NEPA woman invents play cards that build

4/10/2016 9:44 AMTT10KARDTECTS.3709085NEPA Woman Invents Toy Card GameDENISE ALLABAUGH, STAFF WRITERThe Times-Tribune ,Scranton ,PA

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Business Briefcase: Kalahari enhances Poconos services

Names Levine director of sales department Kalahari Resorts and Conventions is expanding its Pocono Mountains leadership team with the addition of Michael G. Levine. In his role as director of sales, Levine will oversee the operations of the sales, catering and conference services departments at the Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania, Kalahari Resorts and Conventions property. "We're [...]

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It's Tax Time, But Can the IRS Secure Your Data?

It's Tax Time, But Can the IRS Secure Your Data?

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Is Blurring Out Private Parts on “Naked and Afraid” the Weirdest Job Ever?

I’m not proud to admit it, but I’ve definitely caught myself watching “Naked and Afraid” before.

The premise is just so absurd: Let’s drop two strangers in the middle of the wilderness and see if they can survive for three weeks. Oh, and also, let’s not have them wear any clothes.

What?!

Without diving into the details of how and why this is a thing — which could take a while — let’s just address a question most “Naked and Afraid” fans probably haven’t considered before.

How do all those private parts get blurred?

The answer: a team of five people at the Discovery Channel.

They call themselves “The Blur Man Group,” and they may have the weirdest job in Hollywood.

The People Who Get Paid to Blur Out Naked Bodies

“Just a few years ago, these designers were having a difficult time finding regular work,” reports The New York Times.

Everything changed when they were hired as blur artists — now they spend their days looking at naked bodies.

“If I meet somebody and explain what I do, there’s sort of a sense of disbelief at first,” says Joey Bigio, lead graphic artist, in a video for Playboy.

“Like, ‘There’s no way you blur naked people for a living.’”

But they do.

According to Glassdoor reports, the pay isn’t bad either: At Discovery Communications, wages range from $35.37 an hour for graphic design contractors to $88,777 a year for senior graphic designers.

Members of the group are quick to note the job isn’t as glamorous as it sounds.

“They pay us to stare at naked people all day,” says Bigio. “But these people are out there for 21 days — they don’t shower.

“It’s not very salacious; it’s dirty, it’s gross. You know, you’re looking at parts that have been exposed to the elements for weeks at a time.”

And not everyone can handle it. About 15 people have started — and quit — the job over the past few years.

“One person didn’t last very long, maybe two weeks tops,” Shaun O’Steen, the team leader, told the Times. “He said, ‘I just can’t.’”

Are you interested in this unusual job?

The company’s career page didn’t have any graphic design openings, but it did list a motion graphic design and animation internship. Interns earn $8.75-$9.21 an hour, according to Glassdoor.

If you want something a little less nutty (and a little better-paying), we’re hiring graphic design interns, too!

Your Turn: Do you think you could do this weird job?

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.

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Why You Should Go to Chipotle After Your Kid’s Soccer Game on April 16

Proud soccer moms, Chipotle has another deal — this time just for you!

Take your young soccer player into everyone’s favorite burrito place* this Saturday, April 16 — any entree or kid’s meal is buy one, get one free.

(Orange slices not included.)

How to Get Free Chipotle on Saturday

To qualify for the BOGO deal, your little footballer must be under 14 and wearing their team uniform. For every entree item you buy, your kid can get one free item of equal or lesser value.

The deal isn’t valid for catering orders, so if you want to feed the whole team, you’ll have to take ‘em all into the restaurant. (And probably consider calling ahead.)

What counts as a “uniform” will be at the staff’s discretion. We’ve generally had good experiences with Chipotle staff, so we don’t imagine they’ll be sticklers about shin guards and cleats, but you’ll probably need at least a jersey.

Get all the details at http://ift.tt/1V9kx38.

*Reflects only the opinion of this writer and is mostly based on heaps of recent free food.

Your Turn: How much free food does Chipotle have to offer to win you back?

Dana Sitar (@danasitar) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s written for Huffington Post, Entrepreneur.com, Writer’s Digest and more, attempting humor wherever it’s allowed (and sometimes where it’s not).

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Sick of the Wage Gap? In These 10 Careers, Women Earn MORE Than Men

As you may have heard, today is Equal Pay Day — or the date at which women’s earnings finally catch up to what their male counterparts made in 2015.

That’s because it theoretically takes Jane an extra 3.5 months to make the same salary John did last year, due to the gender pay gap.

No matter which per-dollar-earned-by-men figure you’ve heard, you probably know that women earn less on their paychecks than men do.

Happily, recent studies show that figure might be as little as a nickel, especially for young, unmarried women, when researchers control for job title, location and employer.

But although the wage gap is narrowing — albeit more slowly than we’d like — it, and its effects, do still exist.

That’s why it was so nice to find this recent Glassdoor study, which outlines 10 professions in which the gender pay gap swings the other way.

Equal Pay — Or Maybe Just a Few Cents More

Using hundreds of thousands of anonymous responses about job compensation, Glassdoor compiled lists of the professions and fields in which, on average, men earn more, women earn more and both sexes earn equally.

As with any self-reported and anonymous data, the salary responses are not perfectly incontrovertible evidence. But there’s a longstanding precedent of using this kind of data in examining the wage gap — the figure is based on census survey responses.

Furthermore, Glassdoor did go to some lengths to control for factors like location and employer, statistically “adjusting” the data so the wage gap was much less dramatic.

So do better for yourself than break even: Make more than men in one of these careers. Here are the 10 jobs in which women actually outearn men.

1. Social Worker

Female social workers make $1.08 for every dollar male social workers do.

2. Merchandiser

Women in this profession can also expect to beat out their male counterparts by 8 cents.

3. Research Assistant

Female research assistants earn $1.07 for every dollar made by male research assistants.

4. Purchasing Specialist

The discrepancy for this position? $1.06.

5. Physician Advisor

Women physician advisors, rejoice: You earn 2 cents more per dollar than the men in your field do.

6. Communications Associate

Female communications associates also earn an extra $0.02 for every dollar on their male colleagues’ paychecks.

7. Social Media Professional

Female social media professionals can expect to earn $1.02 for every dollar their male counterparts make.

Psst — We’re hiring you guys here at The Penny Hoarder! And we promise our paychecks are equal (and competitive!) no matter your gender.

8. Health Educator

Female health educators earn an extra $0.01 per dollar when you compare their paychecks to male health educators’.

9. Procurement Professional

The additional cent applies to this position, as well…

10. Business Coordinator

… and also to female business coordinators. Hey, every penny counts. We should know!

Although this list is refreshing, it’s true that the pay gap is much more significant in the roles for which men are paid more — for instance, topping that list is “computer programmer,” for which women earn $0.72 for every dollar men make.

Furthermore, most of the positions on the men-make-more list pay significantly better than the positions listed here — so that wage gap stings even more.

Plus, I’ve gotta say, I’d way rather be a pilot or a psychologist than a “procurement professional.” What even is that?

Of course, the ultimate goal is to live in a world where men and women make the same amount of money for the same amount of work… no matter what field they choose to pursue.

Your Turn: Do you have one of these jobs where women earn more than men?

Jamie Cattanach is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She also writes creative nonfiction and poetry, some of which has been featured in DMQ Review, Sweet: A Literary Confection and elsewhere. You can follow along at http://ift.tt/1RiB7sH.

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What Spending a $10,000 Windfall Can Teach You About Your Everyday Finances

Recently, I had the pleasure of reading the excellent personal finance book All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Wealth by Laura Vanderkam. Early on in the book (starting on page 30 in the hardcover edition), Laura offers up a pretty interesting little thought experiment.

To paraphrase her idea, she simply asks this single simple question: what exactly would you do if you had $10,000 to spend on whatever you wanted? Let’s assume that you can’t save that money for some reason, so saying that you’ll save it for the future or for some specific big goal isn’t a valid answer. You have to spend it on something in your life. How would you spend it?

Once I got some of my initial goofy answers out of the way (no, I’m not going to spend $10,000 on things like collectible cards or Kindle books), I actually found the question pretty compelling. How would I spend that money?

Here are ten answers that I came up with in my own life.

Ten Ways I’d Spend $10,000

I’d remodel our kitchen to add more cabinet space. Right now, our kitchen cabinets and drawers feel almost overstuffed… and I don’t think we have an excessive number of items in there. We just simply have a fairly limited amount of cabinet space in our kitchen. I’d love to do a kitchen remodel to extend the cabinets a bit higher, add cabinets over the counter, and perhaps extend some of the cabinets outward. It’s a pretty hefty project with some real expense, but when it’s done we’d have nice cabinets in there with plenty of space.

I’d take a family trip to Alaska and camp near Denali. This is my number one place in America that I would love to visit and explore. With a big budget like this, my whole family could easily make the trek up there with camping gear in tow and camp out in Denali National Park for a week or so. I’d want to do it in the summer, but come equipped with cold weather clothes. It’s pretty much my dream vacation within the United States.

I’d do some major landscaping work in our backyard. While this wouldn’t eat up our full $10,000 (at least, I don’t think it would), I would like to make some major landscaping changes to our backyard. I’d expand our gardens with bigger box gardens, plant some more trees, and add some additional gardens around the edge of the house. This would be a great summer project.

I’d buy a nice guitar and buy a few years of weekly guitar lessons from a good instructor. Several years ago, I took piano lessons for several months. The biggest challenge with that is that I did not really have a good place to practice as we did not have a piano at home. Lately, I’ve become more interested in learning how to play the guitar, as I have an old acoustic one in my closet with which I attempt to fumble around with sometimes. I’d like to get a better one that stays in tune for more than fifteen minutes and learn how to play it.

I’d send my children to a few great summer camps that cater to their specific interests. While I like to think that we provide our children with a lot of interesting and fulfilling things during the summer, that still cannot compare to what they might get out of a camp geared to their specific interests. My oldest child would enjoy both a soccer camp and an engineering themed camp. My middle child would flip over an art camp. My youngest one is perhaps a bit young, but I’m willing to bet he’d love a performing arts camp in the future and perhaps an engineering oriented one like his older brother. We could afford to send them to a few great camps like these, where they could explore their interests with a bunch of kids their age who share those interests.

I’d launch a science fiction short story award. I’ve always had a giant soft spot for short stories, particularly of the science fiction variety. I love reading big collections of short stories because they offer such incredible imagination and powerful ideas served up in bite-sized chunks. I’d also love to be able to encourage new writers of that genre, so one thing I would consider doing is launching an annual science fiction short story prize with a $1,000 award. I could fund the first several years of the award from my initial $10,000 and use the rest to set up a website and promote the award.

I’d refurbish and upgrade our camping gear. While we have a lot of camping gear, much of it is in pretty poor shape. I’d love to get rid of some of our musty hole-filled old sleeping bags with nice new light ones and replace a lot of our other gear as well with newer items. There are many items that are simply cheap solutions that perhaps don’t work as well as they could. Simply upgrading and replacing all of our camping equipment from top to bottom would make our family camping trips a lot more enjoyable, and since camping is a pretty significant part of each summer for our family, that holds a lot of appeal.

I’d support a number of political candidates I believe in with nice individual donations. While I don’t talk much about politics here on The Simple Dollar, I have some strongly held personal political beliefs. I tend to believe that politics works best on the local level, so using that money to donate to the campaigns of candidates I believe in at the level of the state legislature would be an amazing way to use that money to really have an impact on Iowa’s future. A few well-placed donations can easily swing an Iowa House race, after all.

I’d hire someone to take care of some basic household tasks for an extended period. While I don’t mind doing household tasks, part of me realizes that I’m effectively trading time that I could do something meaningful with my family or something personally meaningful for time spent doing things like washing and folding laundry. I could see myself using that money to simply hire a laundry service for our clothes to save on the trouble of doing that laundry, or perhaps hiring a general housekeeping service to take care of nagging household tasks.

I’d donate some of that money to our local food and clothing pantries. When I think about charitable giving, I think on the local level, much like I do with political giving. The charities in my area that deserves the most attention, in my opinion, are the local food and clothing pantries, which do amazing work in terms of keeping food in the bellies and clothes on the backs of many people in our community.

Common Threads

I could go on and on listing different ideas I have for how I could spend that $10,000, but the ideas listed above are ten great examples. When I look through that list, though, I can’t help but notice that the items demonstrate a few common threads.

Many items center on my family. Quite a few items on this list center around having wonderful experiences that involve my family, either in terms of family experiences together or in terms of providing great experiences for my children. It’s pretty clear from this list that my family is very important to me and takes up a central role on my mind and heart.

I put great value on my own creative work and supporting the creative work of others. Finding ways to express yourself and also finding ways to share that expression with others is definitely a theme in the ideas I came up with. Many people have beautiful things to share and it never hurts to have more platforms for the sharing of the best and most beautiful ideas.

I value having free time. I truly love having time that I can set aside for my own personal interests or for spending time with my family. Having free time that’s clearly boxed out without any intrusions is something that is deeply important to me and many of my ideas support that, from having family adventures in remote places to simply paying people to take care of simple tasks.

I want better – not bigger – living space. For me, bigger is not necessarily better when it comes to a home. What matters is that the space is economically used and reflects the needs and the desires of the people living there. We spend a lot of time in our home and in the yard, so finding ways to improve our living space offers real benefits for all of us.

I want a better community to live in. The people and things in our community have a lot to do with the quality of life that we enjoy here. Happy, healthy, and secure neighbors and happy, healthy, and secure families nearby add up to a more joyful experience for everyone in our community. The better the community is for everyone, the better it will be for us. That joy reflects back when you see happier and more secure neighbors, well maintained resources, and an abundance of community activities and events. Truly, the best way to have those things is to give of yourself.

Addressing Those Common Threads Without $10,000

Of course, when I pull out those common threads that I find running through my potential ideas for spending $10,000, I can’t help but see that those things can actually be addressed to some significant extent without having all of that cash in hand.

I can look for creative and low cost family adventures. Perhaps I can’t take my family to Denali or buy a bunch of new camping gear, but I certainly plan some interesting family adventures throughout the summer and even during the school year. We don’t need $10,000 to explore a state park, go geocaching, or collect rocks. We just need each other.

Give more time to creative expression and appreciation. Our world is full of great creative works. Often, what those things yearn for more than anything else is an audience. While I might not be able to do something like sponsoring a prize for short stories, I can certainly participate in the arts by being in the audience at community art festivals and performances. I can make it a point to go to things like the Des Moines Arts Festival and take my family as well.

Work on personal time management and work ethic. I yearn for more free time, but when I’m honest with myself, I do waste a lot of time thanks to distraction and inefficient ways of doing things. I can improve this by finding ways to sharpen my work ethic, as well as trying out new time management strategies. When I find ways that work, I permanently add them to my life; otherwise, I keep seeking ways to become more and more efficient with the time I spend on the things I have to do so that I have more time available to spend on the things I want to do.

Make our house clean and nice, for ourselves and for guests. My home is a place where I spend an awful lot of my waking time. There are many ways I’d love to improve it, but some of the best ways simply involve devoting a little more time and care to things. Simply doing things like keeping the place clean, picking up items that are out of place, figuring out smarter storage, and keeping in mind that a guest might pop in at any time can really help make our house a wonderful place to be without spending $10,000 on a full kitchen refurbishment.

Volunteer for local charities. While many local charities and causes could use my money, they could also use my time as well. I might not have $10,000 to give to a local candidate, but I do have a few hours a week that I can give to do some of the less pleasant tasks of campaigning, such as basic clerical work, IT support, or even phone banking. Similarly, I can devote a little more time to the charitable causes in our community, helping them with the task of distributing money and goods to those who need it.

Doing these things gives me some of the real value of that $10,000 without actually having that $10,000 to spend. The thing to keep in mind is that when I think about ways to spend that money, what I’m really doing is thinking about the things in my life that I value. I don’t have to spend money to accentuate those things that I value.

Turning The Tables

While this has been a great thought experiment for myself, what happens if we turn the tables on you? I challenge you to take on this thought experiment and see what conclusions it leads you to draw about your own life.

For starters, make a list of ten (or more) things you might do with an extra $10,000. What exactly would you do if $10,000 plopped in your lap and you had to spend it – you can’t just save it for the future or pay down debts or something like that. What would you spend that money on?

Try to come up with at least ten things, but ten can be just the start. Jot down as many items as you can come up with. Keep the list smart – write down only onest hat you would seriously consider. While it might be cute to imagine spending $10,000 on Bazooka Joe bubble gum, it’s not something the vast majority of us would seriously consider in any real way.

Take this seriously. Give it a little time. Don’t be afraid to start a list, leave it to sit for a few days, then come back to it with new or revised ideas.

Next, figure out four (or more) common threads that run through those things you might choose. What do these ideas for spending $10,000 have in common with each other? You’re probably not going to be able to find themes that hit all of the ideas you came up with, but you can probably notice some things in common across two or three or four of the items you wrote down.

Keep looking through the list and try to find ways in which multiple items on your list are similar. The more you find that make sense, the better.

Once you’ve done that, simply look for ways to address those common threads in your life without a pile of money. Almost any common thread you find across the ways you’d spend money point to other things you can do with your life that don’t involve spending money at all.

The real secret here is that these common threads are actually deeply tied to your strong personal values. Those common threads describe in a deep way the person you truly are, and when you find ways to devote more of your time and energy – not just money – to those things, the more fulfilled you’re going to become in life.

Use this list of free ways to address your desires as a checklist for ways to spend your time and effort in the near future. You’ll likely find, just as I did, that spending your time and energy in those ways is deeply fulfilling. That’s because you’re truly expressing many of the values you hold dear.

Final Thoughts

For me, these types of exercises really point me toward smarter ways of using my money and my time. It is abundantly clear that you’re going to get far more value out of your money and out of your time is if you use those resources on things that matter deeply to you, and you’re going to get less and less value out of that money and that time when you use it on other less vital things.

Exercises like this really do a great job of pointing you toward the things that really matter the most to you. With a list like this – ten or more ways you’d spend $10,000 – you can quickly see the things that actually matter to you and you can also see, by exclusion, which things don’t matter to you as much.

This begs the question: if you’re not really interested in devoting a big windfall to something in your life, do you really care much about that aspect of your life?

The natural conclusion, then, is to spend more time and energy on the things you really do care about and scale back the time and energy spent on things you don’t care about as much. That’s a brilliantly simple recipe for a happier life, and if you’re happy with the way that you’re spending your time and energy, you’re far less compelled to spend your money seeking that happiness.

So, what is it that truly matters to you? A simple question like this one – how would you spend $10,000? – can lead you right to some very useful answers if you apply them in a smart way.

Good luck!

The post What Spending a $10,000 Windfall Can Teach You About Your Everyday Finances appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Live in MS, TX, LA, GA or FL? Here’s How to Get Free Coffee for a Week

This month, southeast convenience store RaceTrac is offering an awesome freebie.

Get seven free drinks, including coffee, just for downloading its new rewards app.

That’s free coffee for a week!

How to Get Your Freebies

Here’s how it works:

1. Download the RaceTrac Rewards app for iPhone or Android.

2. Sign up with your email address and a password. You can opt in or out of email updates. (I use a special “shopping” email address to claim newsletter freebies so they don’t fill my regular inbox.)

3. Click on the “Coupons” tab in the app, and you’ll see seven coupons for FREE 32-ounce fountain/frozen drinks or small coffees, all good for 14 days.

To redeem a coupon, open the “My Rewards” section of the app, and have the cashier scan your barcode. This will automatically redeem one coupon when you purchase the eligible drink.

You’ll find RaceTrac stores in Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Florida.

In addition to your free drinks, you can use the app to collect points for every purchase and earn more rewards.

You can also save gift cards to the app, locate nearby stores, pay with your points and even donate to charity using your points.

This deal is good for anyone who downloads the app through April 30, so grab it now.

I hope this freebie adds some extra pep to your commute to work — or your next road trip!

Your Turn: Do you shop at RaceTrac?

Dana Sitar (@danasitar) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s written for Huffington Post, Entrepreneur.com, Writer’s Digest and more, attempting humor wherever it’s allowed (and sometimes where it’s not).

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7 Money Lessons I Would Give to My 20-Year-Old Self

In present day I’m a successful financial advisor and entrepreneur.

Based on some of the boneheaded money decisions I made in my 20’s it is a miracle I can even say that.

I’ve definitely learned from many of those mistakes, but if I had the chance to hop in a DeLorean and go back in time, here’s 7 money lessons I would love to give to myself.

1. Why do you have to be all GQ?

I’m not even sure if the term metro-sexual existed back whenever I was 20 years old, but there’s no question I was the epitome of it. While most guys who attended college were wearing American Eagle, and if they were lucky, Abercrombie & Fitch with their Asics running shoes, I was the guy shopping at the Gap wearing button-up shirts, knitted sweaters, and slick stylish shoes all while attending a junior college.

Sure, I had a part-time job and I could afford some of it, but the reality is that most of it went on a credit card or student loans – stupid debt for clothes that in a year from now I could care less about. I don’t even want to try to guess how much money I wasted on clothes that could have been used for so many different things.

2. Don’t miss out on the trip of a lifetime.

What are some of the other things I could have spent my money on? What about traveling to parts of the world I may never see in my lifetime. There are two traveling regrets I didn’t take when I was younger . . . .

The first one was going to New York a month after 9/11. The airline prices were super cheap and a flight to New York, understandably, was less than $100. I had never been to see New York and there was a part of me that just felt like I needed to be there – to be around the suffering our nation had just gone through. My best friend and I talked about it. I can’t remember the exact reason why, but we didn’t go. To this day, I still regret that.

The other trip I regret not taking was a backpacking trip to Europe. The same buddy that talked about going to New York also brought up the idea of taking a backpacking trip to Europe, staying in hostels, and seeing a part of the world we’d never seen.

Unfortunately, I had already amassed a good amount of credit card debt from all the stupid clothes and eating out I took part in while I was in college. The thought of putting even more of that debt on my credit card gave me an uneasy feeling. I can remember the conversation plain as day and it went something like, “Man I would really love to, but there would be a lot more debt added to my credit card and I just don’t feel good about that right now.”

Granted, in the financial state I was in, that would have left me even worse off. Since I got a grip on my finances, I still feel pretty confident that I would have eventually paid it off and still had those memories.

3. Start investing earlier.

For the most part, I was ahead of the curve. I started my Roth IRA when I was 24 years old. I was only putting in $50 per month and definitely could have put in more. I’m still kicking myself for not starting it much earlier.

See, I’ve been working almost 20-30 hours per week ever since I graduated high school. I always had plenty of money but I tended to waste it on crap.  I remember a friend of mine in high school was one of those weird guys who knew everything about saving money. He told me about the Roth IRA and told me I should definitely get one started.

I remember thinking to myself, “Yeah, that sounds pretty cool, but I’m going to go spend my money on [fill in the blank with something useless].

I can only imagine if I would have started investing into a Roth IRA just six years earlier. Who knows how much money I would have today.

4. Cut down on the CDs and start reading more books.

I totally just dated myself. I’m referencing CDs. Millennials, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, do a Google search. I love listening to music and I owned almost every ’90s alternative rock band CD from that generation and I wish I would have spent more time investing more money into creating wealth.

It wasn’t until I turned my career into being a certified financial planner that a client, of all people, referred me to Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Prior to that, I don’t think I had read any book on investing or personal finance. Heck, I don’t think I even read a book that wasn’t required of me outside of school. That book forever changed my mindset and how I would approach business ventures, investing, and anything money related.

I’m amazed whenever I get a chance to speak at our local university and I start asking students about some of the latest books they have read – or even asked if they read some of my favorite books – and I’m shocked to learn that hardly any of them have read any books whatsoever. Many young folks are interested in entrepreneurship and investing, yet they don’t invest any time into reading any books on the topic.

The next book that had a meaningful impact in my life was Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover. The concepts were so simple yet I’ve come across people all the time that didn’t have an emergency fund and were drowning in debt. Dave’s “Baby Steps” were instrumental in helping me give advice to other people in those situations that weren’t familiar with his work.

More present day, a book by Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek, was a wake-up call of all the things that I was wasting my time on when I could easily outsource that or delegate that to somebody else versus me having to do everything. That’s another one that I consider a “must” for anybody.

If you want to throw Soldier of Finance in there as a great book to read, I’ll be okay with that too.

5. Don’t waste your time with multi-level marketing.

Oh my gosh, I didn’t really want to publicly admit this. Yes, I was a part of not one, not two, but three multi-level marketing (MLM) companies (insert gag reflexes).

To my defense, I was young. I was looking for the next great business idea and these companies all had great promise. I don’t want to sit here and bash all multi-level marketing companies. I’m sure there are several of them that offer good products and services to those that need it but here is my beef with MLM . . . .

If you go in a multi-level marketing company and they’re more interested in you building up your team than actually finding customers that need the goods and services that the company offers, then that MLM is a scam.

It’s a rip off. Get out. Before you ruin the relationship that you have with friends and family.

The second and third MLM that we joined we had some very close friends that had gotten into this at the same time we had. They  joined before us so we were part of their “downline”.

You think about those annoying people that would contact you out of the blue to catch up or invite you to a meeting without giving you all the exact details of what was going to be discussed. That was this couple.

We made this mistake of giving them all of our friends contact and info and they called them.  Over and over again.  Giving them our friends’ contact information basically burned every single bridge of friendships they had and almost ruined ours.

It got the point that every time we hung out with him all they would ever talk about was the multi-level marketing company we were apart of. Talk about a major turn-off. We had to politely distance ourselves from them. Unfortunately, our friendship ended because of the MLM and their obsession with it.

As much as I now hate my MLM experience, I am thankful to have it so that now I know the right way to market a business: don’t harass people until they want to avoid you at all costs.

6. Seek out mentors who will give you advice.

Imagine if you were a football player and your dad happened to be a hall-of-famer. The odds are immediately in your favor that you’ll have success. The odds of me being financially successful were certainly not in my favor.

Both my parents were not the best financial role models. Even worse, when I was very young, they struggled with money – both of them filing for bankruptcy twice. I wasn’t given the basic fundamentals of personal finance I needed to succeed and I definitely wasn’t given any tips on investing or entrepreneurship.

Everything I learned for the most part was self-taught. Actually, I wasn’t self-taught, I learned through mentors and various coaching programs I made a part of my life.

Most of these mentors weren’t sought until well into my later 30’s so I wish I would have sought council much sooner.

7. Don’t let life flush your dreams.

This is probably not going to be a newsflash for many of you: life can suck.

Illnesses happen.

Jobs are lost.

Friendships are lost.

People lie.

People cheat.

It’s a cruel, cruel world.

As kids, we’re oblivious to these things. As kids, we still dream about being a race car driver, being an astronaut, becoming a millionaire, or driving a Lamborghini. We don’t know any different but as we get older and life starts to reveal itself to us we can become much more cynical or “realistic.”

“There is no way I could ever drive a Lamborghini.”

“There is no way I could even be a millionaire.”

“There is no way I could ever have the job of my dreams.”

It’s these limiting beliefs that can suffocate us and snuff out our dreams. Don’t let that happen. Is there something you really wanted when you were younger but just gave up on it? A silly one for me was driving a yellow Lamborghini.

I used to have a poster on my wall put up with thumb tacks I had won it at some random carnival.  My dad told me that if I worked really hard that eventually I could buy a Lamborghini.  I believed him.

As I got older, I realized how much a Lamborghini cost and I told myself I’ll never be able to drive a Lamborghini.

It’s over 30 years later and I still do not drive a Lamborghini and probably never will.

Not because I won’t have the money – I just feel like I’d rather spend my money on other things that are much more impactful in my life.

There will be some point in time that I will be able to buy a Lamborghini and pay for it in cash. In fact, I’m close to it now.

The key is removing any limiting beliefs you have of things that you can’t accomplish and replacing that with a liberating truth.

As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.” Believe in yourself, it can happen. Don’t let life’s struggles rob you of the dreams for which you are destined.

Concluding Thoughts

If you’re in your 20s and can learn from a few of my lessons, please do. Why learn the hard way? You don’t have to! You can learn from the mistakes of those who are older than you. That might not sound like much fun, but believe me, it’s certainly better than reaping the consequences of years of mistakes.

If you’re older and are looking back like I am, it’s important to remember you really can’t change the past. That’s right, you can’t get in a DeLorean time machine and teach your younger self these lessons – I wish! Besides, that might cause a break in the space-time continuum, duh.

However, you can take the lessons you learned from past mistakes and apply them to the present time. If you do so, you’ll find yourself enjoying a much brighter future.

Don’t let the past hold you back, as if you’re in prison. You’re not your past self, you’re your present self, and you can do amazing things right now.

The truth is that most successful people became successful by picking themselves up, brushing themselves off, and continuing forward even after they made mistake after mistake. You need some grit. And if you’re struggling with your finances, you might need some financial grit (here’s how to discover some).

Sit down, create a list of some lessons you learned over the years, and make an effort to change your ways. Keep your list close by. Read through your life lessons every now and then. By doing so, you’ll refresh yourself and will be more likely to do the right thing when a trial comes your way.

You don’t have to continue in your mistakes. You can learn your lessons. You can become a new person. You can be awesome. So go, be awesome!

This post originally appeared on Forbes. 

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Tax Day is Coming… and Where You Live Has a Huge Impact on What You’ll Pay

As T. S. Eliot famously penned, April is the cruellest [sic] month.

Seasonal allergies are in full swing, the sky keeps showering its pre-May-flowers rain, and, of course, Tax Day is coming up.

Ugh.

Ready for Tax Day?

Though for many full-time employees Tax Day means a nice return check, it’s still easy to procrastinate filing.

It can be time-consuming and confusing, and you may end up owing the government money. No one wants that.

And no matter your circumstances, you’ll be forced to face the total number of your hard-earned dollars that never see the inside of your pocket.

Even though your taxes go toward important government projects (like, you know, maintaining a usable road system), it’s a little disappointing to see money you worked hard for disappear from your paycheck.

But you may not know that a very simple factor has a huge impact on how much of your paycheck goes straight to Uncle Sam every year: where you live.

Your Tax Burden, and Why It Matters Where You Live

Before we go any further, a quick disclaimer: We are by no means tax experts. That’s why we’ve compiled this list of ways to find free tax help!

OK, with that out of the way, let’s look at some numbers.

A lot of us know that state income tax rates vary widely. Some states, like New York, have rates almost as high as 9%, while the luckiest among us live in states free of income tax entirely (yay, Florida!)

But other state-mediated tax rates also affect the total amount of tax you pay, including property tax and gross sales tax.

In an effort to simplify all this information, WalletHub released a study listing all the states by total tax burden.

That’s the sum of individual income, property, and sales and gross receipts taxes as a percentage of income — so you can see at a glance how your state stacks up (and about how much of your paycheck you can expect to miss).

Tax burden is “not to be confused with tax rates, which fluctuate widely based on an individual’s particular circumstances,” explains WalletHub’s Richie Bernardo.

Some of the tax rates you pay are income-dependent, and some might be irrelevant in your case.

For instance, if you don’t own property, you won’t pay property tax. And if you live in certain cities, like New York or Philadelphia, you’ll pay an additional income tax, raising your total.

Instead, “tax burden measures the exact portion of the total personal income of residents in a state that are paid toward state and local taxes.”

And although figuring out your individual tax situation won’t be as easy as subtracting X% of your salary, the list is a decent starting point for estimating how much you can expect to pay in state and local taxes this year.

How Does Your State Stack Up?

So, do you live in a state with a heavy tax burden? Or is your state’s burden relatively light?

Some of the study’s data isn’t that surprising. For instance, New York state tops the list with the highest tax burden (13.12%). Surprise, surprise.

But we were surprised to find out the bottom 10 isn’t just a rehashing of the list of the seven income-tax-free states. In fact, a few of those states — like Washington and Nevada — are up in the 30s with higher-than-expected tax burdens of 8.45% and 8.37%, respectively.

Here are the top and bottom five states by tax burden:

States With the Highest Tax Burden

1. New York (13.12%)

2. Hawaii (11.86%)

3 and 4. Maine and Vermont (11.13%)

5. Connecticut (10.91%)

States With the Lowest Tax Burden

1. South Dakota (6.94%)

2. New Hampshire (6.88%)

3. Tennessee (6.56%)

4. Delaware (5.91%)

5. Alaska (5.18%) — plus, as you may know, you get paid just to live there. Just make sure you invest in a warm coat!

Don’t see your state? Check out the full details over at WalletHub to see where it stands.

And if you’re not done filing your taxes yet? Get on it.

Don’t forget to make sure you’re getting all your credits and deductions. Here are nine deductions for parents you might not know about, and a guide to deductible business costs for freelancers.

Your Turn: What’s your state’s tax burden? Have you finished filing your taxes yet?

Jamie Cattanach (@jamiecattanach) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder and a native Floridian who’s been super-spoiled by living in an income-tax-free state most of her life. She also writes other stuff, like wine reviews and poems.

The post Tax Day is Coming… and Where You Live Has a Huge Impact on What You’ll Pay appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Students face interest rate hike as inflation rises

Helen Knapman

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Students and graduates are likely to pay more interest on their student loans from September as inflation rises.

Students and graduates are likely to pay more interest on their student loans from September as inflation rises.

The retail prices index (RPI) rate of inflation rose to 1.6% in the year to March, up from 1.3% in the year to February, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has announced today.

read more

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Over half of people don't understand the new state pension

Helen Knapman

confused-man.jpg

As the new flat rate state pension comes into force, over half of Moneywise users admit they don’t understand how it works.

As the new flat rate state pension comes into force, over half of Moneywise users admit they don’t understand how it works.

A massive 55% of people who voted in our latest poll, which received 969 votes, said they don’t understand how the new state pension works.

read more

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This is the Perfect Blog for Anyone Who Wants to Save Money at Target

I’m not a particularly dedicated bargain shopper, but I do love finding deals at Target.

It’s my favorite place to shop for clothes (don’t judge my style), and I love Market Pantry groceries and up & up toiletries.

Prices are already competitive, and Target regularly runs sales and coupons a smart deal stacker can have a field day with.

…If she knows where to look.

But chasing after coupons for the ubiquitous retailer can be time-consuming, at best. And just plain annoying, at worst.

That’s why we love deal aggregators. For Target deals, one of the best is Totally Target.

The independent blog aggregates Target coupons, sales, deals and tips for saving money to help you get “more Red for less green.”

Here are nine ways Totally Target helps you save money at Target.

1. Gigantic Coupon Database

Instead of spending your day clipping coupons, let Totally Target take care of it for you.

Before you shop, search the website’s huge coupon database to find discounts for the items on your list.

For example, I searched “cereal” and found 147 available coupons. I narrowed it down to “Special K” and found seven, including online coupons, printables and Cartwheel deals.

2. Weekly Ad

Totally Target offers four ways to see deals from the store’s weekly ad:

• Ad scan: Browse an image of the same ad shoppers see in stores.

• Coupon matchups: See a list of advertised sales and coupons to use with them.

• Best deals of the week: See a list of hand-picked deals, so you don’t have to browse the full ad.

• Blog post deals: Follow the blog’s “Weekly Ad” category to see updates of the best deals.

Take your pick!

3. Unadvertised Target Deals

Find tons of ways to get free Target gift cards in TT’s list of Special Gift Card deals.

Paying attention to these deals is a smart way to ultimately rack up huge savings!

The page also includes unadvertised “special purchase deals,” and you get a freebie when you buy a particular item.

4. List of Rebates

We always recommend checking your rebate apps before you go grocery shopping — but Totally Target makes it even simpler.

The site rounds up existing rebates and organizes them by app — Ibotta, Checkout 51 or MobiSave — and mail-in rebates.

The site even lists Catalina deals — the coupons you get with your receipt to use on your next purchase. Yep, those are based on your purchases, and Totally Target will tell you which purchases yield which deals.

5. Price Cuts With Coupon Matchups

Long-term price cuts and clearance sales are rarely included in weekly ads.

You might miss them, unless you have time to peruse the entire store for sale signs.

Totally Target keeps a running list of these long-term deals, along with coupons to stack on top of them.

6. More Stackable Deals

Totally Target keeps a categorized list of the store’s best deals on a page called “Cheap Finds.”

This is awesome to browse while you’re making your shopping list.

Items are split by category — grocery, household, health and beauty, etc. — so it’s another way to find deals on just what you need, without browsing a whole ad.

7. Couponing Starter Tips

If you’re new to couponing and all of this sounds overwhelming, Totally Target has a simple starter guide.

Read tips for finding and organizing coupons in general, all the places to find Target coupons and couponing lingo. Take a look at this guide before diving into the site, so you can decipher the deals!

8. Updates of In-Store Deals

Follow the Totally Target blog or social media for updates on new deals discovered in the store.

These are good reminders for seasonal sales — like candy savings after Easter or Valentine’s Day — that come and go quickly.

9. Community

Through blog or Facebook page comments, you can connect with other Target fanatics and even share deals you find yourself.

You can also subscribe to Totally Target via RSS or email to stay abreast of deals as they come out.

Your Turn: Do you follow Totally Target? How has it helped you save 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, attempting humor wherever it’s allowed (and sometimes where it’s not).

The post This is the Perfect Blog for Anyone Who Wants to Save Money at Target appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Profitable Ways to Make Money From Home

By Kimi Clark Making money from home is something that many women these days are looking to do. Let’s face it, when you take into account the cost of childcare, gas, work clothing, lunches and more, depending on the type of work you do, sometimes staying home can save you money! But are there actually […]

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