Lagasse’s Stadium kicks off broadcast studio

Lagasse’s Stadium, a sports-themed restaurant, is kicking off its broadcast studio.

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How to Make $250 an Hour Standing Still: Become a Production Fit Model

Do you naturally fit into standard clothing sizes? You might be the perfect candidate to be a production fit model. The job? Standing still and letting mass-market fashion designers test their patterns and clothes on your body, to make sure they’ll fit the majority of people who also wear your size.

We heard about production fit modeling on Budgets Are Sexy, when the site listed it as a great side hustle for people looking to earn a little extra cash and one fit model shared her experience. Here’s what you need to know to sign up for your own modeling gig:

Be In the Right Place, At the Right Size

There are two big rules to production fit modeling. First, you need to live in a city where at least one fashion retailer fits clothing. New York and Los Angeles are two top cities for fit modeling jobs, but Budgets Are Sexy notes that Abercrombie and Fitch fits its clothing in Columbus, Ohio. It’s worth doing some investigation to see if there is a clothing retailer that does fittings near you. You’ll also want to work through a modeling agency, so look for reputable agencies that specialize in production fit models.

The second big rule is that your measurements have to perfectly match standard clothing sizes. Some of us, for example, are a size 6 on top and a size 8 on the bottom, which means we’ll never make it in the fit modeling world. On the plus side, fit models don’t have to be skinny; you can be a size 10 or a size 20 as long as your measurements are what’s considered “standard.”

Get out your tape measure and see if you match any of the standard sizes. For example, Budgets Are Sexy cites that “the industry standard for a size 4 is someone approximately 5’8″ with a bust measurement of 34, a waist measurement of 27 and a hip of 37.” Fit modeling agencies often list size requirements on their websites, so look for agencies near you to learn what measurements you need to match.

Stand Still and Earn $250 Per Hour

Once you’ve taken your measurements and signed up with an agency, you’re ready to go on your first job. If you’ve ever had the experience of getting a wedding dress fitted or getting a pair of pants tailored, that’s what you can expect: Stand up straight, don’t move and watch out for those pins!

You can make $250 an hour as a production fit model, which makes it an excellent side hustle. This isn’t a full-time job; the agency sends you out when the retailers need to fit new clothing, and in the meanwhile you do your best to ensure your measurements don’t change!

Want to learn more? Read the whole story at Budgets Are Sexy.

Your Turn: Have you ever worked as a production fit model? Do you have any advice for our readers?

Nicole Dieker is a freelance writer focusing on personal finance and personal stories. Her work has appeared in The Billfold, The Toast, Yearbook Office, The Write Life, and Boing Boing.

The post How to Make $250 an Hour Standing Still: Become a Production Fit Model appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Las Vegas Metro Chamber tap UNLV president for board of trustees

The Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce has elected University of Nevada, Las Vegas President Len Jessup to its board of trustees. Jessup took over as UNLV’s 10th president in January 2015 and is charged with several major tasks, including development of the UNLV School of Medicine.

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Panel formed to prioritize Southern Nevada tourism projects

The governor on Monday signed an executive order forming a committee to prioritize tourism improvement projects in Southern Nevada and draft a report with recommendations in the next year.

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Meadows Bank ranked as 35th healthiest in U.S.

Meadows Bank was recently named among the top 200 healthiest banks in the country for the second year in the row, according to a list compiled by DepositAccounts.com.

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Las Vegas’ man business born from tragic accident

Bill Lasher’s road to a thriving business began when he was a tenth-grader and broke his back in car crash, losing the use of both of his legs. Today, Lasher runs Lasher Sport out of a Las Vegas business center that opened in November 2013

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Appeals Court Finds Potential For Confusion In Amazon’s Product Search Results

The 2-1 decision finds that Amazon doesn't label its search results pages clearly enough when it doesn't carry a company's products.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Owner of 701 Main in Stroudsburg to countersue Monroe County

The owner of the downtown Stroudsburg office building Monroe County hopes to buy intends to countersue for alleged breach of contract.

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Marketing Day: Twitter Mobile Ads, Email Testing & U.S. Smartphone Market Share Report

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.

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Warren Buffett donates $2.84 billion to charity

Warren Buffett on Monday donated about $2.84 billion of Berkshire Hathaway Inc stock to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and four family charities, as part of the billionaire’s plan to give away nearly all of his wealth.

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Twitter Officially Launches Ads Companion For Mobile Campaign Management

New tool, unveiled as a test last week, gives advertisers the ability to monitor and adjust campaigns from Twitter iOS and Android apps.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Paper or Plastic? Two Ways to Save Money on Groceries

Photo: Alan Light

The average American family of four with two kids under 11 spends somewhere between $647.80 and $1,290.60 per month on food, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s quite a spread, and further proof that you can almost spend as little or as much as you want at the grocery store.

The thing is, there are plenty of ways to save on food if you’re willing to put in the effort. Some of the most popular strategies we have talked about in the past include planning your meals in advance based on the weekly grocery store flyer, making a grocery list before you hit the store, trying out discount grocery stores, buying non-perishable items in bulk, and exploring other money-saving food strategies that can help you reduce food waste and cut your food bill in half.

But how much you spend at the store – and how you choose to save on food – is only part of the equation. Why? Because trying to save on food and sticking to an actual grocery budget are two entirely separate issues.

And that’s where various budgeting strategies come into play. Two opposite methods that have grown in popularity- cash-only budgeting and credit card budgeting – can help you save a ton of money on your food bill. But, which one is better?

Cash-Only Grocery Shopping

For the credit-averse, cash-only grocery shopping provides an obvious way to save money. Here’s how it works: You set aside an appropriate amount of money for groceries at the beginning of the month and stash it away in an envelope. Then, as the month progresses, you simply spend your grocery budget until it’s gone. It’s as simple as that.

Although the number of people using cash for everyday purchases has decreased over the years, many people opt for cash-only budgets for their simplicity and accountability — when you run out of cash, you can’t overspend. Here are some of the pros and cons that come with sticking to cash at the grocery store:

Pros:

• Cash-only budgets make it impossible to overspend: Setting aside cash for groceries ensures you won’t accidentally overspend. Using cash makes it easy to realize when you’ve hit your limit – you run out of money!
• Financial awareness: Unlike other budgeting strategies, using cash can make you painfully aware of how much you’re spending, how much you’ve already spent, and how much you have left. Studies have shown that consumers are regularly willing to spend more money — even on the same items — when they use credit cards.

Cons:

• Cash-only budgets leave little room for error: Running out of cash early in the month might mean getting by on pantry staples and freezer food for a few weeks.
• Carrying cash can be inconvenient and risky: If you’re not accustomed to carrying a lot of cash around — say, a monthly food budget of $800 — you may not enjoy it at first. Meanwhile, if your money is stolen somehow, you will have little recourse to get it back.

Credit Card Strategy

If you’re not into carrying cash, you could always consider using credit cards as a way to stay on track. I’ve written about how to create a budget with a credit card before, but here’s the gist of it: At the beginning of the month, you create a spending limit for each of your budget categories, including groceries. Once the month starts, you use your credit card for all of your spending in order to rack up rewards. To stay on track and out of debt, you simply need to track your purchases online and pay your bill in full each month – or several times per month.

Although this strategy might be hard to execute at first, a lot of people learn to love using credit for everyday purchases like groceries. Not only do cards make grocery shopping easier and more convenient, but they also offer some perks as well. Here are some of the pros and cons that come with using credit at the grocery store.

Pros:

• Earn rewards on your grocery spending: Several rewards credit cards, such as the Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express, BankAmericard Cash Rewards™ Credit Card, and the Barclaycard® Rewards MasterCard® offer more than the standard 1% cash-back on purchases made at the grocery store. If redeemed as cash back, these rewards can help you save even more on your grocery bill over time. With a monthly grocery budget of $800, even a run-of-the-mill 1% cash-back card will earn you about $100 per year on your grocery spending alone.
• Convenience and safety: Using credit is generally considered more convenient than using cash. Meanwhile, if your credit card is stolen, you won’t be on the hook for fraudulent transactions.

Cons:

• Plenty of room for error: When you use a credit card instead of cash, it is far easier to blow your budget completely. If you’re not keeping track, you could even wind up spending far more than you ever thought possible.
• Potential for debt: When you use credit, you always run the risk of winding up in debt. Using cash you’ve already earned, on the other hand, makes the prospect of getting into debt impossible.

If you’re considering a credit card strategy for the grocery store, here are a few cards you could consider:

Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express

Highlights:

BankAmericard Cash Rewards™ Credit Card

Highlights:

Barclaycard® Rewards MasterCard®

Credit vs. Cash: Which One is Best?

When you’re trying to save money on groceries, the first thing you should do is create a comprehensive grocery budget. Start by analyzing your grocery spending from prior months to see if there is room for improvement – and room to cut back. After that, all you need to do is decide on a reasonable monthly budget for groceries going forward.

Your final decision involves deciding which budgeting strategy will help you stick to your goals. If you’re afraid of going over budget and don’t mind hitting the ATM a few times per month, perhaps a cash budget would work best. But if you want to earn cash back on your regular grocery spending — potentially up to $360 a year with a card like the Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express — using a credit card budget might be your best bet.

Only you can decide which strategy would work best for your family – and your budget.

What strategy do you use to save on groceries? Do you stick to cash-only or do you try to rack up rewards?

The post Paper or Plastic? Two Ways to Save Money on Groceries appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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New Chip and PIN Cards Are About to Make Your Money More Secure

The way you use your debit and credit cards is about to change. Are you ready?

This fall, your trips to the grocery store, shopping mall and movie theater will be a little different when you open your wallet to pay. Instead of swiping your card — or having the cashier do it for you — you’ll need to insert your card into a slot and leave it there for a few seconds. Then, instead of signing a receipt, you’ll enter a PIN to authorize the transaction.

Wait, what? Even if it’s a credit card? Yes. Get ready to remember one more PIN.

Your new debit and credit cards will be more fraud-resistant, saving you time on the phone with your bank and saving you money — because thieves won’t be able to get it out of your account in the first place. But switching to these new cards, called chip-and-PIN or EMV, is a little more complex than you might expect.

How Do Chip and PIN Cards Work?

EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa), or chip-and-PIN cards, have an extra layer of security that cards issued in the U.S. haven’t had until very recently. EMV cards have an additional chip in them (you’ll probably see it on the left side of the front of the card) that authorizes the transaction when you enter your PIN. If it’s a credit transaction, you won’t have to sign the a copy of the receipt.

Card readers for EMV transactions look a bit different: They have a slot for inserting the debit or credit card that looks like an ATM card reader. The card stays in the slot as you enter your PIN and complete the transaction.

How Are They Safer?

If you’ve ever been the victim of an ATM skimmer, you know that all a thief needs is the information in the magnetic strip on the back of your card. Next thing you know, they’re copying the info onto a dummy card and running off to buy some cool sneakers or a flight to Thailand.

The chip in your new card is key to battling fraud: Without that chip, the card information can’t be copied.

But you’ll still need to be keeping an eye on your finances by checking your card and bank statements. EMV cards aren’t fraud-proof. “They don’t stop ‘card not present’ fraud, which involves someone stealing your card information and using it for online purchases, for example,” Gerri Detweiler, director of consumer education at Credit.com told CheatSheet. So consumers still need to be careful to monitor account activity, set up alerts, and report possible fraudulent use quickly.”

Where Are My New Cards? What’s This October Deadline I Keep Hearing About?

Some consumers have already received new cards in the mail, or have received a notice to expect a new card soon. But if you haven’t gotten your new cards yet, don’t panic. By the end of 2015, only 70% of credit cards are expected to be replaced, according to a report by Aite Group. Only 41% of debit cards are expected to be replaced by the end of the year.

But here’s where this switchover gets a little confusing.

While chip and PIN cards are the norm in other parts of the world, rising card-based fraud in the U.S. has led the major card-issuing companies (Visa, MasterCard, American Express) to push for an upgrade. In most cases, your bank is the one that returns stolen money to your account after fraud has been committed. And the banks are tired of covering the costs of rising fraud.

As of October 1, 2015, the big banks shift liability for non-EMV fraudulent transactions at the register over to stores. If your card is compromised and used at a retail location that hasn’t upgraded to an EMV reader, the bank may not come to your rescue as quickly — the retailer will be on the hook.

Two major exceptions: ATMs providers aren’t required to upgrade until October 2016, and gas station terminals aren’t required to meet EMV compliance until October 2017.

So even if you get your new chip and PIN card today, you likely won’t have the full benefits of additional fraud protection until this fall. Big retailers like Target have been working on replacing register equipment for the past year in preparation for the upcoming switch; at some retailers, EMV terminals have been installed, but haven’t been activated yet.

The switchover may be more of a challenge for smaller retailers who will have to foot the bill to upgrade their systems. Square is offering chip readers for free for a limited time to entice their customers to make the switch.

What if you encounter an old-style card reader after October 1? You’ll have to use your best judgement and decide if you’re willing to take the risk. Recouping funds lost due to fraud may be a whole new kind of financial headache after liability switches to non-compliant retailers.

Your Turn: Have you received your EMV cards yet? Have you noticed new card readers set up at your favorite places to shop?

Lisa Rowan is a writer, editor, and podcaster living in Washington, D.C.

The post New Chip and PIN Cards Are About to Make Your Money More Secure appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Greek banks will stay closed Tuesday and Wednesday

Greek banks will remain closed on Tuesday and Wednesday and a daily limit on cash withdrawals will stay at 60 euros, the head of the Greek banking association said.

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Fixed-rate bond deals continue to rise

Sylvia Morris

savingsjars.jpg

Charter Savings Bank has raised the rate for new savers taking out its two-year fixed rate bond to 2.25% (1.8% after basic rate tax). It was followed by a rise at Vanquis Bank to 2.26% (1.81%).

Charter Savings Bank has raised the rate for new savers taking out its two-year fixed rate bond to 2.25% (1.8% after basic rate tax). It was followed by a rise at Vanquis Bank to 2.26% (1.81%).

Fixed-rate bond deals continue to rise

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Charter Savings Bank has raised the rate for new savers taking out its two-year fixed rate bond to 2.25% (1.8% after basic rate tax). It was followed by a rise at Vanquis Bank to 2.26% (1.81%). Both Paragon and Shawbrook banks pay 2.2% (1.76%) and Secure Trust 2.21% (1.77%). The best deal from high-street household names come from Post Office at 1.95% (1.56%) and Nationwide at 1.8% (1.44%). For one year you can earn 2.06% (1.65%) with Charter Bank, 2.05% (1.64%) with United Trust Bank, or 2.01% (1.61%) at Vanquis Bank. On easy-access accounts the best rate comes from French bank RCI's Freedom account at 1.5% (1.2%). Kent Reliance's Online Easy Access account pays 1.45% before tax (1.16% after). Easy access BM Savings, part of Halifax, also pays 1.5% (1.2%) on its Online Extra issue 17, but the rate includes a 1 percentage point bonus which lasts for the first year you are in the account. Virgin Money Defined Access Account pays 1.41% (1.13%) though you are restricted to making three withdrawals a year to earn this rate. All of the above accounts bar RCI Bank Freedom are covered by the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme which gives you £85,000 of cover if a bank goes bust. Your money with the French bank is covered by the European scheme which provides a lower €100,000 (around £73,000) safety net. It was announced that the UK level of cover will fall to £75,000 from 1 January next year. The amount of savings that are guaranteed with a bank or building society is set by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. But it is guided by the European amount and converted into sterling with a rate set for five years. In 2010, when it was last set, €100,000 was worth about £85,000. But since then the euro has plunged in value because of the crisis in countries such as Greece. Savers who have between £75,000 and £85,000 in fixed rate accounts with one bank or building society are expected to be given the chance to move the surplus across without penalty between 1 August and 31 December. Full details will be revealed at the end of this month. Best cash Isas The top rate on easy-access cash Isas comes from National Savings & Investments at 1.5% - but you can't transfer your existing cash Isas into this account. Nationwide's Instant Isa Saver 3 pays 1.4% and accepts transfers. On fixed-rate cash Isas the best deal for one year is 1.65% from Nationwide, Virgin Money and Shawbrook Bank. Kent Reliance and Shawbrook both pay 1.85% and Nationwide 1.8% for two years. All accept transfers from other providers. This article was written for our sister website Money Observer

Best cash ISA rates this week

Best savings rates this week

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Why This Company Decided to Pay College Tuition Costs for Employees’ Children

A lot of companies use worker benefits to incentivize team members and reward hard work, whether it’s an extra week of vacation after five years of service or an iPad as a holiday bonus. Recently, CEO Chieh Huang of online wholesale grocery retailer Boxed announced that he was offering a new benefit to his employees: Boxed would pay the full college tuition costs for employees’ children.

With college costs running at $30,000-50,000 a year or more, this is a significant employee benefit and one that could be truly life-changing for Boxed families and their children. As it turns out, that’s exactly what Huang hopes will happen with this new tuition program benefit. I had the opportunity to chat with Huang about the company’s new program, and here’s what I learned:

Boxed Wants to Change Lives

“I’ve always wanted to do something special for the employees,” Huang said. He was inspired to think differently about employee benefits when he realized why many of his employees weren’t able to make after-work Happy Hours. “It wasn’t that they didn’t want to come, it was really because a lot of them didn’t have cars, and they would miss the last bus and have to walk home.”

So Huang began thinking of how he could use Boxed resources to improve his team members’ lives. At first he thought that he would help his employees lease cars — “I had kind of like an Oprah moment: you get a car, and you get a car!” — but he quickly realized that the legal and insurance issues would add too many complications.

Then he had his a-ha moment: “How can we meaningfully change these folks’ lives and their families lives? When I was growing up, we had literally just about nothing when my parents came to this country. One of the biggest ways, if not the way that I ended up where I am today was because of education.”

College changed Huang’s life, so he decided that paying for college tuition was the way to help his employees and their families — better even than increasing their pay. “Even if we triple their hourly wage, they’re not going to be able to save the $25,000 or even $50,000 a year it takes to get their children to college. That’s the way we can really make a meaningful impact, and I thought, let’s do it!”

Huang funded the benefit partially through his personal shares in Boxed stock, and his employees are already taking advantage of the college tuition plan. The plan covers tuition only, not room and board, in the hopes that student recipients are inspired to work hard and, as Huang put it, “learn the value of a dollar.”

Boxed Wants to Inspire Team Loyalty

The Boxed tuition program is only for the children of full-time Boxed employees, and Huang made that choice specifically. “Most folks in the warehouse start out as part-timers, and as they prove themselves and show that they’re hard workers and dedicated to the company, we promote them to be full-fledged employees.”

Boxed values dedication and hopes that employees want to not only work for Boxed, but also build a career with Boxed and help the company grow. “You have to stick with us through this ride. For folks who are really investing themselves and this portion of their lives into the company, I want to give back to those folks.”

Huang hopes that other companies and CEOs follow his example, but notes that his idea is not unique. “Giving back to employees is not a novel idea. There are other folks doing it right now.” He cited Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, who recently cut his own salary to $70,000 a year so he could pay his employees a $70,000 a year minimum wage, as well as Salesforce 1-1-1 program, which helps employees give back to the community by offering paid Volunteer Time Off and other benefits.

Still, there is more that could be done. “I would love for other people, even if it was just one other company, to say ‘wow, I saw what Boxed is doing, and it inspired me to do something similar,’ or to do something nice for employees — then, this would have been worth it.”

Interested in working for Boxed? The company is currently hiring designers, engineers, a bookkeeper and a marketing manager in both NYC and San Mateo, California.

Your Turn: Would you be more likely to build a career with a company if it offered a benefit like Boxed’s college tuition program?
Nicole Dieker is a freelance writer focusing on personal finance and personal stories. Her work has appeared in The Billfold, The Toast, Yearbook Office, The Write Life and Boing Boing.

The post Why This Company Decided to Pay College Tuition Costs for Employees’ Children appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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100 Million Americans Not Working!

The Labor Department report for June found yet another 430,000 Americans of working age (16+) dropped out of the workforce. What ever happened to the old-fashioned American work ethic?

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The $100,000 Challenge: June Update

I just wrapped up the third month of Nutrition Secrets, and I have to say, it turned out to be a great month.

When you look at the traffic stats of 33,562 visitors, however, you may think things are not progressing as the traffic only grew by 1,297 visitors. But all signals are pointing in the right direction.

Here’s what happened in the month of June… 

Started to focus more on search traffic

Our search traffic hasn’t climbed by much, but the blog is only 3-months old. Technically speaking, you can even say it is 2-months old as the domain name was switched after the first month.

For the month of June, Nutrition Secrets received 3,675 search engine visitors, which is a 106% increase over the previous month.

Typically, whenever you start a new blog, you have to wait 5 to 6 months before you start seeing good growth in search traffic. Why? Because search engines don’t just look at on-page code and links. They look at factors such as bounce rate, time on site, etc.

As your metrics hold steady or improve, they reward you over time. This prevents new sites from popping up and spamming their way to the top of Google.

Big drop in Facebook traffic

On June 20th, all of my blogs had a drop in traffic from my Facebook fan pages. Nutrition Secret saw something similar, and I ended up taking a big hit as the majority of the traffic was coming from the social web.

In addition to that, the post titles and topics focused more on targeting SEO and not social media. For example, topics such as “13 Fatty Foods That Are Surprisingly Healthy” did really well on Facebook because they were on unique topics that evoked curiosity.

But when you look at the search volume for these phrases, you’ll notice that the volume is really low. So instead, I had Mike shift his focus toward writing on topics that were more mainstream and would pick up more search traffic in the long run.

I even created an Excel spreadsheet for him that helps him generate topic ideas based on search volume and popularity on the social web. (I’ll share it with you next month so you can use it for your own blog.)

Content production is up

If you look at the month of June, you’ll notice that we posted roughly 5 times a week. I taught Mike the exact process I have been using on Quick Sprout to write content at a rapid pace.

I even broke down the process on Quick Sprout in these 2 blog posts for you:

• How to Double Your Writing Speed Without Lowering Its Quality
• 13 Important Questions You Need to Ask Yourself Before Blogging

Mike is now able to write a blog post within 1.5 to 2 hours. Over the course of the next 30 days, I want him to be able to write a blog post in less than 1.5 hours so I can get him to write 2 posts a day. Sure, the content may be a bit shorter, but it should be doable since he isn’t writing 5,000-word posts like I am on Quick Sprout.

In the long run, this will help the site generate more comments, search traffic, and social shares.

Comments come from email

If you look at the comments on the Nutrition Secrets blog, you’ll notice that a lot of them are from the same people. Why? Because those people are subscribed to our email list.

Roughly 81% of all the comments on the blog are from people who are subscribed to the email list. Currently, the email list is only growing by a few subscribers a day, and every once in a while, we see a spike in opt-ins if a post does well on Facebook, but generally it’s not growing fast enough.

The traffic is there, but the opt-in offer isn’t too appealing. I will have Mike create some sort of a 30-day nutrition course, which we will use as an opt-in bribe. This should help increase the number of opt-ins to a few thousand a month.

Fixing mobile issues

The interesting thing about Nutrition Secrets is that over 54.4% of our traffic comes from mobile and tablet devices. But if you look at our mobile load time, you’ll see it could be improved.

I will have Mike focus on improving it. WordPress plugins that compress image sizes and cache the blog will help. As those metrics improve, search traffic will also start increasing at a faster rate.

Link building

The majority of the links we acquired are from other resource pages.

Here is how we get them. Mike searches the web with queries such as “nutrition resources” to find pages and sites that should be linking to our blog.

A good portion of the people we reached out to in June haven’t linked back, but that is mainly because we are going after EDU sites. It’s summer, which means most colleges are not in session.

So we are shifting our focus to building links from resource pages that aren’t on EDU sites.

In addition to that, we found that a couple of spammy sites linked to us. Here is one of the links. As you can see, the site isn’t the highest in quality, but there isn’t much we can do.

This happens to all websites, and you could disavow the link through Webmaster Tools, but there is no point if it’s only a small portion of your links.

Google is smart, and it knows it’s inevitable for you to have a few bad links. Because of that, it typically doesn’t penalize sites when this happens.

Mike’s also been building relationships with authors on sites like GQ, Vogue, and other magazine sites that have our ideal audience. We haven’t received any links from them yet, but we should once we start asking.

Currently, Mike is following these steps before he asks these people for a link. We’ll see how it goes in the next 30 days.

The one big issue we have been running into when building links is that people are removing links because they think Mike isn’t certified. His certification allows him to give advice on nutrition and fitness. I told him to update his bio to include this and create an about page to talk about the purpose of the blog as well as showcase his certifications.

Once he does this, we should be able to generate more links and hopefully keep them longer. In the meantime, he’s been emailing people who are removing the links and sending them a screenshot of his certificate. The only issue is, not everyone reads all of their emails, which means we are still losing links.

Strong signals

Although the traffic on the nutrition blog isn’t growing as fast as I would like it to, all the signals are pointing in the right direction. The content is great; people are commenting; and the rankings are climbing fast.

For example, the blog ranks on page 5 for the keyword “nutrition.” I know it is a vague search term and getting on page 1 will be hard…but we aren’t even trying to rank for that term.

We are also starting to rank for terms such as “lose lower belly fat.” We aren’t seeing a huge increase in traffic yet because moving up from page 4 to page 3 doesn’t do much. But once the site starts ranking on page 1, our search traffic will skyrocket.

Currently, we aren’t trying to rank for any specific term, and we aren’t building rich anchor text links. Instead, we are trying to write good educational content in hopes that people will want to link to us when we show them how great Nutrition Secrets is.

Conclusion

I still haven’t focused on monetizing the blog yet, but I will start within the next few months. The revenue will largely come from the email list, so I need to focus on growing it first, which will happen in July.

As for expenses, they have stayed more or less flat. Total expenses, since the start of the project, have been $2,889.74 dollars. In June, I spent $219, which went towards Aweber and hand-drawn images for Facebook.

What do you think about the progress so far? Do you think I’ll be able to generate $100,000 a month in income within 12 months?

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How to Handle 5 Internship Disasters

Tips to help you turn around a disappointing intern experience. 

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12 Great Things About Retirement

Despite financial concerns, retirement is often a lot of fun.

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How to Save While Keeping Your Home Cool

Closing your blinds and other simple measures help keep the heat out.

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How To Ignite Innovation in Large Agencies

Change is difficult, but columnist Andrew Ruegger has five ways to help your large agency evolve and cultivate a culture of innovation among your team.

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How Your Retirement Account Balance Compares to Your Peers

Important steps you can take to improve your retirement security at any age.

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16 Legal Secrets to Reducing Your Taxes

Don't miss these tax deductions and credits, which can add up to significant savings over the years.

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Questions About Food Processors, Down Payments, Zillow, 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. Selecting a guardian
2. Is a food processor worthwhile?
3. Down payment savings
4. Positive and negative net worth
5. The “helpful” family
6. Zillow questions
7. Joining a gym
8. Starting a book club
9. Stop buying bulk food?
10. Credit card debt surprise
11. Trust question
12. Philosophy goal question

As I’ve said many times, one of the biggest and most important tenets of personal finance philosophy, in my view, is the idea that you can spend less on the things that are less important to you so that you can spend more on the things that are more important to you. For example, if you can be frugal on things like your choice of laundry soap and window cleaner and the size of your apartment and so on, you can afford to be a bit less frugal on things that are really important to you and things will balance out.

Sometimes, when I talk about those things, I use my own example of what’s “more important” and what’s “less important” in my eyes. I have my own ideas on what’s actually important for me to spend my money on and what’s not really important.

That may or may not line up with what’s important and not important to you. And that’s okay.

Sometimes, by using my own example, it can seem as though I’m judging others based on the fact that what they find important doesn’t line up with what I find important to spend money on. I’m not. I’m just using myself as an example because, frankly, that’s the easiest example I have to write about.

For me, at least, spending money is becoming less and less of a source of happiness. As time goes on, I find more and more joy in simply doing things and learning things than I do in buying stuff. That happens to have a very ince impact on my spending, making it easier to continue to save for the future (which, for me, is financial independence). That’s a personal journey that I am on, one that may or may not reflect what you’re going through. You may have other goals and other feelings about how you spend your money.

In other words, I’ve come to personally recognize that, for me, the idea of spending on things that are “more important” to me is just a crutch that I was often using to spend money on stuff that really didn’t matter just because I wanted it in that moment.

The key thing is this: spend less than you earn. Then, use that excess to either reduce your spending further by paying off debt or use it to save for a brighter future. The specifics of how you do that put the “personal” in personal finance.

Q1: Selecting a guardian

My wife and I have been preparing a will in preparation of the birth of our child later this year. The biggest challenge we have faced is choosing a guardian and we hope you can help with that.

Between the two of us, we only have one surviving parent. Her mother is severely schizophrenic and has been in and out of institutions for the past ten years.

She is an only child largely raised by her father who passed away a few years ago. I have two siblings, both of whom are felons and one is in prison. The one that is not in prison has a very high chance of repeating his mistakes given his current life choices.

We just moved to a new city and have not established any strong friendships or professional relationships here. While we do have a lot of friends, none of them live within several hours of us. We are members of a few social organizations so we will meet people in the future.

Who do we choose as a guardian? Where do we even start?
– Kevin

In your shoes, I would look through your individual histories for close friends in the past who would be open to such a situation. Who are your most lasting friends? Among them, who would be most likely to be willing to take on this responsibility?

Your past personal relationships are really your best avenue for mining at this point, as you don’t have family or current relationships to draw upon.

The key thing to remember here is that you’re likely to change that designated guardian sometime in the next few years. Your will can be revised. It is not set in stone. If a new and appropriate relationship emerges, use that one instead.

Q2: Is a food processor worthwhile?

I am trying to set up a good kitchen where I can make lots of stuff at home and get good at cooking so that I don’t have the need to go out. I have been reading a lot and watching a lot of videos about things people need in a kitchen and how to prepare some of my favorite meals.

I keep seeing a food processor pop up. To me it just looks like something that duplicates what a blender and a knife do. It either blends stuff together or slices stuff for you.

Why should I get a food processor when I already have a blender and a cutting board and a knife?
– Jim

Sarah and I were in the same boat you were in about 2006 or so. We asked for a food processor for Christmas. I think we’ve used it five times. It sits in a box in our garage and will probably be sold on Craigslist or at a yard sale in the next year.

What you observed is true, at least for us. It never really did anything that we could not do with other devices, especially given that we have a really good blender. Every time a recipe called for using a food processor, we just used something else. Why? By the time we got out the food processor, set up the right attachments, and then cleaned the thing, it was more convenient to just use other devices even if the food processor did that task really well. The actual use of the processor might take less time, but it became another thing to set up, clean, and put away, and that added more time.

That being said, it does do some things well. If you want to shred a lot of cheese for four pans of lasagna, you can save money by just buying a big cheese block and shredding it in the food processor, as the processor shreds cheese really quickly. It can chop vegetables reasonably well, though I now feel more confident with a knife in my hand unless I’m chopping a lot of vegetables. Most of the other things I might use it for are honestly done just as well with a good blender (making breadcrumbs, etc.).

If you get one as a gift and make a lot of things in bulk, it’s probably worth it. Otherwise… I’d skip it.

Q3: Down payment savings

Where would you recommend putting funds (10-15k annually) for a down payment on a house with the end goal being in 3-5 years?
– Bob

With a timeframe that relatively short, I’d usually recommend just putting it in a savings account. A savings account is guaranteed to not lose balance over that time. If you want to boost it a little more, put it in CDs with a timeframe of 1-3 years.

Other investments with more risk might have better long term results than a savings account, but over that short of a timeframe, they run a significant chance of losing money. There are many, many five year periods in the stock market with a losing record. There are many, many five year periods in local real estate markets where no money was made.

Put it somewhere really safe for that time period, something that will earn a small positive return but won’t lose your cash. A savings account is perfect for that.

Q4: Positive and negative net worth

Over the last few months, I have been using your suggestion of calculating my net worth each month and then calculating the percentage change in that net worth. That’s been interesting to say the least.

The problem is that I recently crossed over from negative to positive net worth. How do you calculate the percentage change there?
– Damon

Basically, you don’t. There is no real way to calculate percentage change when you cross over into positive net worth. You could “cheat” and call it 200% if you’d like, as it’s a 100% improvement as you go from a negative value to $0, and a 100% improvement as you go from $0 to a positive value, so adding them together gets you 200%.

It is worth noting that percentage net worth changes aren’t very useful even when you’re close at all to a zero net worth. For the next few months, that percentage change in your net worth is going to be very large and it’s going to be a percentage that’s going to be difficult to match in a few years.

Other than making sure that the percentage change is positive and reasonably large, I wouldn’t put too much stock in that number until your net worth is at least as large as your salary. Prior to that, it doesn’t take much change at all to give you a large positive percentage change.

Q5: The “helpful” family

My husband started reading your blog in 2007 and got me hooked on it shortly thereafter. We’ve been following your story for almost nine years!

We have decided that we want to retire around age 40 and to do that we live very inexpensively. We bought a small house and have been spending our spare time fixing it up and putting a ton of sweat equity into it. It still looks like a dump on the outside and is clearly the “worst house in the neighborhood” at least based on curb appeal. We make a lot of gifts for people for holidays too.

Because of that, many of our family members have this impression that we’re poor (even though I am pretty sure we have way more in savings than they do) and at holidays some of them have tried to give us money to “help out.” Sometimes it’s thousands of dollars.

We have tried taking them aside and explaining our financial plan to them but they seem to just not hear what we are saying and insist we take their money. We’ve even found money stuffed into the side pockets of suitcases by well-meaning family.

What can we do here? Do we just have to accept their well-meaning “charity”? Or is there something else we can do?
– Jim

It is kind that they’re giving you money, but you should also consider that money given in situations like this is sometimes given with an ulterior motive. It may be that they want you guys to stop “appearing poor.”

Regardless of your words, in their eyes, you look poor, so they assume that you are poor. They don’t want you to either look poor or be poor and they view themselves as having plenty of money (regardless of whether that’s true), so they give you some of that money so that perhaps you won’t look poor or be poor in the future.

They want to help, but they don’t know how to help, in other words.

If I were you, I’d take their money and use it to buy some nicer clothes to wear to family events and maybe wash the car before you go. It might seem wasteful to you, but it’s a good way to turn earlier charity into “future unwanted charity repellent.” It also gives you some nice clothes to use for other purposes. You might also want to put the outside of your home on high priority for the next step in your renovation project so your home looks better from the curb.

Q6: Zillow questions

My husband and I have been searching for a house lately as our current two bedroom house is getting too small for our family of four. Many of the articles we’ve read encouraged us to use Zillow to find houses for sale and to estimate the sale value of our house.

We’ve had two problems. First, the “Zestimate” seems to be completely unrealistic. It’s about 25% higher than what similar houses are selling for around here. We have been told that the number is “pretty accurate” but it just seems crazy.

The other problem we have had is that we have found two “perfect” houses on Zillow and then called the broker to find that the houses were no longer for sale.

Is there a better way we should be searching for houses?
– Jenny

Here’s how real estate listing works. Most people go through a real estate company when selling. That company uses a service called MLS (which is actually a bunch of regional services, not one big organization) to share that property listing with other real estate companies who pay for the MLS service. Think of it as a private Zillow only for people who pay to be a part of it. Sometimes, local sections of the MLS are available for public searching; sometimes they’re not.

Zillow (and other sites like Zillow) are then left to fill their database with houses that are listed for sale elsewhere, such as in public ads for houses for sale. Those ads aren’t updated constantly, so Zillow’s database is always going to lag.

Things are getting better. Zillow has been signing contracts with various MLS groups to allow their properties to be listed on Zillow, but it’s not perfect. Some agreements allow only some of the MLS data to be shared, and nowhere near all of the MLS groups are on Zillow.

As for the questionable estimate, it is just an estimate and no estimate is perfect. I think Zillow’s estimate of our current house, for example, is about 5% too high.

Q7: Joining a gym

I have been considering joining a gym in my area primarily for access to the weight room. According to my math, it would take about twelve years of membership at this gym to buy all of the weights I would want and I would also need space to store it all at home. I would pretty much have to use the garage.

Affording and storing the weights isn’t really a problem and I hate to add another bill to my monthly stack. On the other hand, this seems like a problem that’s solved by “renting” rather than “buying.” Thoughts?
– David

If the two options are to spend thousands of dollars on weights or join a gym, I would virtually always recommend joining a gym. Unless you are an extremely dedicated weightlifter, the gym is going to cost you less over the long run.

You’re correct that it will add another bill to your expenses for a while, but you give indications that you are in an extremely stable financial situation. This shouldn’t be a problem.

If you want to make it all easier, take the money you would have spent on weights and transfer it to a new savings account. Then set up your gym membership to be automatically paid from that account. You’ll be fine for the next decade or more, plus you won’t have to deal with storing all of those weights anywhere in your home or worrying about how to move them.

Q8: Starting a book club

Do you have any advice on starting a book club, especially one where the readers can easily share the books so it doesn’t become expensive for everyone?

My sister is in an awesome book club in her city but they buy the books every month and sometimes the books are new releases. I don’t want to turn a book club into a $15 or $20 treadmill for members each month.
– Annie

Work with your local library. That’s how most book clubs operate around here, at least the successful ones.

Just stop by your library well in advance of starting up your book club and ask them about their book club services. The way this typically works is that, with about 60 days notice, a library will use interlibrary loan to track down several copies of a book for you so that they’re available for checkout all at once. Some community-minded libraries will even advertise your book club for you with a display showing your current book and information about your club.

I can’t make any guarantees about how well your club will work with you or how they handle book clubs in the community, but that’s absolutely where I would start.

Q9: Stop buying bulk food?

Any thoughts on this article? Seems to have a strong argument against food bulk buying.

http://ift.tt/1M3vhbV
– Stephen

For me, the key line in the article is this one:

“As much as 40 percent of America’s food supply gets thrown away every day, with perishable items like dairy, breads, meats, fruits, and vegetables leading the way.”

Perishable items are the ones getting thrown away. It is wasteful purchases of perishable foods that’s causing the problem.

I generally discourage people from buying perishable foods in bulk. That’s usually a really bad idea. The exception to that is when you’re buying a bulk purchase of a specific food with a plan to use it in a bulk meal preparation with the intent of freezing most of those meals.

For example, I’ve bought bulk spinach and bulk tomatoes before when making several pans of lasagna at once. I ended up using all of it within a few days of purchase.

For normal home use, I basically would avoid ever buying perishable foods in bulk unless your whole meal plan over the next several days is centered around that food.

Q10: Credit card debt surprise

For the first four years of our marriage, my husband and I have been keeping our finances separate. We each pay certain bills and then the rest of our individual money is ours individually. This worked well so far or at least I thought so.

We sat down together to figure out our plan for saving for a house and I found out that he has $27,000 in credit card debt. He just seemed to think this wasn’t any big deal and shrugged it off.

I don’t even know where to start. He doesn’t even recognize how this debt has a negative impact on me or on our future. He just figures he’ll pay it off later on when he makes more money.

What do I do? I just feel distraught over this.
– Anna

The problem here is that you have two different perspectives and sets of values when it comes to money. That doesn’t mean one is “right” and “good” and the other is “wrong” and “bad.” It just means that they’re different.

To find a solution, you’re going to have to sit down together and discuss things. This does not mean one of you gives in entirely to the other one’s viewpoint. Instead, you need to figure out what things you actually do agree on and work from there.

Usually, one sided credit card debt like this is the result of one person trying hard to play along with another person’s values without really sharing those values. If you don’t correct that, you’ll never fix the actual problem. The credit cards are just a symptom.

I highly recommend the book Financial Infidelity by Bonnie Eaker Weil for this situation. Pick it up and read it.

Q11: Trust question

My grandparents left each grandchild a trust with $500,000 in it. The rules of that trust give me a 3% stipend each year – whatever the balance is, I get 3% of it. I don’t know about the taxes as an accountant handles all of that work (paid for out of a bunch of trusts) and I have the same guy do my own taxes. My current balance is $588,000.

The trust allows me to take out as much as I want to buy a house. Does it make more sense to buy the entire house from the trust? Or should I leave it there and make house payments on my own?
– Danny

First of all, unless something really unusual is happening, you’re paying income taxes on that 3% annual amount. It’s likely that your accountant is just giving you post-tax money and keeping enough set aside to cover your taxes for you. You’re probably collecting about $10,000 a year from it.

No matter what, I would talk to that accountant about your decision. He’ll know the state of that trust far better than I do and could give you good advice about what to do. There are many factors that have an impact here, including what kind of house you want to buy.

My gut feeling is to just leave the money in the trust, as it could wind up putting you in a house you can’t afford to maintain if you use a big chunk of it to buy a house.

Q12: Philosophy goal question

I really loved your post about being a “doer” but I was surprised/confused about your philosophy goal. Really?0
– Edward

When I was first considering college, I wanted to major in philosophy, math, or English. Honestly, without a higher degree, none of those paths really led to a good career, and pretty much everyone advising me at the time had me spooked with regards to choosing a degree path that led to a career. So I didn’t end up choosing any of them.

So, now that I’m at this stage in my life and have some flexibility and financial breathing room, I realized I still wanted to study those things – particularly philosophy, math, and the theoretical end of computer science. I considered going back to college as I don’t live too terribly far from Iowa State, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I would just be paying a lot for a degree I wouldn’t likely do anything professionally with, so why not just study on my own?

I may end up sitting in or auditing a class or two there if I can get away with it, but for now I’m pretty content with home study. It’s just something I’ve always wanted to study and learn more about, so why not do it now?

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 Food Processors, Down Payments, Zillow, and More! appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Silvio Calabi: The new NX 200t is a ‘younger’ Lexus

It isn’t every day that Lexus rolls out a brand-new model, but in hindsight it seems odd that it has taken so long for the company to follow the market into a couple of important areas: compact SUVs and turbocharging. Every third car in America now seems to be a smallish unibody ute of the CR-V/RAV4/Escape ilk; and how else to meet new fuel-efficiency regs but with always smaller and turbocharged engines, or hybrid drive? The 2015 NX series covers all these bases. Also, the [...]

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Audio: Why Millennials Are Skipping Credit Cards

The Great Recession and job market are partly to blame. 

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8 Challenges to Staying Frugal From Money-Saving Pros

It's hard to save money all the time; here's how to handle your weakness.

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Osborne set to raise IHT threshold to £1m for couples

Michael Trudeau

Osborne.jpg

Inheritance tax will only be payable on family homes worth £1 million or more, chancellor George Osborne has confirmed.

Inheritance tax (IHT) will only be payable on family homes worth £1 million or more, chancellor George Osborne has confirmed.

Currently, any value in an estate worth more than the £325,000 per person threshold (£650,000 for couples) is subject to IHT of 40%.

Osborne set to raise IHT threshold to £1m for couples

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Inheritance tax (IHT) will only be payable on family homes worth £1 million or more, chancellor George Osborne has confirmed. Currently, any value in an estate worth more than the £325,000 per person threshold (£650,000 for couples) is subject to IHT of 40%. But writing in The Times over the weekend, Osborne and prime minister David Cameron say the threshold for couples will rise to £1 million from April 2017. According to reports, however, the chancellor will announce an additional £175,000 tax-free allowance per person for their main property on top of the existing allowance – which applies to all assets – in his emergency Budget on Wednesday. Unfair Wednesday's 'blue Budget' will be the first all-Tory Budget delivered since 1996 and, although many commentators have speculated on what will likely be included, Osborne has developed a reputation for Budget surprises during his time as chancellor. Although the change to IHT will benefit society's highest net-worth homeowners – notably those who own property in London – financial advice firm Portal Financial says the move would be 'unfair' if funded by a cut to pension tax relief. The criticisms come in light of other widely expected moves to lower the lifetime pension allowance from £1.25 million to £1 million, and reduce pension tax relief on a sliding scale for those earning more than £150,000. "This policy is so ill-thought out that it does not consider the size of the pension fund," says Portal managing director Jamie Smith-Thompson, "so if a high earner has a very small pension they still cannot contribute more than the £10,000 a year. "In the past five years alone we have seen a reduction in annual allowance from £255,000 to £40,000, and the lifetime allowance has almost halved from £1.8 million to £1 million. How can anyone be expected to save in confidence if the rules and allowance keep changing?" This article was written for our sister website Money Observer

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Getting Started With Email Testing

Sometimes a simple testing plan is the smartest way to grow and retain your email subscribers. Columnist Eric Dezendorf offers tips on subject line testing, date/time testing, and more.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Google’s Waze Trials Carpooling Service In Tel Aviv, Israel

According to the Jerusalem Post and Reuters, Google’s Waze is testing a carpool service in Israel. Named RideWith, it will match riders and drivers based on their most frequent routes to and from work. Waze told Reuters,”We’re conducting a small, private beta test in the greater...

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Will Greece Be the First to Leave the EU?

The question in Europe Monday is whether Greece will remain in the European Union.

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How to Say 'No' at Work Without Sounding Like a Jerk

Three steps to gracefully decline a request.

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6 Lifestyle Changes That Will Save You Money

Make life easier and pad your savings account – fast.

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‘She made the dream come true’

HER kids slammed it as a “PR exercise”, but a rare, interview with Australia’s richest citizen, Gina Rinehart, posed an interesting question: Should we take more pride in her achievements?

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How to Make $4,000 a Month as a Freelance Writer

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your freelance journey. My husband and I were just like any other couple working full-time in Corporate America two years ago. We started our family, realized that’s not how we wanted our life to be and started making changes. We had already been paying down debt, which […]

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