Money Finders 101
Find Financial Security by Investing in Your Neighbors
Published by Ellen Rose-Birch at Smashwords
Copyright Ellen Rose-Birch 2011
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase and additional copy for each reader. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
What is Money Finders 101?
Why is it Different from Other Books About Money?
The Economy is not Likely to Recover
Your Money Minus the Government
The World’s Unemployed
The Silver Lining
The Fundraising Newsletter Concept
Managing a Fundraising Newsletter Business
Alternative Sources of Funding
Sources of Inspiration
Strangers in a Strange Land
The Hidden Secret Behind True Prosperity
Your Bag Has Holes in It
Regain Your Financial Power
Bibliography
The Rural Philanthropist Newsletter (A Prototype)
What is Money Finders 101?
Money Finders 101 is a tool designed to restore the economy in small manageable ways where “we the people” have more control over our own financial well-being.
Money Finders 101 is a grassroots form of financing for small business that is smaller than the Small Business Administration model, but far more accessible and on the move.
Money Finders 101 bypasses the methods of the large centralized banks and massive impersonal money-hoarding corporations that seek to dehumanize you and I. It greases the skids for an easier flow of money necessary to jump-start commerce for all people at all levels.
Money Finders is an investment tool for those with money to invest. Expect a return of up to 20% percent annually. Hope to safely re-allocate your investment assets to a more stable location.
Money Finders can be presented as a seminar in your locality.
How is Money Finders 101 different from other books about money?
Money Finders approaches money or wealth and its provision from a different angle. It uses a grassroots, brass tacks tactic. It is implemented by you and me. It attempts to bypass the large economic institutions and yet provide the same services in smaller increments to a larger segment of the population. Money Finders works from the bottom up allowing more opportunities for a greater number of people. Through the Money Finders approach, we increase our chance to provide for our necessities ourselves while massive, soul-less corporations dither on whether to take the chance to share “their” assets (the money WE GAVE THEM!) with the “masses”. Here is a device we can use without relying on the decaying mastodon that is the worldwide financial system. With this tool--the fundraising newsletter, we can help ourselves and each other. One does not have to accept or reject the government, Wall Street or Bank of America. Provided here is a way to work beside the existing financial system while restoring our own economies in a way that we all can take a part.
I don’t know about you, but national and international finance boggles my mind. I can balance a checkbook, but I cannot understand how governments all over the world stay afloat. Perhaps I do not give myself credit, because for years I watched what the world and local governments were doing and wondered how there could be so many financial mistakes, mis-steps that would ruin an individual, yet, these organizations survived. Over and over they bobbed to the surface. I should have trusted my instincts. We all know the end of the story. Financial ruination is everywhere these days. Countries all over the world and including our own are in dire circumstances. While they try to sort things out, the people they are supposed to be governing and protecting are being thrown under the bus. Who will help us? There is little point in looking to our government to ask this question....they are very busy trying to figure out how to keep the government afloat. They are also engaged in throwing one more sucker punch to their political opponent. They do not have time to think about the common man. Apparently they do not care that little Suzy went to bed hungry last night. I might point out that since one must often be a
multimillionaire to run for office these days, folks like that--folks that can guzzle $350 bottles or wine while poor Suzy cries, cannot expect to begin to understand the plight of the less fortunate, nor will they be inclined to advocate for them. How does it feel to be invisible? How does it feel to be insignificant? With the tools in Money Finders 101 we can find the help we need for ourselves, we can assert that we have value. In the end, when all is said and done, we must help ourselves. We have few other choices.
Q. How do you eat an elephant?
A. One bite at a time.
If you know me, just a little, you know that I ask this question a lot. One bite at a time is a very helpful strategy for anyone who is easily overwhelmed. By going slowly and chewing carefully one can digest what is otherwise indigestible. I had a friend from Holland who could speak 5 languages fluently. We were staying in the Alps. While at lunch she would speak to me in English, talk to her friends in native Dutch, address the German girl across the table, turn to the man from Spain to ask him a question and then place her order with the waitress in French. I asked her secret. Growing up in multilingual Europe had its challenges and being a stewardess meant having to communicate with a large variety of folks. What my friend would do on her stopovers was go to the local library and read children’s books in that country. She would then try out her pronunciation on a child. A child is not shy about correcting you. “No Stupid! You say it like this.” (An adult would be too polite, reluctant to offend. You would walk away saying the desired phrase in a totally incorrect and perhaps very offensive way.)
When I cannot grasp information at the complicated adult level, (this happens much more than you might think,) I back up a bit and look for fundamental understanding in simpler terms. Perhaps that is why when my son once saw me talking to a policeman, he thought I was going to be taken to jail. After all, I was reading Electricity for Boys.
So, when faced with the daunting task of correcting the entire worldwide economy or just getting yourself out of whatever financial hole you find yourself, remember to take one bite at a time. The enclosed financial newsletter does just that. It may be small, but it packs a punch. Microloans can be the building blocks to a macro-economy or at least an economy you or I can swallow.
Q. How do you eat an economy that is too big to fail?
A. I don’t know. Lets’s leave it to the who guys who made the mess to figure it out. We have better, more urgent fish to fry.
I am no economist. I am fairly good at math. What is happening in the economy goes far beyond simple bookkeeping. It becomes more complicated and inaccessible to us the more they want to hide the facts from us. One has to have a degree in finance to interpret any financial transaction these days. Now and then, us common folks receive enough information to realize we are being fed to the lions. Lamentably, a great many gifted young people are going into finance where they are using mathematical wizardry to lure buyers into contracts to their ruination. Perhaps unknowingly, these same young people are contributing to the tearing down of society, ensnaring the innocent in budgetary traps. More and more people find themselves in a form of debtor’s prison that will only release them, if they are lucky, decades from now. Land of the Free? Living under truckloads of debt with a low paying job is not how most of us define freedom.
Money Finders does not depend on the vagaries of the stock market, the ups and downs of the dollar, the Euro or the yen. You notice I have left out the statement; Money Finders does not rise or fall on the value of crude oil. In all truth, I cannot say that. I wish I could. What I can say is, staying closer to home, heating with wood, relying less on the dirty by-products of and dirty politics of black crude will leave you with more discretionary cash in hand. Not all of us are fortunate enough to have these options. As we wean ourselves from the government breast and foreign oil, the less we find ourselves held hostage to the life-sustaining need to be warmed cooled or transported.
The goal of a Money Finder is to become more self-reliant financially and in every way. Just as many folks are choosing to plant their own vegetable and fruits trees rather than rely on a farmer 2500 miles away for apples or lettuce, so Money Finders are choosing to grow their income (or more “lettuce”) right here in their own backyard. Money Finders shows us one method to do the that.
The Economy is Not Likely to Recover
You and I have been watching the news and if you did not put the information together and come to the same conclusion, the reporters are happy to spell it out for you. It does not look good. To debate at this point whether the economy will recover or not is academic. It is time to act. (Hopefully you have done something before this!) It is not going to hurt to expect the worst and hope for the best. Either way, you have covered your bases. Most of us realize we had enjoyed quite an expansive lifestyle. I used to travel all over the country and never thought anything of hopping on a plane. For me, those days may be over. As a child my parents would take us all out to Palermo’s for chicken cacciatore every Friday night. I wore gold jewelry and 100 percent wool coats with fur collars. My values have changed substantially since I was a young adult, thus the obvious differences in my lifestyle today. Yet, even then, I looked ahead to the day I became an adult, unable to resort to free health services at the nearby navy base where I enjoyed free allergy shots (enjoyed?) and inhalers for asthma. I would never consider entering the military myself, so it was possible there that there would be times when I was ill when I would not have coverage. I resolved at an early age to learn an alternative, inexpensive way to deal with my infirmities that cost little money. I sewed my own clothes so I could have whatever I wanted that flattered my shape and coloring without paying designer prices for a fashion statement. Even then I was fairly certain I did not want to spend money only in expected ways. Certainly, in your own way, you too have planned ahead for long and short-term eventualities and are breathing a sigh of relief that you were not caught completely unaware. Some of us are better planners and financial visionaries than others.
For decades there has been a movement to pay off or pay down one’s mortgage. Maine has the distinction of having more mortgage-free homes than any other state in the country. One reason this may be so, is the heavy reliance for many Mainers on the tourist industry. Money is often made only in the summer and has to last the entire year. Nobody wants to face foreclosure in the middle of winter. Wise people make sure they have a strategy to make their resources take them to the next gainful season. Reducing or elimination mortgage payments was one such strategy.
Right now you are worried about the security of your 401 k funds. The government is worried, too. You are eying those assets hungrily. They are scrambling to place limits on how much you can withdraw because....Gasp! they want that money,too! The wisdom of the last century has been if you want to have a large nest egg, if you want true wealth, and a secure retirement, play the stock market. That is rapidly changing. According to a Prudential survey dated June 3, 2011, “Fifty-eight Percent of Investors Have Lost Faith in the Stock Market”. It is difficult in the best of times to know who to trust. Based on the continuously changing face of the stock market it is hard for any but the most cold-hearted strategist to feel confidence in that institution. When there is no safe place to put your money, when confidence in traditional vehicles has eroded, it is time to move your rainy day fund to a safer place. Investing in micro-loans may be the answer to your concerns.
What can you do amidst this crumbling economy? Plan. Prepare. Face it. Examine your situation objectively. The picture is grim, frightening, but surely you can do something. Our options are being squeezed. That is why I brought out the philanthropic newsletter and the concept of micro loans at this time. Something must be done and almost all of us must do something. This country as a whole is in deep trouble.
If the filthy rich turn away, that is okay! Who needs them anyway?
(Tee Hee! I just made that up!)
A segment of our population sees nothing wrong with amassing incomprehensible amounts of wealth while there are others fighting over limited resources just a few blocks from their homes. An example I can think of is a certain governor who rides each day in his limousine, through the most desperately poor and illiterate neighborhoods in the country, to the statehouse. His wife refuses to leave their own opulent mansion,......er....home in the gated community on the river outside of the city. How can he not see their suffering? Not only does he not see, he also declared when his once great state lost GM, Chrysler and the entire proud RV Capital of the World in a matter of months that, “This will separate the winners from the whiners!” ??!?? This is a terminal symptom of extreme spiritual disconnect. The governor is a member of the party most often associated with what was once termed the “moral majority.” He used to also be financial advisor to President “Dubbya” Bush. Morally, I am not impressed. I doubt the Supreme Being is fooled, either.
Your Money Minus the Government
How did you feel when this country’s economy tanked a few years ago. What did you expect would follow? I thought the solution was obvious, the remedy would be immediately applied. Create jobs. Fix and rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. The “New Deal Two”. Problem solved. Pick up the pieces. Move on.
What actually happened?
NOTHING!!! NOTHING HAPPENED!!!! (Basically.)
Stagnation. Oh, there was a political skirmish or two, much political posturing; in other words; nothing. Some people drew unemployment for an inordinate amount of time. When that came to an end, the entire subject was dropped. The government did not have a plan B. After the 314th squabble and debate, after a whole lot of name calling what was accomplished remained the same: absolutely nothing! To add insult to injury, by general consensus, the subject was no longer discussed. Silence. Ignore the problem, maybe it will go away. It was embarrassing, after all. Twenty five million unemployed or underemployed. Nobody wanted to tell the emperor he had no clothes. A whole segment of the American population became invisible. If there was any whining, nobody was listening.
We have given the government ample time to address the needs of its people. We have waited patiently like.....sheeple. What has happened to the American backbone we were once known for the world over? It is time to take over the reins of our own lives, our own financial destinies. It is time now to see what we can do for ourselves. Can we function without the government help? We have become quite dependant on social programs. Perhaps we can take encouragement from a group within this country that makes it a practice not to draw on any government help. The Amish.
The Amish practice frugality at every turn. They look ahead and avoid debt. They watch out for each other so that the other does not stumble into unsustainable spending habits. Their bail out programs focus on the individual offender before the problem mushrooms to any degree at all. They preach about prudent money habits at weddings. The forbid their people from using food stamps, they grow huge gardens. They do not go to high school or college and thus do not need federal insured loans. They avoid using credit in any form. They do not pay health insurance, they take care of their elderly and their feeble at home. They help each other build their homes and barns so there is no need for a mortgage. The cost of gasoline does not affect them as they do not own cars or motorized farm equipment. The fuel Amish use is grown in their fields to feed their horses, in wood lots to feed wood furnaces, or drawn from the sun or the wind. When they do consume what small amount of fossil fuels they must, there is no pipeline connecting them to the outside world.