Q: Hello Greg and I have just been introduced to your informative and well crafted articles thanks to the internet sites. I am undertaking a retirement project (I am 70) to find a Ford truck as similar as possible to the first vehicle I drove, which was my dad’s Ford truck which I had to wait until age eight to drive. Before we bought it, it was used as a coal delivery truck during the Great Depression. We used it daily for hauling firewood and bagged grain to the local chopping mill. [...]
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الاثنين، 25 يناير 2016
Think Walmart is the Cheapest Place to Get Your Groceries? Think Again
I didn’t realize grocery shopping got cheaper than Walmart. As it turns out, I was wrong.
Business Insider recently compared prices between Walmart and a small, German grocer you may not have heard about yet: Aldi.
The results were pretty significant: The same groceries cost 30% less at Aldi than they did at Walmart.
The Cheapest Place to Buy Groceries?
Although a few items, like tomatoes and organic bananas, were cheaper at Walmart, Aldi had surprisingly great deals on both fresh produce and packaged foods.
But don’t forget: Walmart will price-match any competitor, and one of the reasons Aldi can sell its goods so cheaply is a lack of investment in customer service.
In fact, Aldi requires buyers to bring their own bags, and there’s a $0.25 deposit to get a shopping cart. You get your quarter back when you replace the cart — meaning Aldi doesn’t have to hire somebody to do that job.
Check out the full story at Business Insider — and if you live near an Aldi, maybe check it out. Just don’t forget your reusable bags!
Your Turn: Do you shop at Aldi? What do you think of its prices?
Jamie Cattanach is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder. She also writes other stuff, like wine reviews and poems — you can read along at http://ift.tt/1RiB7sH.
The post Think Walmart is the Cheapest Place to Get Your Groceries? Think Again appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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We Found $10 of Free Money to Spend at Kohl’s, Plus a Coupon for an Extra 15% Off
Eager for some new leggings to help keep you warm? Or maybe a cute pair of earrings for your friend’s birthday?
Then you might want to grab this free $10 from Kohl’s. Here’s how…
How to Get a FREE $10 Credit at Kohl’s
- Click here to sign up for a Yes2You rewards account.
- Download the Kohl’s app on your Apple or Android device.
- Within the app, sign in to your Yes2You rewards account.
You should soon see 210 points in your account.
At the end of the month, each set of 100 points converts into $5 in Kohl’s Cash — so your 200 points will turn into $10 of free money!
Note: Rewards cash expires 30 days after it’s deposited into your account.
Bonus Penny Hoarder deal-stacking tip: Sign up for Kohl’s sale alerts, too, and you’ll receive a 15% off coupon. Use it to get even more mileage out of this deal.
Just don’t use this as an excuse to spend money when you wouldn’t have anyways…
Before you go, we’d recommend reading this post about how to spend $10 — and only $10 — at Kohl’s.
Thanks to Free Stuff Times for sharing this great offer!
Your Turn: Do you plan to get your $10 in Kohl’s Cash?
Susan Shain, senior writer for The Penny Hoarder, is always seeking adventure on a budget. Visit her blog at susanshain.com, or say hi on Twitter @susan_shain.
The post We Found $10 of Free Money to Spend at Kohl’s, Plus a Coupon for an Extra 15% Off appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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Silvio Calabi: Stuck in style in a Jaguar XF
Unless you’re already an aficionado, Jaguar models can be confusing — all those Xs paired with other letters, and some are called “Type” this and “Type”’ that. But, old as it is, Jaguar is still a small car company, with just five models right now, of which two are so new that deliveries haven’t yet begun. Recently I met one of them, the midsize aluminum XF sedan, in Arizona, and promised more detail after I’d been able to live [...]
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Source Business - poconorecord.com http://ift.tt/1PNGMEu
This Site Can Help You Get a College Education Without Going Into Debt
Education is expensive.
I know, I know, you’ve heard it before. You’ve probably even said it yourself.
But besides abundant cat videos and the ability to binge-watch television until productivity is but a distant, faded memory — the internet has also brought us free university-level course material.
Free College Courses
Massive open online courses, or “MOOCs,” are available from lots of different platforms like Coursera and EdX.
And while you don’t get the actual degree, you do get the knowledge and experience — sometimes from really awesome institutions, and usually totally free of charge.
But with so many different options and outlets, how do you pick an institution or platform, let alone a course?
And even if your eye is set on a couple of specific courses, wouldn’t your life be a lot easier if they were all easily accessible from the same place?
CourseBuffet
Enter CourseBuffet.
This website is exactly what it sounds like: a catalog of free MOOCs available across the Internet.
Like a sprawling buffet table, you can go in and take your pick.
How about some art history with a side of superheroes? Maybe you’d rather choose a main course (get it?) of Python programming with Linux for dessert — making a “meal” that could jump-start a brand new career.
It’s all right there, waiting for you to take your pick.
Plus, you can rest assured each course will be complete and high quality: CourseBuffet requires that the source be an institution, professor or “recognized authority” on a subject.
Plus, you can filter your search by level and institution as well as by subject, so if you only want to learn about data science from MIT, you can skip offerings from other schools.
Basically, it’s really convenient and awesome.
And free.
Get a Free Degree
Even better? CourseBuffet has just introduced degree paths — full 40-course, 120-credit curricula in computer science and management.
You don’t get an actual degree, of course — but you do get the option to customize your experience, deciding the order you take the courses and the pace at which you complete them.
Although course options are limited for now, the site lists a finance option as “coming soon,” and probably more will follow if they’re successful.
This could be a great catalyst for a lucrative new career — without the costs associated with traditional college, or even adult education programs like coding bootcamp.
If you’re curious, head on over to CourseBuffet and click around a bit. After all… you have nothing to lose!
Your Turn: Will you organize your free online courses with CourseBuffet?
Disclosure: A toast to savings! Thanks for allowing us to place affiliate links in this post.
Jamie Cattanach (@jamiecattanach) is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder. She also writes other stuff, like wine reviews and poems.
The post This Site Can Help You Get a College Education Without Going Into Debt appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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Abused or abandoned pigs have a home in Canadensis
Pigs enjoy listening to music, playing with soccer balls and getting massages.
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A Business Is More than Just Content: 4 Areas You Should Worry About
Have you heard about it yet?
It’s probably the single biggest consequence of the rise in popularity of content marketing.
It’s called content shock.
People are being overwhelmed by all the content produced, both good and bad.
There’s a lot to be said about it and the way it will force content marketers to evolve.
But I’ll get to those topics in the near future.
First, there’s something more important you need to understand.
A business is more than just content.
Sure, you can build a business on the back of your content, but content itself is not a business.
You might say “duh,” but don’t roll your eyes so quickly.
Many content marketers and business owners are pumping out content without having any clue of how it makes them money.
You need to understand that content is just one part of marketing, let alone a business as a whole.
What I want to show you in this post is how content fits into a business.
To do that, I’ll go into great detail about the major areas of a business you need to keep in mind and connect with your content.
Ready?
Let’s start with the first area of concern…
Area #1: If you don’t have a product, you don’t have a business yet
People get started with content marketing in two main ways.
The first is to raise sales. The biggest problem these businesses face is connecting the content with their products.
I’ll address this issue later on.
The second way is used by the group of people who come from the newest generation of Internet marketers, who begin to learn and apply content marketing because of what they see.
They read blogs like Quick Sprout, and for the most part, they only see content.
Wanting to build something similar, they start pumping out content.
Some have the talent to get some traffic, but sooner or later (often after years), they realize something:
How the heck am I supposed to make money now?
What they don’t realize is that content is just a part of the business. Even though all they could see was content, there’s a lot going on in the background.
In order for all that to happen, you need a product.
And the common reaction to being told that is:
So what? I’ll just come up with a product down the line.
That’s a very risky approach.
What usually happens is the marketer ends up building a segmented audience. Since they only care about creating content to attract viewers, they create content on all sorts of loosely related topics in their niche.
Different topics attract different types of readers, so by the time the marketer finally creates a product, only a small percentage of their audience is interested in it.
As a simple example, pretend that Joe, a golfing blogger, creates content for both expert golfers and beginner golfers.
His audience will contain both types of golfers. While some products might be attractive to both groups, most won’t.
For example, any products targeted towards beginners, like basic video tutorials or cheap golfing equipment, won’t be wanted by experts.
Similarly, most beginners aren’t going to want to spend a ton of money on the game when they’re just playing it occasionally for fun.
Now, if Joe had only those two groups, he still might do okay. But typically, bloggers like Joe end up with a highly segmented audience, and it’s tough to create a product that appeals to a large portion of that audience.
The end result?
No sales (or very few).
The products behind the scene: My point wasn’t that you need to build a product before you build an audience. You can build an audience before you create a product, but you need to create your content strategically (so that you build an audience that is interested in something specific).
My point is that all businesses have products.
If you don’t have a product yet, then you don’t have a business—you have a hobby.
Those doomed blogs that launch products that don’t sell don’t last very long.
A good business doesn’t just sell products; it sells highly profitable ones.
Furthermore, it sells multiple products to appeal to different segments of its audience.
For example, I Will Teach You To Be Rich sells several products:
All those sales put together amount to a 7-figure business.
You may not know it yet, but I offer consulting to my readers (although mainly through NeilPatel.com). Even though you don’t see it on the surface with all the blog content, Quick Sprout is responsible for a huge amount of revenue.
The main components to profitable products: Before you rush out and create a product, take a step back to plan.
Creating a great product takes time.
Within the “product” area of your business, there are a few main things you will need to decide.
The first part is choosing a product itself. You may have the intimate knowledge of your audience to do this off the top of your head, but in general, you’ll need to:
- survey your audience
- look at competitors
- talk to members of your audience
- “pitch” hypothetical products to small sections of your audience
Based on that feedback, you’ll be able to determine what products they would and would not pay for.
After that, it usually makes sense to make a minimum viable product (MVP).
The MVP is a bare-bones first version of your product you can offer to a small portion of your audience for testing and further feedback.
You can make improvements based on that initial feedback to create a new version.
It may take a few rounds of feedback and improvement, but eventually you’ll have something worth selling.
While all this is happening, you also need to determine how you’re going to sell the product (the technical logistics) and how you’re going to distribute it to customers.
Some products, like software products, are pretty easy to distribute. But if you have a physical product, you’ll have to figure out which countries and areas you can ship to, how long it will take, and how much it will cost.
Finally, if you haven’t yet, you’ll need to find someone who can create the product. It might be a developer or it might be some supplier in China for a physical product.
Finding the right person or company can take months of searching, so it’s important to plan as far ahead as possible.
Area #2: Your content is only as good as your website
I see it too often these days…
A marketer goes to the effort of creating some really good content, but then it’s put on a website that looks like it was made in the 1990s.
Like it or not, the appearance of your content, and your website as a whole, has a big effect on the perception of your content and product.
Furthermore, remember that potential customers will judge your business based on your content. Most audiences won’t buy or return to ugly content/websites.
So, if you spend all your time on your content, now might be a good time to take a step back and evaluate the look of your website.
Your website needs to reflect your brand and content: Both your website as a whole and your content affect the perception of each other. They both need to give the impression you want.
Let’s take a quick look at a few areas of Quick Sprout.
Here’s a snippet of the homepage:
It’s an extremely clean, modern design. Most would say that it looks great.
The same high quality logo and designs are carried through the blog:
The sidebar isn’t just some random opt-in form; it’s clear that it’s been professionally designed.
Not only that, but the green color scheme from the homepage has been carried through to the blog pages.
Further down in the sidebar, there’s a brief area about hiring me to speak:
Do you recognize that design from anywhere? (Bonus points if you do.)
The color scheme and the main font are almost identical to those of many of my advanced guides (also in the sidebar):
Some readers come to my content first. The things in the content that they’re impressed with are duplicated in other areas of the website.
Other readers come to other parts of the website first. They like the homepage and sidebar design, so they read a few posts. Not surprisingly, they like the content as well since it has the same “feel” to it.
And that’s what I mean when I say that your website and content design are interconnected. They both help build your brand.
All designs go stale, keep iterating: One common mistake people make is they come up with an initial design that represents their business and brand well but never update it.
Obviously, website redesigns are expensive and take a lot of time, but most young online businesses should be overhauling their websites every 2-5 years.
Otherwise, your content will evolve over time but your site won’t, which will create a gap between the quality of your content and the way your readers will perceive your content and your brand as a whole.
A good example is the Crazy Egg blog.
Over time, we assembled a solid team of writers who were producing content on a regular basis.
We even hired an editor to make sure all the content was as high quality as possible.
But the website fell behind. It hadn’t been updated in a few years, and it held back the perception of the content. Our blog posts weren’t getting quite as much attention as they deserved.
As you can see, it wasn’t ugly, but it sure wasn’t pretty either.
That’s why we overhauled it in 2015. We kept the most important elements of the original design, but we essentially redesigned it from scratch.
You can go to the blog today and clearly see that Crazy Egg isn’t just a website with a top quality blog but a top quality business with a high quality product.
The design reflects on everything.
If your site goes down, your content goes with it: It’s easy to forget that most of your content lives on your website.
If it goes down or gets hacked, all of your website files and content can be gone in an instant.
This is the stuff of nightmares for most marketers.
The good news is that you don’t need to be constantly worried about it as long as you take action to prevent it.
The first thing you need to do is to find out from your host whether they back up your content.
Some hosts, such as Hostgator for example, automatically back up accounts of smaller websites (under 20 GB).
You don’t want to rely on this, but it’s nice to know that it might be an option should you need it.
As far as security goes, keep your websites as updated as possible, especially if you have a WordPress website. Old plugins often have vulnerabilities that are the source of hacks.
Even if you are good about keeping your site updated, accidents can still happen, and you can find your site gone overnight.
The only reliable solution is to create your own backups. I know that a lot of marketers get turned off by technical work like creating backups, but it’s really simple.
I’ll walk you through the two main ways you can do this.
Option #1 – Use a plugin: By far, the easiest option is to buy a cheap plugin such as BackupBuddy.
Once you install the plugin and select your basic settings, go to its “Backup” menu.
All you need to do is choose the “complete backup” option, and it will automatically make a copy of all your website contents.
You can store your backups on your computer, an external drive, or on BackupBuddy’s cloud servers (pick from the red buttons). Any of these options will work just fine.
That literally only takes a few clicks, once every 2-4 weeks. There’s no excuse not to do it.
Option #2 – Do it manually: Almost all hosts use cPanel these days, and you can create backups for your site with it free.
There are two parts of a backup that you’ll need:
- databases - which store dynamic content like your posts, pages, and comments
- static files - things like your website theme
Log into cPanel, and find the “Backup Wizard” link:
From here, choose the “Backup” option on the next page:
On this next screen, do not choose “full backup.” You can’t actually restore that if your site goes down.
Instead, you’ll want to use the partial backup options.
You can start with either option, but you’ll need both the “home directory” (your static files) and your “MySQL databases.”
Once you pick an option, click the “Download” button on the next page.
After you’ve done that, repeat the steps, and download the other files you need.
If something goes wrong with your website, go back to the backup wizard, but this time pick “Restore” in the first step. You’ll then upload your static files and database individually (it’s the exact same procedure).
Create a backup once every 2-4 weeks, and you’ll never have to worry about the consequences of your site going down.
Area #3: Your customers are the lifeblood of your business, treat them right
Content marketing is all about giving value.
That’s one of the aspects of it that I love so much. Your content can actually make a difference in all of your readers’ lives.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t always carry over to the product.
Businesses tend to understand that content marketing is about providing value, but once they have a customer, they think their job is done.
This couldn’t be further from the truth.
A past customer is about 3 times more likely to buy from you than an email subscriber or other reader in general.
You should be providing even more value to someone who buys a product from you. These are the people who make the biggest difference to the success of your business, in both the short and long term.
What I’m really talking about here is customer service.
There are a few key factors that most businesses should focus on more in the customer service area.
Factor #1 – Availability and convenience: Obviously there are many types of businesses out there, but consider the following typical scenario that may or may not describe your process:
A company spends months creating great content to start their content marketing efforts. During this time, they are desperate for audience contact. Comments, social media mentions, and emails of any sort are cause for celebration.
That same company sells products. When a customer calls or emails them for help with their purchase, they are seen as an added expense. The company trains their reps to deal with their customers as quickly as possible.
Isn’t this madness?
The customer—who has given your business money and could buy from you again in the future—is treated like a pest.
Random readers in the audience, who may never be in the market for your products, are treated like gold. Emails are enthusiastically replied to, and all suggestions for content are given special attention.
This happens all the time. And not just in business.
It happens in personal relationships too when someone puts in the effort to come off as a great person to get someone they like to go on a date with them only to get lazier over time and barely give their new significant other the time of day.
Do not let this happen in your business—ever.
Your customers should get as much attention and appreciation as possible on an ongoing basis. Their thoughts and feedback are far more useful than any reader’s.
To start with, make it really easy to contact you.
After someone buys a product from you, take every chance you can get to encourage them to contact you.
Mirasee (formerly Firepole Marketing) does this brilliantly with their products.
Here’s an excerpt from one of the many emails they send to customers who bought their training course “Audience Business Masterclass”:
There’s no hiding email addresses or not mentioning support options to make it difficult for customers to get help.
Instead, they make it clear that if you need support in any way, they are happy to try to help you as soon as possible. Customers don’t feel like a nuisance—they feel valued.
Factor #2 – Go above and beyond to fix the problems: You can encourage your customers to contact you every time you get the chance.
But once you get those emails or phone calls, you need to deliver on your promises.
Yes, customer service costs your business money.
Actually, let me fix that:
Customer service costs your business money—in the short term.
In the long term, however, truly great customer service is the way you win lifelong customers who will spend hundreds or thousands of dollars with your business.
I urge you to not try to solve the problem as quickly as possible. Instead, try to solve it as thoroughly as possible.
Make the customer as happy as possible with your reply.
If they’re confused and need help, schedule a personal call with them as soon as possible. Or record a quick video showing them exactly how to do something.
When you go above and beyond by doing things like that, you show that you really do care about them, and that’s why they will be loyal customers in the future.
Factor #3 – Follow up after purchase, and make sure they’re getting results: If you have a great customer service team and process in place, you’re almost set.
Except there’s still one big problem…
Most people won’t contact you even if they’re having problems with your products.
Many will just forget about your product and never use it again. Guess how likely these people are to be repeat customers.
You’re right, not very likely.
You should follow up multiple times after someone purchases your product to make sure they’re having a great experience with it.
The more complex your product is, the more you should check in with them.
Remember that example email I showed you above? Here’s another one that Danny Iny (founder of Mirasee) sends his customers a few months after they buy his training course:
That’s only a snippet, but you can see that he again encourages anyone who isn’t getting the ideal results to contact his team for more help.
This shows his customers that he truly cares about their success, which makes them more likely to reach out and get help.
If his team goes above and beyond, he’s going to turn a lot of those customers who might have been on the verge of giving up into successes and, in turn, lifelong customers.
You should follow up after a customer receives a product to make sure they got it in good condition with no problems.
But you should also follow up at least once more after your customer has had time to test out the product thoroughly.
Factor #4 – Content isn’t just for before the sale: There’s another aspect of producing content that people don’t consider, which I just can’t understand.
You produce your content and publish it free because you know your potential customers will find it valuable.
So, why on Earth wouldn’t you send customers premium content after they purchase a product?
If they liked content before, I’m sure they’ll like it after.
In fact, they’ll probably like it more because your product will help them put your advice into action.
And no, I’m not just talking about regular blog content. While you should still send them that, you have the opportunity to create even more useful content just for customers.
If you sell a link building tool, you can send posts or e-books on how to use the tool for specific link building tactics. I guarantee almost all of your customers would enjoy that.
Create more content specifically for the people who matter the most to your business: your customers.
Area #4: Content is a great start, but without sales, it’s unsustainable
By now, I really hope you understand, if you didn’t before, the necessity of having a product.
We’ve established that there are two main components to your business: content and a product.
But you need to find a way to link these together, which is where sales comes in.
More specifically, you’ll need to develop a sales funnel.
A sales funnel just describes all the steps a person will go through from becoming aware of your brand to becoming a customer.
With typical outbound marketing (e.g., PPC advertising), it’s pretty easy to define a concrete sales funnel. For example:
- awareness - the ads themselves
- education - a sales page you link your potential customers to that educates them about the problem they have (this is usually where you capture lead information)
- engagement – continued interaction with the lead to increase awareness about your products
- purchase - where they become your customer
But inbound marketing funnels are a little trickier to define.
Potential customers can arrive on your site through any number of pieces of content. Or they might first become aware of your brand or product from the content you produce on other sites.
However, you can still define a rough funnel:
- awareness - your content on your blog or other sites
- lead conversion - getting visitors to sign up for your email list
- engagement - a continuous process of sending email subscribers valuable content and trying to establish a relationship
- education - when you’re ready to begin your sales process, you start educating subscribers about the problem you’re solving with your product(s).
- pitch and purchase - you present your product as the simplest or best solution in hopes of converting those leads into customers
As you can see, there are a lot of similarities between the two, but the inbound sales funnel is typically a bit more generalized.
Yours may not look exactly like that, and that’s okay.
Furthermore, a sales funnel like the one above is just a starting point. You want to break down each section as far as possible.
The most important section will be the product education phase. This is where most businesses would send a series of emails leading towards a sales.
Ideally, you need to create the exact emails that you will send ahead of time. You want them to relate to each other and build towards the sale.
Effective funnels aren’t made overnight: I’ve written full posts about sales funnels and barely scratched the surface of creating effective ones.
The truth is, there’s no right or wrong way to make one because it depends on your business.
One other thing that I do know is true is that your first funnel won’t be great. In fact, it might not even be good.
The good news is that you can steadily improve its overall effectiveness through split testing.
After several rounds of split testing, you’ll start to see really good conversion rates.
Focus on the part of your funnel that’s leaking the most (has the poorest conversion rate to the next step), and split test that until it’s producing acceptable results.
Then, keep repeating the process with the next worst part of the funnel and so on. Only stop this process when the gains you’re getting are consistently insignificant, which won’t happen for a long while.
Conclusion
Content is a great asset to almost any online business.
However, it’s just one component of your marketing.
If you truly want to build a successful business, you need to think about four other areas of your business I’ve shown you in this post.
If you haven’t given enough attention to your products, customer service, or sales, I’ve also given you specific things you can get working on right away. Start implementing these as soon as possible.
I’d love it if you could share any experiences you’ve had while building your own business in a comment below.
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Stimulate Growth Now Through Corporate Tax Rate Cut
Everyone's blaming the oil price collapse and China's sliding economy for the rout of the stock market these first two weeks of 2016. That's part of the story, but there may also be a policy explanation for the bearish sell-off.
Source CBN.com - Finance http://ift.tt/1KzS11y
Source CBN.com - Finance http://ift.tt/1KzS11y
Questions About Blenders, Carpools, Vanguard, Zero Sum Budgeting 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. Struggling to climb debt mountain
2. Debt payoff or savings cushion?
3. Unpaid taxes on family farm
4. Questions about zero sum budgeting
5. Disability insurance and mental health
6. Insurance on grown children
7. Question about Vanguard
8. How much to “retire” on?
9. Dollar Shave Club thoughts
10. Carpool maybe not worth it?
11. Blender upgrade worthwhile?
12. Iowa caucus
It’s funny how your kids grow up as you watch and you scarcely even realize it as it is happening.
My oldest child is ten and pretty mature for his age. You can have a conversation with him on almost any topic you can think of and if he doesn’t know something, he starts firing off questions until he gets answers. I can feel our trust in him handling things on his own growing by the day.
Our other children are young enough that it literally just seems like a few days ago that they were babies. Yet they’re all in school now, learning things and building friendships and going through all of the playground social drama that comes with it.
They’re all old enough that they’re now going through experiences that I remember from my own childhood. I remember going to elementary school. I remember starting to have adult conversations with my parents and asking lots of questions to fill in the blanks. I remember navigating the burgeoning social structure of the children in my class.
The thing that really blows my mind is that my oldest child is currently closer to college than infancy.
I love watching them grow up. It’s an amazing journey. But it’s also kind of sad that I will never see them as babies or toddlers again, first discovering the world, wearing their emotions so strongly on their sleeve, staring up with eyes so wide and innocent and full of trust and unguarded.
I just hope I’ve guided them well so far.
Q1: Struggling to climb debt mountain
My husband and I combined have close to 70k in debt (15 is credit cards, 55 is student loans). We have a one year old. My husband freelances and usually grosses 50k annually without benefits working 3 jobs for a total of 50-70 hours a week. I’m getting my masters in statistics and expect to graduate in Dec ’17. I’m currently preparing for my first actuarial exam. My grades dipped (didn’t use enough childcare) so we’re funding my courses with student loans for a semester. I know financial gurus like dave ramsey say to never take on student loans, but I was waiting tables and working as a secretary with my liberal arts degree before school. I’m hoping a career will help get us out of the hole. It feels really discouraging to have all this debt, no house, old (paid-off) cars, little savings, no 401k and have to continue living on a shoestring for the next couple years trying to make a dent in our debt. My husband doesn’t see our daughter much during the week because of his work schedule. Are we doing the right thing? Is there a quick fix? It feels like all of our 30-something parent friends have their lives together, and we screwed things up. I wish I learned more financial sense as a kid. My husband and I both grew up in the lower end of the tax bracket, and I really relate to your money story, Trent. I hope ours has a happy ending, too.
– Jeanette
This is the hard part. But it’s also a very, very memorable part.
This is the part that you need to never, ever, ever forget when things start to get better. Remember that you were able to pull this off and you were able to have a good life on the thinnest of shoestring budgets. Remember that you did these things to build a better life for you and your children, and the way to that better life is to plow through those debts, not to start inflating your lifestyle as soon as your income goes up.
For me, I use the feeling that I had in 2005 and 2006 when our financial situation was a disaster. I felt scared and worried pretty much every single night, for myself and for my wife and for my infant son. It was a low point in my adult life.
I try to never forget what that felt like. Every time I sense my spending inflating, I think about that experience and I resolve, more than ever before, to never ever ever go back there.
You never want to go back there. You are building a road out of there. When that path forward is ready, take it and stay on course and never forget where you came from. Also, never forget that it isn’t money that brings joy into your life, because your life likely has much joy along with the struggles right now.
Q2: Debt payoff or savings cushion?
Let’s say you have a good savings cushion, about $10,000 in liquid assets. The original intent was to save for unpaid maternity leave for one spouse and a fluctuating income for the other. Then you realize you could pay off student loans and a car using the savings, but it would shave off $7,000 from your savings. The loans account for $400 of monthly expenses. Given the choice, what do you do – keep a savings cushion or pay off debts?
– Nellie
It depends on the maternity leave question.
When exactly are you planning on taking maternity leave? Have you carefully budgeted your money to make sure that you can make ends meet while you’re off on unpaid maternity leave?
I would be very hesitant to spend money in the bank right before going on an unpaid leave unless you were very, very sure that you had your i’s dotted and your t’s crossed.
Yes, paying off the loans early would cut down on your monthly expenses, but having $10,000 in the bank versus $3,000 in the bank is going to make it easier to last a lot longer when you’re in maternity leave.
If I were you, I’d try to spend very little during maternity leave and then pay down debts with the savings that’s left when you’re done. That way, if something goes wrong, you have cash on hand to handle it.
Q3: Unpaid taxes on family farm
Hi my grandmother has property which she has left due to unpaid taxes. Is there any way I can pay the taxes due to keep land in family? She is 90 years old and moved to subsidized housing so the land is just sitting there and I’m a single mom with three kids who would really enjoy the farm.
– Aimee
The first thing I would do is figure out to whom taxes are owed and the state of those taxes. Are property taxes owed to the city or county? Trace this back and make sure you understand exactly what is owed, to whom it is owed, how late it is, and what the risk of a tax repossession is.
Then, contact the office to which the taxes are owed and discuss options with them. You’ll find that most tax collection offices are quite willing to work with you to come up with a plan to get the taxes paid.
Once you know what exactly you need to do, assess whether or not you can financially pull it off. Can you manage that payment plan?
You can contact a lawyer here, but the expenses of a lawyer will likely not end up helping you out here too much. A tax lawyer may be better equipped to negotiate with the tax collectors, but you’ll have to pay the tax lawyer. Some lawyers operate by simply taking some of the money they save you, so that might be worthwhile.
Q4: Questions about zero sum budgeting
I understand the zero-based budget idea but how do you implement it using my online credit union? I have a savings and checking account. I’ll need about 10 other accounts–I must maintain a $25 balance in each one. Is this what I do? I can’t see using the “envelope” system to allocate funds for property taxes, car insurance, etc.
– Lindsay
I assume that by “zero-based budget” you are referring to the concept of a “zero sum budget” that I’ve discussed before on The Simple Dollar. The idea behind zero sum budgeting is that every time you figure out a way to save money on something, you immediately increase your automatic savings by an amount equal to what you’re saving, so you’re left with the same amount of money with which to budget. So, if you figure out how to trim $20 from your energy bill, you immediately increase your savings by $20 a month.
You don’t need a bunch of separate accounts to maintain this – you mostly just need a checking and a savings account. If you want to put aside savings for a variety of things, you can simply keep track of this yourself. You might have $1,000 in savings, for example, but 20% of it is an emergency fund, 40% of it is for your next car, and another 40% is for holiday spending. You just automatically transfer a certain amount to that account each week or month, and you increase that transfer each time you get a raise or when you figure out a new spending tactic.
All you need to keep track of this is some time, a piece of paper, a pencil and a calculator (or else a spreadsheet).
Q5: Disability insurance and mental health
What companies have disability insurance that will cover mental health problems for 30 years? None at present but just in case.
– Carrie
Long term disability insurance policies typically do not provide extensive benefits for mental health issues. Most policies offer just one or two years of benefits for mental health concerns and then stop paying benefits, while other policies offer nothing at all.
Most insurance companies will work with you to come up with a disability insurance package that you’d like, but for extensive mental health coverage, you’ll likely have to work directly with them and this won’t be an “off the shelf” disability insurance policy. You can expect that you’ll be paying for it and you can expect that they will make you jump through a lot of hoops to prove disability.
The vast, vast majority of people simply rely on Social Security disability for benefits if mental health issues are preventing them from working.
Q6: Insurance on grown children
Have 2 grown children, I bought their life insurance policies and now I want to take out the cash value for a Nursing Home policy. Will insurer want to see if kids want to keep policy, or just cancel it?
– Nicole
The insurer will probably ask you about this, but if you are the owner of the policy, it’s your decision, and it sounds like you are.
The beneficiary – one of your children, on each policy – is just a part of the policy, which you are the owner of. You are the one that can decide to surrender the policy and the money goes into your pocket.
It sounds like you are considering surrendering this policy to recover the cash value and then wanting to use that money to establish a long term disability insurance for yourself. That’s certainly a reasonable move. My only advice to you is to shop around for this new policy and make sure you are getting the best deal on a policy that meets your needs.
Q7: Question about Vanguard
I have been looking into investing directly with Vanguard as you suggest. One thing I don’t understand is what the difference between investor and admiral shares are. Explain like I’m 5?
– Nathan
Basically, admiral shares are exactly the same as investor shares except that they have a lower expense ratio.
When you own a mutual fund of any kind, the company that owns that mutual fund pays for the cost of the fund (and makes a little money for themselves) by taking a small amount out of the overall value of the fund each year. That’s the expense ratio. Let’s say there’s a mutual fund that owns $10 million in assets and there are 100,000 shares aout there. Each share would be worth $100, right? If it has an expense ratio of 0.01%, that means that 0.01% of $10 million will be taken out of that fund each year, leaving you with $9,999,000 in value after that first year and each share is worth $99.99. Of course, you’re expecting the value to go up over time, which should more than make up for the expense ratio.
An admiral share is basically identical to an investor share, except with the admiral share, the expense ratio is lower. Of course, to buy admiral shares, you usually have to have a significant amount of money in that fund already.
Q8: How much to “retire” on?
Could you walk me through your thought process in terms of figuring out how much you would need to retire on? Trying to figure out my own “number” but have no idea how much I need.
– Emma
A good place to start is with the amount of money you spend each year right now. That’s where we started. We assumed that our annual expenses when we retire will go down by about 25% from what we spend right now because we won’t have children at home, but we also want to travel a little more. Let’s say that revised number for us is $40,000, to keep numbers round.
Now, we’re not going to retire right now – it’s going to be several years from now. Inflation is going to happen and we’re figuring on 3% inflation. So, we figure up how many years between now and our expected date for early retirement and we take 1.03 to that power. In other words, let’s say that it’s going to take us ten years to retire early. We’d want 1.03^10, or 1.03 times 1.03 times 1.03 times 1.03 times 1.03 times 1.03 times 1.03 times 1.03 times 1.03 times 1.03, which equals out to about 1.344. We then take our estimated money we need per year, which is $40,000, and multiply it by that inflation factor, giving us $53,757 per year.
The next factor is the safe withdrawal rate. From what we’ve read, if we withdraw 3% of our investment balance each year to live on, the money should last for the rest of our lives (since there will also eventually be a Social Security boost). So, we divide that inflated annual number by 0.03 to give us the number we actually need to save – $1,790,000, give or take a little.
That’s our target number if we want to walk away from work in ten years. It seems big, but it’s something to work towards.
Q9: Dollar Shave Club thoughts
What’s the deal with Dollar Shave Club? Looks like they save money over the Gillette cartridge train even with shipping.
– Shaun
The shaving clubs that are out there – Dollar Shave Club, Harry’s, and so on – do save money compared to buying similar quantities of Gillette cartridges off the shelf, unless you have a very very good deal on mass quantities of cartridges. Plus, the supplies from the shave clubs are delivered to your house, meaning you never have to think about it again.
Having said that, Gillette also offers a shave club that ends up having comparable pricing with the other clubs. If you really like the Gillette razors – and I’ve tried Gillette, DSC, Harry’s, and other options and find them roughly the same – then this might be a route to consider.
Of the shave clubs I’ve tried, I thought Harry’s offered the best product for the dollar. Dollar Shave Club offered a solid value in comparison, but I give the nod to Harry’s for a slightly better razor to grip and what felt like a bit closer shave.
The truly frugal route, though, is an old fashioned safety razor with double edged razor blades. They take a lot of getting used to if you’re used to cartridge razors, but it’s the best shave for the dollar that you can get by far.
Q10: Carpool maybe not worth it?
I recently switched jobs and at my new job I discovered that there is a carpool in my area. The carpool gets to the office between 8 and 8:15 AM and leaves at about 5:30 PM. The problem is that my normal schedule gets me to the office by about 6:30 AM and then I leave around 4:30 PM or so. My boss and I have very similar schedules but we live in opposite directions, and we’re both usually among the first people there and sometimes have really valuable conversations when things are just starting for the day.
So on the one hand I can start commuting to work without needing a car 4/5 days of the week which is great and will save some real cash on fuel and maintenance. I have no problem doing household tasks in the morning before showering and getting ready for work because that’s what I do after work anyway. The thing I lose is the conversations with my boss and the early morning hour of quiet to actually get stuff done at work before people start filing in.
Do you think the carpool is worth it?
– Jeremy
It really depends on how much you’d be saving with the carpool and how hassle-free and drama-free the carpool really is. You won’t know the latter factor until you’re in the carpool, of course. It also depends on what your career plans are.
I think there is a great deal of value in being first at the office, especially when your boss is noticing that you’re there early and you have some communication opportunities. Your boss likely has a positive frame of mind concerning you, which gives you some job security. That positive frame of mind will continue to last for a while after the switch, but it will gradually weaken over time. There is value in that relationship.
The question is how much value that relationship has. Are you planning to stay with this organization for a very long time? Are you going to switch jobs in the fairly short term? If you don’t see yourself there long term, then the carpool seems like a better idea than if you’re staying there for a lot longer.
Q11: Blender upgrade worthwhile?
I have a cheap Oster blender I’ve been using for three years now. I make a smoothie for breakfast every day, usually the same handful of fruits and a bit of yogurt and honey and milk.
A lot of time the smoothie is lumpy and I end up chewing on chunks of fruit which is kind of gross. I am thinking of upgrading my blender. Do you think a blender upgrade is worth it and do you have any recommendations?
– Stephen
Given that you use a blender every day, even given its faults, and you can clearly see the faults in the item you’re using, a blender upgrade is a reasonable expense provided you can easily afford it.
The big mistake many people jump into when buying expensive items or upgrading things is that they upgrade things that they rarely use and do not have as part of any regular routine in their lives. You don’t need expensive items for those things – in fact, you probably don’t need an item at all. Buying something new will not magically create a better routine for you – a new item can only make a routine you already have a little better or easier.
Gear does not make the habit necessary. Habit makes the gear necessary.
So, what about a blender recommendation, then? I use a blender a few times a week. We have a Blendtec blender (this model) that we absolutely love. It creates wonderful smoothies that are almost perfectly blended every time. I’ve made pureed soups and other things in it, too. I have heard similar notes about Vitamix blenders, but I’ve never had the opportunity to use one.
So, I’d recommend that Blendtec model for a higher-end blender. It really does the job. My only minor complaint is that it’s a bit noisy.
Q12: Iowa caucus
Given that you’re in Iowa and seem to be community minded do you participate in the caucuses? Do you think it is weird that Iowa gets such a big hand in picking the next president?
– Victor
I have participated in the caucus in every year since 2004. The only year I could have participated in the caucus as an Iowa resident and did not was in 2000, when I was in college and had an evening exam on caucus night.
It really is an amazing experience. I never, ever feel closer to the presidential selection process than I do in the caucus room.
I think it makes sense for Iowa and New Hampshire to maintain their spots as the opening states in the presidential race because both states have a very high degree of involvement in the process. The people in both states turn out in incredible numbers over and over again for the onslaught of candidates that visit both states at this point in the primary season. Towns who have had eleven candidate visits in the last month can still get more than a quarter of the town’s population to show up for the twelfth candidate.
The caucus season really becomes part of the culture here. I’m not sure that phenomenon would repeat itself in other states.
I should say that I also don’t view Iowa or New Hampshire as “president pickers.” I think we instead winnow the field down to maybe three candidates in each party and then other states pick among those candidates.
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 Blenders, Carpools, Vanguard, Zero Sum Budgeting and More! appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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How Buying a House Helped This 24-Year-Old Save $20K in 2 Years
When I graduated from college in 2012, I landed my first “big-girl” job in New Jersey — 700 miles away from friends or family. I needed a place to live and I checked out various studio and one-bedroom apartments, but quickly became frustrated.
Although I chose to pursue a high-paying career in accounting and had a great job, I was taking home about $3,000 per month. The one-bedroom apartments near my job averaged about $2,000 per month, utilities included.
I attended a low-cost state college, worked all four years and was conservative with spending. Fortunately, I was able to graduate without any student loans. However, I had a $500 monthly car payment and the unavoidable expenses of car insurance, maintenance, food and gas.
Running the numbers, I realized $2,000 a month could work, but I’d have to live on a very tight budget and wouldn’t be able to save any money. I needed a better option.
That’s when I started thinking about buying a house and renting out the spare bedrooms to help with the mortgage and allow me to save money.
Two years later, I’ve met interesting people, learned a lot and managed to put away roughly $20,000.
Here are the steps I took to liberate myself from the one-bedroom apartment blues.
Talk to a Mortgage Lender
Online mortgage calculators are a good starting point, but I wasn’t comfortable with the results.
I ran the numbers myself. If I wanted to eat ramen noodles for 30 years and never go out with my friends, then I could afford the mortgage they recommended.
Instead, I sat down with a mortgage lender at a local bank to go over my take-home pay and the amount of money I wanted “free” in my budget for saving and entertainment. He was able to tell me what housing price would make that achievable.
Even though the plan was to earn money from roommates every month, I made sure I could afford the house on my own — just in case something unexpected happened.
Unlike renting, you never know what big-ticket items — such as a furnace or hot water heater — are going to break and need immediate repair.
I never wanted to be in a position where I relied on my rental income to pay the mortgage; instead, I wanted to put it away to cover those unexpected expenses.
Develop Expectations and Talk to a Realtor
Before I met with my realtor, I put together my list of criteria.
I planned on having roommates, so I wasn’t concerned with high-end finishes. Most renters won’t treat the house as they would if they owned it, anyway.
It was important for me to have my own private living area — and my own bathroom.
I met with a realtor with great Zillow reviews. Two weeks and 15 houses later, I was 22 and under contract on my first house.
It was a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom house with a finished basement I turned into my private living room.
Price the Rooms and Find Tenants
Craigslist gets a bad rap due to some high-publicity cases, but still has a lot to offer.
To price the two spare bedrooms, I pretended to search for a room in my area and looked at similar rooms’ rental prices. I settled on pricing the larger room at $525 and the smaller one at $500.
To find tenants, I used Roommates.com, an online platform that helps connect people searching for rooms with those offering them for a monthly subscription fee. It serves the same function as Craigslist, but seems a little safer.
I first chose female tenants for safety reasons, but later had two male roommates (both with no issues). I made sure to do thorough screenings — with background and credit checks.
Estimate Your Rental Income
It’s tempting to estimate rental income at 100% occupancy and not include any maintenance expenses.
But it’s not realistic.
To estimate my income, I multiplied the total monthly rental amount for both rooms ($1,025) by 12 — or $12,300 per year.
Then I reduced the amount by 20% for vacancy and 10% for repairs, leaving me with an estimated $8,610.
My entire mortgage payment (principal, interest, taxes and insurance) was $1,000 a month, so my estimated annual cost of housing was $3,390. I didn’t factor in utilities because I would have had to pay those in an apartment anyway.
Owning my house and renting out rooms is much cheaper than living in an apartment, plus the principal portion of the mortgage payment is similar to moving money from one pocket to another. It’s not a true expense.
The Balance Between Friend and Landlord
At first, I wondered how anyone would take me seriously as a female landlord in her early 20s.
But it actually came easier than I thought — after a few learning experiences.
I didn’t have a signed lease with my first tenant and didn’t discuss house rules with her before she moved in.
She left in the middle of the night with no forwarding address. She left unpaid rent and damages far exceeding the security deposit, and I vowed it would never happen again.
After that, each tenant signed a lease containing a house-rules addendum before they moved in. It stipulated every expectation — from thermostat settings to household chores.
This addendum may seem strict, but I explained it was to protect all of us and make sure we were all on the same page.
After discussing each item with potential tenants, no one had any issues. I rarely had to enforce the rules. When I did, I pointed right to the agreement they’d signed.
The Outcome
I’m building my equity in a house while saving a substantial amount of money each month. Life is great!
Your Turn: Have you ever made money as a landlord? If not, would you try it?
Lisa Blair is an accountant living the dream of crunching numbers. She spends her time living in Excel and occasionally remembers to look out the window to remind herself what the sun looks like.
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Chick-fil-A, Taco Bell coming to new Stroud Twp. plaza
The lot still has two open spaces available.
Source Business - poconorecord.com http://ift.tt/1ZNhdZv
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We Just Found Out These 3 Restaurants Give Out Free Pie Every Wednesday
National Pie Day is nothing more than a few crumbs of a memory at this point.
And it won’t be back until next January. So, unless you get lucky on March 14 (that’s 3/14 for you mathemagicians), you’ll be paying per slice for the next 11 long, pie-less months.
Just kidding: These three restaurants give away free pie every Wednesday.
Not a bad way to celebrate Hump Day!
Where to Get Free Pie
Village Inn, Bakers Square and O’Charley’s serve up a free slice of pie with the purchase of any menu item or entree every Wednesday.
Village Inn offers slices of double-crust fruit, white chocolate cherry dream, French apple or lemon meringue pies.
At Bakers Square, choose from options like French silk, cherry supreme or Oreo cookie crunch.
O’Charley’s offers southern favorites such as double-crust peach and southern pecan.
They’re all part of the same restaurant family, but they’re not all available in every state. In fact, there isn’t one state where you can find all three.
However, if you play your cards right (and live in Illinois, Iowa or Minnesota), you might get to enjoy two slices the same day at Village Inn and Bakers Square.
Check your area for the locations nearest you.
How to Get Free Pie
You have to dine in to get your free slice, and you have to purchase one menu item. Just think of it as dinner with a free dessert!
No coupon is necessary, and you can only get one slice per person, per visit.
Remember, this deal is valid every Wednesday, so try a different flavor each week!
Your turn: Did you get free pie? And which kind did you choose? Let us know in the comments below!
Jennifer DeMeo is an intern at The Penny Hoarder and a proud college graduate from the University of South Florida, a top-tier university in Tampa Bay.
The post We Just Found Out These 3 Restaurants Give Out Free Pie Every Wednesday appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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Savings update: falling rates continue to hover just above the 2% mark
Savings rates on fixed-rate bonds and cash Isas continue to fall this week.
On taxable bonds, the best one-year fixed rate deal remains at 2.06% before tax (1.65% after) from French-owned RCI Bank.
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This is the Worst Debt You Could Have. These 11 Powerful Strategies Will Help You Pay It Off
Households with credit card debt owe an average of $15,355 on those cards.
Plug that figure into a debt repayment calculator and you’ll see with 18% interest and 3% minimum payments, it’ll take about 23 years to pay it off.
Total payments will be $30,408.18 — almost double the original balance.
You probably don’t want to have debt like that hanging around for 23 years. You might also want to avoid paying twice as much for everything you buy.
Plus, it’s easier to get a mortgage loan if your credit card balances are zero. There are also things you can’t do or buy when you have big debts to pay.
We could fill this page with reasons to pay down consumer debt more quickly. But whatever your reasons are, here are 11 ways to pay off credit card debt fast.
1. Stop Using Your Cards!
This is an obvious one, but also not a universal suggestion.
If you normally have trouble with impulse buying on credit, put the cards away.
But if your current debt situation is a result of unexpected events and you normally handle credit cards responsibly, there are advantages to continuing to use credit cards. We’ll get to it in the next item on the list.
Also, closing credit card accounts can hurt your credit score. This is especially true if those accounts are older and/or have high credit limits.
So you may want to keep most accounts open, but just hide the cards. Pull them out once annually to buy a soda or some small item. Keep them active — or the issuer might close them for you.
2. Use a Credit Card With No Balance for Normal Purchases
When you use a card with a balance, you pay interest on purchases from the day you make them.
But if you put normal purchases on a card you pay in full every month (what I call a PIF card), you avoid new interest charges. Apply those savings to paying down the debt.
If you don’t have a paid-up card, pay off one of your cards first, then make it your new PIF card.
In theory — if you can handle it — using a cash-back credit card can be better than paying cash. Use the cash rewards to help pay down your debt.
3. Budget More for Debt Repayment
Budget as much as you can toward debt repayment.
Put money normally allocated to an emergency fund toward debt repayment.
What if you have an emergency? See my list of 101 ways to raise cash in a week, or use the credit cards you’ve kept. You’ll at least have reduced the interest charges up to that point.
4. Cut Expenses and Allocate More to Debt Repayment
One of the most powerful strategies you can use is to cut your expenses — then apply the savings toward debt repayment.
For inspiration, take a look at how one family cut their expenses by over $1,000 per month.
Imagine how quickly you could knock down debt if you had an extra $12,000 per year to throw at it.
5. Make Extra Payments Using New Money
Cutting expenses can only go so far — why not find new money to pay your debt?
Working an extra day on overtime every other week could bring in thousands of dollars annually. For more ideas, see my list of ways to make more money from your job, or try some of these 103 ways to make money at home.
In general, any unexpected or “extra” income should go toward your debt — including tax refunds or monetary gifts.
Then, sell everything you don’t use on Craigslist or have a garage sale. Use the money you raise to pay down those balances.
6. Ask for Lower Interest Rates
You can convince credit card companies to lower your interest rates — if you ask the right way.
It’s worth trying at least once for each credit card you have.
Knocking four interest percentage points off a $10,000 balance can save you hundreds of dollars in interest annually. Add those savings to your debt repayment budget!
7. Pay the Highest-Interest Debts First
Pay only the minimum required on every card, except the one with the highest interest rate.
If you put most of your debt repayment budget toward the balance with the highest interest rate, you’ll pay it off quickly. Then, do the same with whichever remaining card balance has the highest interest rate.
This formula helps you devote less money to interest and more to paying down the debt — speeding up the process.
One exception is if all your cards have balances. In this case, you might want to pay off the smallest balance in order to have one card to use for normal purchases. Pay this card in full every month to avoid any new interest charges.
8. Make Two Payments per Month
Most credit card companies use an average daily balance to compute interest charges.
Instead of paying $400 toward a balance each month, make two payments of $200. You’ll lower the average daily balance — so you’ll pay less interest!
In theory, paying every week would help even more, but may be too cumbersome.
9. Transfer Debt to Zero-Interest Cards
Transferring some — or all — of your debt to a card with a lower interest rate can make repayment much easier.
This is especially true if you find a card with no transfer fee and no interest for a year or more. One couple paid off a $2,000 credit card debt using a balance transfer.
If you can, pay off the entire balance during the zero-interest period. If you can’t, watch for other zero-interest offers when the current one is almost over.
10. Get a Debt Consolidation Loan
There are several problems with debt consolidation loans.
For example, if the new loan stretches repayment out over a longer time, you might pay more interest, even if the new rate is lower.
On the other hand, if you can get an interest rate lower than the average of the balances it will pay off (even when including fees), and you have a definite plan to pay off the new loan quickly, it makes sense.
11. Get the Debt Reduced
Sometimes, you can convince a credit card company to forgive your debt — or at least part of it.
If you’re in serious financial trouble, explain the situation to the card issuer. Offer to pay a portion of the balance owed as payment in full.
Get the agreement in writing — if the debt is simply written off as uncollectible (not paid-in-full), it can still be sold and collected later.
Beware: Forgiven debt can be taxable as income.
In other words, if the credit card company agrees to take $2,000 as full payment on a $7,000 balance, you might have to pay taxes on the forgiven $5,000.
Putting It All Together
Any one of these strategies might be useful on its own, but use several to pay off your credit card debt as quickly as possible.
For example: Get lower interest rates, make two monthly payments, pay the highest-interest-rate balances first and allocate all new money and savings from reduced expenses toward debt repayment.
How quickly can you accomplish your goal of paying off your credit card debt? It depends on your situation, debt level, and commitment.
Lauren Bowling used several of these strategies as part of her “aggressive approach.” She paid off $8,100 of credit card debt in three months.
Your Turn: Have you used any of these strategies for reducing your credit card debt?
Steve Gillman is the author of “101 Weird Ways to Make Money” and creator of EveryWayToMakeMoney.com. He’s been a repo-man, walking stick carver, search engine evaluator, house flipper, tram driver, process server, mock juror, and roulette croupier, but of more than 100 ways he has made money, writing is his favorite (so far).
The post This is the Worst Debt You Could Have. These 11 Powerful Strategies Will Help You Pay It Off appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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