How much money do people accidentally throw away every year?

Accidentally throwing away money is more common than you might think. Find out how much money people accidentally throw away every year.

Source Business & Money - HowStuffWorks http://ift.tt/1GJqyYa

How much money do people accidentally throw away every year?

Accidentally throwing away money is more common than you might think. Find out how much money people accidentally throw away every year.

Source Business & Money - HowStuffWorks http://ift.tt/1GJqyYa

20 savings hacks at Marshalls, TJ Maxx and Ross

The thrill of getting a good deal is what motivates shoppers to comb through racks at discount retailers like Marshalls, T.J.Maxx and Ross Dress for Less. You can save up to 60 percent off retail prices for clothing and home goods at these stores. Check out these 20 shopping hacks to get the most for your dollar at Marshalls, T.J.Maxx and Ross.

Source Business http://ift.tt/1NrE48x

Bold idea to fix our clogged cities

IT IS the ambitious concept that would turn Australian cities from clogged traffic nightmares into streamlined utopias. It is time for the 20-minute city.

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1GWgu1k

Hockey’s $200,000 payday from Fairfax

TREASURER Joe Hockey has won $200,000 in a defamation case against Fairfax Media for an article which implied he was “for sale”.

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1IICB9t

Coles coughs up $12 million apology

COLES has engaged in ‘unconscionable conduct’, and as a result it’s now being forced to refund more than $12 million. Oops.

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1GLNCGG

Baker sorry for making IS cake

WELL this is awkward. A baker has been forced to apologise after making a cake for a customer with an incredibly inappropriate design.

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1GLFzcQ

Commissioner: Private insurance carriers must provide equal coverage for transgender people

Private insurance carriers in Nevada cannot exclude or deny transgender people coverage for medically necessary treatments if such procedures are covered for other people, the state’s insurance commissioner said in a bulletin released Monday by a transgender advocacy group.

Source Business http://ift.tt/1eftx40

Sour taste as Allen’s drops classics

THE country’s largest lolly producer, Allen’s, has dropped three of its classics, while others have been downsized or changed.

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1LyLGa8

Stroudsburg's Sherman Theater faces financial obstacles

"Since we don’t have such great community support except for ticket sales, we had to take a good look at whether or not there would be a Sherman Theater,” Sherman Theater founder, President and CEO Richard Berkowitz said.

Source Business - poconorecord.com http://ift.tt/1LyKDXA

Police: man punches-out cash register in Hamilton

A Hamilton Township man was charged with criminal mischief on June 8 after a run-in with technology.Henry Clark, 50, of Stroudsburg was checking out at a self check-out station at the Giant Store in Bartonsville when he became angry because it wasn’t functioning properly. Clark punched the touch screen, shattering it.The charges were filed through district court in Tannersville, state police said.

Source Business - poconorecord.com http://ift.tt/1LyKDHk

Illinois investment group raises offer for Affinity Gaming

Illinois-based investment group Z Capital, which has twice failed to acquire casino operator Affinity Gaming, has made another cash offer to purchase the Las Vegas-based company.

Source Business http://ift.tt/1IHFjfz

Developer of Baha Mar resort in Bahamas files for bankruptcy

The developer of the $3.5 billion Baha Mar resort in the Bahamas filed for bankruptcy in the United States on Monday and blamed its Chinese general contractor for missing its completion deadline, costing critical revenue.

Source Business http://ift.tt/1efjETY

Search Beats Display: Microsoft Says Bing Is A Sustainable & Standalone Multibillion Dollar Business

A rare reveal as Microsoft exit the display ads business highlights what a powerhouse Bing search apparently is.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1LRpsy3

Marketing Day: Facebook Tweaks Video Rankings, Content Marketing Hacks & More

Here's our recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1GIIyC7

AOL To Take Over Microsoft Display Ad Business; Bing To Power AOL Search

In a deal announced today, AOL will take over display ad sales for Microsoft, which includes mobile and video ads, in nine major countries. Microsoft will continue to maintain Bing and its associated search ads business. As part of today’s news, Microsoft has signed a 10-year deal for AOL to...

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1LyBJJG

Can You Get a Free Business Checking Account?

If your business involves a lot of cash sales, you’ll probably need a brick-and-mortar bank to make deposits. Photo: nichole.c

If your small business is closely watching a tight bottom line, you’ll be happy to know that free business checking accounts are out there, whether you’d prefer to bank online or at a real brick-and-mortar branch in your area.

However, to find them, you may need to do some digging — free business checking is far more common at smaller banks and credit unions than at any of the nation’s biggest banks. There are also a few free small-business checking options with online-only banks. And even if you don’t find a truly free business checking option, your bank may waive the monthly fee if you maintain a certain balance in the account or meet other criteria.

Free business checking at big banks

Big banks such as Chase and Wells Fargo, with their massive networks of branches and ATMs, are seductively convenient. They offer a full range of services, meaning even larger companies can keep all of their business in one spot. Online banking tools and resources are typically polished, too.

As I mentioned above, however, free business checking isn’t an option at the nation’s biggest banks. You may also find it harder to build a meaningful banking relationship at a bigger bank — after all, behemoths don’t have to work quite as hard to keep your business.

Here is a comparison of the base-level Chase business checking account, Wells Fargo business checking account, and Bank of America business checking account. These accounts are designed for small businesses, but each bank has account options for bigger businesses with more transactions and cash deposits.

	Chase	Wells Fargo	Bank of America
Monthly account maintenance fee	$10-$12; waived with a daily average balance of at least $1,500	$14, waived with a monthly average balance of at least $7,500	$15, waived with a monthly average balance of at least $5,000
No-fee transaction limit	200	200	200
No-fee cash deposit limit	$7,500	$7,500	$10,000

 

As you can see, your options are fairly similar. Chase business checking has the lowest minimum balance for getting your monthly fee waived. Bank of America business checking allows a slightly more generous $10,000 in cash deposits, but the monthly fee is a bit higher if you don’t meet requirements to waive it.

Note that there are often ways to avoid paying the monthly fee other than maintaining a certain minimum balance. For instance, Wells Fargo business checking also waives the fee if you make more than 10 purchases with your business debit card each statement period or set up payroll transactions with the account.

Free business checking at local banks and credit unions

Smaller local banks and credit unions are more likely to have free business checking options than larger banks. You may also find lower (or no) account minimums and more flexible allowances for transactions and cash deposits.

Another potential benefit of keeping your business local is the ability to build more of a personal relationship with your bank. Facetime can humanize you and your business, reminding your bank that you are more than your account balance. This can come in particularly handy if you ever have any banking problems. It may also boost your chances of landing a much-needed loan to grow your business one day.

Of course, there are a few downsides to staying local. Some smaller banks don’t offer the range of products and services that their giant competitors have. You may also find less-polished (or nonexistent) online tools, and you won’t have the convenience of an ATM network with national reach.

Of course, offerings will vary depending on your location, but it wasn’t hard for me to find several free business checking options close to me in Knoxville, Tenn. One local bank, Clayton Bank and Trust, offers free small business checking with a low $100 minimum deposit and a 200-transaction monthly limit. Even better, SmartBank’s free business checking option allows 1,000 transactions and $10,000 in cash deposits before fees kick in.

A local credit union, Y-12, offers a basic business checking option for very small business with a lot of free features, including a check card, online banking, incoming wires, and bill pay. Transactions are capped at 50, but the fee for going over that number is reasonable, at 15 cents per item.

Free business checking online

Online banks are always open, and that’s a wonderful convenience for a small-business owner. Lack of overhead even means lower (or no) fees, and you might even be able to find a business checking account that earns interest.

The main downside with most online banks for businesses will be that you’re usually not allowed to deposit cash. If your small business conducts a lot of cash transactions, you’ll almost certainly need to use a traditional bank in your area. ATM access may also be an issue — be sure your online bank either waives ATM fees or allows fee-free access to a national network.

One of your best free business checking options online is No Bull Checking from SmallBusinessBank.com. SBB is an offshoot of Gardner Bank, based in Kansas City. Like most other banks that offer free business checking, SBB doesn’t charge monthly maintenance fees or require a minimum balance to avoid them.

You also get all of the following without shelling out a dime: unlimited transactions, checks, a business debit card, online bill pay, exports to Quicken and QuickBooks, and mobile deposit. The minimum deposit is a low $100.

If you have a little more cash on hand, EverBank also offers free small business checking. The account requires $1,500 to open, but you get a nice return on your money — anywhere from 0.85% to 1.01% APY, with a six-month introductory rate of 1.40%.

Two computer-scanner options allow business to deposit a high volume of checks right from the office, but there’s also free mobile and mail deposit. Everbank also offers a business money market account, a business CD, and a business credit card with a rewards program.

BofI Federal Bank also offers a free business checking account with no maintenance fee — and no account minimum needed to avoid one. You get 200 free transactions per month, a nationwide ATM network, and free bill pay, online banking, and image statements. There is a $1,000 minimum initial deposit, however. Also under BofI’s umbrella is Bank of Internet USA, a well-regarded online-only bank that focuses on personal banking.

What to look for in a business checking account

Remember to evaluate business checking accounts in the context of your particular business. If you’re a business of one who conducts business entirely online, your needs will be very different from those of a local mom-and-pop diner with a dozen employees and lots of cash deposits.

• Ability to waive fees: If your bank charges a monthly maintenance fee, they may waive it if you maintain a certain balance in your account. However, that balance may have to be fairly substantial, particularly at bigger banks.
• Access to ATMs: If easy access to ATMs is a big priority, you’ll want to focus on bigger banks with extensive ATM networks. Alternatively, some online banks will reimburse your ATM fees, but that might be an extra step you’d rather not take.
• Cash deposit limits: Many online banks don’t allow cash deposits at all, and other banks will limit such deposits. For instance, you may only be able to deposit up to $10,000 in cash per statement cycle without incurring fees. Credit unions have looser limits and may be a better bet for cash-heavy businesses.
• Transaction limits: Business checking accounts are typically subject to a cap on how many transactions you can conduct per month. Limits often range from 100 to 500 transactions. Exceed the limit and you’ll pay a fee on each additional transaction.
• Potential for a positive banking relationship: If you’re hoping to grow your small business, consider how your bank can help. Small business loans can be notoriously hard to land, and forming a relationship with a bank — so they see your business as more than a number — can ease the process. Such a relationship will probably require person-to-person facetime that you have a better chance of getting at a smaller community bank or credit union.
• Ability to bank online: Though it’s easy to assume you’ll be able to perform basic transactions online, smaller local banks and credit unions may not offer free online banking. Further, the usability of online tools can vary widely, with bigger banks and online banks typically offering better, more user-friendly tools.

Free business checking exists in many forms

While you’ll find most of your free business checking account options locally, a handful also exist online. You can even swing free business checking with the big banks as long as you meet their requirements for a fee waiver, often by maintaining a minimum balance.

If you’re a sole proprietor with a very small business, you may simply want to use a regular personal business checking account for business purposes. It’s much easier to avoid fees with personal accounts, and some banks offer sub accounts that make it easy to keep your business funds separate. Check out The Simple Dollar’s guide to the Best Free Checking Accounts for some great options.

The post Can You Get a Free Business Checking Account? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar The Simple Dollar http://ift.tt/1LEkxDA

Facebook Expands Beyond Like, Comment & Share In Ranking Video In News Feed

News Feed video rankings will start taking into account actions such as activating audio and making video full screen.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1JkIP21

Puerto Rico struggling to pay off public debt

Puerto Rico’s deepening financial crisis could speed up an exodus of money from U.S. municipal bond funds that have placed big bets on the cash-strapped Caribbean island.

Source Business http://ift.tt/1g3kUKZ

Clark County union makes new contract offer ahead of arbitration

Clark County and the Service Employees International Union Local 1107 are going to arbitration Wednesday to reach a final contract covering about 4,700 employees, if no deal is reached.

Source Business http://ift.tt/1GVGREG

Economic problem in Greece could be biggest national default in history

If Greece defaults on its debt, it will be the biggest default by a country in history. Greece is expected to miss a €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion) debt payment on Tuesday. That won’t be enough to put it in the record books yet, but it could eventually make Greece default on its entire debt load: €323 billion ($360 billion).

Source Business http://ift.tt/1KpzUiR

Agency opens application process for Uber, other ridesharing companies

The Nevada Transportation Authority on Monday adopted emergency regulations opening the application process in conformance with bills signed into law May 29. Those laws required the authority, which regulates limousines and taxi companies outside Clark County, to begin accepting applications within 30 days of its passage.

Source Business http://ift.tt/1IGXi5L

Is Facebook Planning Its Own Video Streaming App? Survey Suggests Interest

Facebook survey digs into how users are viewing and reacting to video on Meerkat and Periscope.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1GVA6m7

Professional Bull Riders Inc. taps new CEO

Professional Bull Riders Inc., which stages two annual bull riding events in Las Vegas, has appointed a new CEO as it transitions under its new owner, WME-IMG.

Source Business http://ift.tt/1CF0jl0

Savings rates on the increase

Sylvia Morris

savings.jpg

Rates on easy-access accounts are edging up. Kent Reliance's new Online Easy Access account pays 1.45% before tax (1.16% after)

Rates on easy-access accounts are edging up. Kent Reliance's new Online Easy Access account pays 1.45% before tax (1.16% after). The new account follows hot on the heels of the arrival of the internet-based Freedom Savings account from French bank RCI, at 1.5% (1.2%).

 

Best cash ISA rates this week

Best savings rates this week

read more

Source Moneywise http://ift.tt/1IobnJt

Study Claims Google Is Delivering “Degraded” Search Results, Adding Steam To EU Antitrust Case

Sponsored by Yelp, the study showed users were more likely to click on merit-based search results over Google's self promoted content.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1g2C63p

Beardbrand: Facebook Is Frustrating, But We May Shift Our AdWords Budget There

Despite great content, company struggles to reach its audience organically on Facebook. But love-have relationship has it experimenting with ads on the social network again.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Source Marketing Land - Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips http://ift.tt/1dsIyP9

How Does Your 401(k) Stack Up?

From the 401(k) match to diverse investment options, how to tell if you have a solid plan.

Source U.S. News - Money http://ift.tt/1QZmC0s

The 4 Most Powerful Salary Negotiation Tactics

How to ask for more money – and actually get it.

Source U.S. News - Money http://ift.tt/1QZleuR

The 5 Stages of Blog Growth: How Your Traffic Tactics Should Change as You Grow

If you know exactly what you’re doing, you can build a blog that gets over 100,000 visitors per month in less than year—from scratch.

Chances are, however, you don’t know exactly what you need to do to achieve that, but that’s okay.

The fact that you’re here and ready to learn means that one day, you will know what you need to do to create a fully sustainable business from your blog.

Another factor is the time it takes. Some of you may be able to build a thriving blog in a year, while others may take two, three, or even five years.

During this journey, your blog will progress through five distinct stages:

1. Blog creation
2. Initial growth: finding your 100 “true fans”
3. Scaling up your traffic
4. Reaping the rewards
5. Maintaining your success

In this article, I’ll outline the five stages of blog growth to help you understand where you’re today and how far you have left to go. 

Stage 1: Your blog is born

Expected time to complete: Less than two weeks.

When you read most blogs on creating an online business and online marketing, the sexy parts involve hundreds of thousands of visitors and profit.

But traffic and profit are the result; your foundation is the cause of those results. Figuring out the important details of your blog isn’t always easy, but without a solid foundation, you can’t build a skyscraper.

There are four things you need to do in this preparatory phase.

Even if you already have a blog, you may benefit from going over these things again and improving them if you skipped them before.

1. Define your niche

This is the first step—the step where most blog owners fail. It is crucial to know who is going to benefit from your content.

In other words: who do you want to serve?

You don’t need to know how you’re going to do it yet. The products you will make, the content you will create, and your traffic generating methods don’t matter yet. The audience you want to help comes first.

You need to be able to state what type of people you’re trying to serve and be as specific as possible. It’s better to be too specific than too general as you can always expand later.

For example, you may want to serve office workers who want to learn how to eat healthy at work.

Here are 124 niche case studies, both good and bad.

2. Create a reader persona

Now that you know the people you want to serve, you need to learn more about them.

In order to create content that actually helps them, you must understand who they are, how they act, and what they struggle with.

You can learn about your target audience in many ways, for example:

• in-person conversations
• demographic sites like Alexa and SEMrush

By the end of your research, you should know your target audience’s:

• age
• gender
• job
• hobbies
• beliefs
• values

You can even give your reader persona a name. Note that all of these have to be as specific as possible. For instance, 25-35 years old isn’t an age, it’s a range. Pick one age that accurately describes your ideal reader.

In the end, you want to have one specific person in mind you can write for. This will help you create content that resonates with your readers.

3. Create your blog

If you’re going to build a blog-based business, you will at some point need a functional blog.

Unless you need some really unique features, I recommend sticking with WordPress for now. It’s the simplest option to get you up and running, and you can always redesign the blog in the future. Here’s how to install WordPress—it’s pretty simple.

Alternatively, if you’re already running your site on a platform like HubSpot, it might be even easier for you to create a blog.

What I don’t advise you do is go out and spend thousands of dollars on a custom CMS or design. The first version of any blog isn’t going to be perfect, and it’s going to change a lot down the line.

Focus on getting a simple, functional, and not completely ugly blog up and running as fast as possible. Don’t waste weeks or months trying to make everything look perfect.

4. Discover where your readers hang out

Before you can even attempt to draw your target audience to your blog, you have to figure out where they spend their time.

Note that in some niches, you may have to get offline and go to conventions or local meetings to connect with your target audience and get them on your site.

To start with, find the most popular blogs in your niche. The easiest ways to do this is by Googling “top [your general niche] blogs.”

Create a spreadsheet to keep track of these sites. In one column, indicate if the blog allows comments, and in another, if it allows guest posts. To check for guest posts, Google “[domain name] guest post.”

Go through any big lists of blogs, and visit each one individually. Look for signs of high traffic such as several comments on each blog post or a lot of social shares.

Add the best ones to your list. You want to identify blogs that your reader persona visits so that you can eventually get them over to your site. Ideally, you want to identify as many as you can, but at least 50. If you’re having trouble getting that many, think broader, e.g., “best health sites” instead of “best nutrition sites.”

After blogs, it’s time to check out forums in your niche. Again, search for “[your general niche]+ forum,” and go through the results on the first few pages.

If you find forums you believe your target audience visits regularly, record them in a separate section of your spreadsheet. Note the number of members, or active members, to indicate activity and popularity.

Forums typically aren’t big enough to use as a main traffic strategy at any point, but they can help you refine your reader persona and can be used for certain promotion tactics.

Stage 2: Finding your 100 true fans

Expected time to complete: Less than four months.

Back in 2008, Kevin Kelly coined a concept called 1,000 true fans. It really took off when Seth Godin started referencing it in his advice.

In short, he described how anyone could make a great living if they interacted with and had support from 1,000 true fans.

This article was written in the context of being a musician or an artist, but the same applies to most small businesses. A relatively small group of loyal readers can make your business a big enough success to allow you to become a full-time blogger (if you aren’t already).

If you have a new blog, going from zero to 1,000 is a big leap. Too big, in my opinion, and unnecessary.

A better goal is to gather 100 true fans.

When you first begin a blog, you’re starting at zero. No matter how well you research your target audience, you’re going to make mistakes. The problem here is that no one will tell you what mistakes you’re making—at least not yet.

As long as you defined your target audience well enough, you will have the ability to attract your first 100 fans (although it could take a while). These fans will play an instrumental role in the growth of your blog.

Loyal readers will comment on posts and respond to emails. They will tell you when something resonates with them through comments and feedback. They will also tell you when they don’t like something either through a comment, email, or silence.

If you have 100 high quality subscribers and still can’t get any comments or email replies, the problem isn’t the subscribers: it’s your content.

In reality, you’ll likely fall somewhere in between perfect resonance and radio silence. On some posts, you’ll get a lot of engagement (say 10-15 comments from your 100 fans), while others will only get one or two.

Use this feedback to tweak your reader persona and craft content that helps this updated persona. That’s when you’ll start seeing consistent resonance and more rapid growth of subscribers.

So, where are we right now?

You have a brand new blog but no audience (or a very small one). This is your main challenge. You need to get your first 100 fans.

In addition, you have a ton to do. You need to create content, build relationships, create more content, promote your content, and more. But you’re likely the only one who can do it since your blog isn’t producing any revenue.

You need to spend your time wisely. That’s why I’m going to tell you the optimal strategies that you should use to get your first 100 true fans.

Optimal strategy #1: Guest-posting

The core of your initial traffic strategy should be guest-posting. The most common places that your target audience hang out at are likely other blogs (in most niches).

You need to find popular blogs that have a huge audience. A small portion of this audience will be your target audience. You can then attempt to get these readers to subscribe to your site through a guest post. Guest-posting is an important strategy for blogs of all sizes.

One common mistake people make that you may also make is to try to write any guest post that you think will be popular on a site. However, even if the guest post becomes popular and sends you a lot of subscribers, they might not be the right ones that you want to build your blog and business around.

Instead, find a topic that you think will do well on the blog you’re guest-posting on, but angle it towards your target reader.

For example, if I were writing a guest post on Forbes (which I regularly do), I wouldn’t write a general article on the current state of the economy. Although it might become popular, I would rather write a slightly less popular article about how the recent economy problems affect your business’ marketing plan, or something along those lines.

Always remember that your goal at this stage is to find that small group of 100 true fans and get them to your site. Attract their attention first and foremost before considering the rest of a traffic source’s audience.

Here is everything you need to know about getting results from guest-posting:

• Guest-Posting on Steroids: A 4-Step Blueprint That the Top Guest Posters Use
• 7 Lessons Learned from Publishing 300 Guest Posts
• Advanced Guest Posting Strategies

Optimal strategy #2: Create the right type of content for your blog

As I’ve already noted, your time is extremely limited. While it might be ideal to pump out a ton of content to get your blog rolling, it’s not the most important thing.

Right now, you have very few (if any) visitors. You don’t need to continuously create content because no one’s reading it.

It’s better to spend time trying to get traffic from other sources before creating a high volume of posts on your own blog.

That being said, you do need some content on your blog, but some types of content are better than others. Writing an opinion post is going to be a waste of time: why would anyone care what you think at this point? That’s not an insult—it’s a fact. You need to build up your expert reputation before writing a post like that.

But certain types of content can work well at this stage. In particular, you should create a few posts that can attract quality backlinks and help you build relationships with influencers. If you do it right, it might even result in some decent targeted traffic.

These magical content types are:

• roundup posts
• ego bait posts
• “poster boy” posts

You probably already know what link roundups are. You ask several influencers in a niche the same question and then publish the results. Some influencers will comment on the post, link to it, and share on social media.

Ego bait describes a wide range of posts. Essentially, you want to appeal to the ego of an influencer or company with a large following. Make them look good by showing that their advice solved a problem for you or someone else. Let them know you created the post, and maybe they will link to it.

Finally, you can use the “poster boy” formula. It’s a lot like ego bait, but it takes the tactic to the next level. Find a few particular influencers, and find a particular piece of strategy or technique advice from them.

Then, implement that advice and track the results. Create a case study of your results that make the influencer look amazing. This will lead the influencer to keep linking to your case study as evidence of their awesomeness.

This last tactic is a lot of work, but it produces results. Bryan Harris was able to get over 400 subscribers with this technique on a new blog.

Optimal strategy #3: Paid traffic

If you have more money than time to invest in your business, paid traffic is a way to accelerate your growth.

That being said, it’s completely optional. Many successful blogs never use paid ads, while many other successful blogs do it at one point or another.

The big benefit of paid ads is that despite having no existing traffic base, you can create an audience. It can get expensive, especially if you’re new to using paid advertising. It’s very important that you spend some time improving your email opt-in rate before blowing through thousands of dollars.

Here are some of the best resources on using paid traffic to build a blog’s audience:

• 6 Simple Steps to Start Your First PPC Campaign
• PPC Hero guides
• PPC Advertising is Just As Much About the Audience as it is Keywords

Optimal strategy #4: Develop social media presence

Last but not least, you have to attend to social media.

Popular social media platforms have boatloads of traffic, and the most popular ones—Facebook and Twitter—almost definitely contain your target audience.

The problem is that any good social media strategy takes time to work. If you’re going to use social media, you have to be prepared to consistently use your chosen platform for months before it starts to pay off with some decent traffic.

If you’re really set on using social media to funnel traffic to your site, you can speed it up by using paid traffic. As I’ve shown on the nutrition site case study, paid ads on Facebook are relatively cheap and can help you build an authoritative page quickly.

I don’t recommend using social media as a primary traffic strategy unless you’re willing to continually invest in it. However, you can still identify one or two channels to start building while you focus on other traffic generation methods.

What about SEO?

If you know me well, you know how much I love SEO and benefit from it. But aside from building authoritative links when you get the chance, you shouldn’t focus on it very much at the beginning.

Gaining the authority and trust from search engines takes several months of publishing high quality content. You should start seeing some real organic search traffic after about a year, and that’s when you can shift more of your focus toward SEO.

Stage 3: Attracting swarms of fans—scaling up

Expected time to complete: 8-24 months

Now that you know almost exactly what your audience needs help with and wants, it’s time to kick your traffic growth efforts into overdrive.

Although you will be growing much faster than you did during the last stage, this will take time too.

Look at the NeilPatel.com blog as an example. I began the blog at the very end of September 2014. In the month of May, 2015, my traffic grew to 63,827 visitors—that took about eight months.

Consider that it took me eight months to grow to this point even with my experience and personal brand. Additionally, I’m still in the process of scaling up the traffic to that blog, which means it falls into this stage.

At this point, you have some traffic and a good idea of your target audience. Your main challenge now is starting to create great content on a regular basis. In addition, your time is still limited.

Optimal strategy #1: Continue with your traffic-building strategies 

Since now you have to spend more time on content creation, you will have less time to spend on getting traffic from other sources. Nevertheless, you need to continue your traffic strategies from Stage 2.

Although you may have 100 true fans, your rate of growth will be too slow if you solely depend on those fans to spread the word. Instead, as you gain traffic during this stage, start spending more and more time on creating and promoting content on your own blog.

Optimal strategy #2: Create a content schedule

In the previous stage, you started creating content for your blog. Now, it’s necessary to do it on a regular basis. Think about not just those specific types of posts that we looked at but any type of content your true fans may enjoy.

You need to decide how often you want to post and what you will be writing about.

A thorough content calendar will help you plan out content for up to a year in advance. At this point, you’re still getting a lot feedback from your 100 true fans. I’d recommend planning your content for only a few weeks or months so that it can be adjusted based on the feedback you receive.

Once you achieve consistent resonance, you can plan your content schedule as far in advance as you’d like.

Optimal strategy #3: Start considering monetization

Traffic is nice, but the end goal should always be to produce revenue.

If you’re selling a service, e.g., offering consulting, you can do this early on with no issues. It doesn’t take a lot of time to create a simple landing page. Put a link to it in your menu, and drop it in your emails to subscribers when appropriate.

The long-term goal of your blog may be to sell a product. If you already have a product, you can start selling it during this phase and put some time into improving your conversion rate.

If you don’t have a product, now is a great time to start paying attention to the major pains of your audience so that you can create a product around them. Most products take months to create, so the farther you can plan ahead, the better.

Stage 4: Reap the rewards—getting paid

Expected time to complete: three to six months

The line between Stages 3 and 4 is often blurred. Once you develop a sizable audience (most go with 5,000-10,000 subscribers), you need to monetize your blog as soon as possible. At the same time, you need to keep growing and continuing to do all the growth strategies described in Stage 3.

Optimal strategy #1: Focus on monetization

“Why does it always have to be about the money?”

I know that you might feel like I’m telling you to be greedy by advising to monetize as soon as possible, but it’s the opposite of that.

At this point, you have tens of thousands of visitors a month (at least!).

If you don’t monetize your blog, how can you continue to serve your visitors well? You can’t invest in better content, and you can’t respond to all emails or comments any more. One person can’t service an audience of thousands.

If you really have zero time available to create a product, know that once you have a sizable audience, you will be approached regularly for joint ventures (JV).

Essentially, the other party will create the product; you provide the audience to sell it to; and you split the profit. Don’t immediately accept the first JV offer. Take your time, and only work with someone you trust and respect to provide as much value for your audience as possible.

Finally, you can always promote other reputable affiliate offers if you feel that you’re not quite ready to create your own product.

Optimal strategy #2: Hire

Now that you are deriving some income from the blog, you can start getting some help so that you can continue to help your audience as much as possible.

First, you need to decide which parts of the blog need your attention the most.

Personally, I like to be the one writing my blog’s content (on Quick Sprout and NeilPatel.com), so I can’t outsource that. However, on Crazy Egg’s blog, I’ve hired an editor that has assembled a team of writers to produce content.

Here are the most common areas that blogs usually hire for:

• product support
• product development
• answering simple emails (get a virtual assistant)
• graphic design (images and infographics for content)
• web development (for site redesign)
• content strategy development
• content writing

Once you’ve identified which parts of your blog require your personal attention, start hiring people to take care of the rest.

Do this slowly, and make sure you’re hiring quality people to help you. It’ll save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

Stage 5: Maintain your position on the Golden Throne

Expected time to complete: hopefully, you stay here forever! (or until you sell)

At this point, you have a full-fledged business.

Your blog should easily be generating enough so that you can focus full-time on it. This is the stage that Quick Sprout has been at for quite some time.

In some niches, you will reach this point faster than others, just due to your specific audience and the size of your market.

But if you just sit on your success, you will lose it. Your business is almost always in a state of growth or decline. Obviously, it’s better to focus on growth than let the results of your hard work wither away.

Your main challenge at this point is to continue producing high quality work in the form of blog content and products. Additionally, you still have limited time to take advantage of all the opportunities now coming your way.

Optimal strategy #1: Keep hiring

If you’re doing things right, your traffic is only going to keep increasing. To keep up your quality standards and to free up time, you will have to find more reliable people to add to your small team.

The hardest thing about maintaining a successful growing business is finding and keeping good people on your team. If you find someone who does their job well, pay them accordingly even if you could get them to work for you for slightly cheaper.

This not only keeps them happy while working, but it prevents them from wanting to leave in the future. Not having to continually find, hire, and train people will save you much more in the long run than saving a few dollars on salaries.

Optimal strategy #2: Automate

The great thing about having a significant amount of revenue coming in is that you no longer have to do things you don’t enjoy. Almost all boring parts of running a blog can be automated, either with a paid tool or an employee/freelancer.

Most hires should be for a specific task. When you hire someone, don’t just leave them to figure out things by themselves.

You need to create easy-to-follow systems that outline what you’d like your employees to do step-by-step. Although initial training will take time, in the long run, it will save you from having to waste time correcting mistakes and changing their work habits to suit yours.

Optimal strategy #3: Be selective

At this point, you are going to get offers to do all sorts of things, including guest-posting and conference appearances.

Since you have very limited time, you need to pick your opportunities carefully. Right now, it’s about getting a little bit more traffic and building your personal brand. Pick the opportunities that will have the most positive impact on your reputation and position as a thought leader in your field.

Optimal strategy #4: SEO

No, I didn’t forget about SEO. By now, your domain has a solid amount of authority and trust, and you should be seeing a significant amount of organic traffic from search engines.

At this point, there are three things you should do:

1. Evaluate your blog design for optimal “link juice” flow.
2. Re-evaluate old content, and see if you can optimize for better terms.
3. Strategically incorporate keywords into your future content.

If you don’t have experience with SEO, you could always hire an expert to help you out, now that you are generating revenue.

Conclusion

The purpose of this post was to give you a clear layout of how a blog-based business grows over time.

Growing a successful blog is not something that can be done quickly.

What I hope you get out of this is that if you use the right tactics at the right time, you will strategically grow your blog and take guessing and luck out of the equation.

You can learn all of the tactics you need on Quick Sprout and the NeilPatel.com blog.

As a final note, never stop learning about your readers and trying to help them. Even though this blog is past the initial stages, I’m still learning how I can serve you better every day through your comments, emails, and viewing habits.

To better understand where you are with your business or blog, I’d appreciate it if you could leave a comment below telling me what stage you’re currently at.

Source Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/1Nq52NM

Questions About Homemade Pasta, Birthday Parties, Online Banking, and More!

What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. Checking account “buffer”
2. Choosing between many housing options
3. Cheap boy’s birthday ideas
4. Optimizing the “retire early” point
5. Chance to start over
6. Loan forgiveness questions
7. Getting ideas for quality items
8. Online access and credit cards
9. Stocking up on LED bulbs
10. Planned obsolescence
11. Homemade pasta?
12. Identical wardrobe

One of the best things about The Simple Dollar is the huge varieties of stories that I receive.

One message will be from a person who is barely able to put food on the table. Another message is from someone trying to struggle through the long slog of paying down debts. Someone else is on the verge of declaring complete financial independence and walking away from their job.

What’s really cool about all of this is that all of these people are trying to make positive choices for themselves. All three of those stories – and many more – are all about self-improvement and waking up tomorrow in a better situation than you’re in today.

If you can do that every day, you can virtually guarantee that your life will be better down the road.

Q1: Checking account “buffer”

How do you decide how much “buffer” you need in your checking account and/or what would some recommendations be for that number?

We are aggressively paying off debt, so I don’t want to keep it too high, but I also want to set a minimum threshold that means I won’t have to move money back and forth between accounts during the month.
– Megan

I don’t think there is a “set amount” that is perfect for everyone. Some people have highly variable bills, while others do not. For the people with more variable bills, a bigger buffer is appropriate.

Personally, I would suggest one month’s worth of living expenses. That’s what Sarah and I use. The rest of our money is in a savings account (our emergency fund) or in investments.

Of course, the trick is figuring out what constitutes the living expenses of an average month. We all have irregular bills, so averaging those out over the course of a year is a good idea.

You don’t have to be exactly at a month’s worth of expenses here. In fact, I’d just round it to the nearest hundred or five hundred or thousand to make it easy.

Q2: Choosing between many housing options

My husband and I recently moved to a city (city A) just outside of Washington DC. We currently rent in a great location. Our rent is probably as cheap as we’ll find for this area, and we are a short walk from the metro. The downside is that we live in an old poorly-maintained building, with very thin walls, poor insulation, ancient appliances, etc.

My husband and I would both prefer to own our own home. Home ownership is tied into his identity as a successful adult; I enjoy DIY projects, and want a house that I can put some “sweat equity” into. A detached home would be better for us: we have a very active dog, so a yard would be nice, and he needs a little space from neighbors. We are planning to have children, so schools are relatively important.

I enjoy city living, and ideally would like a small fixer-upper bungalow with walking access to stores and restaurants, and within walking or biking distance to a metro. He wants more space, and would prefer moving to a “commuter suburb”, where our money would go further but we would lose city access and lifestyle.

We don’t have a large down payment saved. Our purchasing options would either be an FHA loan with 3.5% down at around 4.25% interest (probably a $400,000 budget) or a 100% financed loan at around 5.15% interest (we have been pre-approved for $500,000). My concern, particularly with the latter, is that we would be essentially house-poor. We currently wish we had more money to spend on travel and entertainment, and that would only get worse with a high mortgage payment.

We have no credit card debt, but are making payments on two cars. We have approximately one month’s living expenses in our emergency fund. We both contribute enough to our 401Ks to receive the employer match. We have trimmed our budget as much as we are comfortable with, but the high living costs around us make it difficult to save. We have discussed selling my car – I usually take the metro to work, so it’s largely a convenience. We bought it new two years ago and it has been very reliable. We could try being a one-car family, or we could buy an older, less expensive car (which might cost more to maintain). We don’t know where we will live when our lease is up in 6 months, however, so have been reluctant to do anything until we have a plan in place.

So, in a nutshell, our options are these:

1) Continue renting where we are now, and put up with the inconvenient aspects of the property. Save a larger down payment. Possibly sell my car to enable us to save faster. (Side note – it would probably take us 3 years to save up a 20% down payment for a $400,000 property, if we sold my car. Housing costs could potentially increase in this time period.)

2) Rent a nicer place in city A. This will certainly be more expensive, and would almost certainly preclude us buying a house in the next several years. We would likely have to sell my car, just to be able to afford the increased rent.

3) Rent in a different city. We would lose the city advantages, and at least one of our commute times would increase, but our housing costs would probably not increase. We could continue saving for a house, but would definitely need to own two cars.

4) Purchase a small house in city A. We could most likely only afford a fixer-upper, but I don’t exactly know how we would be able to afford to do any major repairs. We can’t afford even a small house within walking distance of the metro in our current city, so we might still need to own two cars.

5) Purchase a house in city B – we would lose metro accessibility and the advantages of city life, but our money would go much further. We could potentially buy a nicer house with more space for under $400,000. We would need two cars, my commute would definitely increase, and my husband’s might as well. City B has good schools, however.

6) Purchase a house in city C. City C is in the process of gentrification, so we could have the perks of city life at a lower price tag (including metro accessibility). If we were within walking or biking distance of the metro, we could theoretically be a one-car family. Also it’s closer to my husband’s job than city A. The downsides to city C are that the schools are not very good. Most of the properties I’ve seen for sale need major work. Finally, some parts of city C are a little rough, which makes my husband in particular nervous. (Theoretically this will improve in time, but there are obviously no guarantees.)

We have been wrestling with the best course of action for the past two months. Do you have any advice? We have a very good income, and are frustrated that our options still feel so limited! While we both greatly enjoy luxuries, we have been
– Carly

First of all, do you consider it professionally and personally likely that you will be in this area for a very long time? I don’t have any assessment of your professional trajectories, so I can’t really say anything. If there’s a significant likelihood that you guys won’t be in the area in a few years, I wouldn’t buy anything permanent.

Now, assuming that you are staying put, you should be asking yourself what your timeline is really like. The longer you stay put in a lower cost of living situation, the better your upgrade will be and the more tolerant your finances will be because of it.

So, the first thing you need to do is seriously define your timeframe. In general, the longer you hold onto option #1, the easier other options become. The sooner you abandon option #1, the harder and more limited the other options are.

Q3: Cheap boy’s birthday ideas

My son turns 5 at the end of July. I want to have a cool birthday party for him but the other kids in the area have had ridiculous 5th birthday parties with inflatable bouncy houses in the yard and clowns and one of them even had a live musician singing children’s songs.

I don’t want to spend that kind of money on a party but I want to do something cool for my little guy. You have two young boys so do you have any ideas for a birthday party for a young boy that doesn’t break the bank?
– Carla

Have a superhero-themed birthday party. This is a great idea that works well for all children in that age range.

Buy a few large pieces of cloth at your local craft store, then measure your son and make an eye mask and a cape that fits him from that cloth. Then trace several copies of that pattern in different colors – red, blue, pink, etc.

When the children arrive, help them to cut out costumes for themselves, then let them decorate a bit (maybe by putting the first letter of their first name on their cape). Then have everyone put on their “superhero” costume and pretend to be superheroes.

The kids get to take their costume home at the end of the party, you’re only out the cost of a few yards of cloth at the fabric store, and your son had a memorable adventure. Sounds good to me.

Q4: Optimizing the “retire early” point

My husband and I never planned on “retiring” young, but have worked very hard to be “work optional”. That point where all our basic needs are met by our investments and passive income and work just become a choice because we feel it’s meaningful or enjoyable. This year we are finally hitting that point, and are considering leaning out a bit more from the professional jobs. But at 32, I find myself questioning if we shouldn’t lean in a bit longer. Our passive income will give us over $1000 more a month than what we really need. But when is “enough”, well “enough”? I know your wife and you haven’t had to cross that bridge just yet, but how will you evaluate it once it nears?
– Riley

I’d absolutely work a bit longer, especially given your timeframe. Remember, what you’re doing by working longer is reducing the chances that either one of you will ever have to return to the workforce.

Usually, a person’s “work optional” point represents merely the point where the odds that they’ll have to return to work are fairly low. The longer you work, the lower and lower those odds get.

Sarah and I have a “work optional” point that involves a very low percentage chance that we would have to return to work. That’s why our point is fairly far off in the future.

Q5: Chance to start over

I am 34 years old. I am single with no interest in dating or marrying or having children. For the last 12 years I have worked as an electrician. I moved in with my grandmother about five years ago as she was in declining health and I helped her with her increasing frailty and medical needs. She passed away about four months ago. I did not know that she had three different life insurance policies that she had taken out on herself at various times, but she had changed all of them for me to be the beneficiary in the last few years and I am also receiving most of the cash value of her estate.

She had a lot of money, all told. I am now suddenly a multimillionaire.

So now I am trying to figure out what to do. My grandmother’s lawyer encouraged me to keep living my life as normal for at least a year before making any decisions regarding the money. It is invested almost entirely in a total stock market index fund.

My initial plan is to just lock it up into some kind of trust and just give myself a “salary” from it equal to a little more than I make now, then just walk away from my job. I have always wanted to go to college to study Mexican history.

What “potholes” should I be looking for in this plan?
– Jefferson

I think that’s a perfectly reasonable plan. My only comment is that you should make sure that you have no debts whatsoever before you do this and that your “stipend” from your trust includes plenty to cover the cost of education.

You might want to set up the trust to allow additional funds to be withdrawn solely for the cost of tuition.

Other than that, this seems like an amazing plan, and I can’t help but to admit a twinge of jealousy at it.

Q6: Loan forgiveness questions

I’m having trouble figuring out whether it’s worth it to pay off my student loans early. I work for a nonprofit so I should be eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF).

I have 75k in federal student loans left. From what I understand: 57k are direct loans, which are eligible for PSLF, and 18k are Stafford, which are not.

I have been making payments for just over 2 years, mostly under IBR. Under the standard 10 year repayment plan, my monthly payments are $900, $680 of which goes to the direct loans and $220 to Stafford. All these loans are serviced by the same company, so the payments get allocated automatically. Under IBR, the payment was $400, $300 of which goes to direct loans and $100 to Stafford.

If I throw all my extra cash at the loans, I figure I can pay them off in 6 years, for a total of 8 years of payments. But PSLF will forgive the direct loans with only 2 additional years of payments (10 years total), and I can be on IBR that whole time. So won’t it save me money if I make IBR payments on the direct loans for 8 more years and put the money I’d save doing so towards the Stafford loans? And then have $400 extra each month thereafter? I’ve considered getting a second job, but if all the money I earn is just going to go to an increased IBR payment, then obviously that’s no help. Loans forgiven under PSLF are not taxable income, so that’s not an issue.

All in all I’m feeling very hopeless because I was pressured into spending all this money on an education to get a job that I don’t really like but am stuck in for the next 6-8 years because it’s the only one I’m qualified for that pays enough to support me. I don’t want to be 33 before I get to live.
– Gary

I don’t think your question is really about loan forgiveness.

It sounds like you’re in a career path that you don’t really like at all – or at least you don’t like the entry level jobs in that path. However, you have a bunch of student loans for a degree in that career path so you’re kind of “stuck” there financially.

The best approach I can give you is to simply persist in this career path at the best paying job you can afford until you can get rid of your loans. Live as cheaply as possible and absorb everything you can from this career path. Save lots of money in a 529 college savings plan.

The second you can get your loans forgiven, do so, then return to college on the back of the 529 you’ve been building and get a degree in a field that you actually want.

That should be your plan, in my opinion. Almost every other route ends in long-term misery for you.

Q7: Getting ideas for quality items

How exactly do you go about getting recommendations when you want to “buy it for life”? Do you just ask your friends? Where do you do research?
– Kevin

I usually go looking for forums related to that specific item, wherever they may be. I usually find them through Google searching. Ideally, I can find multiple online communities related to the item in question.

When there, I try to look for threads about reliability and read what’s written there.

I usually also give a shout out to my own personal social network to see what they have to say about the item. Surprisingly often, the thoughts of my friends match what I read in those online communities.

I also value the impressions of Consumer Reports quite a lot, especially for larger items.

Q8: Online access and credit cards

My boyfriend is 33 years old. He has a perfect track record of on-time payments on his credit cards and generally doesn’t carry a balance. However, he has a very limited credit history. He’s never had any loans in his name and has only two credit cards. He’s had them both for many years, but one of them for much longer, since his first year of college.

The older card was opened through our small town local bank, which has an old, clunky website and makes it very difficult to manage the account online or to pay the bills by mail. Because of this, he avoids using the card. Since it is his oldest account, he’d like to keep it on his credit history, so we decided to follow the advice to make a small purchase and pay it off every 6 months. But it’s a SERIOUS pain and it’s difficult to make sure the payments get there on time in the mail. Is there any possible way to keep that card’s history by transferring the account (not the balance; there isn’t one) to another credit card that would be easier to use? (I know you don’t like to mention brands on the blog, but it’s a VISA if that matters.)
– Marjean

A person’s credit history only goes back for seven years, so if he’s had the “newer” card for at least that long, I wouldn’t hesitate to cancel the “older” card. I would do that even if he’s not quite at the seven year mark with it.

For that matter, even if there isn’t a seven year history, I would just cease using the older card entirely, which it sounds like he’s more or less doing.

In this day and age, a “clunky’ website amounts to terrible customer service.

Q9: Stocking up on LED bulbs

A nearby store had a great sale on LED bulbs recently. I considered stocking up but my neighbor said that it made much more sense to just replace my incandescents one at a time as they go out, but then you wouldn’t get them on sale. What do you think?
– Jerry

I actually agree with your neighbor.

Here’s why: LED bulbs are in constant development. I started trying to use them back in 2008 or so and they weren’t nearly as good as they are now, as the lights were dimmer and had a strong blue tint to them. Some of the bulbs they’re making right now, to my eyes, look as good as incandescents, but some brands aren’t quite up to snuff. There also seem to be some constant improvement in LED bulb lifespan, going from 20,000 hours to as much as 60,000 hours of use.

By buying slowly as you need them, you’re likely to get better and better bulbs as the technology matures. They’re never going to be cheap as the components in such a bulb prohibit that, but they will get better and the cost will go down slightly.

Q10: Planned obsolescence

Whenever something stops working, my father immediately claims that it is “planned obsolescence” and stops buying anything made by that company. He has this huge list of companies that make “planned obsolescence junk” and won’t buy stuff that they make. How real of a thing is this? I’ve read that car manufacturers used to do this but does it go down to things like toothbrushes?
– Nathan

Planned obsolescence is a real thing and it does exist in a lot of industries. However, with regards to a lot of product types, stuff just wears out. It gets old and doesn’t work any more.

Take toothbrushes. It would be practically impossible to design a toothbrush that would last for years and years. For it to be like that, you’d have to have bristles that were basically indestructible. Eventually, the sheer wear of brushing your teeth is going to cause bristle wear.

It’s likely that your father’s list is a mix of companies that actually do use planned obsolescence, companies that just make cheap stuff, and companies that do neither and were on there just as a result of normal wear and tear. It’s going to be very difficult to figure out which is which.

Q11: Homemade pasta?

Can you actually save money by making pasta yourself at home? My husband’s grandmother used to make her own pasta and dry it and save it in jars. He said that it didn’t cost her much at all, just some eggs and flour, and she used to make huge batches of it. Given the cost of a pound of pasta at the store I can’t believe this is really much cheaper.
– Andrea

It is cheaper, but it’s not enough cheaper to account for the labor unless you have a love for homemade pasta.

Don’t get me wrong, I think homemade pasta is delicious. I have made from-scratch fettuccine several times and it’s turned out wonderfully each time. It’s not hard at all to make – it just takes some time.

That’s why, for us, the homemade pasta is a bit of a treat, while purchased pasta is the norm.

Q12: Identical wardrobe

Have you ever written about an “identical wardrobe” like what Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg use? They essentially have a closet full of the same clothes and wear basically the same items every single day. It seems to me like this would be a pretty frugal choice as you’d just need to find good prices on a small handful of specific items when you wanted replacements.
– Darren

I think, more than anything, this kind of clothing approach would save time. You’d quickly learn how to wash the small number of items in the outfit, so that would become easy. There would be no time spent picking out clothes, either.

For myself, I wear a pair of jeans and a solid-colored pocket t-shirt almost every single day. It makes laundry easy and picking out clothes easy.

I think that if you found an appearance you really like and that works for you, this approach would work.

Got any questions? The best way to ask is to follow me on Facebook and ask questions directly there. I’ll attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive many, many questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours.

The post Questions About Homemade Pasta, Birthday Parties, Online Banking, and More! appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar The Simple Dollar http://ift.tt/1KkqKTs