Investing in bricks and mortar can help to secure retirement income
When it comes to building long-term assets, only the top fifth of American households build a nest egg from stocks and bonds. For those who aren’t rich, real estate is their main source of wealth in later years.
Investing in commercial property can be wise, but the family home makes up a significant part of most people’s assets. Those who take the time to calculate the investment in their home and compare it to the investment in their retirement accounts are likely to be surprised.
The experts at Wachovia Bank say understanding this can help people make good decisions while they’re younger. But it can also help middle-agers secure their golden years.
Trading to a larger house during your prime working years can be a good retirement savings strategy if you can afford the payments. Equity builds and the value of the home rises each year.
A rental property can provide income as long as costs such as the mortgage and maintenance are more than covered by the rent. Equity builds and the property increases in value over time.
Some people buy vacation homes for family use, hoping to cash in on future appreciation. Others rent out a property so it creates an income stream. And still others, looking forward to their retirement years, buy a second home anticipating that they will downsize.
Location is important, but amenities, future needs, maintenance, and an exit strategy must be considered.
No one should buy a property that will strain the budget if annual income drops, say Wachovia advisors.

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Most of us are not wise about financial matters. We don’t know how to judge which stocks will be profitable, whether we should invest in bonds, or what the financial interests are of those who say they will give us the answers.
Knowledge is our best defense against bad advice, according to the Consumer Federation of America.
Investing
Your government has free help available. At sec.gov, look for the “Your Money” button to download lessons about how to evaluate stock tips and read disclosures.
At mymoney.gov, you will find postings about how to save for retirement and avoid scams. It also links to local authorities at the North American Securities Administrators Association site, nasaa.org.
Independent and free information may be even better. Morningstar.com,  started as a mutual fund research company, but now has an entire curriculum on stocks, bonds, funds, and more. The course starts with simple stuff and moves up to more-complex levels. It tells you how to evaluate whether a stock is well priced or not.
Borrowing
Bankrate.com offers interest rate quotes and advice on borrowing and saving. For more technical information, visit the American Association of Individual Investors at aaii.org.
Interest rates on home equity lines of credit are now at 8 percent or more. Many credit card companies, however, are still offering 0 percent interest for one year.
One problem is that you don’t know how much credit each card will offer you. Financial experts recommend that you return several no-interest credit card applications. Then you can cancel those that don’t give a high enough credit limit without doing serious damage to your credit rating.

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It has been called ‘managing up,’ self promotion, and some less flattering monikers.
It’s the ability to influence your own boss to invest in your ideas and advancement.
It’s a soft skill that can be mistaken, at best, for manipulation, but, at worst, for thriving on the fruits of others’ labor and covering one’s fanny.
Real managing up is supposed to be done not for personal reasons but for the benefit of the organization. But most often, it’s done for personal gain. It’s hard to do with dignity and without straining friendships.
You may believe that when you are doing a good job and accomplishing something, that your bosses will know. But Robert Cialdini of Arizona State University says your boss probably doesn’t realize how good you are.
Cialdini and Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Jerry Pfeffer co-authored a recent study that shows self-promotion may not work as well as it seems. Reported in the Wall Street Journal, the researchers found that self-aggrandizers don’t fool others as well as they fool themselves.
Their recommendation: You have to all but deputize someone as your campaign manager. The most savvy strategy, they found, is to have information about your accomplishments come to your boss from someone else.
When discussing ideas with your boss, point out that what you are recommending is logically consistent with a stand the boss and higher-ups are already taking.

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So you’re wondering how to improve the efficiency of your department or your team and think your people could be mined for golden ideas.
How about a brainstorming session? It could be a popular method, but is it better than having workers develop ideas on their own?
Psychologists at the University of Texas at Arlington researched the number and quality of ideas produced by brainstorming sessions. They looked at whether people brainstorming in a group came up with better ideas than four people did when they brainstormed alone. The group of brainstormers came up with just half as many ideas as the four people who brainstormed alone.
They also discovered, however, that people brainstorming alone came up with good ideas after the group brainstorming sessions.
One professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education says the best way to get good ideas is to get people to write them down and bring them in.  If you really want group diversity, don’t include more than five to seven people. While brainstorming is plainly inefficient, you might do it because you want everyone to think they have a voice.
If you must brainstorm, professor Paul  Baard of Fordham University suggests you start with a statement. Quoted in the Wall Street Journal, he recommends:     “No one, present or not here, is going to be hurt during this process. We will not be using ridicule …”

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You can’t fault organizations for being careful. They have a number of things to guard against including everything from terrorists, to lost trade secrets, libel, and potential violence.
That’s why emails are routinely subjected to programs that search for dangerous words and suggestive remarks. The latest software is very sophisticated. It doesn’t just hunt for words and phrases such as “insider trading,” or “breaking the law.”
Some programs such as those by Cataphora, described in Fortune, additionally search for language that seems intentionally vague. It catches phrases such as “that thing we talked about,” and “what we spoke of the other day when we talked about the other thing.” And it catches words that indicate negative emotions, such as confused, bewildered, lost sleep, and regret.
Some programs examine any shift in email habits. If you usually use email in the afternoon, for example, and you suddenly begin sending messages in the middle of the night, the program will point that out.
For many people, however, emails that simply show a lack in judgment can wreak the most havoc. Remember that anything you write can be forwarded instantly to hundreds of others and to blogs where you may be ridiculed.
To keep email working for you the way it should:
Stick to business topics. Be concise and clear.
Keep it short and to the point, no small talk that could be misunderstood.
Know what types of words and phrases company software programs target and don’t use them.
Always keep common sense and good values in mind.

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