"A supernatural intervention"That's what the Rev. Carol Fernandez of The House of Prayer of the Living God in East Stroudsburg calls the encounter that has led her and her church to realize how serious an issue homelessness is in Monroe County and do something to help. Having volunteered with her husband for years at the Good Shepherd Mission homelessness program in Paterson, N.J., Fernandez, a Bushkill resident, had just finished shopping at the East Stroudsburg KMart off [...]
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السبت، 31 ديسمبر 2016
How I Use Evernote, My Most Essential Free Online Tool
A few weeks ago, I answered a mailbag question from Jim, who wanted to know how I use Evernote. I gave him an answer that almost stretched into something that needed to become its own article, but instead I cut it short and asked for readers to contact me if they wanted a full article about my uses for Evernote. Over the next few days, several readers contacted me requesting the article (and more than a few swapped some Evernote tips with me), so what follows is that requested article: a detailed guide to how I use Evernote, my most essential free online tool.
So… What Is Evernote?
Evernote is a simple digital tool that lets you keep and organize notes of all kinds – text, pictures, sound recordings, and mixed media. They store all of the notes for you in the cloud and you can access these notes from anywhere. There’s a very smooth app available for iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux, plus their website itself allows you to access and edit notes, so you can access them pretty much anywhere.
I absolutely do not recommend storing any valuable personal data in Evernote, but that’s not the purpose of it. The purpose of it, at least as I see it, is to serve as a mental filing cabinet for ideas and bits of information that you’re going to want to use and access later.
I personally use Evernote perhaps two or three dozen times a day. I’m not kidding or exaggerating in the least. It is such an essential part of my daily activity at this point that I would really struggle without it. For me, it’s a mix of an infinitely long pocket notebook and a filing cabinet with magic search capabilities that takes up essentially no space.
How I Use Evernote
I currently have Evernote installed on my desktop (where I do most of my writing), my laptop (where I write when I’m traveling), and my phone. All of them are synced up to the same account, obviously, so I can seamlessly share notes and access them between all of those devices. In the rare event that I need to access Evernote somewhere else, I can look at the web version, but I genuinely cannot remember the last time I did that.
“Things”
Throughout the day, I have one note in Evernote that’s constantly open and being added to; I call that note “Things.” In “Things,” I just add anything and everything as I discover it or think of it. I might add a photo of a gift idea for my son, followed by a quote that I read on some website, followed by an article idea for The Simple Dollar, followed by the Twitter handle and name of someone I just met along with a reason that I should follow up with that person, followed by an appointment three weeks from now that I should stick in my calendar… you get the idea.
My “Things” note within Evernote is much like a pocket notebook, in other words, except it’s just one long run-on note. I separate the notes by just hitting return a few times, typing “=======” (or something similar), then hitting return a few more times and adding the next item. It’s pretty straightforward.
I probably find myself adding something to “Things” twenty times a day. It’s just a catchall for things I need to do, things I need to remember, and things I want to refer back to later for some reason.
Processing “Things”
Once or twice a day, I’ll sit down at an actual computer – either my laptop or my desktop – and process the content of “Things.” I go through each item in that note and decide what I need to do with that item.
Items that are obviously tasks that need to be done later go into my to-do list manager (I currently use Omnifocus, but Todoist is a similar and much cheaper alternative); if they’re really quick tasks, I just do them immediately instead. I then delete that item out of “Things.”
Upcoming events go straight into my calendar (I currently use Google Calendar). I then delete that item out of “Things” once it’s in my calendar.
Most of the rest of the stuff is moved into standalone notes within Evernote, usually sorted into various notebooks. I have a pretty hefty number of these notebooks: a “Future Projects” notebook for things that might develop into larger projects down the road, a “Recipes” notebook for various recipes (though these tend to wind up in Paprika these days), a “Thinking” notebook with things that I want to give further thought to in the future, a bunch of notebooks devoted to various ongoing projects, and on and on and on like this. I’ll talk about a bunch of these below.
My goal is to empty out “Things” at the end of that little session, leaving a blank note, a few little tasks done, and items that are where they’re supposed to be.
Naming Notes
I have a few simple rules of thumb that I follow when creating notes.
First of all, I want the name to convey as much information as possible about what’s in the note. Aside from “Things,” my note names are pretty descriptive. Quite often, the names of notes about Simple Dollar articles wind up being part of the name of the actual finished article, for example.
Another great example is how I store gift ideas. Often, the name of the note lists both the recipient and the name of the gift idea. The note itself usually just contains a picture, a link, and/or some description of the idea. That way, when I’m browsing through my “Gift Ideas” notebook, I have what looks like a long list of ideas. (I can filter that list based on tags if I so choose).
Tagging
Each time I create an individual new note, I also add tags to it. I just use the ten or so most obvious words or brief phrases I can think of that are associated with this particular note. I try as hard as I can to not overthink this and usually the tags are really obvious.
Why use tags? The truth is that I have thousands of notes in Evernote. Some individual notebooks have more than a thousand notes themselves. Even if I’m really great at giving smart names to my notes, tags make it possible to quickly pull up subsets of notes on a particular topic.
For example, my “time management” tag has 46 notes currently associated with it. It looks like about ten of them are potential Simple Dollar articles, another 20 or so are book quotes, another ten or so are future projects, and there are few more sprinkled in other areas. This quickly reduces what could have been a very arduous task of searching for my notes on “time management” down to a couple of clicks and a much more concise and focused list of notes.
Sure, it takes an extra few seconds when creating a note to come up with a number of tags that might be appropriate for it, but when I’m actually looking through those notes later on, having them all tagged is really, really valuable.
Article Drafts
Pretty much every article that you’ve read by me on The Simple Dollar in the past year has been drafted in an Evernote note. Using Evernote, I can start rough drafts of articles, polish them up, and then post them quickly to The Simple Dollar when I think they’re ready. The fact that the articles are available on every platform that I might ever want to use with a consistent format and consistent tools is wonderful, and the fact that they’re all stored in one place is even better.
I keep the articles for The Simple Dollar in one “stack” of notebooks (a “stack” is simply a collection of notebooks on one topic; it’s a way to better organize notebooks). One is named “Ideas,” another is named “Outlines,” a third is named “Unpublished Drafts,” and a fourth is named “Published.”
When I have an idea for an article for the site, usually little more than a possible article title and a sentence or two in description, it’s a new note in “Ideas.” At some point, usually when I’ve looked into a particular idea and brainstormed some more, I’ll flesh that particular idea into an outline of a post, usually a brief phrase or a sentence describing each paragraph along with any key links I might want to include and any key pieces of information I’ll want to share. That note moves from “Ideas” to “Outlines.” When I then turn that into a full article that I haven’t quite decided to post yet, it sits in “Drafts” – these usually need editing or can be pulled from in an emergency. If I actually use an article, I move that note to “Published” and add the published date and URL to the note.
This enables me to keep a nice archive of my writings all in one place.
Book Manuscripts
I have four (yep, four) ongoing book manuscripts for books that I’m researching or thinking about or working on in some stage. Each one is – surprise! – stored in Evernote as a “stack” of notebooks.
I actually follow a model much like the notebook for The Simple Dollar. One notebook is usually notes for the book, usually organized by potential chapter, but also with plot and character notes if it’s fiction. A second is for outlines of each chapter. The third/fourth/fifth/etc. notebooks are for individual chapter drafts.
One advantage to keeping notes and drafts like this within Evernote is that it’s easy to transform a finished product within Evernote into something I can publish to the Kindle Store or other e-book stores using FastPencil, which can literally slurp out my notes and convert them straight into a document that can be edited a bit and then almost directly uploaded to the Kindle Store. Once I hit a final draft I’m happy with, it will be pretty easy to self-publish it should I choose to go that route.
Daily Journaling
As I’ve mentioned often on The Simple Dollar, I do some journaling every single day, usually in two sessions – one in the morning to “vision” the day ahead and again in the evening to reflect on the day’s successes and failures. Again, this is stored in Evernote.
I just have a single “Daily Journal” notebook, within which I add a note named with the date and, if there was a noteworthy event that day, a very brief description of that event as well. Most of my notes are just titled with the date.
The first half of the note is my morning “visioning” of the day. I usually write down what my main focus or two of the day is, a few things I’m grateful for in my life, and a reminder to myself of any new habits I’m trying to build so that I keep them front and center. I do this on paper and take a picture of it into Evernote, for the reasons described above on notes for classes.
I do the same thing in the evening. I take out a sheet of paper, look at my morning notes from Evernote, and then reflect on the successes and failures of the day. Did I do things well? If I did, what caused that success and how can I keep it? If I didn’t, what went wrong and how can I avoid it? I also usually list five to ten memorable events from the day.
Notes for Classes
Evernote is really good at storing class notes or notes from a book if you’re trying to learn about a topic or taking a class of some kind.
Having said that, I am also a huge believer of taking notes by hand for classes and for actually integrating information. If I’m trying to learn something from a book or an online lecture, I use exclusively handwritten notes. I find that I retain and process that information far better if I do it by hand. This is a concept that has a lot of scientific evidence to support it; in other words, it’s a practice you may want to consider yourself for note taking. Just leave the electronics closed, listen and/or read, and take notes with a pen or pencil right onto the paper.
So what does this have to do with Evernote? It’s where I actually store all of those notes! Whenever I fill up a page with notes, I take a photo of that page with my phone within Evernote. I add it to a notebook that’s centered around the book that I’m studying or the class I’m taking as its own note.
The magical part is that Evernote makes the text in that page of notes searchable. If I’m looking for instances where a particular term shows up in my notes, I can just search that notebook and, like magic, all of the places where I wrote that term in my notes are returned to me as results. Along with tagging those pages of notes, I can pretty much zip through my notes on any topic.
As a result, Evernote now contains more than a thousand pages of my handwritten notes that I’ve taken over the years from online classes, books, and other things. I just took a picture of each page of notes straight into Evernote, gave it an appropriate title with some appropriate tags, and now I can find and search all of them and I don’t have to retain the physical notebook.
How do I organize them? As I said, I usually start a notebook – a collection of individual notes within Evernote – for each class that I take and each book that I’m studying in depth. So, for example, I have a notebook called “Yale Pl Sc 114 – Introduction to Political Philosophy,” which contains all of the lecture notes I took as I went through the free Open Yale course Introduction to Political Philosophy. Each page of notes was named after the lecture title, so the first one is named “#1 – Introduction: What Is Political Philosophy? (1/6)” (because I have six pages of notes on that lecture. Within that note is just an image of that particular page from the notebook I was using.
To me, this is the absolute best way to store notes from your classes and from any books you’re studying in depth. It takes no physical space, you can see your original notes in full, you can search them with ease, and they’re available on practically any device.
(This is usually a task that I do independently of my general “Things” note, as are many of the specialized tasks that I mention here. “Things” is just a catch-all for items that I don’t really know what to do with immediately or want to tag later.)
Receipts
This is something that I’ve just started doing in the last few months, but I’m basically never returning to any other method of doing things. I use Evernote to take pictures of my receipts and then toss them in the trash afterwards.
This takes advantage of the text recognition feature that I discussed above so that I can quickly search my receipts for, say, “milk” or for the last four digits of my credit card number or for a particular store and pull them all up instantly. I find that this works insanely well along with You Need a Budget 4 for the purposes of digging through my receipts and figuring out where all of my spending went.
Pictures of Insurance Policies
This is as close to “personal information” as I keep in Evernote, but this is so useful and will be beyond useful in the case of a true emergency, so I go ahead with it.
I have a notebook in Evernote that stores recent images of our key insurance documents. I have pictures of our recent car insurance, homeowners insurance, life insurance policies, and health insurance card. This is a great backup to have in the case of a serious accident or a house burning down or a major crisis when I’m not able to find the documents. I know I can just turn to Evernote at those moments and the info I need is right there.
Miscellaneous Things
I use Evernote for so many things that I could honestly go on listing them all day long.
I have a long note full of books I want to read someday. I reference that list almost every time I go to the library. (This is in a “Misc. Lists” notebook.)
I have a long note full of movies I want to watch and TV shows I want to binge-watch at some point, though this list seems to grow and rarely has anything removed from it, as I just seem to spend less and less time watching TV and movies.
I have a notebook with literally hundreds of projects I’d love to work on someday. I’ll make a note where I’ll throw down all of my ideas and excitement related to a project, but often just doing that is enough for now. I’ll probably never return to 95% of these projects. If a project ever blows up into something I want to actively work on beyond just a quick brainstorm, it turns into its own notebook.
I use Evernote Web Clipper a lot. It’s a tool that’s integrated into my web browser which allows me to just click a button and save the text and images from that article into a note in Evernote. I give it a few tags and save it in an “Articles” notebook. This is great for searching down the road!
I take pictures of business cards when I receive them, along with a note on who this person is and why I would want to follow up with that person.
I could literally list minor uses like this all day, but I think the idea is clear: Evernote is just really, really useful and I’ve come to rely on it as something of a filing cabinet extension of my brain.
The “Freemium” Question
So, as I mentioned at the start, Evernote is free to use. The free version of Evernote allows you to upload 60 MB of text, images, and audio to your account at no cost. If that’s not enough space for you, they have enhanced accounts at various levels that add greatly to that monthly upload limit, allowing you gigabytes of monthly storage.
My philosophy with online tools that use a “freemium” model is a simple one. If a tool seems useful in concept, I start using the free version. Many, many tools stop right there; they’re not useful enough to me to replace other tools or they don’t create their own niche. They don’t become essential, in other words.
When a tool does become essential, two things happen. One, I usually have some significant need for the features of the “premium” account. With Evernote, I blow away that 60 MB of uploading each month. Two, I don’t want that product to ever go away because I’ve come to rely on it, which is absolutely true with Evernote.
So, I invest the money each year to pay for the premium version of Evernote and I don’t look back. It’s an essential tool for me.
What About You?
If you haven’t already tried it, I strongly encourage you to give Evernote a try with a free account. Sign up, put it on your phone and in a clear place on your computer, add the Evernote Web Clipper to your browser, and try using it for some of the things I mention above.
For some of you, it’ll click and you’ll start using it more and more. For others, it’ll become a forgotten tool, and that’s okay. Everyone organizes their lives differently, and I think Evernote just clicks with some people and doesn’t with others.
Good luck!
The post How I Use Evernote, My Most Essential Free Online Tool appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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10 Reasons to Toast to Boxed Wine (and Not Just for Its Affordability)
Its presence at a party doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
But despite its reputation, boxed wine is actually mad awesome — and not just because it’s so much cheaper than the bottled stuff. (But let’s be real: That doesn’t hurt.)
They might not look fancy, but boxes — or more accurately, the vacuum-packed bags inside them — are actually a great way to store wine. In fact, vintners around the world are starting to ditch the stigma and box their wine. Yes, even the (pretty) good stuff.
Listen, I’m not saying you’re going to find the finest Bordeaux or can’t-miss Champagne cuvee in cardboard. (In fact, the latter would be literally impossible.)
But if you’re a casual wine drinker, buying boxed to save money is a totally solid option. Here are 10 reasons your bias against boxed wine is actually all wrong.
1. It’s Cheaper, Obviously
It’s not the only reason to love boxed wine, but it’s one of the most important.
The value of boxed wine is pretty freaking enormous. Even the better ones hover around $20 a box.
And since a standard 3-liter box contains as much wine as four regular bottles, that breaks down to five bucks a bottle (or about a dollar a glass).
Which leads us to the second point:
2. You Get More Wine
Which is always better than less wine.
Yes, even if it’s Franzia… I think.
3. It’s Better for the Environment
According to the back of the box (and also the New York Times), the production of boxed wine generates about half the emissions per 750-milliliter serving — that is, the amount inside a standard bottle — of bottled wine.
The Times goes on to conclude that boxing, rather than bottling, the 97% of wines made to be drunk within a year “would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about two million tons, or the equivalent of retiring 400,000 cars.”
As if you needed another reason to feel great while drinking wine, am I right?
4. It’ll Never be Bad When You Open It…
And unlike traditionally bottled wine, you’ll never open it to find it “corked” (that is, contaminated with the nasty, musty, wine-destroying compound TCA).
5. … and Once You Do, It’ll Stay Good for Weeks
If you’re a red wine drinker, you know the struggle: You’ve got three days on the counter, tops, before that delicious merlot turns to vinegar.
But thanks to its handy-dandy vacuum-sealed spigot, boxed wine has a longer shelf life after opening than its bottled counterparts. And I mean way longer. Up to six whole weeks, in fact.
(Not that leftover wine is usually a problem in my house.)
6. The Labels are Way Less Confusing
Overwhelmed in the wine aisle?
Understandable. You figure out your favorite varietal only to discover some bottles don’t list it. You hear California wine is the best but don’t know the difference between Monterey, Paso Robles and Sonoma.
With boxed wine, it’s pretty self-explanatory: There’s a brand, a varietal and little else. No need to puzzle over appellation names or vintages.
Bonus: You pretty much know exactly what to expect every single time, no matter when you buy it!
7. You Can Bring It to Glass-Free Zones
I will never forget the time I went to Bonnaroo and was forced to drink crappy light beer for four days.
Never again.
With boxed wine, music festivals, campsites, public pools and more become totally wine-friendly — and thus, obviously, much improved.
8. You Don’t Have to Struggle With a Bunch of Bottles
Talk about efficient: Bringing a box into the house is like toting four bottles with one hand — and looks far less suspect.
9. It’s Usually Pretty Easy to Drink
Boxed wine is made to be simple, widely paired and crowd-pleasing. You’re likely not going to find a big, complex or aggressively flavored wine in a box.
That said, it probably also won’t be the best wine ever… but if you’re not a gourmet, it’s unlikely to be straight-up offensive.
10. Nobody Has to Know
Just open that spigot, and let your boxed wine flow directly into that pretty glass decanter you never get to use.
Place your decanted wine on the table, and voila — fancier than any ol’ bottle could ever hope to be.
Cheers!
Your Turn: What’s your favorite boxed wine?
Jamie Cattanach is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder and WSET-certified wino. Her writing has also been featured at The Write Life, Word Riot, Nashville Review and elsewhere. Find @JamieCattanach on Twitter to wave hello.
The post 10 Reasons to Toast to Boxed Wine (and Not Just for Its Affordability) appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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What to Do if You Win the Lottery: Five Steps to Take When You Hit the Jackpot
Over the course of a few hours, you’ve gone from regular middle-class schmuck to millionaire. How? Despite shark-attack odds, you purchased a winning lottery ticket worth millions of dollars.
Step one to not mucking this up is to sign the back of your lottery ticket, like now. If you should drop it or lose it without your name slapped on the back, it would be far too easy for someone else to claim your jackpot as their own.
What goes down next depends on you. With the right moves, your lottery win could boost your lifestyle across the board. But, with the wrong moves, your winnings could easily cause your life to fall apart.
That’s right: Winning millions of dollars overnight isn’t always the dream it’s made out to be. For every lottery happy ending, there’s at least one person who lets their newly-won millions destroy them.
Five Steps to Take When You Win the Lottery
If you don’t want to be a statistic, it’s wise to read up on the best ways to handle your lottery winnings before the unthinkable happens. That way, you’ll know exactly what to do if you actually win.
To learn the next best steps for any lottery winner, we reached out to several financial advisors to hear their advice. Here’s what they said:
Step 1: Keep your mouth closed while you hatch a plan.
While winning the lottery might make you want to scream from the rooftops, telling everyone of your good fortune is probably the last thing you should do.
“Keep the big win quiet and to yourself,” says financial advisor David G. Niggel of Key Wealth Partners in Lancaster, Pa. “The news will spread quickly and you’ll be attacked by some unscrupulous characters asking for a handout.”
Trust us, you don’t want to hear from all 367 of your extended family members while mapping out your lottery winnings. By keeping the story secret, you can have some time to think.
Furthermore, staying mum on the topic will give you time to bring in professional help.
Step 2: Hire a team of professionals.
Speaking of professional help, you need some… and quick. Before you cash in your lottery winnings or tell anyone outside of your immediate family, you need to make sure you’ve got your ducks in a row.
But, who should you hire? According to Niggel, your team should include a “fee-only financial advisor to handle investments and planning” for starters.
Notice he suggests a fee-only advisor. Where some financial advisors earn huge commissions from selling certain investment products, fee-only advisors are paid a flat fee for their advice and are obligated to act in your best interest, not their own. Since you have millions of dollars at stake here, the last thing you need is a financial advisor who earns a percentage of what they sell.
Other professionals you need include a CPA to handle your taxes, and a lawyer to set up family trusts and help you avoid scams, notes Niggel. Make sure you’re hiring individuals who have clear-cut fee schedules that show exactly how much you’ll pay.
Step 3: Get ready to pay up.
While winning the lottery can mean pocketing millions in cash, it also means paying out… you guessed it, millions in cash. Not only will you lose more than half of your winnings if you take the cash up front — the advertised jackpot is usually based on the long-term payout schedule — but you’ll need to pay taxes, too.
Let’s say you win a cool $60 million playing Powerball. If you take the full $60 million over 30 years, you’d 30 average annual payments of around $2,000,000. Out of that money, however, you’d have to pay federal and state income taxes. With most of that money falling in the top tax bracket of 39.6%, you’d owe almost $800,000 in federal taxes alone every year.
If you chose to take a lump sum up front, on the other hand, your $60 million jackpot would immediately fizzle to $35.9 million. That year, you would owe more than $15 million in federal taxes alone.
State taxes obviously vary based on where you live, so you’ll need to figure out that part quickly. While winning the lottery can be a load of fun, it can also be a case of “mo’ money, mo’ problems.” The more you make each year, the more money you’ll need to pay out.
Step 4: Have some fun, but also save up for a rainy day.
When you win millions of dollars, it can be tempting to splash some cash around right away. If you want a new Cadillac Escalade, for example, you can just go buy one. Want a mansion? You can afford that, too. Want to take your kids to Disney World? Load the kids in the van and you’re off.
While all of this is great, you’ll want to be smart with your money, too. And this is where your team of professionals will come in handy. They may tell you some of what you want to hear, but it’s their job to help you stay rich, remember?
While the advice you get from your financial advisor may vary, Seattle-based financial advisor Josh Brein says the best thing you can do is diversify your investments.
In other words, don’t bet the farm on anything – no matter what anyone says.
“The best way to protect yourself against losing that money as fast as you made it is to not put it all in the same spot,” says Brein. “You may be tempted to go heavy on real estate or buy a ton of company stock from just one company because you think it’s a smart investment. However, you should resist the urge to risk too much of that money at one time and in one place.”
As Niggel notes, you should also try to avoid rushing into any big financial decisions. While spending and investing can be exciting – especially at first – you don’t want your enthusiasm to cloud your judgment.
“Take some time to let the winning sink in before you quit your job or go out and make some large purchases, such as the gated mansion or luxury vehicles.” Says Niggel. “Be patient and cautious and listen to your gut about decisions that need to made.”
Step 5: Watch out for pitfalls and predators.
While winning the lottery may seem like a dream come true from a distance, the reality of winning doesn’t always pan out the way you think. A quick google search of “curse of the lottery” will turn up countless stories of lottery winners whose lives fell apart, for example. Try as they might, many people just cannot handle having a large sum of money at their disposal.
Take Jack Whittaker of West Virginia, for example. It was 2002 when Whittaker won the $315 million Powerball jackpot on Christmas day. As ABC news notes, Whittaker’s initial lottery plans were golden; he planned to build churches in the area and give back to his community, all while creating the perfect life for his family.
Within a few years though, the money had reshaped his life in ways he never wanted. Constantly inundated with requests for cash, Whittaker was afraid and alone. His granddaughter, who had once been the light of his life, was found dead behind a dumpster – the victim of both drugs and crime. Years later, Whittaker wishes he would have ripped up the lottery ticket the day he won.
“More than 70% of people who win the lottery end up being broke within a few years,” says wealth advisor Kirk Chisholm of Innovative Advisory Group, adding that professional athletes who suddenly earn millions have a similar failure rate.
“The problem is human psychology,” says Chisholm. “Most people are not disciplined with their money. They spend what they have and save the rest. Ideally, they should save first and spend the rest. Saving should always come first, otherwise you will rarely have enough to save at the end of the year.”
This is yet another reason you should keep quiet about your winnings and hire a team of professionals first. With professional help on your side, you can set yourself up for life while setting limits on the “fun money” you can spend.
Final Thoughts
If winning the lottery is one of your goals this year, it’s smart to prepare your finances now. By learning to live with a budget, paying off debt, and investing regularly, you can build positive money habits that can carry over to your post-lottery lifestyle.
And even if you don’t win the lottery, making smart moves with the money you do have will still leave you better off. While a lottery win can help you become rich, it doesn’t guarantee you’ll stay rich. To build real wealth, you need to learn to hold onto the money you have.
Holly Johnson is an award-winning personal finance writer and the author of Zero Down Your Debt. Johnson shares her obsession with frugality, budgeting, and travel at ClubThrifty.com.
Related:
- Why the Lottery Isn’t the Answer to Your Problems
- Personal Finance and Magical Thinking
- 60 Simple Rules of Personal Finance
- The ‘Billion-Dollar Lottery’ and You
What would you do if you won the lottery? Would you add any tips to this list?
The post What to Do if You Win the Lottery: Five Steps to Take When You Hit the Jackpot appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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الجمعة، 30 ديسمبر 2016
Exeter Twp. supervisors to send letter of support for cannabis grower
EXETER TWP. — Township supervisors voted unanimously Thursday night to offer their support for a medical marijuana growing operation in Wyoming County.Supervisor Rick Wilbur said the official application period for a cannabis grower/processor permit with the state Department of Health was not open yet, but Bill and Amanda Banta had approached him about getting a letter of support from the community for their proposed venture, Pennsylvania Harvest Co. LLC.Both Bantas [...]
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Source Business - poconorecord.com http://ift.tt/2hyiFQ5
Family time counts more than wealth
Spending time with family is more important than having a bigger salary, a larger home or nicer cars and holidays, new research has revealed.
How much you value spending time with your family or how important your financial goals are will vary depending on whether your are comfortably off or struggling, according to the Lloyds Private Banking study.
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Here are 3 Schools Where New Grads Average Less Than $10K in Debt
When best college lists roll around each year, we expect to see the usual suspects: all the Ivy League schools, plus Duke, which always seems to sneak in there.
So when Kiplinger released its Best College Values list, we took a look on the far right side of the rubric: average debt at graduation. Because you can go to your Swarthmores or your Vanderbilts, sure. But according to Kiplinger’s latest tally, the average debt for students graduating from those top-tier schools easily reaches the $20,000-or-more mark.
Which Schools’ Graduates Have the Lowest Student Debt?
Wondering where you can get a solid education and perhaps graduate without mountains of debt? Only three schools on Kiplinger’s Best College Values list reported that students averaged less than $10,000 at graduation.
118. Baruch College of the City University of New York, New York
- Cost per year: $35,790
- Average debt at graduation: $7,915
- Admissions rate: 32%
3. Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
- Cost per year: $61,140
- Average debt at graduation: $8,577
- Does not give merit-based aid
- Admissions rate: 7%
73. Berea College, Berea, Kentucky
- Cost per year: $7,742
- Average debt at graduation: $7,928
- Does not give merit-based aid
- Admissions rate: 36%
The catch: Berea is a liberal arts work college, meaning all students work at least 10 hours per week on campus in exchange for four years of tuition. Students only pay room and board costs.
That’s it, kids. Those are your options if you’re searching for schools schools on Kiplinger’s Best College Values list where students average less than $10,000 in student loan debt at graduation. Better start applying for scholarships.
Your Turn: How would you decide which college to attend?
Lisa Rowan is a writer and producer at The Penny Hoarder. She has a B.A. from the University of Maryland.
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This Could Be the Most Honest Job Listing We’ve Ever Seen
Want a work-from-home customer service job that doesn’t involve finding a quiet space, talking on the phone or up-selling anything?
If you like a company that tells it like it is, we think you’ll love this opportunity.
Sugar dating site Secret Benefits is hiring someone for customer support and profile moderation. Refreshingly, the company doesn’t sugarcoat the job description.
“If customer service is your passion, perfect! More likely it’s not, but this job will free you to follow (your actual passion).”
… nor the pay: “The pay won’t go far in New York or San Fran.”
And the listing opens with a blunt, “There are no benefits.”
It also admits, “The work may be tedious … often answering similar support questions. At times you will lose faith in humanity and wonder how the asker gets by each day.”
If you’ve ever worked in customer service, you know this speaks #truth.
“If you’re still reading,” the upfront listing continues, “this might be your dream job.”
Become a Customer Support Rep with Secret Benefits
Secret Benefits is a dating site whose mission is to “help men and women find their dream arrangement so they can get what they really want out of their relationships.”
If you’ve heard of sugar dating, you can probably understand the no-BS nature of this job listing.
It is, in fact, just about the most no-BS way to approach dating you can find. Arrangements vary, but it generally involves one wealthy partner providing some amount of financial support in exchange for companionship.
This position would be responsible for answering customer queries via email. You’d also moderate dating profiles to “ensure they don’t have a Kardashian as their profile pic,” for example.
Your schedule would be flexible, but the company is hoping for this position to be full time with hours between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. EST. You’d work independently, no one checking in or looking over your shoulder.
The job comes with few requirements for experience or equipment. Apply “If you were mildly entertained” by the listing, or simply, “want a job.” Previous experience working remotely in customer service is a plus.
Secret Benefits is not a startup, but a profitable company with a small team distributed around the world. It celebrates escaping “the confines of the 9-5 tedium and commute.”
If that’s what you’re looking for, this work-from-home job could be just the right arrangement for you!
To apply: Email “your best proof of being able to do this work” to the address listed here.
Writer’s note: We contacted Secret Benefits for comment, but haven’t heard back yet. We’ll update the article with more information if we do!
Your Turn: Have you ever come across a job listing this honest?
Dana Sitar (@danasitar) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s written for Huffington Post, Entrepreneur.com, Writer’s Digest and more, attempting humor wherever it’s allowed (and sometimes where it’s not).
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26 Teenage Girls Can Get the Trip of a Lifetime — For Free
I’ll admit it: When I opened the door of my North Florida home this morning, the 54-degree air almost sent me scuttling right back to bed.
And yes, I’m well aware how balmy that temperature sounds to most of the rest of the country in December. In fact, I know a lot of people who relish the yearly arrival of crisp air and snowfall. (I just don’t claim to fully understand them.)
But if the cold’s never bothered you anyway — and you happen to be an adventurous 16- or 17-year-old girl — we found a pretty sweet way for you to keep on walkin’ in a winter wonderland, even at the height of summer.
And by “walkin’,” I mean hiking, climbing, kayaking and exploring in the majestic mountains and fjords of the Pacific Northwest.
Better yet? It’s totally free.
You just have to be lucky enough to get accepted.
Want a Free Trip? If You’re an Adventurous Teenage Girl, You Might Get One
Inspiring Girls Expeditions is the coolest organization I’d never heard of. It sends teenage girls on life-changing adventures to cultivate curiosity, leadership skills, confidence and success.
And even better? You don’t have to be a star athlete or in the top 2% of your class to be chosen.
“Expeditions are not rewards for past academic achievement,” the website states. “We are looking for girls who have a genuine interest in science, art, critical thinking and the outdoors, and who wouldn’t normally have opportunities to experience those things outside of school.”
And right now, Inspiring Girls is accepting applications for three incredible-sounding summer journeys.
First, there’s Girls on Ice – Alaska, which is open for applications to girls from Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, California, British Columbia or the Yukon. You’ll “sleep under the midnight sun and explore an Alaska glacier from June 16-27, 2017.”
Next up is Girls on Ice – Cascades. The lucky team will explore Mount Baker, an ice-covered volcano in Washington state, from July 16-27, 2017. Even better? Girls from anywhere in the U.S. and even other countries are eligible to apply.
Last but not least, there’s Girls in Icy Fjords. This group will “explore Bear Glacier and its marine environment” near Seward, Alaska, while also learning to kayak. It runs Aug. 11-22, 2017 and is also open to applicants from anywhere in the world.
All three expeditions will last 12 days and be made up of a team of eight or nine teenage girls and three instructors. Girls must be 16 or 17 years old on June 1, 2017 to apply.
Thanks to support from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Interior Alaska Climate Science Center and the University of Alaska at Fairbanks — and generous gifts and grants from other individuals and sponsors — these expeditions are 100% tuition free.
Food and gear are covered, too. All you need to pay for is getting yourself to the start location. (And if even that sounds like a stretch, no worries: Inspiring Girls is willing to work with you on raising money for a portion of the cost.)
While you’re exploring the gorgeous Pacific wilderness, you’ll conduct scientific field studies with glaciologists, oceanographers, artists and mountaineers. You’ll also learn more about glaciers, develop critical thinking skills, and explore the connection between science and art.
Pretty freaking sweet, right? Like, where was this program when I was 17? (Yes, even this thin-skinned Floridian would be willing to brave the cold for this opportunity!)
But before you start searching for your other snow glove and booking your summer flight, hold on. Here’s what you need to know about applying.
What is Inspiring Girls Looking for in an Applicant?
Although the opportunity would obviously be an incredible resume-builder, Inspiring Girls specifically mentions that it’s not looking for girls who are simply looking for a resume or college application boost.
Rather, the screeners look “for girls who will each contribute in a unique way to the team. Ideally, you will… teach each other. Therefore, we do not choose girls based solely on their individual applications — we choose the team as a whole.”
“We look for a cross-section of culture, ethnicity, religion, lifestyle, outdoor experience, and hometowns, with a strong emphasis on girls who might not otherwise have such an opportunity.”
That’s both good news and bad news for hopeful applicants.
On one hand, you have a real shot at getting in, even if you’re not already a badass wilderness science nerd.
Inspiring Girls is looking for a “balance of interests” which includes science, of course — but also art, politics and philosophy. As long as you’re willing and able to learn, explore and do some physical tasks, you’re totally eligible.
But the company’s openness to a variety backgrounds and skill sets also means you can’t bank on your stellar grades or past experience as a trail guide to guarantee you’ll get in.
But since the application itself is also free, you’ve got nothing to lose (except a few kilojoules of body heat) — and a whole lot of awesome to gain.
Head over to the Inspiring Girls Expedition website to get all the details about each expedition and start the application process. And if you have more questions, you can reach out directly to the team at apply@girlsonice.org.
Applications are due Jan. 31, 2017.
Good luck — and stay warm out there!
Your Turn: Will you or an adventurous girl you know apply for one of these incredible summer expeditions?
Jamie Cattanach is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. Her writing has also been featured in the Ms. Magazine blog, The Write Life, Word Riot, Nashville Review and elsewhere. Find @JamieCattanach on Twitter to wave hello.
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These 20 States are Raising Minimum Wage in 2017. Is Yours on the List?
New year, new minimum wage.
At least for 20 states — including Washington D.C.
Some of these raises happened thanks to the November election. Some raises were previously scheduled. Other states’ laws require raises due to the increased cost of living.
In all, about 4.4 million low-wage workers will be affected, the Wall Street Journal reports.
20 States That’ll Raise Minimum Wage in 2017
Here are the states and numbers you need to know:
- D.C.: $12.50 (+$1)
- Massachusetts: $11 (+$1)
- Washington: $11 (+$1.53)
- California: $10.50 (+50 cents)
- Connecticut: $10.10 (+50 cents)
- Vermont: $10 (+40 cents)
- Arizona: $10 (+$1.95)
- Alaska: $9.80 (+5 cents)
- New York: $9.70 (+70 cents)
- Colorado: $9.30 (+99 cents)
- Maryland: $9.25 (+50 cents)
- Maine: $9 (+$1.50)
- Michigan: $8.90 (+40 cents)
- South Dakota: $8.65 (+10 cents)
- Arkansas: $8.50 (+50 cents)
- New Jersey: $8.44 (+6 cents)
- Ohio: $8.15 (+5 cents)
- Montana: $8.15 (+10 cents)
- Florida: $8.10 (+5 cents)
- Missouri: $7.70 (+5 cents)
Now, I’m not going to digress into a political debate. That’s not the point. The point is, more than 4.4 million Americans will be getting a pay raise.
As someone who worked for minimum wage earlier this year, I can appreciate that.
Your Turn: Does this mean you’ll be making more money in 2017?
Carson Kohler (@CarsonKohler) is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder. After recently completing graduate school, she focuses on saving money — and surviving the move back in with her parents.
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How to Fact-Check Your Latest Blog Post in 20 Minutes or Less
Nobody’s correct all the time. Your blog posts, on the other hand, should be correct all the time.
Why? Because if your blog gets the facts wrong, your readers won’t take you seriously. Instead of being an authoritative resource, your blog will become a joke.
It’s harsh but true. Assuming you’re not a satire site like the Onion, you need to get your information right.
Truth be told, blogs should have similar standards for their posts as colleges have for students’ papers. Colleges require students to cite their sources in detail, and the sources have to be credible.
While I don’t think blogs should be required to quote only academic journals, I do think most blogs could benefit from higher standards of quality.
That means no poorly researched facts, no half-baked ideas, and no generalizations or assumptions.
It means thoroughly researched points, credible sources, and specific examples and anecdotes.
That’s the standard I keep for all my blogs, and I encourage my friends and colleagues to do the same.
Best of all, it doesn’t take hours to make your blog posts bulletproof.
Here’s how to fact-check your latest blog post in 20 minutes or less. Let’s get started.
Determine which facts to check
You don’t need to be super paranoid to have a perfectly correct blog post. Not every fact needs to be double-checked.
That’s why your first objective should be to comb through your post and determine which facts need checking.
An easy way of doing this is to consider whether or not the fact is common knowledge.
According to Harvard University, “Common knowledge is information generally known to an educated reader, such as widely known facts and dates, and, more rarely, ideas or language.”
For example, the fact that Barack Obama won the 2012 election is common knowledge. But the fact that Obama likes basketball is not common knowledge.
How can you tell whether a fact is common knowledge?
Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab says that, as a rule of thumb, if you can find the fact undocumented in at least five credible sources, chances are it’s common knowledge.
If your fact is common knowledge, you don’t need any source to back it up.
However, I recommend doing a quick yet thorough Google search to make sure your fact isn’t a common misconception. If all looks good, move on to the next step.
Consult credible sources
There’s a huge difference between an authoritative source and a credible source. Unfortunately, most people think they’re one and the same.
For example, most schools don’t allow students to cite Wikipedia because anyone can edit it. Even though Wikipedia is mostly well-maintained, it can’t be used academically.
Wikipedia is a perfect example of a site that is an authoritative—but not credible—source. It’s authoritative because it’s used by millions of people, but it’s not credible.
The Wall Street Journal is an example of an authoritative source that is also a credible source. Most major news publications (e.g., The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post) count as credible sources.
Besides national newspapers, some examples of sources that are credible include:
- Personal websites (e.g., NeilPatel.com)
- Studies in peer-reviewed journals with citations
- Academic sites (i.e., sites ending in .edu)
- Government sites (i.e., sites ending in .gov)
- Trustworthy institutions (e.g., Mayo Clinic, Department of Justice)
Keep in mind that while some of these sources would be considered off-limits in an academic setting, they’re perfectly fine in our case. For example, using a personal site for a grad paper might be frowned upon, but it works fine for blog posts.
Some examples of sources that aren’t credible include:
- Forums
- Social media posts/updates
- Studies without citations
Ultimately, you have to use your judgment here. If you’re using well-known, widely trusted sources, you’re good to go.
Get help from the watchdogs
There are also plenty of sites and resources dedicated to fact checking.
Usually, these types of watchdog sites cover either politics or urban myths. For example, FactCheck.org and Politifact.com are two sites that help you determine the validity of political statements.
One of the most popular checking sites is Snopes. It has entries on all kinds of urban legends and controversial facts.
The team of researchers at Snopes always show their research, making it easy to fact-check Snopes itself.
While Snopes has gotten some criticism for its seemingly biased political articles, it’s a good resource for many other topics.
Last but not least, Google recently announced its new Fact Check tag for Google News. In a nutshell, readers will be able to check the validity of an article by clicking on the Fact Check tag.
If you’re already using Google News, this will be super convenient for you. And if you’re not using Google news, it’s a great time to start.
Create a strategy
I’ve shared a lot of information so far, but don’t be intimidated. As I promised, you’ll be able to use this info to fact-check a blog post in 20 minutes or less.
Let me take you through the strategy, step by step.
Step 1: Create a fact checking spreadsheet (1 minute)
Open Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, and create a new spreadsheet.
Don’t worry, you’re not going to make anything complicated. You’ll need only three columns.
Name the first column “Fact,” and enter all the facts from your blog post that need checking. (Refer back to the “Determine which facts to check” section of this article for this step.)
Name the second column “Sources.” We’ll use this in the next step.
Name the third column “Use.” You’ll use this column to determine the validity of your facts.
Step 2: Head to Google (8 minutes)
If your facts don’t fall into any political, social, or mythological categories, Google will be your first step in the fact-checking process.
For example, if you wanted to write about the successful use of Facebook video ads, you’d want to find a reputable source with examples.
Head to Google, and search “Facebook video ads.” One of the top results is this blog post from Social Media Examiner:
The article has lots of outbound links to support its claims, which is a great sign. There’s also a lot of media to help the user follow the strategy.
This is an excellent example of a good resource. This article would definitely back up your claims about Facebook video ads being successful.
Try to find at least two quality articles, studies, or videos to back up each statement. This way, you can go through them at the end and decide which resources will be best for your article.
When you find your sources, paste the links in the “Sources” column of your spreadsheet.
Step 3: Consult other sites (optional, 5 minutes)
If you’re writing about anything political, you’ll most likely need to use FactCheck.org, Politifact, or Snopes. And if you need to check any facts related to society, Snopes is a good place to go.
You won’t need to use these sites for every article you write, so this is an optional step. If you do need to use these sites, just run your topic keywords through the search bars.
At this point, you might be thinking, “But what if there’s nothing out there to support my fact?”
A lack of support means one of two things: You either need to support the fact yourself or eliminate it from your article.
Since these are polar opposites, you’ll have to use your judgment here.
For example, if you’re arguing that studying the Renaissance can improve your marketing, you probably won’t find much out there that connects the two. But you can probably make a strong case for why it’s true.
On the other hand, if you’re arguing that the Loch Ness monster’s favorite color is blue, you won’t find anything to support that. And you probably can’t create a convincing case that backs up your statement.
Overall, if you have a hard time backing up a fact, you should leave it out. You are better off being safe than sorry when it comes to fact checking.
Step 4: Weed out the bad facts (2 minutes)
Take a final look at your spreadsheet. If you found at least one credible source for a fact, you can use that fact. Enter “Yes” in the “Use” column.
If there are any facts without sources, you’re better off not including those facts in your article. As I mentioned above, if you can make a compelling case for a fact, go for it, but be careful.
You’ll come across a few duds every now and then, and that’s okay. When it comes to facts, always choose quality over quantity.
Conclusion
There you have it—a complete strategy for fact-checking your newest blog post that only takes about 17 minutes. (And in many cases, even less.)
While this is a quick-start guide, don’t be afraid to spend a little more time on this process. Getting your facts straight can mean the difference between a success and a flop.
And keep in mind that the longer the blog post, the more research you’ll have.
To give you an idea, my posts run anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000+ words, and I typically spend about an hour or so on research per post.
Of course, the most important part about writing a blog post is making sure the content is awesome. Write to solve your readers’ problems, and be passionate about it.
Thanks to the Internet, fact-checking has never been easier. Take a few minutes to double-check everything, and you’ll never have to worry about misleading your readers.
What’s your favorite fact-checking tip?
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Using Your Credit Card Bill as a Wake-Up Call
Here’s a little exercise for you to try out. Take out your latest credit card bill from your most frequently used credit card. Print it out if it’s an electronic bill; otherwise, just grab a pen and put the bill on the table in front of you.
Now, go through each item and ask yourself a couple of simple questions about each one.
“Was this thing a necessary purchase?” If it is, put a little + beside that item on your bill. Easy enough – these expenses should be obvious.
“Was this purchase not necessary, but actually really fulfilling when I look back on it?” Just leave it blank. Don’t mark anything beside it.
“Was this purchase not necessary, but not really all that great when I look back on it?” Put a – beside that item.
“I don’t remember what this item was at all, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t important.” Put a – beside that item.
Now, go through and total up all of the items with a – beside them and see how much those items add up to.
That’s the amount of money you spent on things that are truly forgettable, that weren’t necessary and didn’t have any sort of positive impact on your life.
That money could have been used to pay down debts. It could have been used to save up for a down payment on a home or on a car. It could have been used to save for retirement through a Roth IRA contribution. Those things quickly turn a – into a +.
Even if you didn’t want to necessarily spend that money on those things, it could have at least been used on things that were really fulfilling when you look back on them, like a meaningful day at the zoo with your family or gas for a day trip to see your grandmother. Those things move, at the very least, into the neutral column.
This exercise isn’t meant for you to beat up on yourself. The truth is that everyone makes spending mistakes. If I go through my own credit card statements, you better believe that I’m going to mark some things down with a -.
The real purpose of this exercise is twofold.
First, it helps you to recognize how much of your spending goes toward things that are completely forgettable and have minimal life impact. People often wonder at the end of the month where all of their money has gone, and the truth is that a lot of it goes toward completely forgettable things with little impact. While it’s easy to acknowledge that truth in a general sense, this exercise makes it very specific and personal. It shows you how much of your spending is forgettable and low-impact. It even shows you exactly what those expenses are.
Second, it gives you a great deal of insight when it comes to your future spending. To me, this is the real value of this type of exercise. It shows you, front and center, how much money you’re spending ineffectively, plus it tells you exactly where you’re spending it. You can take that information and use it to improve your spending habits going forward.
How? Here’s how you can use that information to really reshape your spending.
First, look for patterns in the data. Where do you often spend money in a forgettable fashion? Is it at a bar? A gas station? A particular store? A website? Are there particular kinds of products that you often buy that you just forget about? Soda? Alcohol? Coffee? Entertainment? Look for things that show up again and again in your spending and see if you can make a short list of a few of those patterns.
Second, identify clear, specific life changes that will slash your spending in terms of the patterns you noticed. You have a few clear patterns that define your forgettable spending. What are you going to do about those things? For example, if you spend a lot of money on forgettable stuff online, consider deleting your credit card number from online stores that you frequently use, especially the ones where you buy forgettable things. If you often buy sodas or alcohol or other consumables that you simply forget about, make it your goal to cut those habits (it’s probably better for your health, too). If you find that there’s a ton of expense associated with a particular friend or social group, dial down your time with those folks and build up time with friends that don’t require spending.
Third, implement those changes. Ideally, you now have one or two real tangible changes that you can implement… so implement them. This can be a hard thing to do, so here are a few suggestions on making them click.
First, remind yourself of these initiatives every morning, early in the morning. Put aside a few minutes to specifically think about these goals. Put them on a big note on your bathroom mirror so you can think about them when you’re brushing your teeth, or put them as the lock screen on your smartphone by making an image with those ideas. I find that looking at these focus points right before or right after meditation or prayer (something I do every morning) is very helpful in terms of locking those ideas into my skull.
Second, focus just on today. Don’t worry about the failures of the past or the path ahead of you. Just worry about making sure you take care of those things today. If one of your initiatives is to cut online spending, just choose not to spend any money online today for anything. If one of your initiatives is to stop drinking alcohol, focus on not drinking today and use other outlets for your emotions. If you have an initiative that involves making social changes, make an active choice to spend some time cultivating a new friend or two today. Today is what matters.
Third, evaluate today before you go to bed. Much as you did in the morning, spend a moment or two reflecting on your initiative for the day at the end of the day. Did you manage to avoid drinking? Hooray! Success! If you didn’t, why did that happen? It’s not life-ending to have made a mistake, but it should be seen as an opportunity to figure out why you made a misstep and focus on making sure that you take care of the reason behind the curtain. I find that repetitive failures means that I need to be working on something else in my life as a daily goal because there’s some other challenge in some other part of my life that’s not working out right, so fixing that other challenge needs to come first.
Fourth, make (and continue) success chains. When I’m working on establishing a new “normal” in my life, it usually comes from consciously repeating a daily habit until it’s so normal that I don’t have to think about it any more. I find that it starts to happen around the 30 day mark but doesn’t really “lock in” permanently for at least 90 days of steady repetition. To keep myself motivated, I use the “success chain” system. I have a white board in my office where I have my top two or three daily goals listed. Next to each goal is a line of Xs. Each day, when I’ve successfully done that thing, I add an X to that line. If I haven’t successfully done that thing, I erase the whole line. I often look at this board during my morning evaluation of my daily goals, because maintaining that chain of Xs has a great deal of psychological power.
Use these strategies together to implement the changes you identified and actually cut that needless spending from your life.
Finally, see how those changes affect your spending in the next billing cycle. Skip a month, then take a close look at the first full billing cycle after you started implementing these changes. Go through it and do the same “+,” ” ,” and “-” exercise described above. Ideally, you’re going to notice a lot of positive change, probably enough that you immediately notice it in your lower-than-usual credit card balance or your higher-than-usual bank balance.
It feels good. Real good. The best part? Since it’s spending that really doesn’t matter to you, it’s easy to keep it going. You can do this.
It’s this type of cyclic pattern – looking for mistakes you’re making, looking for actionable steps to improve them, implementing those steps, and then checking the results – that is behind almost every kind of positive change people implement in their lives. Personal finance change is no different.
Weeding out forgettable spending is a particularly powerful type of change because you’re letting go of stuff that really isn’t very meaningful for you and replacing it with much more meaningful uses of your money, plus you can clearly see the impact month over month on your bank statements and credit card bills.
Give this little technique a shot. You’ll be pretty happy with the changes it brings.
The post Using Your Credit Card Bill as a Wake-Up Call appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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These 16-Year-Olds Invented a Card Game for a School Project… and Made $20K
Confession time: I have never gone camping.
Not really, anyway. When I told my parents I wanted to as a kid, they said, “For sure!”
… and then rented an RV. That’s about as close to roughing it as they wanted to get.
I predictably grew into an adult too attached to air conditioning and Wi-Fi to get any closer to the real deal than renting a KOA cabin.
But this sweet camping game — and the inspiring story behind it — might just make me change my ways.
How a Class Project Sparked These Young Entrepreneurs’ Spirits
In the winter of 2015, 16-year-old Maya Gay was faced with a challenge.
She and her entrepreneurship classmates were asked to come up with business ideas, which would then compete in a Dragons’ Den-style competition. Incentives included considerable bragging rights… and cold, hard cash.
Gay partnered up with her friend Rachel Birrell and worked on a business idea that revolved around the pair’s passion: the outdoors.
“I’ve grown up skiing, hiking and backpacking,” Maya says. Her whole family loves to explore the great outdoors, and she plans to hike the Pacific Crest Trail soon.
But at 16, Gay and Birrell didn’t have the resources to create the material-intensive revised camp shoe they initially invented — at least not if they wanted to stand a chance against their competitors.
So they started thinking about people, rather than products, and reminiscing about some of their best outdoor experiences.
“I’d met some really interesting people on the trails before,” Gay explains. “Rachel and I realized the importance of human connections in this technology-focused society.”
And suddenly, Basecamp Cards was born.
How These 16-Year-Olds Started a Business
Basecamp Cards are regular playing cards that feature icebreaker questions to encourage the kind of lengthy conversations that unravel best around a campfire.
“We were brainstorming the process of camp life and realized that everyone brings a deck of cards with them!” Gay says.
Lightweight and versatile, playing cards hold an important place in most backpackers’ kits. But the pair took advantage of the perfect way to improve them: emblazoning them with great conversation prompts.
The cards are designed with beautiful watercolor backgrounds, painted by a friend of Gay’s family. Questions range “from thought-provoking to goofy.” Some samples include:
- Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck?
- Win the lottery or find your perfect job?
- What is a skill that you want to learn?
The pair focused on questions requiring a more-than-one-word answer — the kind that might move players to put down the cards and start chatting instead.
To make sure they had great conversation starters, the pair surveyed their fellow classmates during brainstorming sessions… which got a little tricky at times.
“Our classmates got really sick of us asking them whether they wanted to change gender every time they sneezed or not be able to tell the difference between a muffin and a baby,” Gay says.
It took the pair about a month to solidify the questions and design the cards on Adobe Photoshop. Neither of the girls had any prior experience.
By the time they received the initial run of 36 prototype decks to submit to the judges, they had already sold out.
They quickly submitted another order — this time for 500 decks.
Basecamp Cards didn’t just win the First Prize of $1,500 and Best Trade Show prize of $500.
It became a real business.
How This Camping Game Went from Project to Profit
As sales expanded, Gay tweaked the cards and the business, adding the colorful background and improving the quality of the materials.
And last summer, she bought out Birrell and partnered with her 19-year-old brother, Aidan, instead.
So far, she’s spent $11,000 creating and selling Basecamp Cards… and earned $20,000. She says the cards will only improve in quality… and go down in price.
We love Gay’s entrepreneurial spirit, which she says she owes in part to her parents. Both are entrepreneurs themselves and contributed funds for the first run of cards.
And what’s best, she’s used her prowess and creativity to make an affordable, fun product to bring people together in what has become the old-fashioned way: face to face, surrounded by nature, away from screens.
Your Turn: So, which is it — one horse-sized duck, or 100 duck-sized horses?
Jamie Cattanach is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. Her writing has also been featured at The Write Life, Word Riot, Nashville Review and elsewhere. Find @JamieCattanach on Twitter to wave hello.
The post These 16-Year-Olds Invented a Card Game for a School Project… and Made $20K appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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Ring in 2017 Without Going Broke. Here’s How to Get a Safe Ride Home
After the ball drops and the bubbly pops to ring in the new year, the last thing you want to think about is how you’re getting home.
But New Year’s is notorious for auto accidents, and about 41% of fatalities on the holiday involve drunken drivers.
I’m not going to tell you not to go out and have a great time with your friends. But New Year’s Eve is one of those events I call an “amateur night”: There’s a lot of alcohol and not a lot of thinking about your own tolerance levels. Everyone’s just focused on celebrating. And that’s cool.
But since we know many people are going to get pretty sloppy, it’s important to plan your New Year’s travel before the big night.
You probably know that if you take Uber after the clock strikes midnight, you’ll likely face surge pricing, the increase in standard rider fees that occurs during high-demand periods (like New Year’s).
But is paying surge pricing the only way to get a safe ride home?
Use these tips to plan what might be the most frugal part of your night out – because let’s be real, you paid way too much to go to that fancy party.
1. Play the System
Everyone has a friend who installs every rideshare app imaginable on their phone and flips through them until they find a price they like.
Be that friend on New Year’s Eve.
Download Uber, Lyft, Via, Gett or whichever app floats your boat. Fill ’em up with your billing info so you’re ready to go on the big night, then start scanning the competition. By having multiple options, you increase your chances of avoiding surge pricing.
2. Stock Up on Promo Codes
Have a promo code for a discounted or free ride? Make sure it’s applied to your account before you start cracking bottles of Champagne.
Ridesharing companies may black out some referral codes or promo offers on what is likely their busiest night of the year, but it’s always good to be prepared.
3. Plan Your Trips to Anticipate Costs
Historically, the cheapest times to take Uber on early New Year’s Day are right after the ball drops around midnight and again after 3 a.m.
Want to stay out late, but not that late? Wind down the night at a friend’s place so you don’t spend money at the bar until closing time.
4. Walk a Few Blocks
If you’re with group or in a busy, well-lit area, it may be worth walking a few extra blocks to get a ride in a surge-free zone. Use an app like SurgeProtector to see the surge territory in your area and whether it’s worth hoofing it a bit.
Be prepared for every zone to be a surge zone at some point on New Year’s, though.
5. Take a Cab
Standing on the curb trying to flag a cab after midnight Jan. 1 will be frustrating at best.
Before the festivities begin, find out if your local taxicab commission has an app of its own. You may not save money by hailing a regular ’ol cab from your phone, but you’ll stay warm while you’re waiting — and you won’t have to try to shout over the crowd to call dispatch for one.
Your Turn: How do you get a safe ride home without spending all your money?
Lisa Rowan is a writer and producer at The Penny Hoarder.
The post Ring in 2017 Without Going Broke. Here’s How to Get a Safe Ride Home appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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Deduct Your Mortgage Interest To Save On Taxes
Deduct Your Mortgage Interest To Save On Taxes
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Help to Buy mortgage guarantee ends
The Help to Buy Mortgage Guarantee scheme ends on 31 December 2016. Although it received a mixed reception overall, it’s estimated to have helped around 100,000 people since its inception.
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