Tuesday, October 31, 2006

How To Build A Money Making Affiliate Website

by: Heather O'Neal

An Affiliate Website is a site in which you sell other peoples E-products. You make money on commission. example: you have created a web page on selling a Build Your Own Website Program. 10 people click on to your website and 1 of them buy the product. The cost of the Program is $40. The person selling the Product then turns around and pays you 50% which equals $20. So you find a niche that suits you, improve your web site and offer more products. you sell 10 books a day at a commission of $20 a piece and that is $200 a day, $1400 a week, $6000 a month. At this point you could afford to sit around and watch Young And The Restless all day or Keep moving forward and start Making Money Off Of Goggle Adsense, Take full advantage of Goggle Adwords, Create a Drop Shipping Business or even wholesale and become an E-Bay Power Seller. How To: Join an Affiliate Network. Get someone to build you a web site or build your own. (building you own website can be very easy with the proper software). The site I have been using is XSite Pro. It is half the price of Dream Weaver, gives your more support and no html Knowledge needed.

Get a Free Domain Name. Free domain name for life a $29.99 value. Look for a good deal on hosting. midphase is low cost with great support. Choose your niche and enjoy starting your own business. Affiliate websites can be one of the easiest and less expensive ways to make money online. Many of the top online marketing companys selling E-books offer free web sites. There is no html knowledge needed to manage the sites offered. The site is already preset with the money making links.

You will then have to enter a sales letter pitch on a one page format. You should then get a free adsense account and bring in extra online income.

About The Author

Heather O'Neal is a self proclaimed Internet Marketer that provides stay at home mothers with the resources and specialized knowledge needed to work at home and start up information for online business owners. (c)2005-2006 Heather O'Neal. http://www.youngrichmom.com.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

You Really Can Have Success Working at Home

Do you want to start a home based business? Is it your dream to run your own show so that you never again have to listen to your boss? If this sounds like you, you are in a group of thousands of other people. It is safe to say that in some point in everyone’s life they dream of running their own business. The benefits and advantages of having a home based business are many. If you are lucky enough to ever have this chance you should really revel in it. Remember, not everybody can be so lucky.

But you are probably asking yourself if you can really have success with a home business. The answer to this question is simple, yes. If you know what you are doing and take your time, you can have success running a home business. Unfortunately, it is not always as easy as it may seem. You are going to run into problems from the very beginning, and there are going to be times when you think about giving up.

The first thing that you need to do when setting up a home business is to make a decision on what you want to concentrate on. In other words, what is your business going to do? This is a question that can sometimes be hard to answer. The majority of people want to do something that they like, but at the same time they do not know how to get started. You need to remember that in order for your home business to be a success you have to like what you are doing. If you don’t like your home business idea, why move forward in the process? You will simply end up in the same situation that you are in with your current job.

Also, a successful home business needs time to grow. You should never think that you are going to take off within a couple days of opening up shop. It is going to take you a bit of time to get your bearings and take off. For this reason, patience is very important to the success of your home business. With patience you will be able to wait out the rough times that are bound to show up time and time again. No home business starts making big time money in the first day. But if you take your time you will get to where you want to be.

Overall, you can have a lot of success with a home business. It may not be easy at first, but as time goes by you will become comfortable with what you are doing. Sooner or later you will be making profits on your own.

Friday, October 13, 2006

How Much Easier Can It Get?

by: Richard Grady

Recently, I wrote about how you need to put in a fair amount of hard work before your online business becomes successful - there is no such thing as an 'overnight success'. Despite this, setting up and running an Internet business is a hundred times easier today than it was, say, five years ago. There are just so many more services and products available to assist you and I got to wondering how much easier things could really get? This week, the UK Post Office has announced a new free service which allows people to buy their stamps online. You simply pay for the stamps you require with a credit/debit card and then print off a label to stick on your envelope. I haven't used the service yet but as far as I can tell, the label even includes the address to which the letter is going so you don't even need to write it out (or print off a second label)! A similar service has been in operation in the US for some time but this is fairly new technology in the UK.

Just think how much time this new service could potentially save the average eBay seller.... One of the main reasons I stopped selling on eBay was because I couldn't stand queuing up in the Post Office to get stamps for my packages. Using the new online service, I could just print off my stamps and then drop all of my letters/small packages straight into the letterbox. There would be no need to even go into the Post Office. Admittedly this might not be the case for larger parcels but the PO/couriers will pick these up from your house for regular senders (how much easier can it get?!) The other thing I used to have to do was venture out to buy packing materials from a local office supplies company. Of course, there is no longer any need to do this as for several years it has been possible to get all of your packing materials (and in fact pretty much anything else) delivered to your door.

In addition the prices are cheaper than the local stores too! Whilst taking my packages etc the Post Office, I also used to have to visit the bank to pay cheques/checks in and then wait for them to clear. Again, this hasn't been necessary for years with the growth of services such as Paypal and NoChex. Now all an online trader needs to do is check their email! With so much of the offline world gradually coming online, it is already perfectly possible to run an Internet business without ever leaving your house. I used to joke that if the mood took me, that I could run my businesses without ever getting out of bed. This was never completely true since there would always be one or two tasks that I couldn't do from the comfort of my home but these are getting fewer and fewer. So we are heading towards a situation whereby you can build and manage your own business without ever going outside, without ever talking to anyone and if you wish, without ever getting out of bed! Not only that but this business has the potential to earn you more money than you would ever earn by doing the exact opposite (ie. going out and working). Ok, staying in bed for the rest of your life may not be the best thing for you and the lack of social interaction would probably drive you mad but is it just me that finds this possibility an incredible thing? I mean, how much easier can it get?

Copyright 2006 Richard Grady

About The Author

Richard Grady has been helping people earn online since 1998. To view Richard's latest website, SimplyWholesale, visit http://www.simplywholesale.co.uk To subscribe to his bi-weekly newsletter, please visit: http://www.thetraderonline.com/newsletter.html.

Creating Multiple Streams of Affiliate Marketing Income

by: Dina Fedorova

Have you ever heard or read the phrase "multiple streams of income" before? Do you know what this phrase means? For many businessmen, creating multiple streams of income online or offline is one way of securing themselves as well as their businesses in the future. They also believe that it can also save them from the so-called famine effect in the business industry. Once you are engaged in affiliate marketing business, it is advisable if you have multiple streams of affiliate marketing income so that if one of those income streams vanished, it will not upset you the way losing your sole stream would. If you depend on just one source of income and this single stream has been downsized or has lain off, you'll surely find yourself bankrupted and hopeless.

Try to ask the most successful online entrepreneurs, and you'll discover that they have established multiple streams of online income. There is a businessman that said and attested that the very first step you must take in creating multiple streams of income is to assess or evaluate your resources. Start by assessing yourself first. Jot down your answers to the following questions: What are the talents, abilities, strength and gears that you possess? Are you gifted with excellent and creative writing skills? Can you do well at sales? Are you good in communicating with people? Are you born with an artistic skill or unique ability that other people don't have? Through this, you can determine the kind of business where can possibly excel. Next, look around and write down you assets and physical resources such as computer, color printer, scanner, digital camera, cell phone, CD or DVD burner. Write these all down because it can be used as a resource. Consider also your friends and family. Find out what do they possess that you have access to.

Remember that no man is an island. You can use the talents, abilities, knowledge and resources of everyone you know. That's basically the initial step if you want to create multiple income streams. But if you're already a webmaster or a site owner, you definitely have an edge. Why don't you join affiliate marketing business to help you gain extra income out of your own website? If you base what you do on inaccurate information, you might be unpleasantly surprised by the consequences. Make sure you get the whole income story from informed sources. Being involved in affiliate marketing is one of the most desirable ways to make multiple sources of income. It is because affiliate marketing programs come in various shapes and forms. There are a large number of affiliate marketing programs that you can sign on with and start gaining bucks right away.

In affiliate marketing, you can make money by promoting and reselling your affiliate products and by recruiting new affiliates. What's good about this is that you can find widest array of training materials that can enhance your marketing abilities. In affiliate marketing, you can be sure that there are genuine products to promote and sell and there is real income to make. Either part time or full time, being an affiliate marketer is an excellent way to create multiple income streams by means of promoting products and services from web merchants. Here, you can get affiliate commission without investing big bucks in making your own product and without worrying about book keeping, customer support and ecommerce. All you have to do is to promote and resell the products and services in your site and pass on potential customer's the merchant's site. In affiliate marketing, it is advisable to promote more merchants in your site so that your visitors will have variety of destinations to choose from. Using multiple merchants in the same site or niche means only one thing-you have multiple streams of affiliate income. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this business strategy because this is one of the best ways to protect your business and expanding your horizons. Through this, you can be assured that you won't experience crisis if ever one of your web merchants closed his/her program. However, you should choose only those affiliate programs that interest you so that you can effectively advertise and promote them.

Don't ever be tempted into signing up for numerous affiliate programs in the hope that one of them will bring income. Select wisely and don't be engaged in selling products you know nothing about. Go with the stuff that jives with your enthusiasm; your passion can capture your client by the nose and guide him/her to your affiliate link. You should also work hard to make your multiple streams of income more stable. You can do this by embracing some strategies and tactics and by developing within yourself, some traits that can help you become successful in any kind of business such as patience, persistence and thirst for knowledge. Lastly, just remember the adage that says "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." So that if one of them is lost, you can still have some to make omelets. And what do these eggs have to do with multiple streams of affiliate income? Well, it goes without saying that the more streams of income you possess, the bigger and better your money lake becomes. Don't limit yourself by refusing to learn the details about income. The more you know, the easier it will be to focus on what's important.


About The Author

Author: Dina Fedorova, finding a Home Business that's Right for You, has a passion to help ordinari people start and run their Own Home Based Business.Visit my site and download "Dotcomology:The Science of Making Money online". Absolutely Free at: http://www.Net-Plus-Profit.com 3 Easy Steps to Make money Online: http://www.Net-Plus-Profit.com/pips.htmlFor more information please visit : http://successuniversity.com.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Forex Trading: The Fastest And Greatest Way To Create True Wealth

If you search on the internet you'll find millions of investment programs such as real estate, stock trading, bond trading, mutual funds, CDs, auction programs and various internet programs.

I have not done many internet income opportunities or programs or affiliate programs because I had been lucky to discover a very easy way to make money through forex trading, (Foreign currency trading) safely on the internet.

Perhaps you know about only stock trading or bond trading which are common, but not forex trading.

Forex trading is the most profitable and attractive internet income opportunity because you can do it from home or office and from any country in the world.

In forex trading, you don't need to do any marketing or selling or internet promotion to succeed.

In currency forex trading, you don't need to spend thousands of dollars to do any internet promotion.

In forex online trading, you don't need any stocks or warehousing.

In forex online trading, all that you've to do is open an account with one of the brokers with as little as $300 or $2000.

Then follow simple instructions to buy and sell the currencies.

When the price of the currency is low, you buy.

In a few seconds or minutes, the price will go up, and you sell it and make a profit.

By so doing, in a day, you can easily make $500-$1000 by just buying, selling and trading these foreign currencies for about 3 or 4 hrs!

And get this:

You don't even have to be stuck sitting behind your computer buying and selling these foreign currencies.

You can enter all your buy trades and specify the sell prices you desire and then log off.

Whenever the values of these foreign currencies rise and your selling prices reach, the currencies will be automatically sold for you and you make money!

You can do currency forex trading and at the same time keep your day job, because in forex online trading, there is no work to do.

In the future when you have made hundreds of thousands of dollars, you may then quit your job and just keep doing currency forex trading forever and go on permanent vacation!

To understand the beauty of forex online trading Picture this:

In the morning, you get up from sleep at 6 am.

You go to your bathroom and have your shower.

At 7 am, you hurry and eat your breakfast.

At 7.20 am, you login into your day forex trading account on the internet and spend 10 minutes to buy about 3 or 4 different currencies, [for example British Pound, Euro, CHF (Swiss Currency) and Yen (Japanese currency).]

You can specify the price at which you wish to sell each currency.

Then you can log off.

By 9 am, you're at work in your office or business place.

You do your job as usual and by 5 pm, you're finished and heading home.

When you get back home around 6.30 pm, you login into your day forex trading account to see how much money you've made.

Holy Molly, there in your account it says you have made $750!

“Is this for real?”, you wonder…

Yes, it is. (Your eyes are not deceiving you…)

$750 in a day for just clicking your mouse twice and doing no work?

(Whereas at your job, you work 8 hrs, but make only probably $150..)

This is how easy it is to make money from day forex trading.

But before you use real money to open a live forex system trading account, you have to open a free trial (demo) account (forex simulation trading) and practice first, to understand how it works and to acquire the right skills.

This free demo (trial) forex system trading account (forex simulation trading) will help you to reduce a lot of risks that can lead to loss.

In forex system trading, you can choose how much money to invest, how much money to make and when to make it.

You can make money daily, 365 days all year from forex trading.

Your computer can be transformed into an “ATM” machine that cranks out cash for you daily (without large investment or hassles) from forex trading.

In day forex trading, you can choose what type of risk you can manage, when to invest and when not to invest.

In Currency forex trading, you're the boss. You may do as you please.

When day forex trading is compared to other investment programs such as stock trading, bond trading, mutual funds, real estate and regular business, it is evident that forex online trading is the fastest and greatest way to make money in the world.

Forex system trading is a 2.5 trillion dollars daily business and it is larger than all the stock trading in the world combined.

These are some of the reasons why I believe that forex system trading is the best internet income opportunity.

Perhaps from reading this article you'll now come to know why currency forex trading is the secret behind the greatest wealth on earth and why it has been kept hidden from the average people of the world and therefore little known to the masses.

May these forex trading insights open your eyes to the possibility of infinite wealth and success that can be yours from day forex trading.

Please feel free to print or publish this article anywhere and read and also send to your friends and well wishers and please preserve the author's resource box below.

Warmly,

Ikey Benney

I-key is the creator of “Mscsrrr, Millionaire Secret Cash System, The Royal Road To Riches, Generate $1,500 Weekly For Life” ( http://www.mscsrrr.com )and “TMT: Transcendental Mental Technology, The 10,000 Yr Old “Secret” Of Infinite Wealth, Infinite Success, Infinite Happiness, Revealed. ( http://www.tmtworldwide.org )

Making Money Online - Only 30 Minutes A Day

Here's how you can make money from the comfort of your home. All that you need is a computer and an Internet connection.

If you think this is about Internet marketing, then you are wrong. You don't need a product, you don't need a website, you don't need to sell, you don't need to recruit your friends into it, and you don't need to advertise.

Before I go into detail of what it is, I want you to know that many are doing it right now. And you can do it at anytime of the day, any day – even weekends. Just a 30-minute work can turn into hundreds, even thousands of dollars.

What is it? It's trading foreign exchange currency online, or better known as forex.

First you need to get yourself a trading platform. I do my trading online with Marketiva. You just register with them for free, download their software, and you are ready to go.

I have an article here by somebody who has been trading for quite sometime now. So why not you read this interesting article to know how to make money with forex.

Online Profit Made Easy

Finally here's an easy way to make money online. I'll show you exactly how to make a recurring monthly income of $5,280 in as little as 12 months. And I will use very conservative numbers.
First find and join an excellent company that pays you at least $20 for every person that signs up through your link. Make sure they have great products and an amazing salespage. And preferably a company with a proven track record that's been around for awhile.

Then invest $100 every month promoting your link for this company. You can always invest more if you want to get faster results. Spend this money placing solo ads in ezines that are related to business opportunities. You should be able to get at least 1 new sign-up for every $50 you invest. (This is very a conservative number).

Now keep investing the $100 monthly plus reinvest all your profits that you get from your new sign-ups. You will use this money to send out more solo ads. And just keep repeating this every month. It may be a little slow at first but it will pick up momentum in a few months. And by the end of the year you will be investing and making lots of money.

In fact at the end of 12 months you will have made $17,360 minus $1,200 = $16,160 profit. And you'll be receiving a recurring monthly income of $5,280. Again the above numbers are very conservative. Your results can be a lot better depending on your copy writing skills. (I got 15 new sign-ups my very first month)
Now this is just the beginning. Just think how much more money will you be making by the end of the second and third year?
Be sure to track all your advertisements so you'll know exactly which ezines are good performers. You don't want to waste money sending ads to underperforming ezines.

Also when you find a good ezine you may want to send another ad a week later because you can get as good or better results the second time around.
Another good idea is to communicate with all your sign-ups. Help them anyway you can and show them how they can be successful too.
If you can find someone that has a list of good ezines to advertise in then you can save yourself a lot of time and money.

I believe the hardest and most important step will be finding the right company to promote. Take your time and make sure it's a winner before you start investing your hard earned cash.
How can I be so sure this system will work? I'm glad you asked. It will work because I'm making money doing this right now. And if I can do it then you can do it too.
If you follow these steps you will agree that this really is an easy way to make money online.
Discover my favorite company and receive my personal proven ‘Ezine List' for free.
Plus see every advertisement I use and the ‘Test results'. Visit: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Duane_Marx

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Make Money From Your Home Based Business

By: Elias Georgi

Copyright 2006 www.eliasg.com

There are literally thousands of ways to make money from home based businesses. Whether it is arts and crafts, investing, working as a consultant or developing an Internet based business online, people from every walk of life are finding ways to make money while working from the comfort of their homes.

One of the myths about working from home is that you can get up late, lounge in pajamas for half the day and work only a few hours and make a million. If you happened to be a stock trader and get real lucky, it might happen to you, however for most us we need to put in a full days effort to run our businesses and make it a success. In addition adhering to basic business principles is also a must. This means controlling expenses, focusing on sales and ensuring that your accounting books are up to date. It also means that you have an idea of were your business will be next month, next quarter and next year. In other words you need a plan to run a successful home business and make money.

There are many attributes that an entrepreneur needs to make money from a home based business. One of these attributes is discipline. If you are the type that loves to sleep in, needs someone to set goals and objectives for you and monitor when you start work, you probably will not do well in a home based business. We indicated earlier that you need to be prepared to work hard and put in a full days effort. We cannot emphasize this aspect enough. Customers will not wait until you get up in the morning, they expect deliveries on time and the cash flow for your business is really dependent on the effort that you put into it.

Beginning with discipline and focusing on the key elements of your business many people will be successful at making money from their home based business. A list of the areas you need to pay attention to are: business plan, sales, high quality services and products, superior customer service, cash flow, and planning for the future to ensure that your business is sustainable over the long term. Having the discipline to put the effort into making all of these areas successful will help to ensure a successful home based business. Of course it also helps to have a great product or service, which is in demand. Adequate research and marketing are key elements in making sure that you have also chosen the best type of home based business to invest your time and money into.

Article Source: http://www.blogtelecast.com

Please Visit Author's Site:

Elias Georgi is an experienced and successful sponsor, mentor and coach for many thriving, tested and proven home businesses. Elias offers proven Internet opportunities and strategies. Visit his Website: www.eliasg.com , he also runs the www.exclusive-article.com article directory.

Monday, October 02, 2006

The Fourth Golden Key to Building a Multimillion Dollar Empire

by: Matt Bacak


Are you an entrepreneur that has started a business? Do you want your business to not only make a profit, but become a multimillion dollar empire? Do you have the drive and passion to push your business to the number one spot and make millions? If so, then you need to understand and implement the seven golden keys to building a multimillion dollar empire.

This article describes the fourth golden key to building a multimillion dollar empire and why you should apply it to your business. This information is the nuts and bolts you need to focus on. Take a hard look at your business to make absolutely certain that you are implementing this golden key.

Golden Key #4: “Be a Marketer.”

Marketing is vital to the success of your business. How can you have any business orders if customers don’t know about your product? You can’t sit back and hope that customers will stumble across your website and purchase your product. You need to be aggressive, proactive, and market your product or service as much as possible. Customers need to not only know that your product exists, but how awesome the product is and why they should buy it.

How should you market your product or service? First, research and analyze how successful companies have marketed products and services that are similar to your business. What types of marketing interested you? What types of marketing did not grab your attention or even turn you off? You need to observe these marketing techniques from successful businesses and apply them to your business.

Where should you market your product or service? The most effective way to market your product is to advertise it on television through commercials or infomercials. You can also create radio spots. These types of marketing options are effective, but they are very costly. Too costly for most Internet based businesses. Therefore, your best marketing avenue is to use the Internet. The Internet is extremely cheap and quick as far as marketing options are concerned. Use many different marketing methods via the Internet. For example, you can send auto responders, write web articles, and participate in joint ventures.

A major fallacy about marketing is that a superior product will always win out despite marketing efforts from the sub par product. This is far from the truth. Often it is not the most superior product or service that is more successful, but the product or service that has the most effective and aggressive marketing plan. Therefore, following the fourth golden key to building a multimillion dollar empire is not an option, but a necessity.


About The Author

Matt Bacak became "#1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours. Recent Entrepreneur Magazine’s e-Biz radio show host is turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories. Discover The Secrets To Unleash The Powerful Promoter In You! Sign up for Matt Bacak's Promoting Tips Ezine ($100 value) just visit his website at http://www.promotingtips.com or http://www.powerfulpromoter.com

Making Money on the Internet

Maybe you've heard people say that you can get rich on the Internet. But, if you are serious about making money on the Internet, remember, it's not a get rich overnight business. Internet success takes time, effort and knowledge. There's no easy "get rich quick" method, so you need to spend the time for building income stream from your Web site.

You can find many kinds of Web sites that have the aim, directly or indirectly, to make money. Apart from the online retailers who are using their sites to directly make money, you can find many Web sites with various moneymaking features.

Here's an excellent page describing realistic ways of making money on the Internet from your personal Web site - Work From Home. No "get rich quick" schemes. Just proven, reliable ways to to build an online business or use a Web site to expand your offline one.

The basis for building serious income is the high traffic. If your site only gets a few hundred visitors per month, as most of personal Web sites, you'll unlikely make more than pocket change.



Here are some ways of making money on the Internet from your personal Web site...

1. Banners


They were one of the first ways of making money from hobby Web sites, however they are not so popular now since most surfers don't even look at them. In fact, the click-through rate (the percentage of visitors who actually click on a banner) has steadily dropped, from around 5% 4 years ago to less than 0.5% now.

In the Traffic-Building volume of Make Your Site SELL! 2002 (the best ebook describing all possible ways of making money on the Internet), banners are called #1 "Time and Money Wasters." Save yourself months of poorly spent time. Read this essential manual first.

If you have highly relevant, cleverly designed banners, you can beat the odds. However, you need relatively high traffic to actually make more than pocket change. In fact, most banner advertising companies prefer to only pay for actual sales (even click throughs are no longer attractive, since many people click through because they are paid to, and not because they intend to buy anything).

2. Freebies

Under this category are things such as free lotto tickets and various games where you can win prizes. Often, these are implemented as pop-ups and are much more annoying than banners.

3. Affiliate programs.

They pay you a percentage of the sales you generate for them, or for each visitor you send. This is one of the best ways of making money on the Internet. You don't have to spend time and energy creating your own product. And some of them pay 50% commission. See Affiliate programs for more information on building income from affiliate programs.

4. Google AdSense

This is one of the easiest ways of making money on the Internet for small and medium sites by displaying relevant, text-based ads from Google AdWords (Google's own advertising program) and receiving a share of the pay-per-click payment. For more information, go directly to their site.

5. Other tools

There are many tools that can help you make some pretty big commissions without your visitors even realizing that you're building income from their visits.

For example, several search engines will pay you a few cents per search made from your Web site. If a few hundred people use your search box, you'll earn a few dollars a day - not bad for a few minutes of cut & paste a small line of code within the HTML of your Web page.

6. Selling a Product or Service.


This is an obvious way of making money on the Internet. To succeed in it, you have to succeed at three points...

- Develop a great product that is of interest to others on the Web.
- Write a professional Web site designed to sell.
- Attract targeted customers to the site.


Ken Evoy's Make Your Knowledge Sell! is a very useful ebook for those who want to get a piece of the e-commerce pie but don't know how to come up with a product. MYKS! shows you that your knowledge, life experience, specialized interest or hobby can be packaged into an information product ("infoproduct") that other people want and are surfing to find.

An infoproduct offers the best entry point into the world of making money on the Internet for most people. Absolutely everything is in MYKS!... from brainstorming to automating your order-processing. You need absolutely nothing else to succeed at selling what's in your brain.

For additional information on how to start selling online, see Selling on the Internet and Free Merchant Accounts. You'll also find there a list of 3rd party credit card processing companies - processing fees, extra costs and other details.



Sunday, October 01, 2006

How Much Money Do You Want?

It’s a common daydream to wonder what it would be like to win the lottery or to receive a large, unexpected inheritance. With a big wad of cash, it seems, anything is possible. This doesn’t have to be just a daydream – you can make it happen for real. But the question “how much money do you want?” is a trick question. Unless you collect money for its artistic value, you don’t really want money. You want what money can buy.

For example, let’s say you think you want $25,000 so you can buy a new car. Do you really want the 25 grand? No! You want the car! The same is true of retirement plans. Do you want 6 million in your 401K one day? Great! What for? If it just sits in the account your entire life, grows, but is never used, it might as well have been just a daydream. If you want 6 million dollars in your 401K one day, what you really want is to ensure a good standard of living for you and your loved ones well into your golden years.

Living is what it’s all about. We want to live our lives. We want happiness. We want plentiful opportunities for our children and our children’s children. We want vacations and spas and fine food and drink. We want freedom to do what we want when we want. Money is merely a means to an end. To get what we want, we must focus on feeling good about it and be grateful for it – as if we’ve already received it. We must have the blind faith that the Bible implies with the statement “Ask and ye shall receive.” If what you want has a price tag associated with it, by all means take note of that and plan for that, but always keep your mind and heart focused on what you really want – which usually isn’t money.