Will Obama-nomics and the Obama economic plan work? That remains to be seen. However, with the new Obama administration and the financial “experts” telling us it may be years before we see an economic recovery, most of us don’t have time to wait for the politicians to get their act together. We, as a nation, need to take the economy into our own hands and speed up the recovery as quickly as possible.

But how do we do that, exactly? With figures in the trillions of dollars, it would seem impossible for any individual to have much of an effect on our current economic crisis.

“The answer is correct money management and the correct handling of our finances,” says money management expert Sandra Simmons. “We got ourselves into this situation because we, as a nation, have violated many of the basic principles of sound financial management. No matter what the government does, in the end, all of us need to change the way we handle money and credit in order to truly get the economy back on track.”

In particular, Simmons takes aim at America’s over-indulgent love affair with credit. Credit, she says, is an all-too-seductive trap that has lured an entire nation to shipwreck upon hidden fiscal shoals. Almost everyone, from the largest of companies to the individual consumer fell into the credit trap and began living a false lifestyle that was way above its means. This false economic condition was a ticking time bomb just waiting for the right set of circumstances to explode.

“At any given point-in-time, we are all in a certain financial condition,” explains Simmons. “And it is easy to fool yourself into thinking that you are in a better condition than you are actually in. The basis for this false financial condition is usually an over-reliance on credit to supplement your income. Too much credit and too much debt inevitably leads to a financial crash.”

Although Simmons has been writing and lecturing on the dangers of credit and debt for years, the recent U.S. Economic crisis has brought the point home with historical force. Financial pundits and politicians may complain that this “Economic Tsunami” was unforeseen, but Simmons disagrees.

“If you analyze the histories of economic bubbles, you will find at their root violations of sound money management principles. Whether it’s herd mentality or some other phenomena, group-think drives people to take actions they intuitively know to be unsound and overly risky,” she says. “But the terrible truth is that people know when they’ve extended themselves too far and national confidence begins to wane.”

Confidence, says Simmons, is the single most important hallmark of any strong economy. The question becomes how confident can anyone be when they know that they owe their lifestyle and economic standing to a economic foundation based on credit. Like any structure built on an unstable base, it’s only a matter of time till it comes tumbling down.

“Conversely, an economy with little debt, operating on very little credit and strong reserves is an economy in very good shape and one that is very stable and hard to disrupt,” states Simmons. “The kind of money management system that I am talking about is actually the kind of system that is very old-school and traditional. That is a tried and true system. It works and it’s the road to financial freedom and wealth.”

According to Simmons, this is the real way to build the economy from the ground up. The goal should be to get every American applying the tried and true money management policies to their own lives and this would serve to create an extremely strong economic base on which to build an unshakable economy.

Simmons’s plan to grow the economy from the ground up would include:

1.Start using cash instead of credit.

“We have to break the cycle of using our credit cards for every financial transaction,” says Simmons. “Instead, use cash or your ATM card. If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it. Instead, save up for it if it is something you really want.”

Getting away from the instant gratification mindset that we have all become used to may go contrary to popular culture but it is the way to dig ourselves out of this economic mess.

“As a nation, it is not difficult to see the immediate effect it would have if we all stopped using credit cards and started using cash,” she says. “Many would argue against this, especially with the holiday season approaching. But we have to get off our credit addiction at some time, and now is as god a time as any to get into the right spending habits.”

2.Pay down your debts

Another unacceptable money management habit is carrying a large debt load.

“Somewhere along the line, it became acceptable to carry a large amount of debt,” notes Simmons. “Maybe this comes from Madison Avenue advertising campaigns, but this is completely wrong-headed. The goal should be to be completely debt-free. It doesn’t do to pay the minimum amount owed on debt. Additional money should be applied to debts to pay them off quickly.”

Debt, it could be stated, is at the root of all financial evil. Debt, by its very definition, carries with it, risk. That risk of course, is financial failure.

“I think the lessons of the Great Depression faded so far into the past that most of us forgot what could happen when you allow debt to accumulate,” Simmons observes. “The risk-taking by some of the largest financial institutions and our own government would have been unimaginable a generation ago. We can all get out of debt, but it does take a certain amount of planning and discipline. “

3.Build Reserves.

The road to wealth begins with putting money aside little by little into reserve accounts that are not touched except for emergencies.

“Unfortunately, the very concept of saving has gone completely out the window,” Simmons says. “Saving money is just not a popular concept anymore and is possibly viewed as old fashioned by some. As a result, the U.S. Ranks far down the list of countries whose workers and business owners regularly put money aside in savings, and this makes us very vulnerable when we can no longer work or when a crisis occurs in our lives.”

In fact, if anything, the messages in typical advertising and commercials is spend, spend, spend. If there are any suggestions in society about putting money aside, it certainly gets lost.

“In truth I think we’ve lost touch as a society with what it takes to build wealth and gain financial freedom,” says Simmons.”The fact of the matter is that anyone can become wealthy if they apply the right money management principles. It’s really not how much you make. It’s what you do with your money that counts.”

And Simmons has the client list to prove it. Despite the devastating economic storm, Simmons’ clients have weathered it rather well because they have applied her principles and were prepared.

Simmons is anxious to spread the word and is currently touring the U.S. giving seminars on the secrets of wealth building and financial freedom. Her next seminar is scheduled for the weekend of December 13th in the Tampa, Florida area.

If anyone thinks that we cannot change our collective financial habits for the better, Simmons cites one very prominent example.

“Just look at what we did with the gas prices,” she says. “The so-called experts said it couldn’t be done, but America, through our combined efforts, changed our habits and dramatically lowered the prices. It can be the same with the economy if we change our money management habits from the ground up. “

So you want to be broke and stay in the economic trap? Here are the top 7 Money Management Mistakes you can make to insure you have NO MONEY and are living in poverty.

Money Management Mistake #1. Spend every dime you make and deny yourself nothing; buy stuff whether you need it or not.

Money Management Mistake #2. If you have any money in the bank or room on your credit cards, go out and spend it. Don’t worry about emergencies that may come up. When they do, borrow more money to handle it.

Money Management Mistake #3. Work to make just enough money to barely pay your bills and be sure to spend your free time out spending money. Don’t stress over the yearly increase in the cost of living.

Money Management Mistake #4. Use your credit cards to pay for essential items like gas and groceries, and to do impulse shopping for things you want but don’t need. Max out those credit cards.

Money Management Mistake #5. Pay only the minimum payment required on your credit cards each month, and don’t worry about the extra charges for paying late or spending over your credit limit.

Money Management Mistake #6. Never put any money in savings, and if you do, feel free to tap into those funds when you can’t pay your bills.

Money Management Mistake #7. Rely on the Government and Social Security to take care of you when you can no longer work.

These actions will guarantee that you are being controlled by the money and are broke and living in poverty.

If you don’t care that you’ll constantly be worried about money and plagued with money problems, then you’ll be able to spend those sleepless nights out spending more money on credit cards or shopping on-line on the computer for entertainment. Heaven forbid that you should be working on ways to take responsibility for your own financial survival instead of relying on someone else to take care of you financially. Isn’t that what friends, family and the Social Security system are for?

Now that I’ve given you all this advice about how to live broke and die penniless, I should also tell you that there is a money management system that you can use to control your income and debts to get on the road to financial freedom. Just in case you change your mind and decide you want to take responsibility for improving your own financial condition, visit www.moneymgmtsolutions.com.

I recently received an email from a visitor to my Money Management Solutions website who wants to learn how to pay off her mortgage quickly without having to attend expensive seminars or buy expensive software to do this trick.

I realized that this was a question a lot of people might have, especially during this current economic crisis. I decided to share my answer here for that reason.

Brenda asked Sandra Simmons:

Is there some sort of “mortgage accelerator” program where your mortgage gets paid off in a fraction of the usual 30 years time? I want to learn how I can do this myself for my mortgages. — Brenda B.

Answer:

Brenda: You can do this yourself by making extra principal payments each month.

Example if your mortgage payment is $2,000:

 If, when you make the payment for 8/1, you include an extra payment for the principal due 9/1 of $302 then you don’t ever have to pay the interest of $1,698 that was due 9/1.

Your next payment due, which you will pay on 9/1, is actually the 10/1 payment.

Then on 9/1, when you make the 10/1 payment, if you also pay the principal payment from the 11/1 payment, then you save that interest. If you do this you will cut your mortgage payoff time in half.

Write on your payment coupon “Extra Principal Payment $302” so there is no question of where you are directing the funds, and keep a copy of the coupon and the check for your records.

If you want to accelerate it even faster, say cut it by 2/3rds, if on 8/1 you make the payment and include the principal amounts for the payments due 9/1 and 10/1, then you don’t pay the interest on the 9/1/and 10/1 payments.

Then on 9/1 when you make the next payment you would pay the payment for 11/1.

Ask your mortgage lender for an amortization statement of your loan so you can actually see the correct principal and interest amounts broken down for each payment. They may not want to give you one so you can’t do this as they lose interest income, but you have a right to have it. Even if you have to pay them for it, it is worth it. Typically they charge $25 – $75 for an amortization statement.

Sandra Simmons is the President of Money Management Solutions, Inc. She specializes in helping business owners and individuals manage their money to achieve financial freedom. Claim your FREE Debt Reduction Solutions Guide.

Less than a week has passed since the $700+ Billion bailout plan was passed to handle the financial crisis. The money is gone. It’s all been dished out. Yet the Wall Street stock market crash continues, the economic crisis continues full steam ahead, and the greedy want even more.

Just today, Nancy Pelosi asked for another $150 Billion for the bailout to handle the credit crisis. No doubt her new plan is filled with pork belly earmarks. The government and all the greedy and corrupt officals on Capital Hill are admitting that the $700 Billion is just a start. They say it’s going to take at least 3 times that. I, for one, am not willing for my pocket to be picked any longer by people who have been elected to serve me, who are treating me like their economic slave. All those who voted for the bailout plan need to resign from office today. More appropriately they should be convicted of TREASON – betrayal after trust-Democrats and Republicans alike.

Indictments for treason should also extend to the recipients of the money for their criminal activities. Just weeks after receiving their $85 Billion dollar rescue package, AIG senior management reportedly spent over $400,000 on a week-long vacation retreat for themselves at a ritzy resort in California at our, the taxpayers’, expense. Their spa bill alone for manicures, pedicures, facials and massages ran up a tab of over $23,000. That is CRIMINAL! And that is just the first of the stories like these. A lot of heads need to be put on pikes. They have stolen America’s financial freedom.

I still want Ron Paul for President. He has the sanest money management plan of all. I still want the FairTax Bill voted in and the IRS voted out. It’s going to take an all-out grass roots effort by the American citizens to get the FairTax Bill passed. I believe, as does Ron Paul and the 70 or more other members of the current Congress who support the FairTax Bill, that it can be done.

I just visited the FairTax website at http://www.fairtax.org and read this message on the current economic crisis and the out-ethics activities of our government officials from their Communications Director Ken Hoagland. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Hometown America Must Save The Nation

At the heart of the financial meltdown now bedeviling Americans is a simple and profoundly ignored fact that does not require an advanced degree in economics to understand: Our government spends more than it takes in—a lot more.

Sure, regulators could have done a better job but, in truth, politicians at every level have frustrated attempts to blow the whistle on bad loans, bad reporting and bad ethics. Why? Because politicians have been buying our votes with our money—and our future earnings—for a long time. And they don’t want any interference from those they are “helping.”

It’s not just the naked bribes represented by “earmarks” for hometown voters; it is new entitlement programs like the prescription drug benefit, new rules governing the behavior of favored banks and investment houses and a headlong rush to buy the votes of the poor by guaranteeing home ownership, irrespective of one’s financial ability to repay a loan. Lest we forget, let’s also add up all the special tax breaks for favored contributors that have bloated income tax code rules to 67,500 pages. It’s a bi-partisan betrayal of our future cloaked as concern for the common good.

Although our nation was founded on the principle that the citizen was sovereign, government spending increases and more and more taxes taken from our earnings, savings and investments have effectively transformed the American citizen into a serf working another’s land for the privilege of taking a fraction of the fruits of his or her own labor.

Just Trust Us

“Trust us,” we are told. “We have the best interests of the nation at heart.” Citizens are now left with no rational choice to protect savings, college plans, and investments but to accept the new aristocracies’ trillion dollar picking of our pockets to prop up institutions that must function. It is not the first time in recent years that we have accepted the grasping hand of the federal government in our wallets to avert a disaster not of our making.

In 1983 a “Blue Ribbon” panel of similar leaders including Alan Greenspan, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and others “saved” Social Security from another big collapse by dramatically raising taxes on earnings of up to $97,500 annually. The promise, then, was that Baby Boomers would actually “pre-fund” their own retirement with astoundingly increased taxes, decades ahead of time. It was also promised as relief to the coming generations so they would be free of crippling taxes. Sounded good.

Lo and behold, the trillions of dollars taken in since then—far exceeding promised payments to senior citizens—have since been spent on everything else. Turns out, that it was nothing more than a new tax levied on those with earnings below $97,500 a year so executive and legislative branch office holders could have more of our money to spend extravagantly on “us” so they could win new terms in office. The FICA payroll tax has become a major factor in keeping the poor that way, retarding new business growth and keeping middle-class earners from moving up. Worst, it also turns out that our children and grandchildren will, in fact, still be burdened by an ever-growing and mind-numbing national debt AND unbelievably high FICA taxes to support their parents.

In yet another example of playing fast and loose with politics and our money, 1986 saw Congress reject the tax policies of the Reagan administration and as consequence, the Savings and Loan industry collapsed. Turns out the definition of the tax value of real estate holdings had been changed overnight by the House Ways and Means Committee and banks no longer met liquidity rules. That politically inspired cat fight cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. And worse, we didn’t learn.

It is past time–way past time–for hometown America to save America from our well-intentioned but criminally incompetent, at best, and cynically corrupted, at worst, national leadership. Do we have a moment to lose? Do we really need any more examples of how the new aristocracy can—and will—destroy the pursuit of happiness?

The reform that can save the nation and restore our identity as citizens who have empowered and limited government (instead of the other way around) is called the FairTax.

Because the FairTax allows every American to take home everything that is earned without any federal withholding, millions of distressed homeowners could actually afford home mortgage payments. The elimination of FICA taxes eliminates the highly regressive Social Security and Medicate tax but the FairTax provides a far broader stream of revenue into these faltering programs. Because the FairTax eliminates all exemptions, gimmicks and loopholes, Congress would be removed from the ability to buy votes with tax giveaways and billionaires pay taxes when they spend money. Because the FairTax makes nearly all federal government taxes entirely transparent, the sovereign citizen can know the score and put the brakes on extravagant new spending.

Because the FairTax eliminates the price advantage now enjoyed by overseas producers, American jobs won’t be leaving our shores. In fact, because the FairTax makes the USA the most favorable tax environment in the world, we can expect trillions of dollars of investment rushing into the US economy. With the FairTax, our money is ours first and only secondly devoted to government. Savings growth, investments and business decisions are guided by opportunity and real progress instead of tax avoidance tactics.

We’ve lost more than $2 trillion of our retirement savings in a week’s time and our kid’s future at college is in serious jeopardy. This didn’t happen by accident but at the hands of the very same people who have given the FairTax a cold shoulder. Those candidates and incumbents of either party who would spend our future earnings to stay in office and who reject the FairTax for similarly self-interested reasons now need a strong reminder from voters about whose offices they occupy. Please pay attention to our voting guide and send that message. [See the voting guide at www.fairtax.org]

Finally, our campaign needs your help—as always. We never have enough to do the job right. Send us a contribution if you can, even in these hard times. It may turn out to be the best investment you ever made. If you can’t afford a donation, then help us by recruiting two new supporters. And keep your cards, letters, phone calls, faxes and e-mails going to incumbents and candidates.

The plain fact is, we either now save ourselves from our new aristocracy or suffer the consequences as modern day serfs in a nation never contemplated by our Founding Fathers.