Used wisely, credit is a powerful financial tool; but if used carelessly, it can lead to a heavy debt load. Whether you’ve accumulated debt or are considering credit options, understanding the essentials of credit and debt management will help you remain on solid financial ground. Credit Cards It’s essential to understand all the features of...

Financial Security Everybody wants to be financially secure. Financial security allows you to enjoy a comfortable standard of living or a secure retirement. Or you could achieve something more specific, such as paying for your children’s education, buying your own home or going on that special holiday. For some, financial security comes in the form...

Understanding the concepts of risk and return and how they are interrelated is an important part of smart investment. Some people make the mistake of only looking at the return from an investment without also considering the risk. What is Return? The return on an investment is the reward you receive for investing your funds....

In investing terms, risk indicates the variability of returns associated with investing over time. In other words, the more an investment’s returns go up and down over time, the more risky it is said to be. This is because, as an investor, the more your investment returns fluctuate over time, the less certain you will...

As a general rule, investments with high risk tend to have high returns and vice versa. Another way to look at it is that for a given level of return, it is human nature to prefer less risk to more risk. Therefore, the higher the risk of an investment, the higher its returns have to...

One way in which risk can be reduced is to invest in a range of investments or, as the saying goes, “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”.  This is commonly referred to as “diversification”. Why does diversification work?  Different investments tend to experience good performance at different times.  By not having all your...

Insurance is a form of managing risk that may arise from unexpected events which could happen through natural disasters or by man.  It aims to lessen or remove the heavy financial loss caused by these unexpected events by way of compensating or assisting in recovery. Insurance is a shared risk management tool where a large...

Saving is about putting a small portion of your income aside for future use. The key benefit from saving is that it helps us to achieve our financial goals in life but most importantly it helps to ease the bumps and provides a “cushion” when emergencies strike. For this article, we will focus on emergencies,...

What is Life Insurance? Life insurance is a contract between a policy holder and an insurance company (insurer), where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money (benefits) upon the death of the life insured or a maturity benefit to the policy owner should the life insured survive the full term...

Plan ahead There’s no better time than right now to plan for your retirement. Saving for retirement often gets put off as we deal with life’s more pressing demands – marriage, house, children – but each month you delay cuts significantly into the total savings you have when that day comes. Save early. Save often....