Tag Archives: commodities market

Four Things You Need to Know Before You Invest

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We have recently been looking at the importance of developing your financial savvy. Ignorance about money matters can cause you to struggle to meet your current financial needs, and may also prevent you from making the best use of your funds to build your wealth.

Investing – the process of putting money to productive use with the expectation of making a profit – is a vital money skill for anyone who wishes to accomplish more out of life than just paying bills. If you don’t know how to invest, it will be difficult for you to earn enough money to live your dream lifestyle.

If you try to invest without understanding the process, you may also make poor investment choices. Investing in ignorance can be detrimental to your finances; you may overlook lucrative opportunities or lose your money. Let’s look at four things that you need to consider before you start investing. Continue reading Four Things You Need to Know Before You Invest →

Food and your Finances

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Jamaicans definitely have a very special relationship with food. Our love of preparing and eating good food is culturally celebrated in poems, songs, wise sayings and folklore. Many people will travel far and wide just to partake in a fancy food festival or curry goat cook-up.

Food also has a major effect on our economy. Apart from the profits that food providers can make, other businesses can benefit from our fascination with food. If you’re planning an event and you want to encourage people to participate, just let it be known that free food will be available!

The benefits of the food industry

On the positive side, our country is experiencing a resurgence in the quantity and quality of food service professionals. When I was in school, over 20 years ago, it was not considered ambitious to take a home economics class, as you didn’t see how it could contribute to a lucrative career. Continue reading Food and your Finances →

Can we gain from rising oil prices?

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“Every day the cost of living is increasing, thanks to the continuing rise in oil prices. The last straw for me was the big jump in my electricity bill. I don’t know how I’m going to survive these higher prices when my pay is not going up. What can I do to fight rising costs?”

Unfortunately it seems that there is no end in sight to the rapid rise in the price of oil. In July last year, the price of oil was just about US$70 per barrel, and current prices have blown past the US$145 per barrel mark. There have even been discussions suggesting that oil prices are heading to an unbelievable US$200 per barrel.

The rise in oil costs is negatively affecting consumers in many ways. One obvious instance is painful petrol prices. I’m secretly wondering if the gas station price boards can actually display prices over J$100 per litre!

Then there are the electricity bills that are getting higher than many of our other expenses combined. All industries which use oil as inputs such as tyre and paint manufacturers, and businesses that rely on high-priced petrol and electricity to produce and distribute goods are forced to increase the costs of their products.

What exactly is driving the dramatic increase in oil prices that’s causing this decrease in our standard of living?

Continue reading Can we gain from rising oil prices? →