is a robust relationship with God, as experience has shown that those who are in tune with God , the creator are more likely to be more happier than others. This is in agreement with Robert Louise Stevenson who stated “that true happiness consists not in knowledge of good things but in good life, not in understanding but in living understandingly, neither is it great learning but goodwill that joins men to God.

And as Awolowo noted in his book “Path to Freedom”, which he authored while in Calabar prison, noted that, a big car, a big house, designers clothes are all vanity, what men needed is God’s happiness, and that is  the ultimate happiness.

Odunze Reginald is the Lead Consultant, Chareg Consulting, a management and marketing  consultant  a social media and social marketing consultant , you can visit our twitter anchor @regydunze, find us on Facebook @ Reginald odunze and reginaldodunze.com, at google+ @ Reginald Odunze and at Linkedin@reginald odunze.

Fraud –An issue that may wreck your Retirement-Odunze Reginald C

 

When Isaac Newton, the powerful scientist who enunciated the Newton’s Laws of motion lost his fortune in the South Sea Bubble Company of 1720 due to Fraud. He said and I quote  “I  can calculate the motions of heavenly bodies but not the madness of men”. Today in my people there is madness, everyone is thinking of getting rich quick. (Kiyosaki 1990:70)

Schuller (1988:112) noted that success without social respect can be an ultimate and dismal failure. Old age has one problem according to psychologist, it tend to make old people vulnerable to issues of money making, as they have dream idea of trying to achieve what they fail to achieve during their working career. They now want to achieve it during old age and by so doing enter into one wrong investment decision or the other.

Whatever they have not achieve they tend to believe that retirement fund will afford them that opportunity, by so doing they enter into wrong hands who will fleece them of their hard earned money. The result is that most of the retirees return back to work in order to survive and enjoy their old age. But what these scammers do not know is that wealth do not bring happiness as it is stated in Ecclesiastics 5 verse 10-11 “ How absurd to think that wealth brings happiness, the more you have, the more people come to help you spend it and  continuing  in Ecclesiastics 5 verse 12, 14, it sates “ But the rich are always worrying  and seldom get a good night sleep” Riches are sometimes hoarded to the harm of the saver, or they are put into risky investment that turn sour and everything is lost”

And continuing in Ecclesiastics 5 verse 19 and 20, “And it is good thing to receive wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it” “To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life- that is indeed a gift from God, people who did this rarely look with sorrow on the past, for God has given them reason for joy”.

And so in making wealth, it is pertinent for us to have that God given joy that gives one happiness- a lasting happiness.

Anything short of that may not augur well especially for con artist as Robert Kiyosaki in his book Rich dad Poor dad, noted that there are so many ways, one can be rich, and he included the following, through inheritance, playing lottery, investing or by being a crook or an outlaw but there is a price, you risk going to jail. Kiyosaki  (1995:351) continuing he stated that ‘A great story must interest , excite and cause people to look into the future and dream a little, there should also be integrity behind the story, because our jails are filled with great story tellers without integrity”.

Odunze Reginald is the Lead Consultant, Chareg Consulting, a management and marketing  consultant  a social media and social marketing consultant , you can visit our twitter anchor @regydunze, find us on Facebook @ Reginald odunze and reginaldodunze.com, at google+ @ Reginald Odunze and at Linkedin@reginald odunze.