portfolio | Bigg Success

Tag Archive: portfolio

Live Like a King on Less

Written on July 13, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Play

ocean-view Most people’s portfolios have been hit hard. They’ve come back some but we’re still down. People who are close to retiring are the most worried. However, we all have to think about having enough money for retirement.

We have three options – invest more, risk more, or plan to live on less when we do retire. None of those sound particularly attractive, do they?

Unless you can live like a king or queen on less!

___

Hear George & Mary-Lynn share what they've learned about living in Panama on The Bigg Success Show! Click the purple player: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

___

That’s why a recent article in Business Week caught our attention. It says that Panama is becoming a popular destination for retirees. It’s been going on for a few years now but really seems to be gaining momentum.

We hasten to say that, even if you’re not thinking about retiring soon or you wouldn’t even consider retiring outside your country, you still might consider putting Panama on your list of vacation destinations.

In addition to the Business Week article, we referred to PanamaInfo.com as a source for the information we’ll discuss today.

___

george From everything I saw as we prepared for this show, I’d say a trip to Panama is in our future! I want to check it out.

___

marylynn I’m on board, George. When are we leaving? Actually, let me rephrase that … I’m good with our weather this time of the year. I want to go there in the winter when it’s freezing cold here and 80 degrees there!

___

Climate

It’s tropical and humid during the day most of the year in the highlands, which includes the capital of the country, Panama City. Temperatures range between eighty and ninety degrees Fahrenheit during the day.

The main tourist season corresponds with their dry season which runs from mid-December through May. In the rainy season, though, it rains for an hour or two about every day. That’s also when the hotels offer special rates.

Topography

Panama is an isthmus that connects Central America with South America. Hence the Panama Canal!

It has about 1,000 miles of coastline and 1,500 islands nearby. A mountain slices through the middle of the country. Panama also has five million acres of parks and more species of birds than the U.S. and Canada combined.

Cost of living

The main reason retirees are flocking to Panama is its low cost of living. The government encourages retirees to spend their golden years there. Seniors get discounts on just about everything.

For example, they save 50% on tickets to concerts, the theater and movies. A movie ticket normally costs $4 (dollars are the currency in Panama). Seniors pay $2.

They also get 25% off at restaurants, a 30% discount on most travel, except flights on which they save 25%. You name it and seniors likely get a discount, even on things like dentist and doctor visits.

Not that the price is high, relatively speaking, in the first place. The Business Week article points out that Panama has first-class health care at Third World prices.

Seniors even get a 50% discount on home closing costs. Once you buy your property, you have all the ownership rights any Panamanian would have.

And you don’t have to pay any property taxes for 20 years or pay any tax on your foreign income.

To give you some perspective on how inexpensive homes are there, the Business Week article mentions a couple who bought a 3,000 square foot oceanfront penthouse in 2007 for $250,000. At that time, it would have cost $3,000,000 to buy that same property in Miami.

Of course, it’s a lot cheaper in Miami now, but it’s still not close to $250,000. Speaking of Miami, Panama is only about a 2½ hour flight from Miami.

There’s a local joke that Panama is just like Miami. Except that it is safer. More people speak English. There are no hurricanes. And Americans are more popular!

___

Would you like more tips and tools to live your life on your own terms? Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly – it’s FREE!

___

Thanks for reading our post today. Please join us next time when we ask, “Can you have too much money?” Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes.

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00435-071309.mp3

(Image in today's post by carlosve)

0 Comments

Make 55 Percent More Money – Part 2

Written on February 12, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Balance, Money, Time Management

watch_time Last time, we discussed using the way a venture capitalist invests as a model for how we invest our time. We talked about a 4-step process to create a portfolio of activities that generates the greatest return.

___

Hear George & Mary-Lynn discuss today's topic on The Bigg Success Show! Click the purple player: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

___

The example

Now we want to look at an example. Let’s say that you make $100,000 a year. You invest 2,500 hours a year – 50 hours a week for 50 weeks – to earn that money. We immediately see that you’re making $40 an hour.

We’ll simplify the 4-step process we discussed last time. Let’s say that you found that 20 percent of your activities generate 80 percent of your income. The old 80/20 rule. We’ll call these your highest-value activities.

So while you earn $40 an hour from your entire portfolio of activities, you’re actually making $160 an hour from your highest-value activities.

Also assume that further analysis showed that you aren’t making any money from 20 percent of your tasks. These are your lowest-value activities, which are really weighing down the overall return on your invested time.

before-snapshot1

A bigg jump in income

Looking at the lowest-value activities, ask yourself if you can eliminate any of them. Let’s say you determine that all those activities are a complete waste of your time. Further assume that you could spend all of that time on your highest value activities. It’s unlikely that this would be the case, but it illustrates our point simply so let’s go with it.

Under our assumptions here, your income would increase 80 percent. You would make $180,000 instead of $100,000. Instead of making $40 an hour, you’re making $72 an hour. Sounds pretty good, huh?

But it’s really just making sure you’re allocating your time – your most precious resource – most effectively.

after-snapshot1

Make 55 percent more

The problem is it’s not realistic to think that 20 percent of your time is completely wasted. In fact, we bet you waste very little. A more realistic assumption is that you would have to pay someone to do some portion of these lowest-value activities. But you can afford it now!

In fact, we found that you could pay up to $160 an hour for those activities and still break-even. But we want to do better than break-even.

So we assumed you would pay $50 an hour on average for those activities. In that case, you would make 55% more even after paying someone!

Synergy

Now think about it, you’re paying someone $50 an hour and before you were only making $40 an hour. This is consistent with things we’ve seen in our own businesses as we focus on higher-value activities.

But here’s something else we’ve found – your highest value activities may our lowest value activities. This is where synergy comes in. By partnering with people and organizations around core strengths – we work together, with you doing what you do best while we do what we do best – everyone makes more money without investing more time.

The importance of testing

But what if you just don’t have the money to hire someone to do these things for you? It’s important to test. Just try investing a little more time on your highest value activity.

You may have to give up something – even a little downtime – while you’re doing this. See if you make more money. If you do, keep feeding that task. To do that, find ways to delegate those lower-value activities for you, even if it costs a little money.

Just like a venture capitalist, if you keep funding those activities that generate the highest return and you move away from things that don’t, you’ll make that bigg money you know you’re worth!

___