Credit Repair Manual

If you have poor credit, it’s easy to be tempted by promises of quick fixes. Perhaps you’ve heard radio ads that say they can make your credit problems — even bankruptcies and liens — disappear. Others may say you can obtain a new credit identity, shedding your old one as easily as a snake skin.

Sounds too good to be true, right? That’s because it is. As the Federal Trade Commission cautions, companies that make these claims often want to scam desperate people out of their money when they need it the most.

What Do Credit Repair Companies Do?

Credit repair services such as CreditRepair.com or Lexington Law are typically going to do the following: Request your credit reports from each of the three main credit bureaus, work with you to determine whether any of the negative items are inaccurate or unverifiable, and contact the credit bureaus and/or your creditors to dispute those items. Some companies may offer packages that include credit report monitoring or credit counseling.

Generally, credit repair companies do not actually alter your existing debt load in any way — they simply aim to help you more effectively dispute questionable information.

If your credit is poor simply because you’re in over your head and can’t keep up with payments, you may want to look into debt management or debt settlement services. Debt management companies negotiate with creditors to lower your interest rates, monthly payments, or both, helping you stay afloat. They do not reduce your total debt. Debt settlement companies, on the other hand, negotiate with creditors to reduce the total principal you owe.

How to Tell If a Credit Repair Company Is a Scam

There are many legitimate credit repair services, but a few rotten apples mean you’ll need to be cautious of the whole barrel. Below, you’ll find seven ways to tell whether the company you’re considering may be a scam:

They want up-front payment: Federal law requires credit repair companies to render services before requiring payment. If you’re told otherwise, walk away immediately.

They say they can erase the black marks on your credit report: If the information is accurate, the only thing that can remove it is time. According to myFICO, it will take seven years for most negative information to drop off your credit report — 10 in the case of Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

They say you can create a new credit identity: You may be told you can start fresh by using a so-called “credit privacy number” or a business-related employer identification number in place of your Social Security number on credit applications. Sure you can — but it’s illegal. Misrepresenting your SSN on credit applications is fraud, plain and simple.

They say you’ll receive services you can’t perform on your own: Legitimate companies won’t make this claim, since credit repair companies don’t do anything you can’t do yourself, including disputing inaccuracies and negotiating lower payments. Some may also try to dissuade you from contacting the major credit bureaus — another red flag.

They don’t inform you of your rights, or ask you to waive them: You should receive a document that tells you your rights under state and federal law. If you don’t receive this document, or you’re asked to sign something that waives these rights instead of simply acknowledging them, you’re dealing with a scammer.

They don’t give you a copy of your contract, or the contract omits crucial information: Though it sounds like common sense, you should get a copy of your contract with your company before agreeing to any services. That contract should plainly state what services will be rendered, the time frame for rendering them, and what you’ll be charged.

They say you can’t cancel once you sign a contract: Under federal law, you have three business days to cancel a credit repair contract from the date you sign for any reason.

How to Repair Credit On Your Own: Six Steps

It’s possible to repair your own credit for free, of course. But — reality-check time — it isn’t a quick process, and it might not be the easiest, either. If that were the case, you probably wouldn’t consider credit-repair companies in the first place.

Here’s a six-step guide for anyone who needs both short-term help disputing inaccurate credit-report information and long-term help raising their credit score.

Step 1: Obtain your credit report

To start the credit-repair process, you need to know exactly what you’re dealing with. You’re legally entitled to one free credit report from all three credit major bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) every year. You can obtain these by heading to the federally approved AnnualCreditReport.com.

There are certain other circumstances that allow you to obtain a free credit report even if you’ve already obtained one from AnnualCreditReport.com. You’re entitled to a free report if:

• A creditor, employer, insurer, or other entity denies your application based on information in your credit report. You will receive a notice giving you the credit bureau’s contact information, and you’ll have 60 days to contact that bureau for a free report.
• You’re out of work but will be applying for jobs within 60 days.
• You’re a welfare recipient.
• You’ve been the victim of identity theft or other kinds of fraud.

If you’ve already accessed your allotted free report and aren’t otherwise entitled to one, you can pay for a copy directly with any of the credit bureaus or myFICO. I get more in-depth on these options in a previous article, What Is a Good Credit Score? You can expect to pay around $20 for a one-bureau report, or at least $40 for a three-bureau report.

There are other sites out there boasting free credit reports. The most reputable include Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, and Quizzle. While these sites give you a report for free, they don’t include your all-important FICO score — the credit score used by the vast majority of creditors. For that reason, you may want to view these sites as more of an educational tool or estimate.

Step 2: Know what to look for

You’ll generally find the following on your credit report: personal information, potentially negative information, accounts in good standing, and who has pulled your credit (also called credit inquiries).

First, don’t ignore the personal information listed on your credit report. It will likely include your name, address, previous address(es), birthday, Social Security number, phone number, and employer’s name(s). If something is amiss, it could be simple human error — or a sign of fraud such as identity theft.

You’ll want to focus most on the section of your credit report that shows potentially negative information. This might be called something slightly different depending on the credit bureau, but it will include the following, if applicable:

Accounts in collections: Any time a creditor decides to turn over an unpaid account to a collection agency, it will end up here. These might include serious outstanding debts such as student loans or medical bills, but you may also see things like debt related to unpaid electric bills or parking tickets.

Details include account status (paid or unpaid), the date the account was opened, your recent balance and any recent payment. Even if you ultimately pay the past-due amount, the account will still be listed here.

Accounts with late payments: If an account shows late payments but hasn’t been escalated to collections, you’ll probably find it here. The report will specify how often you’ve paid late and how late you were (30, 60, or 90+ days).

Public records: This is the most serious stuff: If the courts have had to get involved in your finances, you’ll see the proof here. Bankruptcies, civil judgments, and tax liens will be listed. Details will include the plaintiff’s name, claim amount, date filed, and status of the claim (paid or unpaid).

Information on your credit report will only update as fast as the credit bureau receives new details. As Credit.com notes, normal credit accounts typically update monthly, but public records can be notoriously slow to change. Collection information is also vulnerable to errors since your debt may be sold several times to new collectors.

If only fixing your credit was as straightforward as fixing a car. Photo: Eric Brockmeyer

Step 3: Dispute inaccurate or unverifiable information

Good news: If something is inaccurate or unverifiable on your credit report, you can dispute it yourself — no middleman required.

You’ll want to file any dispute in writing in order to create a paper trail. You can use this sample letter from the Federal Trade Commission and fill in the blanks as necessary to dispute information with the credit bureaus, and this letter to dispute information directly with the creditor in question.

Include copies of any relevant documents that help prove your case, and make sure you also keep the letter and any documents on file. The FTC recommends sending your dispute via certified mail so you can be certain when it was received.

Step 4: Wait for a response

The waiting is the hardest part, as they say, but you don’t have a choice. Once you’ve filed a dispute, the credit bureau typically has 30 days to investigate, and you’ll be notified of the results in writing.

If you’re successful, you’ll receive a new copy of your unblemished credit report, and you can also have the new report sent to creditors or employers that may have recently relied on the faulty information.

If you aren’t successful, the information in question will remain on your credit report. However, the FTC recommends that you amend your credit report with a statement regarding the dispute. You may also opt to pay to have the credit bureau send your statement to any party that recently accessed your report.

Step 5: Create good habits going forward

Perhaps you checked your credit report and found minor inaccuracies — or none at all. As I mentioned above, any accurate negative information will linger on your report for seven years, or 10 in the case of Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Fortunately, as that information ages, it will become less important to potential creditors, and it won’t drag down your credit score as much, according to myFICO.

While you’re waiting for the bad stuff to fall off your credit report, you also have the opportunity to get a fresh start by forming responsible credit habits going forward. Here are some of the most important things you can do:

Continue to monitor your credit: You don’t necessarily need to sign up for a credit monitoring service unless you’re concerned about identity theft, but you should still keep tabs on your credit reports every year. Remember, you can get them for free via AnnualCreditReport.com.

Leave those old accounts alone: Now that you’ve seen your credit, you suddenly remember that you still have that dusty old credit card from college, or the store card from a place where you never shop. Keep these accounts open — a long credit history helps boost your credit score, and so does not using a huge portion of the credit you have available.

Pay your bills on time, every time: If you haven’t already automated your payments, now is the time. You may even get a small interest-rate break for signing up for automatic e-payments.

Prioritize certain debt: Attack your highest balances first. The largest chunk of your credit score is based on debt utilization — that is, how much of your available credit you’re using. So if you have an $8,000 balance on a credit card with a $10,000 credit limit, that’s a high debt utilization ratio. Experts also recommend paying down credit-card debt before tackling installment loans (such as mortgages and car loans).

Consider a secured credit card or other bad-credit loans: If your credit score is low, you usually aren’t going to be completely shut out from the chance to form responsible habits with new credit accounts. A secured credit card can help you rebuild your credit by showing you’ve turned over a new leaf — and remember, the most recent accounts are the ones that impact your credit most heavily.

A bad credit auto loan will have a higher interest rate, but should still be relatively easy to obtain. A general bad credit loan will be a bit trickier to obtain — you may have to deal not only with higher APRs but offer some form of collateral in order to protect the lender. Steer clear of title loans, payday loans, or any any other form of predatory lending.

Step 6: Recognize when you need help

If you’ve overextended your budget and simply can’t afford to pay all your bills each month, you’ll need to consider your options. One common way to better manage multiple bills is by getting a debt consolidation loan that lowers your monthly payments and allows you to pay a single lender. Keep in mind that you will likely pay more in the long term, though, since you’re extending the payment term in order to lower your payments.

Though the idea might make you uncomfortable, you could try to negotiate a lower interest rate or more manageable payment plan with your creditors. Most have a vested interest in keeping you as a customer, and chances are they don’t want to waste their time and resources taking legal action over debt that you could still pay within a reasonable time period.

If you simply can’t see yourself screwing up the courage to negotiate, or you can’t spare the time, you may want to consider hiring a debt management company to do it for you. This isn’t a decision to make lightly, as there are substantial drawbacks to the process, but it may be a way to stay afloat when other options are limited.

For truly last-resort situations, you may want to weigh debt settlement, in which a company negotiates a reduced principal, or, if all else fails, bankruptcy.

Related Articles:

• What’s a Good Credit Score?
• How to Build (or Repair) Your Credit
• Five Ways to Improve Your Credit Score Without a Credit Card
• Six Factors That Make You More Likely to Go Bankrupt

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Business Briefcase: Pike attorney on region's Women in Business list

Gaughan balances 17-year law career, community involvement Pike County Attorney Kelly Gaughan is being honored as one of the 2016 Top 25 Women in Business in Northeast Pennsylvania. Gaughan began practicing law in Pike County 17 years ago and has risen to vice-president of her law firm. Gaughan, a New Jersey native and graduate of [...]

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This Is Why It’s So Hard to Save Money When You’re Broke

Smart financial choices today will help you save a ton of money over time.

It’s seems obvious, right?

Tips for stretching your budget and cutting back always seem to include things like skipping your morning latte, buying secondhand clothes or finding a Groupon for your next haircut.

But what if you drink the office coffee, haven’t bought new clothes in 10 years and cut your hair at home?

Sometimes there’s nothing left to skimp on.

So where are you going to find the extra money for that bulk purchase or to stock up when the essentials are on sale?

Anyone who’s lived below the poverty line understands this issue.

For everyone else, a recent study by a University of Michigan professor backs up the experience with data, reports the Washington Post.

My favorite thing about this study is it’s about toilet paper.

What Toilet Paper Can Teach Us About Saving Money

Professor Yesim Orhun and Ph.D. student Mike Palazzolo analyzed panel data from more than 100,000 American households. They tracked purchases of toilet paper over seven years.

Toilet paper is nonperishable, and we consume it pretty steadily. We don’t go without it just because we’re strapped for cash, like we might go without new clothes or haircuts. And we don’t use more when there’s extra in the house — unlike, say, food.

Toilet paper is also something people with less money pay more for.

But why?

Toilet paper is technically cheaper in bulk. When you have a cushion of money (i.e., your expenses won’t drain your account before next payday), you buy the 24-pack.

But the 24-pack costs more in the moment than the four-pack.

When you only have enough money in your pocket for the four-pack and your family’s bathroom needs TP, you’re not going to wait just because the math says the 24-pack is the smarter choice.

“Having more money gives people the luxury of paying less for things,” as The Washington Post puts it.

Being Broke Isn’t Cheap

I can relate.

For four years before taking this full-time job, I was pretty consistently dead-broke and without credit.

I bought the four-pack.

Honestly? Sometimes I bought single rolls of toilet paper at a convenience store because I didn’t have a car to get to the four-pack.

Now I have a steady paycheck and a handle on my monthly expenses. I’m building savings and working to build my credit. I pay my bills ahead of time, and there’s more and more money in my bank account with every paycheck.

Now I buy the 24-pack.

I also buy the big bottles of shampoo and multipacks of bar soap. I stock up on grocery staples when they’re on sale. I purchase flights when they’re cheapest, instead of waiting until I have the money.

I celebrate these victories — yes, I celebrate the backup shampoo in my bathroom. And I’m thankful for my job every time I open a kitchen cabinet.

We know the common sense money-saving strategies — even when we can’t afford them.

But we get by with what we have, and sometimes that doesn’t include the luxury of making smart financial decisions.

How Do You Get Ahead When You’re So Far Behind?

Personally, I was able to get ahead and buy the big shampoos and the 24-packs of TP because I got a new job with consistent pay.

I wasn’t getting ahead when I was poor; I was getting by.

Sometimes, finding a higher salary is the ultimate solution. But in the meantime, you can make extra money on the side, and do small things to save money when the typical advice doesn’t apply to you.

I had to get creative, especially with food. I became great at making meals by combining small leftovers and turning whatever was left in the cupboard into, usually, a stir-fry.

I was also smart about free food. When I worked in food service, I’d make my shift meal a variety of fruits and veggies — things that are expensive individually in the grocery store.

Probably my biggest savior was just gifts. Not handouts — I mean Christmas gifts, birthday gifts, etc.

A Starbucks gift card can buy a few meals. Target sells groceries. And you can regift or sell gift cards and other gifts you won’t use.

These desperate hacks are usually subjective. When the typical advice doesn’t work for you, you get creative to save money.

We’d love to hear some of your strategies!

Your Turn: When the typical advice doesn’t help you, what strategies do you use to save or earn money?

Dana Sitar (@danasitar) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s written for Huffington Post, Entrepreneur.com, Writer’s Digest and more.

The post This Is Why It’s So Hard to Save Money When You’re Broke appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Households to be hit with dental and prescription price hikes

Helen Knapman

Dental and prescription prices in England will rise from 1 April, the Government has announced today.

Dental and prescription prices in England will rise from 1 April, the Government has announced today.

The price of a single prescription will rise by 20p from £8.20 to £8.40, while charges for wigs and fabric supports will rise by 1.7% overall.

read more

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Budget 2016 predictions on pensions, Isas and tax

Helen Knapman

osborne-in-hat.jpg

With the Budget just a few days away Moneywise looks at what the experts are predicting.

With the Budget just a few days away Moneywise looks at what the experts are predicting. 

read more

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7 Huge Sites for Traffic That Marketers Don’t Take Advantage Of

Do you want to know why everybody focuses on SEO and social media marketing?

Because everyone wants traffic for their websites, and both of these sources are huge.

Google, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn are all in the top 20 traffic sites in the world.

Whether you’re a plumber, SaaS marketer, or recipe blogger, you can find your target audience through one or both of these sources.

Or if you sell physical products, you likely sell them on the e-commerce giants such as Amazon and eBay—same concept really as you can sell virtually anything on them due to their size.

There’s nothing wrong with focusing on getting traffic from these well known sites.

However, it’s a shame that more marketers don’t realize that social media and SEO are just the surface of web traffic.

They are the obvious ones that every marketer tries to get traffic from, which leads to stiff competition.

But there are opportunities elsewhere if you know where to look.

There are so many other sites from which you can get traffic to your website that the majority of marketers never even take a second look at them unless one of them explodes.

Take Reddit, for example. I’ve written about how to effectively market on Reddit a while back.

Since then, I’ve seen more and more articles about marketing on Reddit as the site becomes more popular and marketers see others succeeding on it.

So, what sites in particular am I talking about here?

I’m going to give you seven specific examples of sites with tons of traffic that you can potentially drive back to your site.

Then, I’m going to show you an easy way to find even more sites that are virtually untapped.

Sounds interesting? Read on… 

Site #1: IMDb

IMDb is the movie site.

It has insane levels of traffic, all focused on movies and TV.

The first step in deciding whether a site could be good to market on is to determine whether your audience uses it.

Since we’re not looking at the biggest sites (search engines and social media), only certain audiences will be found on each site.

If your audience isn’t on IMDb, I promise that they are on some other large sites.

Since IMDb has a very specific focus, it’s really only good if you sell products related to movies and TV.

But if you do, it could be an opportunity.

I say could be because you won’t be able to drive traffic from every site that your target audience uses back to yours.

You have to look for a way to drive that traffic back.

In this case, there is one chance, and it comes from the active forum community on IMDb:

You can tell from the frequency of posts that it’s really active, and that’s just one section of the forum.

Then, you’ll need to become a part of the community and find a way to give value—but do so in a way that requires members of the forum to click through to your website.

Here are 3 resources that will help you do just that if you’re not experienced with forum posting:

• How I Generated 1,861 Visitors from a Single Forum Post
• How to Build Traffic Through Forums
• The Day After: 11 Things to Do After You Publish a Post

Site #2: Etsy

Etsy is another up and comer that will eventually be saturated by marketers. But it’s not at that point yet.

If you sell any sort of high quality jewelry, crafts, home decor, or clothing, it’s a fantastic e-commerce marketplace.

Why compete against so many businesses on Amazon for customers looking for the cheapest option, when there is a ton of traffic comprised of people who care a lot about those things and will pay a fair price for them?

There are no tricks to increasing your sales on Etsy.

If you have a product that is actually great, people will see it, and you will make sales.

You can certainly use conversion rate optimization and copywriting tactics to sell more, but marketing isn’t tough when there isn’t much competition.

Site #3: BuzzFeed

No doubt you’ve heard of BuzzFeed, but have you ever considered it as a traffic source?

If you have a younger demographic in a social niche (like entertainment, home decor, food, etc.), it could be a great source.

BuzzFeed not only has a ton of traffic but also allows you to contribute your own content to it.

To start, create an account, click on the icon beside the arrow above, and click “new post.”

That’ll bring you to a standard text editor, and you can post whatever you’d like.

If that post gets some traction early on, BuzzFeed will actually help you by promoting it on the site.

Crafting the right kind of post isn’t easy, but if you do, you’ll get tens of thousands of views on your post.

Then, you can link from your post (when appropriate) back to your site.

Matthew Barby has created a great guide to getting on the front page of BuzzFeed. He was able to do so multiple times himself and drove a lot of traffic to his recipe site:

Site #4: Forbes

Forbes is a magazine site for all topics related to business.

And while it’s possible to be invited to contribute, you can also drive traffic back to your site with a much simpler method: comments.

Blog commenting back in the day used to be extremely popular. Eventually, people realized that it didn’t always produce results.

The main reason for that is because they commented on blogs that had barely any traffic to begin with.

Any post on the main page of Forbes will get tens of thousands of views. Even if a small portion of those people read your comment, that’s at least a few hundred eyeballs.

From there, a great comment can drive anywhere from 25-50% of that traffic back to your site.

That’s a decent use of your time, especially if you’re struggling with traffic.

Every Forbes post has the “comment on this story” option at the bottom of the last page:

According to their rules, you can have up to two links to other sites in the comments:

Really, you only need one.

The hard part is leaving a comment that will impress people enough to drive traffic back to your site. Here are some great resources that will show you how to do that:

• How I Generated $25,000 with 249 Comments
• How To Drive Targeted Traffic With Blog Commenting
• How To Write Great Blog Comments For Traffic and SEO Ranking

Site #5: Business Insider

Business Insider is another site similar to Forbes, with slightly different topics:

Even though it has a slightly higher Alexa rank, it still has an insane amount of traffic.

As an added bonus, you can add your website’s URL to your username as you leave comments:

Again, this is just blog commenting at its core, so use the same strategy as I showed you above with Forbes.

Site #6: Allrecipes

If you have a food blog, there are many opportunities to get creative and draw traffic back to your own site.

Although Allrecipes is a tough one, it’s still possible to make it work.

A standard recipe page looks like this at the top:

Then you see instructions, and then reviews.

If your review is really helpful, it will be seen by almost everyone who views the page.

Then, you could place a link at the end of the comment. It’d be easy to make a natural transition.

For example:

I’ve tried 10 other gumbo recipes, but none have turned out as good as this one.

It was so good that I adapted the recipe just for my gluten-free friends. They LOVED it!

Here’s how I changed the recipe to make it gluten-free: (link)

I’m sure you could make the comment more valuable—I’m just not a cooking expert.

The point is, look for ways to add value with your comment while naturally incorporating a link into it. It won’t even look like you’re trying to drive traffic to your site. It’ll look like you are just trying to help people.

That’s your goal with any link: make it useful.

Site #7: Quora

Quora is the 141st most popular website in the United States.

It’s a question and answer site that even I use. It has the same concept as Yahoo Answers, but the quality is much higher.

The site is continually getting more popular, and many (but not all) marketers have realized its potential.

The simple strategy is to leave really great answers to questions posted in the community.

Great answers will be upvoted to the top and seen by most people.

Then, include links in your answers as appropriate, and that will drive traffic wherever you’d like:

To get started, start typing a topic in the search bar. It will suggest a bunch of related topics, and when you see what you’re looking for, click it:

You can then follow that topic and answer questions that you feel you can do justice to.

There’s no trickery here: you have to provide value.

Yes, it’s a lot of work per answer, but the rewards can be big as well.

You can get millions of views on your answers over time if you stick with it:

While not all those reading your answer will end up visiting your site, even a small chunk is a significant number.

In addition, you will likely end up attracting additional business from people impressed with your answers. Even without the traffic, it’s worth it.

How to find as many of these low competition sites as you need

Maybe more than one of these sites are perfect for your marketing.

Maybe none are.

That’s the point of going to sites that are smaller than the Googles and Facebooks of the world—but large enough to be potential sources of traffic.

They don’t have every audience you might want, so I can’t give everybody specific sites to market on.

However, you can find plenty more that are right for you with a simple process that I’m about to show you.

This will work for everyone.

First, head over to Alexa, and browse sites by category.

By sorting by category rather than rank (which is what I did for the seven sites in this post), you ensure that you find sites relevant to your business.

From there, you have the option to choose a subcategory, or you can start with the broad sites.

Either method works, but be careful not to narrow down the sites too far and be left with those that don’t have much traffic.

While a site’s Alexa Rank isn’t perfect by any means, it does generally correspond to traffic levels.

Try to stick to sites with an Alexa Rank no higher than 20,000.

That still leaves you with a ton of options.

At this point, you’re staring at a list of domains.

You need to go to each of those sites individually and answer the same two questions I’ve been mentioning all along:

1. Does your audience visit this site?
2. Is there a way to get that traffic back to your site?

The second step is the hardest at first, but you’ll get more proficient at it as you go. In general, you want to look for things like:

• a forum
• comment section (that allows links)
• guest posts/editorials that you can submit
• a way to post your products directly (if the site is a store)

After you go through 100-200 sites, you’ll have a list of at least 5-10 sites you could effectively use as traffic sources.

The final thing to mention here is that when you’re marketing on a brand new site, you need to take the time to figure out an effective strategy.

For social media sites and search engines, the work has been done for you by marketing bloggers. For most of these new sites, you’ll have to do the work yourself.

Try to understand the tactics used on social media and search engines, and then apply those tactics to these new sites.

Even if you don’t get them perfectly at first, you should still have some success because of the low competition.

Conclusion

Search engines and social media giants are fantastic sources of traffic for almost all businesses.

But…they are hard to capitalize on.

The best marketers win big, while a large portion of marketers struggle.

Unless you’re already getting a great ROI on them, you’re probably better off finding new traffic sources that marketers in your industry haven’t saturated yet.

I’ve given you seven specific examples of these sources, but more importantly, I’ve given you a simple framework you can use to find more of them. They might just turn out to be perfect for your business.

If you have patience and persevere through the tough parts in the beginning while you figure out the best marketing strategy on these new sites, you’ll find that you can get much more traffic with less effort (and cost).

One last thing: If you try this out, I want to hear from you! Leave me a comment letting me know if you were able to identify any sites that could work for your marketing plan.

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This Handy Map of the U.S. Shows Where Your Career is Hot (or Not)

Whether you’re beginning a new career or itching for a change of scenery, it’s good to know where you and your skills are in high demand.

You can probably guess underwater welding is popular in Alaska, and investment banking is big in New York.

But what about broader fields, like nursing or marketing?

CareerBuilder’s new Explore Careers tool offers excellent insight into the hottest spots for hundreds of different careers, as well as salary ranges, required skills and other information.

Here’s how to use it…

The Heat Map That Lets You Explore Careers

Just go to the site, type in your chosen career and click “Show Me Insights.”

Once there, select the “Demand” tab and scroll down.

You’ll find a heat map displaying where demand for your job is highest and lowest.

For example, an ER nurse would be wise to move to Arizona, Texas or Florida; a food service worker to Wisconsin, Texas or Washington, D.C.,; and a bookkeeper to Minnesota, California or Massachusetts.

I was disappointed to see blue-collar careers like plumber or electrician missing from the database.

But it’s still fun to click around.

Compare your salary against national and city-specific averages, and see a roadmap of skills needed to advance your career.

You can even upload your resume to “receive a detailed, personalized assessment of how compatible [it] is with the market demand” for a specific role.

As for me?

I typed in “writer” and discovered demand is fairly low across the country. (Shocker!)

Guess I’ll stay right where I am.

Your Turn: Would you move if it meant better career opportunities?

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 This Handy Map of the U.S. Shows Where Your Career is Hot (or Not) appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Maximizing the Value of a “Stay-Cation”

Right about the time you are reading this, I’m waving good bye to my family as they travel a bit during spring break. They’re going to visit my mother-in-law and both of my wife’s sisters on this trip. For obvious reasons, I would be the adult “third wheel” on this trip and there are pets at home that need some care, so I’ll be staying behind.

I have enough writing completed that I can essentially take a few days off, effectively making a four day weekend for myself where I’m home alone. I have no work responsibilities, no child care responsibilities, no husband responsibilities. I just have to take care of a dog, two rabbits, and a fish for a few days.

In other words, this is a “stay-cation” for me.

Let’s back up for a second. What’s a “stay-cation”? A stay-cation is simply a period of time spent at home with minimal work and personal responsibilities, enabling you to have the time to spend on things that you want to do at home but never seem to be able to have the time to complete.

For example, a stay-cation is a great time to spend several hours on a hobby that you have a hard time devoting enough time to. It’s a great time to work on a home improvement project. It’s a great time to sleep in late without an alarm clock. It’s a great time to stay up late playing a game or watching a movie. The options go on and on and on.

The best part? A stay-cation is usually dirt cheap. You’re not staying in a hotel. You’re not driving anywhere. You’re usually not eating out. It’s an incredibly enjoyable way to relax and detach from the stresses of life without adding any money worries to your life.

I personally relish my stay-cations and I try to find an opportunity to enjoy one or two of them a year. I sleep in. I don’t worry about the children (much). I usually don’t worry about work. I just enjoy some free time and get some things done.

For example, here’s what I have planned for this stay-cation.

I’m not setting the alarm on any of the days. The earliest “scheduled” event that I have starts at 10 AM. I haven’t slept in until 10 AM in more than a decade. Still, I’m going to sleep until I feel like waking up.

I’m going to install some wall-mounted shelving. This is my big home improvement project for this current stay-cation. I’m going to take down my current free-standing shelves and install some track-and-standard shelves in that room. I really badly want sturdy but still adjustable shelves.

I’m going to play a few very long board games that I usually don’t have time to play. Some of my favorite games take six to ten hours to play. Those kinds of games are rarely feasible in my normal day to day life. I’m hoping to play at least two of them with friends during this stay-cation.

I’m going to thoroughly clean and reorganize my work space. It’s a mess and has been a mess for a while. Part of this involves pulling almost everything out of my office, getting rid of quite a few things as I do it (either as trash or for an eventual yard sale), and putting everything back.

I’m going to read at least three books. My plan is to spend the mornings installing the shelves and cleaning the office, then spend the afternoons doing relaxing things. When I’m not playing games, I intend to curl up with some books.

I’m going to eat some of my favorite simple foods that the rest of my family doesn’t like. This means dishes with mushrooms. This means copious amounts of hot sauce. This means sauerkraut. I love all of that stuff… but I’m basically alone in my family in loving those foods. This week, I’m going to enjoy all of them.

All of those things sound incredibly enjoyable to me – some of them due to the simple act of doing them and others for the outcome of doing them.

For me, that’s the core principle of a “stay-cation”: do some things that are enjoyable in the moment and do other things that are going to provide lots of enjoyment down the road. If you do a little bit of both, you’re going to feel incredibly refreshed at the end of your stay-cation.

Here are a few other valuable tips that I’ve figured out after having a dozen or so stay-cations over the years.

Don’t over-book your time. I’m pretty sure I could take care of everything on that to-do list in just two days if I bore down hard on it and approached it with a high intensity. Doing that, though, kind of defeats the purpose. Take on these tasks at a slower pace. Don’t be afraid to be distracted a little or get sucked into the details of a sub-task.

The first time or two that I had a stay-cation, I made up this giant list of things that I wanted to do or get done. I wound up feeling stressed out over the whole thing and felt just as burnt out at the end as I did when it started. That defeats much of the purpose of a stay-cation. Give yourself tons of breathing room so that if you’re feeling overwhelmed or burnt out, you can just go curl up in bed with a good book.

Focus on things you don’t normally have time for in your life. Rather than spending time on things I would ordinarily do at home, I’m instead focusing on things that I normally gloss over because I don’t have the time. For example, the items that I want to put on these shelves are stored all over the place, but because clearing out the space and installing shelves would take such a long time, it’s been something I’ve been putting off. Now’s the time to actually get it done.

Look around your house. What one big un-done task would make you feel really good if it were completed? That’s a brilliant question to ask yourself before a stay-cation.

Do some things that are purely fun and set aside whole days or large portions of days for those things. For me, “fun” means curling up with a good book or playing an engrossing game. So, part of any stay-cation for me involves significant blocks of time for those things. I’m hoping to read an entire trilogy of novels during this stay-cation, and I’m also hoping to get some board games played that are normally too long to play.

What things are purely fun for you? In particular, what fun things do you never seem to really have time for in your day to day life? Make room for that stuff during your stay-cation and you’ll deeply enjoy it.

Do a thing or two that will make life easier when you return to “normal life.” This will often overlap with that big un-done task, but not always.

For example, this “stay-cation” I’m hoping to completely clean up my work space where I do most of my writing. I have a lot of piles of books and miscellaneous papers all over the place and I need to go through the books, put them on the shelves, go through the papers and notes, and either move them to an electronic form or trash them. There are probably good ideas for 100 articles for The Simple Dollar – I just need to find them.

This will honestly be my least favorite task that I take on during the “stay-cation,” but it’s something that will make me happier and more productive virtually every working day thereafter.

Eat well and get plenty of sleep. A stay-cation is the perfect opportunity to get your body back on the right track. For me, that means getting lots of sleep, but that also means eating good meals – and I don’t mean just tasty meals, either.

As a friend of mine used to say, meals are either cheap, quick, tasty, or healthy – choose two of them. Most of the time, “quick” is a choice that’s foisted upon me. During a “stay-cation” I can stick to the two that matter the most to me – healthy and tasty. Yeah, I might have to spend more time doing meal preparation, but the food I eat is going to be both tasty and good for my body. Often, that’s not a choice I can make in daily life, sad as that is.

Similarly, a stay-cation is a great time to sleep until you naturally rise, which is a very powerful way for getting your energy back and feeling better. Take advantage of it.

In the end, a stay-cation is a very inexpensive and yet very fulfilling way to utilize time away from work and from other responsibilities. I actually have come to prefer “stay-cations” for my free time – although we still go on annual family vacations, I find that stay-cations usually leave me feeling far more refreshed and fulfilled at the end than travel does.

The next time you have some time away from work, consider a stay-cation. You might be very glad that you did and your wallet certainly won’t complain!

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Change Your Vocabulary to Better Your Life

By Carrie Severson As an entrepreneur of two businesses, I’m too familiar with the word enough. For years, I used that word as though it were my business model. I would show gratitude for a check that came in that was enough to cover a bill. And then I did it the next day. And […]

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Is My Coke Rewards Worth It? One Caffeine Fiend Did the Math to Find Out

Everyone knows about my love for a good old-fashioned Coca-Cola. Even my dentist.

So when someone asked if I ever typed in all the little codes under the caps of the bottles I buy at the corner store, I didn’t have a good excuse.

The My Coke Rewards program is hyped on nearly every version of the product. But I guess I was too busy trying to find a can with my name on it to pay attention to my rewards earning potential.

Before I joined, essentially revealing my low-level caffeine addiction to the company, I decided to check out whether it’s really worth it to sign up for My Coke Rewards.

How My Coke Rewards Works

If you’ve ever looked under the cap of a Coke bottle or inside a cardboard box of cans, you might have noticed a 14-character code. Each Coke product has a different points value that accrues in your My Coke Rewards account as you add codes.

Smaller products, like a 20 oz. bottle or a two-liter bottle, are typically worth three points each. As products get larger, you earn more points. A 12-pack of Coke cans earns 10 points, and if you can find a 30-pack, you’ll land 25 points.

The program also includes brands you might not realize are a part of Coca-Cola — which means more ways to earn.

TaB, Powerade, Mello Yello and Fresca are all eligible, as are club soda, seltzer, tonic and the rest of the Seagram’s lineup. Minute Maid juice is in, as are Dasani bottled water products.

Once you accrue as few as 170 points, you can redeem them for swag or gift cards.

My Coke Rewards Status vs. Points

But wait, there’s more!

Getting points is cool, but earning “Status” helps you level up in your Rewards game even faster.

By participating in My Coke Rewards activities based on your interest — ranging widely from health and fitness to gaming — you can typically earn one to three points points each.

Tasks include participating in a Twitter conversation using a specific hashtag or voting in a poll. The more Status, the more diverse rewards you can access.

You don’t get Silver or Gold Status just by earning points, however — you’ve got to be willing to participate in activities and share that participation with your social media networks. So if you’re Facebook friends with your dentist, you might not want to share anything about your soda habit.

Everyone starts at Bronze level when they sign up for My Coke Rewards. But there’s not a huge increase in the variety of prizes once you hit Silver or Gold level. And if you don’t participate in any activities on the site for 30 days, your status reverts to a lower level.

So How Much Coke Do You Have to Drink to Earn Rewards?

If you only drink soda once in a blue moon and you’re always carrying around your own water bottle, you should probably just stop reading right here.

You have to purchase a serious amount of Coca-Cola products to get anything good.

I’ve admitted my deep, deep love for Coke, but what I didn’t mention before was my amazing self-control. I do my best to save a crisp can of Coke for an occasional treat. I know, what a role model.

So I did a little math to see how much Coca-Cola I’d have to purchase in order to earn rewards.

Say, for example, I let myself buy one 20 oz. bottle of regular Coke per week, for a total of 52 bottles per year at three points apiece. If I enter every single 14-character code I get, I’ll earn 156 points by the end of the year. What can I do with them?

Let’s review some of the available rewards:

$5 iTunes credit: 355 points

I’d get there after enjoying 119 20-oz. Coca-Cola bottles.

$10 T.J. Maxx/Marshalls/Home Goods e-card: 710 points

After 236 20-oz. Coca-Cola bottles, I could buy maybe six pairs of socks at Marshalls.

Shutterfly 8×8 photo book: 170 points

I’ll earn a free book after slurping down 56 20-oz. Cokes, but shipping isn’t included.

$25 Nike Store e-gift card: 1750 points

I’d have to drink 583 20 oz Coca-Cola bottles to earn enough points to get running shorts from Nike. At that point, I’m really going to need new running gear because I’ll have puffed up a bit from all the sugar.

Let’s say I let my habit get the better of me, and I buy 104 12-packs of Coke cans each year (two 12-packs per week). A 12-pack is worth 10 points, so I’d earn 1040 points over the year.

At that rate, I can get one $10 gift card to a retailer like the Nike Store or Marshalls. Or, I could get two $5 credits to iTunes. Is that even enough to buy a whole album?

And in both cases, I have points left over that are almost good for something, but not quite. I could spring for a photo book, but only if I want to pay shipping.

If I really want to use my points, I can use them in onesies and twosies on sweepstakes and instant win games. If I win, I might get a $5,000 Visa gift card, or a huge LED TV. If I lose — let’s face it, I’m probably going to lose — then it’s goodbye, points.

Verdict: If you’re going to earn any big rewards from this program, your caffeine habit is going to have to be a lot more serious than mine.

How to Redeem Your Points

There’s one clear situation where it makes sense to participate in My Coke Rewards: If you’re buying supplies or groceries for your office.

If you have a huge office fridge, like we do here at The Penny Hoarder HQ, you know there’s someone tasked with going to Costco on the regular to stock it with beverages.

If the designated supply buyer enters in the points from all those cases of soda and seltzer, the earned points could go toward gift cards for the fine folks you work with. Give them away for employee birthdays, or have fun competitions and use the My Coke Rewards gift cards as prizes.

You can also donate your points to organizations like the National Park Foundation, the USO or St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. But don’t expect those donations to go too far. Donating 35 points to the National Park Foundation is valued at $0.525 — basically 53 cents.

You can also donate your points to a school of your choice. Your points get converted to cash so your local school can use the funds to buy books or whatever else it might need.

Your Turn: Have you tried My Coke Rewards? How did you maximize your earning power?

Lisa Rowan is a writer, editor and podcaster based in Washington, D.C. She refers to regular Coca-Cola as “Full-Fat Coke.”

The post Is My Coke Rewards Worth It? One Caffeine Fiend Did the Math to Find Out appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Mis-sold Sentinel card protection? You've got one week left to claim

Helen Knapman

one-week-left.jpg

If you were mis-sold a worthless card security policy from Sentinel, you’ve got just one week left to claim potentially £100s in compensation.

Completed claims forms need to be received by the AI Scheme, which was set up to administer the redress process, by midnight on Friday 18 March.

Affected customers should already have been sent claims forms to return, but if you’ve lost yours, you need to request a new copy by 16 March via the aischeme.co.uk website.

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I Negotiated My Car Insurance to Save $1,000 This Year. Here’s How

I tore open our renewal notice and scrutinized the sum at the bottom.

Our car insurance rates had been creeping up for the past four years. Now, they’d almost doubled.

“It’s that time again,” I told my husband, Aaron.

Every few years, we shop around for new car insurance.

Why?

Because I’m sick of paying crazy-high premiums for the same coverage. And I discovered I don’t have to!

Decide What Coverage You Want

Car insurance is one of those necessary bills with a great range of rates, depending on your car and amount of coverage you need.  

You can save some money by having only liability insurance, which will cover you for accidents that are your fault.

Or it may be wise to go with comprehensive insurance, which insures you for accidents, theft, natural disasters, damage caused by uninsured drivers, etc.

Everything you add — plus your deductible — will influence your premiums.

And with so many insurance carriers, you’ll find an equally wide range of similar coverage rates.

For now, let’s assume you’ve already made all those decisions and want to keep approximately the same coverage, but just pay less.

Check Out Competing Car Insurance Rates

The process is simple.

First, we completed the form on a car insurance quote website. We went with Zander.

The form is easy to fill out. We just answered a few questions about the year and make of our two cars, the number of miles in our daily commute, and specifics we wanted included in our coverage.

There were also questions about our cars’ safety features, such as driver- and passenger-side airbags and anti-theft devices that could help lower insurance rates.

Sure enough, when the quotes came back, some of the companies offered lower rates than we were currently paying. Score!

Call Your Car Insurance Company

We weren’t done yet.

On a whim, we decided to request a quote from our insurance company to see what they’d charge a brand-new customer.

The rate we got was considerably lower than the rate we were paying.

It didn’t seem right they’d cover a new client for this low price, but not a faithful customer who’d been with them for several years.

When the company’s insurance rep called us for a follow up, we told him that actually we were already customers.

No problem.

He worked up a new policy with the new, lower rate without any loss of coverage. In fact, we even got slightly better coverage, plus we keep all the same policy features that were important to us.

In 2015, we paid $170 per month for insurance for two cars.

In 2016, we’re paying $90 per month for two cars. For the same policy. With the same insurance company!

Make a Move

There’s no reason to sit back and accept rising insurance rates.

Companies will bump rates up every year. If you don’t complain, or leave to find a cheaper competitor, you’ll end up paying too much.

Just one phone call increased our coverage — and will save us nearly $1,000 this year!

Side note: If you negotiate a new rate with your same company, don’t expect it to be retroactive. We asked, and it was a no-go. But it was worth a try!

Follow These Steps

1. Check your bill. Has your premium increased considerably?

2. Call around to various insurance companies. Request rate quotes, or use an online insurance quote website to do the work for you.

3. Compare coverage and rates.

4. Call your current company. Ask if they can get you a better rate.

Your Turn: Will you call and renegotiate your auto insurance rates?

Kate Fenner graduated from Cornell University and works as a Database Developer for 3M.

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