Retire at 40: Here's how

It's simple, but hard. Take 20% of your gross income every month, invest it in a balanced index fund and leave it there, then retire 20 years later with enough for a lifetime. Do you have what it takes?

A young, forward-thinking man wrote and asked this simple question:

Right now, I'm 20 years old. I am willing to take a large percentage off the top of my salary for the rest of my working life in order to be able to retire very young and live off of the proceeds of my investments and do volunteer work. How many years would I have to work if I saved 20% of my income?

He went on to name a number of other specifics about his situation, but they're really not important. If you were to take 20% of your annual income starting at age 20 and put it in a fund following the S&P 500 Index ($INX), that fund continued to grow at the long-term historical rate (12%) and you received a 4% raise each year, you could walk away from your job and live off the interest at age 41 matching your current salary -- or quit at 43 and be able to give yourself a 4% "raise" each year from the interest, which is probably the better plan because it combats inflation.

Raise the amount to 25% and you're done at age 38 and able to live in perpetuity at age 40.

Obviously, some people are going to balk at this and state that it "can't" be done. The truth is that it can be done if you have the willingness to live below your means and authentically behave as if 20% of your total salary doesn't exist.

It is challenging, don't get me wrong. Let's take the case of someone who makes about $60,000 a year. He brings home a paycheck every month in the amount of $3,200. In order to save 20% of his whole annual salary ($12,000), he would have to be willing to immediately take $1,000 of that take-home paycheck every month, put it straight into an investment and not touch it at all. This takes an amount of financial fortitude and will power that, quite honestly, most Americans don't have.

My advice to this young man is that if this is truly your goal, then it is achievable, and I offer the following points of advice:

• Make that saving automatic. Figure out what exact dollar amount you need to remove from each paycheck to equal 20% of your total salary, then set things up so that amount is withdrawn automatically. Since you're planning on retiring so young, it will have to be placed into a non-tax-sheltered investment account, which is fine if you invest it right.
• Buy and hold. Buy into a very broad-based investment, such as the Vanguard 500 Index Fund (VFINX), and just keep adding money to it and don't move it around. This will set you up to pay only long-term capital-gains tax when you withdraw it, meaning that your tax time in the future when you start liquidating it to live will actually be quite pleasant (just long-term capital gains tax, if that even exists then).
• Learn to appreciate frugal living. With an e-mail like that, I'm already sure that you are more likely to buy a sturdy late-model used car than a new Lexus, but it's important to state just the same: You can easily save that 20% you're wanting to save by making good lifestyle choices. You'll find that if you've made the investments automatic, you'll easily learn to live on whatever is left over

The above article is a copy from The Simple Dollar nd is meant for informational use only.

The Political Way...........

I always wondered, when our political leaders went on for a bhookh hadtal or something like that.., that how many days a human being can live without food ???
And here is what i found :

If a man does not get food he can survive for 60 days but without water he can live for a maximum 7 hours or more depending on the capacity of the person.
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Dont you think we should urge our politicians to go on pyaas hadtal ???? That makes more meaning ??? ;) What say ???

Should I eat Non Veg food ???

I was a vegetarian while at home, then became an eggitarian and now I am an Omniverous animal ! I was seriously thinking the privious day, what does my religion really have to say about eating veg-nonveg food !!!! Here is what i found :

Meat is nutritious and rich in complete protein. Non-vegetarian food is a good source of excellent protein. It contains biologically complete protein i.e. all the 8 essential amino acid that are not synthesized by the body and should be supplied in the diet. Meat also contains iron, vitamin B1 and niacin

Humans have Omnivorous set of teeth If you observe the teeth of herbivorous animals like the cow, goat and sheep, you will find something strikingly similar in all of them. All these animals have a set of flat teeth i.e. suited for herbivorous diet. If you observe the set of teeth of the carnivorous animals like the lion, tiger, or leopard, they all have a set of pointed teeth i.e. suited for a carnivorous diet. If you analyze the set of teeth of humans, you find that they have flat teeth as well as pointed teeth. Thus they have teeth suited for both herbivorous as well as carnivorous food i.e. they are omnivorous. One may ask, if Almighty God wanted humans to have only vegetables, why did He provide us also with pointed teeth? It is logical that He
expected us to need and to have both vegetarian as well as non-vegetarian food.

Human beings can digest both vege-tarian and non-vegetarian food. The digestive system of herbivorous animals can digest only vegetables. The digestive system of carnivorous animals can digest only meat. But the digestive system of humans can digest both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food. If Almighty God wanted us to have only vegetables then why did He give us a digestive system that can digest both vegetarian as well as non-vegetarian
food?

Hindu scriptures give permission to have non-vegetarian food
a. There are many Hindus who are strictly vegetarian. They think it is against their religion to consume non-vegetarian food. But the true fact is that the Hindu scriptures permit a person to have meat. The scriptures mention Hindu sages and saints consuming non-vegetarian food.
b. It is mentioned in Manu Smruti, the law book of Hindus, in chapter 5 verse 30 “The eater who eats the flesh of those to be eaten does nothing bad, even if he does it day after day, for God himself created some to be eaten and some to be eater.”
c. Again next verse of Manu Smruti, that is, chapter 5 verse 31 says “Eating meat is right for the sacrifice, this is traditionally known as a rule of the gods.”
d. Further in Manu Smruti chapter 5 verse 39 and 40 says “God himself created sacrificial animals for sacrifice, ... , therefore killing in a sacrifice is not killing.”
e. Mahabharata Anushashan Parva chapter 88 narrates the discussion between Dharmaraj Yudhishthira and Pitamah Bhishma about what food one should offer to Pitris (ancestors) during the Shraddha (ceremony of dead) to keep them satisfied. Paragraph reads as follows:
“Yudhishthira said, “O thou of great puissance, tell me what that object is which, if dedicated to the Pitiris (dead ancestors), become inexhaustible! What Havi, again, (if offered) lasts for all time? What, indeed, is that which (if presented) becomes eternal?”
“Bhishma said, “Listen to me, O Yudhishthira, what those Havis are which persons conversant with the rituals of the Shraddha (the ceremony of dead) regard as suitable in view of Shraddha and what the fruits are that attach to each. With sesame seeds and rice and barely and Masha and water and roots and fruits, if given at Shraddhas, the pitris, O king, remain gratified for
the period of a month. With fishes offered at Shraddhas, the pitris remain gratified for a period of two months. With the mutton they remain gratified for three months and with the hare for four months, with the flesh of the goat for five months, with the bacon (meat of pig) for six months, and with the flesh of birds for seven. With venison obtained from those deer that
are called Prishata, they remaingratified for eight months, and with that obtained from the Ruru for nine months, and with the meat of Gavaya for ten months, With the meat of the bufffalo their gratification lasts for eleven months. With beef presented at the Shraddha, their gratification, it is said , lasts for a full year. Payasa mixed with ghee is as much acceptable to the pitris as beef. With the meat of Vadhrinasa (a large bull) the gratification of pitris lasts for twelve years. the flesh of rhinoceros, offered to the pitris on anniversaries of the lunar days on which they died, becomes inexhaustible. The potherb called Kalaska, the petals of kanchana flower, and meat of (red) goat also, thus offered, prove inexhaustible. So but natural if you want to keep your ancestors satisfied forever, you should serve them the meat of red goat.

7. Hinduism was influenced by other religions Though Hindu Scriptures permit its followers to have non-vegetarian food, many Hindus adopted the vegetarian system because they were influenced by other religions like Jainism.
8. Even plants have life Certain religions have adopted pure vegetarianism as a dietary law because they are totally against the killing of living creatures. If a person can survive without killing any living creature, I would be the first person to adopt such a way of life. In the past people thought plants were lifeless. Today it is a universal fact that even plants have life. Thus their logic of not killing living creatures is not fulfilled even by being a pure vegetarian.

9. Even plants can feel pain They further argue that plants cannot feel pain, therefore killing a plant is a lesser crime as compared to killing an animal. Today science tells us that even
plants can feel pain. But the cry of the plant cannot be heard by the human being. This is due to the inability of the human ear to hear sounds that are not in the audible range i.e. 20 Hertz to 20,000 Hertz. Anything below and above this range cannot be heard by a human being. A dog can hear up to 40,000 Hertz. Thus there are silent dog whistles that have a frequency of more than 20,000 Hertz and less than 40,000 Hertz. These whistles are only heard by dogs and not by human beings. The dog recognizes the masters whistle and comes to the master. There was research done by a farmer in U.S.A. who invented an instrument which converted the cry of the plant so that it could be heard by human beings. He was able to realize immediately when the plant itself cried for water. Latest researches show that the plants can even feel happy
and sad. It can also cry.
10. Killing a living creature with two senses less is not a lesser crime Once a vegetarian argued his case by saying that plants only have two or three senses while the animals have five senses. Therefore killing a plant is a lesser crime than killing an animal. Suppose your brother is born deaf and dumb and has two senses less as compared to other human beings. He becomes mature
and someone murders him. Would you ask the judge to give the murderer a lesser punishment because your brother has two senses less? In fact you would say that he has killed a masoom, an innocent person, and the judge should give the murderer a greater punishment.

Over population of cattle If every human being was a vegetarian, it would lead to overpopulation of cattle in the world, since their reproduction and multiplication is very swift. God in His Divine Wisdom knows how to maintain the balance of His creation appropriately. No wonder He has permitted us to have the meat of the cattle.

Wanna be Successful ? Be aware of these TRAPS

You may find a lot of articles telling you what to do to get success - as a person or as a organization ... Here is a list of 9 things which you may not do in order to get success !!! Read on...

Success leads to the damaging behaviors of a lack of urgency, a proud and protective attitude, and entitlement thinking. This leads to the tendency to institutionalize legacy thinking and practices. Essentially, you believe that what enabled you to become successful will enable you to be successful forever.

Trap 1: NEGLECT

Sticking with Yesterday's Business Model

By business model, I mean what you do and how you do it. It includes such issues as deciding what industry you will be competing in and what approaches you will use in carrying out all the processes necessary to compete in that industry. Will we manufacture something or contract it out? How will we sell our products or services?

Do we go through retail channels? How should we organize our sales force? Which segments of the industry do we want to ignore, and which do we want to compete in? What is the structure of our support staff? Which parts of the organization do we out source? What are our approaches to distribution and inventory management? What are the cost targets of the various components of the organization, like information technology costs and human resources costs? Does our model leave us satisfied with our gross margins, profit margins, and other such figures?

Organizations should be consistently reviewing all aspects of their business model, looking for areas that are weak and need to be overhauled. By weak, we mean out of date, too costly, too slow, or not flexible. In which areas of the business model are you at parity? In those areas, are there any bright ideas on how to achieve a competitive advantage?

TRAP 2: PRIDE

Allowing Your Products to Become Outdated

You may be super proud of your product or service today, but you have to assume that it is going to become inferior to the competition very soon. You need to hustle ad beat your competition to that better mousetrap, and you need to do it over and over.

The amazing thing about success is that it leads to a subconscious entitlement mentality that cause you to believe that you no longer need to do all the dirty work of getting out and studying consumer behavior in details, analyzing different sales approaches, jumping on the latest technology to generate improved products, and everything else that is required to stay ahead. The attitude is often one of believing that you have done all of that and have figured it out, and now things are going to be fine.

Until the early 1970s, typewriters were used to prepare documents. The IBM Selectric model was the standard. Then along came Wang Laboratories' word processor in 1976, providing a completely new approach. It displayed text on a cathode ray tube (CRT) screen that was connected to a central processing unit (CPU). In fact, you could connect many such screens to that CPU in order to handle many different users. Wang's device incorporated virtually every fundamental characteristic of word processors as we know them today, and the phrase word processor rapidly came to refer to CRT-based Wang machines. Then, in the early to mid-1980s, the personal computer emerged. Wang saw it coming but made no attempt to modify its software for a personal computer. PC-based word processors like WordPerfect and Microsoft Word became the rage, and Wang died. Wang fell into the trap of not updating its products, even though it basically invented the word processor industry.

We saw this behavior very clearly with the General Motors example. Its cars, while highly distinctive back in the 1970s, were allowed over time to look more and more alike, and the excitement factor for the customer disappeared.

TRAP 3: BOREDOM

Clinging to Your Once-Successful Branding after It Becomes Stale and Dull

Constantly achieving uniquencss and distinctiveness for a brand and also keeping it fresh and contemporary is hard work. Once a brand achieves some success, the tendency is to sit back and pat yourself on the back, allowing your brand to become dull and ordinary.

The Plymouth automobile was introduced by Chrysler for the 1928 model year as a direct competitor to Ford and Chevrolet. It was a sturdy and durable car that attracted a legion of loyal owners. Plymouth became one of the low-priced three from Detroit and was usually number three in sales, just behind Ford and Chevrolet. For almost two decades, Plymouth sold almost 750,000 cars per year and had a solid brand reputation in the low price range of being reliable but having a bit more flair than Chevrolet or Ford. Older readers may remember the 1957 Plymouth with the huge fins, as well as its Road Runner (beep beep!) model. Plymouth had a very clear brand positioning.

In the 1960s, the Plymouth brand began to lose its uniqueness. Chrysler decided to reposition the Dodge, reducing its price so that it was quite close to Plymouth's. Chrysler came out with low-priced compact and intermediate-size models under both the Plymouth trademark and the Dodge trademark. By 1982, Dodge, was outselling Plymouth. Throughout the late 1980s and the 1990s, Plymouth offered nothing unique. Sales continued to decline, while Dodge was quite healthy. In 1999 Chrysler announced that the Plymouth brand would be discontinued. The lesson is simple: when you allow brands to get stale, they die.

TRAP 4: COMPLEXITY

Ignoring Your Business Processes as They Become Cumbersome and Complicated

Successful organizations often reward themselves by adding more and more people and allowing processes to become fragmented and nonstandardized. This is often done under banner of refining the management of the business. It is also caused by business units and subsidiaries seeking more autonomy, which leads them to develop their own processes and staff resources. Before you know it, getting any kind of change made is very complicated.

Over and over again you read stories about organizations experiencing weak financial results, then finally coming to grips with the problem, laying off thousands of people and simplifying the organization.

We saw in our Toyota case study how aggressive that company is at constantly improving each and every process. Keeping that mindset of constant improvement is very difficult. Success usually leads to a decrease in the intensity with which you tackle such challenges. Also, success leads to a belief that since we are doing so well, we probably need to reward the people in the organization who are asking for their own building and lots of extra people to get them to the next level. Importunely, all those extra costs often lead to bloated processes and further fragmentation of how work gets done.

TRAP 5: BLOAT

Rationalizing Your Loss of Speed and Agility

Successful organisations and individuals tend to crate complexity. They hire a lot of extra people, since clearly things are going well, and those people find things to do, often creating layers of bureaucracy, duplicating capabilities that already exist in the organization, and making it very hard to react quickly to change.

Getting an organization to constantly think about retaining simplicity and flexibility is not easy. The account given in the previous chapter of Toyota's Global Body Line is a good example of doing it right. Toyota thought about agility ahead of time, and when it came time to build a brand-new car, such as the Prius, it didn't have to build a new plant or a new line. This enabled Toyota to get to market fast and save tens of millions of dollars compared with traditional approaches.

TRAP 6: MEDIOCRITY

Condoning Poor Performance and Letting Your Star Employees Languish

When organizations are successful, they have a tendency to stop doing the hard things, and dealing with poor performance is a really hard thing. It also becomes hard to move new people into existing jobs, because there is the burden of getting the new person up to speed and the perception that you are losing valuable expertise. Also, the really strong performers and to get ignored. Consequently, what happens in many successful organizations is that people are left in their jobs too long and poor performance is not dealt with as crisply as it should be. Unfortunately, this also leads to strong players not being constantly challenged.

Successful organizations are especially vulnerable to this trap, since companies that achieve success often have high morale and pride. And who wants to spoil the fun by dealing with the tough personnel issues, which is an onerous task for most managers? Any excuse to put it aside will be embraced.

TRAP 7: LETHARGY

Getting Lulled into a Culture of Comfort, Casualness, and Confidence

Success, and the resulting tendency to become complacent, often leads organizations and individuals to believe that they are very talented, have figured things out, have the answers to all the questions, and no longer need to get their hands dirty in the trenches. They lose their sense of urgency � the feeling that trouble might be just around the corner.

Considering our case studies on GM and Toyota, the contrast between their cultures is really striking. GM seems to exude pride and an attitude of "we are the real pro in the industry," while Toyota has a more humble personality that is all about constant improvement.

The leader of a group really sets the tone on this cultural complacency issue. The tendency is to become very proud of your success and protective of the approaches that got you there. It is those very tendencies that lead to an insular, confidence culture that makes people believe that they are on the wining team, while in reality, the world is probably passing them by.

TRAP 8: TIMIDITY

Not Confronting Turf Wars, Infighting, and Obstructionists

Success often leads to the hiring of too many people and the fragmentation of the organization. Business units and subsidiaries work hard to be as independent as possible, often creating groups that duplicate central resources. Staff groups fragment as similar groups emerge in the different business units. Before long, turf wars and infighting emerge, as who is responsible for what becomes vague.

Even worse, the culture gets very insular, with an excessive focus on things like who got promoted, why am I not getting rewarded properly, and a ton of other petty issues that sap the energy of the organization.

Another source of turf wars and infighting is lack of a clear direction for the organization and slow decision making on critical issues. When these kinds of management deficiencies occur, people are left to drift and end up pulling in different directions. That often leads to tremendous amounts of wasted time as groups argue to have it their way.

TRAP 9: CONFUSION

Unwittingly Providing Schizopherenic Communications

When an organization is success or stable, its managers often fall into the trap of not making it clear where the organization is going from there. Sometimes this is because they don't know, but they don't admit that, and they don't try to get the company's direction resolved. They do everything they can to keep all option open, with no clear effort to get decisions made and a plan developed. Such behaviors lead to speculation by the troops, based on comments that they pick up over time. Often those comments are offhand remarks that the leaders have not thought through. Or the troops hear conflicting statements coming form a variety of folks in leadership positions in the organization.

When employees receive confusing and conflicting messages and don't have a clear picture of where the organization is gong or whether progress is being made, they feel vulnerable and get very protective of their current activities. In late 1991, IBM's CEO,John Akes, announced that in the future, IBM would look more like a holding company and that "clearly it's not to IBM's advantage to be 100 per cent owners of each of IBM's product lines."

During the next 12 months, everybody was trying to figure out what he meant. And IBM made no attempt to start publishing separate financial information by product line in preparation for possible spin-offs. IBM also ignored Wall Street's suggestion that it create separate financial entries, with their own stock exchange symbols, for the products that were to be spun off. Employees and investors were confused. The IBM board of directors finally ended the drama in early 1993, announcing that Akers was leaving and a new CEO would be hired quickly. From 1987 to 1993, IBM shareholders lost $77 billion of market value.

Communications from the head of the organization, be it a small group or an IBM, are critical. People want to know where they are headed and how things are going. When the words and actions don't match, confusion reigns.

In the remaining parts of this book, I will discuss these traps in detail. In each part, I will give detailed examples of companies and individuals that in some cases have been hurt and in other cases have avoided these problems. My objective in each part is to provide specific actions that people can take to avoid the particular trap, or to rid themselves of the problem.

Excerpted from:

Seduced by Success by Robert J Herbold.

Robert J Herbold was hired by Bill Gates to be chief operating officer of Microsoft Corporation. During his seven years as COO of 1994 to 2001, Microsoft experienced a four-fold increase in revenue and a seven-fold increase in profits.