What's the financial dream of most people? I bet, for many, the answer is to be a millionaire. Having a million dollars is a serious goal, but it isn't impossible. What does it take? The willingness and ability to invest consistently, and the knowledge of what you need to do.

If you're looking for a rule of thumb, check out this great article from Kiplinger.com. The article offers good starting points, depending on your age, for how much you need to invest monthly to reach your goal. The numbers are based on investments at 8% interest. If you are 25 with no savings, for example, you would need to save $286 per month to reach one million by age 65.

The article also provides strategies for each age group to help meet your goals, including recommendations for 401(k) funding and asset allocation, plus other advice regarding emergency funds, credit card usage, etc.

The most important thing is to start early and stay the course to achieve your financial goals. Invest often, and try p2p lending on Lending Club, where the average lending portfolio exceeds 12%.

I read an interesting article on identity theft insurance recently. This product is a side effect of the booming identity theft protection industry, and the article suggests that this insurance isn’t worth it for most people.

The article cites research by Consumer Reports claiming that despite the typically low cost for this insurance, the benefits are usually very limited and typically not worth the money. The problem stems from the fact that you usually aren’t buying protection from identity theft, just coverage to help pay for dealing with recovering from identity theft. Having such insurance doesn’t make you any less likely to be the victim of theft nor does it cover the money that you lose as a victim. So if someone steals your credit card and runs up a $5,000 bill, the insurance may pay for your phone calls, postage, and possibly legal bills to deal with the problem, but it won’t give you your $5,000 back.

With premiums generally ranging from $100-$250, plus the cost of coverage, the actual recovery costs spent by the average victim ($1,500) may quickly be eclipsed. Something that is inexpensive isn’t automatically worth purchasing. Add to this the fact that your credit card may already provide identity theft assistance as a free benefit. If it does, then a marginally worthwhile product like identity theft insurance may really be a waste of your money. Everyone’s situation is different though, so don’t rule out this insurance coverage without considering your likelihood of being a victim and the cost impact that a theft would have on you.

Regular readers of the Lending Club blog know that we cover much more than just personal finance and the P2P loan industry. I recommend you also review our post on Keeping Tabs on Your Credit as a starting point before purchasing identity theft insurance.

In my post Strategies for Building Up Your Savings, I discussed the Keep the Change program for Bank of America customers. Wachovia has begun a competitive program that warrants a similar review.

The Wachovia program is called way2save and is marketed as paying you to save. Each time you make a debit card purchase, or pay a bill online from your account, $1 will be transferred from your checking to your savings account. At the end of the year, Wachovia will pay you a bonus based on how much money you have in your account. You can also set up recurring transfers from checking to savings which will also be eligible for the bonus.

While this is true, don’t expect to earn anywhere near the bonus payments of up to $300 that the bank advertises. Payments in the program have two components. First, the savings account currently has an APY of 5%. This is certainly better than even most direct banking rates, but it is noted that the rate may be reduced at any time.

The second part of the payment program gives you 5% (for the first year) of your savings account balance in the form of a bonus. This payment is limited to a maximum of $300. The second and third years also offer a bonus, up to $300, but only pays out at 2%.

The major flaw with this program is that the amount of recurring transfers is limited to $100 a month. Maxing that out would give you $1,200 in your account by that method over the course of the first year. To get the full payout bonus of $300, you’d need a balance of $6,000 at the end of the first year, since $6,000 x 5% = $300. To get your balance up to $6,000 you’d have to make 4,800 debit card purchases or online payments over the course of the year! That would take 400 transactions a month.

In years two and three, things get even worse. With a 2% bonus payout, you’d need to add $15,000 to your account to get the maximum bonus. With recurring transfers still limited to $1,200, you’d need to make 13,800 debit card purchases or online payments over the course of the year. That would take 1,150 transactions a month.

Clearly, very few customers will be able to get anywhere near the maximum bonus that is the major selling point of this program. That leads me to believe that way2save is nothing more than a gimmick, with Wachovia’s interests taking much higher priority than that of their customers. For a great way to save, with rates that actually do compare with the advertisements, start a P2P loan portfolio with Lending Club and leave the bank “savings” programs to those who are less informed.

One way to think of assets and liabilities is as vehicles or containers. They are either positive or negative. The positives are the assets, where you can build them up and they will bring more money into your life, while the negatives, which are the liabilities, require you to pay them and thus they are siphoning money away from you.

Assets – Assets are anything that brings money into your financial system once all of the expenses are counted. In this interpretation, a vehicle is not an asset because it takes money away from you each month, even if you have it fully paid off (because you still incur gas, insurance, maintenance and parking expenses). A rental property is an asset if you own it and it brings a net income every month to you. Money you lend out on person-to-person lending sites counts as assets also.

Assets can be broken down into two categories:

• Liquid Assets – If an asset can be turned into cash in a week or less with a minimal amount of loss of the asset, then it is a liquid asset. Checking and savings accounts, many mutual funds, and CDs are all examples of liquid assets.

• Non-Liquid Assets – These are assets that are not easily convertible to cash within a reasonable time period. A rental house, a business you own, and stocks in a startup are examples of non-liquid assets.

Liabilities – Liabilities are anything that takes money away from you, which is the outflow of money from your financial system. The official definition of a liability is: a financial obligation, debt, claim, or potential loss. The goal is always to minimize or eliminate as many liabilities as possible to keep the money for yourself and build up your assets.

Let’s look at the type of liabilities anybody out there can face:

• Permanent Liabilities – Taxes, groceries, utility bills, and transportation costs are examples of liabilities that cannot be eliminated. These liabilities will be with us for as long as we are part of this world. But they can be managed and optimized so you are paying as little as possible.

• Temporary Liabilities – These are expenses that have a deadline. Paying off your car, paying off your credit cards, and paying off anything else that takes money away from you each month is a temporary liability. You can choose to pay more towards it every month and there’s a date by which you will have paid the liability off.

Understanding that everybody has assets and liabilities in their lives and knowing how they work will help you to begin to lower or eliminate your liabilities and increase and acquire more assets.

Do you run UK Zopa as well as US Zopa? You must be racking up the frequent flier miles!

I’m responsible for Zopa worldwide, which now includes operations in the US, UK, Italy and now Asia. I suppose one day the frequent flyer miles will come in handy, but for the time being “vacations” usually mean staying home and relaxing for me!

What's the best part about being CEO of a global business? The worst part?

It’s very satisfying to come up with solutions to help customers in the different cultures with their financial needs. I really enjoy traveling to different countries and interacting with the local populations; I grew up in Northern Europe and Asia, so it’s a little bit like going home. The jetlag can be grueling sometimes....

Zopa. That's an interesting name...I assume it's not the "Zinc Oxide Producers Association." So where did the name come from?

“Zopa” stands for Zone Of Possible Agreement, which is where we help customers find mutually acceptable rates at which they will agree to invest and borrow.

Zopa lenders in the US have the opportunity to help borrowers by subsidizing their interest rates – how has it been turning out now that you have a couple of months of data?

We’ve been thrilled with the customer response - some folks love the safe high return they get on their investments, and some folks have taken a lower rate so that they can help others even more. I think we have really hit a chord with people wanting to help people, but not especially wanting to put their money at risk – and our borrowers love their low interest rates, which get driven even lower by our unique “help” feature.

How’s the relationship going with the credit union participating in the Zopa program? Are you planning to add more partners to the program?

Our credit union partners have been great – in so many ways, credit unions were the first “peer-to-peer” lending operations, because they are communities of people who have gathered deposits and people who need loans – so we’ve found that our goals and objectives are very similar, and that the customers get additional benefits by becoming members of the credit unions. We’ll be adding more credit union partners.

You’ve opened Zopa Italy and US in the last few months. Any hint as to when we should expect to see the next Zopa?

Oh, I think you’ll see us add more countries sometime soon.

We’re running a little contest: what’s your best guess as to when p2p loans will reach $1bn in originations in the US? Pick a date!

It sure feels to me like 2009 is going to be the year.