Rite-Aid eyes move to Main Street in Stroudsburg

Rite-Aid officials have begun meeting with Stroudsburg borough officials to consider relocating to a new store on Main Street.The pharmacy store, currently located in the same plaza as Shop-Rite on North Third Street, would take the place of 10 existing structures on Lower Main Street to be developed into an 11,115 square-foot store with a drive-through pharmacy, according to development plans submitted to the Monroe County Planning Commission in late March. The lot would also include [...]

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The Insane Story of a Family Who Paid Off $45K of Debt in Just 10 Months

Tabitha Philen was at the end of her rope.

Years of poor spending decisions had led her and her husband into a deep hole of overwhelming debt — one they thought they’d never escape.

The tipping point came when they one day found themselves unable to afford gas or groceries.

They saw a bankruptcy commercial on TV, and imagined it’d be their saving grace. But they soon realized it was the biggest mistake of their lives.

Keep reading for the incredible story of how this family left bankruptcy, negotiated their debt down by 40% and paid off $45,000… in less than a year.

Digging a $175,000 Hole

“My parents never taught us anything about personal finance,” Philen says. “The only thing I knew about finance was that my mother would occasionally write bad checks, and tell me not to tell my dad.”

When she left for college, not only did she take out student loans, she also maxed out eight different credit cards.

Her husband’s situation wasn’t much better.

“Neither one of us had been trained on how to do well financially,” she says. “We thought debt was the American way.”

They eventually got married and moved into a townhouse in Mobile, Alabama. Philen soon became pregnant with their first child. Six months later, disaster struck: He was laid off, and her income was cut in half.

“You’d think that would be our wake-up call,” she says, “but actually we thought maybe the answer was buying a house.”

Now, on top of $75,000 of debt — divided equally between a personal line of credit, credit card debt and student loans — they had a $100,000 mortgage.

At 29 and 31, with a baby on the way, they were $175,000 in debt.

Still, they didn’t realize they needed to change their ways.

“We were just living off credit cards,” she says. “We were using them to pay for anything and everything.”

On a typical date night, they’d go out to dinner and then each spend $50 at the mall, all funded by plastic.

Their much-needed wake-up call didn’t come for three years — when they could no longer afford gas or groceries with their maxed-out credit cards.

“We stripped everything,” she says.

“We didn’t have cable, we got rid of our pets, we didn’t have cell phones. We had nothing variable in our budget at all. We were relying on people at church who would occasionally put $100 in our mailbox to help us buy groceries.”

Philen sold The Pampered Chef from home, and her husband worked as the assistant band director at a local high school.

Together, they brought home about $3,000 a month for their family of four — too much to qualify for government assistance, but not enough to pay their bills.

“The amount of debt was sucking up any income that we made, she says. “It was taking everything.

Only making the minimum payments on their bills, they continued to fall “further and further behind.”

“It just didn’t seem like there was an answer,” she says.

The Truth About Bankruptcy

Then they started to notice commercials advertising bankruptcy.

“[They] made bankruptcy sound like a fresh start, which is a complete lie, but we took the bait,” she says.  

On a “very cold” December day, with a newborn baby in tow, they signed the papers and declared Chapter 13.

Their monthly bills now amounted to $950 to the trustee — an increase from pre-bankruptcy, since now they were paying more than the minimum — plus $815 for their mortgage, because they’d left their house out of the filing.

They quickly realized bankruptcy wasn’t the “easy way out” they’d been promised.  

“Bankruptcy was so opposite of what we wanted to be,” she says. “It changes who you are. You can’t be generous; you can’t do simple things that you used to do.”

For the Philens, their biggest issues were restrictions that didn’t allow you to give to charity or have a savings account.

Three years later, they received a $7,000 tax refund — which Philen saw as their way out.  

She “just couldn’t stand” the thought of being confined by bankruptcy for another four years, so she turned to her husband and asked:

“What if we just bailed out of bankruptcy — what if we just left?”

And that’s what they did.

To say the least, it was an unconventional decision. Although their attorney tried to have their bankruptcy reinstated against their will, they stood their ground.  

Because they left the bankruptcy early, they had to pay back nearly all of the debt they’d entered with.

Translation? Those $900 payments they’d made every month for three years essentially vanished into thin air.

Negotiating Their Debt Down by 40%

As soon as the Philens left bankruptcy, creditors began calling and demanding their money… now.

So Philen read everything she could about debt, and soon discovered these collections agencies had only paid 10-30 cents for each dollar of her debt.

Armed with this knowledge, she began to negotiate.

“Whenever they called, I acted like I knew more than I did,” she says. “I told them, ‘I know you didn’t pay full price for this debt, and I’m not going to pay you full price either.’”

Leveraging her $7,000 tax refund as a down payment, she convinced the creditors to allow her a 10-month payment plan…

And also reduce the amount she owed by 40%.

Paying Off $38,000 in 10 Months

Thanks to the tax refund and Philen’s negotiating skills, they now owed $38,000 — instead of $75,000 — and had 10 months to pay it off.

“We looked around at what we had and we sold it,” she says. “And then we thought about talent.”

Her husband was a musician, so he called “every person he knew to see if they needed a live musician at their event.” He also taught private lessons after school.

Philen used her cooking skills, selling gourmet apples and cinnamon rolls out of the house. She also researched photography on the internet and started taking senior portraits.  

“We did so much,” she says. “It was anything and everything we could do.”

“Child care, washing people’s laundry; we were hustling all the time. I wrote my first book for Kindle, and put it on Amazon.”

She did all this while raising an infant and a 2-year-old, and homeschooling her 8- and 5-year-olds.

“I would teach the kids in the morning,” she says. “In the afternoon I’d tell them, ‘OK, this is mommy’s P&Q time.’ Peace and quiet time. They had to be in their beds with their feet up, reading a book.”

“I didn’t sleep,” she admits with a laugh. “I did not sleep. Literally, I’d be up until 2 or 3 a.m.”

A Truly Fresh Start and Perspective

Somehow, this intense experience didn’t tear their family apart — it actually made them stronger.  

“It really taught us the value of family, and of marriage, because things didn’t mean as much to us anymore,” she says.

Now, instead of going deeper into debt, the couple’s date nights consist of “cuddling up on the couch” with a DVD.

“It just really changed our priorities,” she says. “It’s no longer important to try to keep up with people — we’re content with what we have.”

Want to read more about Philen’s inspiring journey? Curious how you can negotiate with credit card companies?

Click here to visit her blog Meet Penny.

Your Turn: What do you think of this story? Did it inspire you to pay back debt in your own way?

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 The Insane Story of a Family Who Paid Off $45K of Debt in Just 10 Months appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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This $70-Million Diamond Probably Won’t Fit on a Ring

Do you have a recently engaged friend who uses any excuse to flash her huge new rock?  

Well, better tell her to quit stunting, because there’s a new player in town.

The world’s second biggest diamond was recently discovered…

And it’s really huge, really old and really, really expensive.

Yup, a $70 Million Diamond

Clocking in at 1,109 carats, the Lesedi La Rona is the biggest diamond discovered in over a century — and the second biggest in history, Bloomberg reports.

If you need some perspective, it’s the size of a tennis ball.

Sotheby’s, which plans to auction the diamond on June 29, estimates it’s 2.5 to 3 billion years old and will sell for more than $70 million.

The diamond was uncovered in Botswana in November; its name means “our light” in the country’s Tswana language.

“It took months to determine even an estimated price, because it is so large that it does not fit into conventional scanners used to evaluate a stone’s potential worth,” CNN reports.

“Not only is the rough superlative in size and quality, but no rough even remotely of this scale has ever been offered before at public auction,” Sotheby’s Jewellery Division chairman David Bennett told CNN.

He called the diamond “the find of a lifetime.”

Want to see what $70 million and 3 billion years worth of rock looks like?

The diamond will be on display at Sotheby’s New York on May 7, and Sotheby’s London from June 18 to 28.

If you’d like to find a stone of your own, don’t forget you can go jewel prospecting at these parks and mines, including the promisingly named Crater of Diamonds State Park.

Your Turn: Can you believe this diamond is worth so much?

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 $70-Million Diamond Probably Won’t Fit on a Ring appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Vodafone launches free mobile roaming in 40 countries

Helen Knapman

vodafone-sign.jpg

Vodafone has today announced the launch of free mobile roaming in 40 countries worldwide – but the catch is you need to get a specific contract to get it.

Vodafone has today announced the launch of free mobile roaming in 40 countries worldwide – but the catch is you need to get a specific contract to get it.

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6 Accidental Ways to Ruin Your Split Tests and Limit Your Profit

You’re one of those people, aren’t you?

The kind who stay up late at night, thinking of ways to improve their businesses.

It’s great to have this much passion.

By now, you’ve probably at least read the basics about split testing. And while the general concept is very simple, it’s fairly difficult to run a conversion rate optimization campaign properly.

There’s a reason why conversion experts get paid a ton.

Too often, marketers and business owners run a split test, make a change based on the results, and find out that it either made no difference or produced a negative result.

That being said, you can definitely run split tests on your own and get great results.

However, you need to make sure that you set up your test correctly and that you know how to interpret the results.

I know they sound like simple things, but most split testers make several mistakes that lead to subpar results.

In this post, I’m going to show you 6 common ways to do split tests wrong. You may not make all these mistakes, but I bet you’ve made at least one at some point.

After you understand these, you’ll be able to run split tests with more confidence and steadily improve your conversion rates. 

1. Not segmenting your traffic

When it comes to split tests, the more control you have, the better.

Whenever you do any sort of analysis on your website, whether for split tests or not, you need to understand and consider segments.

A segment refers to any section of your traffic.

The most common segments are:

• Returning visitors
• New visitors
• Visitors divided by countries
• Visitors divided by traffic sources
• Different days
• Different devices
• Different browsers

Here is data broken down by the days of the week:

The important thing to know about segments is that you cannot compare visitors from two different segments.

For example, if you have 100 visitors who use Chrome and 100 visitors who use Internet Explorer, there’s a good chance that they will act differently.

So, imagine if you sent the majority of Chrome users to one landing page and the majority of the IE users to a different landing page.

Can you fairly compare the results? No way. You might arrive at the opposite conclusion if you reverse the test.

The practicality of segmenting: Ideally, all your visitors sent to each version of your test would be identical. In reality, that’s impossible.

Having a large enough random sample size (more on that later) will mitigate a lot of your issues, but you will likely end up judging tests that aren’t perfectly segmented.

The reason for this is because you can’t perfectly segment a test in the vast majority of situations.

If you did, you’d be left with barely any traffic. For example, how many users would tick all these boxes?

• Use your website on Monday
• Use Chrome
• Use a tablet
• Live in the U.S.
• Come from organic search traffic

Even if your site has a lot of traffic, you won’t have many users matching all the parameters—certainly not a big enough sample to run a test on.

The solution is compromise.

Right now, I want you to identify the segments that have the biggest influence on your results. For most sites, that will come down to the traffic source and, possibly, the location.

When you’re analyzing your split test results, make sure you’re analyzing the results only for users from a specific traffic source (e.g., organic search, paid advertising, referral, etc.).

2. Ending your tests too soon

Ideally, anyone conducting split tests should have at least a basic understanding of statistics.

If you don’t understand concepts such as variance, you’re likely making many mistakes.

If you need an introduction, take the free statistic classes at Khan Academy.

At this point, I’ll assume you have the basics down.

Although many marketers have a good grasp of the basics, they still frequently make one mistake: ending the test without a sufficient sample size.

There are three reasons for this:

1. Lack of knowledge – they don’t truly understand how to calculate the right sample size;
2. Negligence – they’re in a rush to do something else, so they rush the test;
3. Over-reliance on tools – most split testing tools offer some sort of confidence metric, but they can be misleading.

The first and third can be fixed.

If you’ve ever used a tool such as Unbounce to conduct split tests, you know the analytics show you something like this:

The table gives you the current conversion rate of each page you’re testing and a confidence level that the winning one is indeed the best.

The standard advice is to cut the test off once you hit 90-95% significance, which is fine advice.

The problem is that a lot (not all) of these tools will give you these significance values before they even mean anything.

You’ll think you have a winner, but if you let the test run on, you might find that the opposite is true.

Keep in mind that conversion experts like Peep Laja aim for at least 350 conversions per page in most cases (unless there’s a huge difference in conversion rates).

You must understand sample size: The fix for this problem, and most sample size problems, is to understand how to calculate a valid sample size on your own.

It’s not very hard if you use the right tools. Let me show you a few you can use.

The first is the test significance calculator. It’s very simple to use: just input your base conversion rate (of your original page) as well as your desired confidence level (90-95%).

The tool comes up with a chart that has a ton of scenarios.

You can see that the bigger the gap between the “A” page and the “B” page, the smaller the sample size needs to be. That’s why it’s best to test things that could potentially make big differences—they speed it up too.

Here’s another sample size calculator you can use. Again, you put in your baseline conversion rate, but this time, you decide on the minimum detectable effect.

The minimum detectable effect here is relative to your baseline, so start by multiplying them together to get 1%.

What that means is that you will have 90% confidence that you’ve detected a conversion rate on your second page that is under 19% or over 21% (plus or minus 1% from the 20% of your baseline conversion rate).

That also means that if your split test results show a 20.5% conversion rate for your second page, you cannot confidently say that it’s better.

Use either of these calculators to get an idea of what sample size you need for your tests. More is always better.

3. Running a split test during the holidays

This is related to segmenting, but it’s an often-overlooked special case.

Your traffic during holidays can be very different from your typical traffic. Including even one day of that abnormal traffic could result in optimizing your site for the people who use your site only a few times a year.

You also have to consider other special days that influence the type of traffic driven to your site:

• Sales
• Features in press
• Big events in your industry

On top of that, these special days aren’t usually one-day things. For example, when it comes to Christmas, those abnormal types of visitors may visit your website leading up to the big day and a week or two after.

The solution? Go longer: The best solution is to exclude these days from your test because they will contain skewed data.

If it’s not possible, the next best solution is to extend your split tests. Go over your minimum sample size so that you have enough data to drown out any skewed data.

4. Measuring the wrong thing

Although it’s in the title, it’s still easy to overlook.

Conversion rate optimization is all about…conversions.

Whenever possible, you need to be measuring conversions—not bounce rates, email opt-in rates, or email open rates.

Those other numbers do not necessarily indicated an improvement.

Here is a simple example to illustrate this:

• Page A – 5% email opt-in rate, but only 1% (overall) become customers
• Page B – 3% email opt-in rate, but 2% become customers

If you were measuring only your email opt-in rate on the page, you’d say that page A is decisively better (66% better).

In reality, page B converts traffic twice as well as page A. I’ll take twice the profit over 66% more emails on my list any day.

This is another simple thing, but you need to keep it in mind when setting up any split test.

5. Running before and after tests

This mistake is most commonly done by those new to split testing.

In an attempt to avoid any coding or using tools, the split tester runs a single variation first and then, after collecting enough data, switches the page.

Then, the tester compares the conversion rate of the two pages.

Hopefully, you already see the problems that this causes, which includes many of the things we’ve already gone over.

While it’s still possible to segment your traffic this way in some ways, you automatically can’t segment it by date.

You’ll be comparing the behavior of visitors from different times of the week, month, or year, which is not a valid comparison.

Moral of the story: Always run your split tests simultaneously, or you will mess up your test right from the start.

This brings us to the next mistake…

6. You didn’t test long enough

No, this is not the same as testing until you reach statistical significance.

Instead, it’s about the absolute length of time that you run your split test for.

Say, you used one of the calculators I showed you and found that you need a minimum sample size of 10,000 views for each page.

If you run a high traffic site, you might be able to get that much traffic in a day or two.

Split test finished, right? That’s what most split testers do, and it’s wrong.

All businesses have business cycles.

It’s why your website’s traffic varies from day to day and even from month to month.

For some businesses, buyers are ready to go at the start of the week. For others, they largely wait until the end of the week so that they can get started on the weekend.

It’s not valid to say that buyers who buy at one part of the cycle are the same as buyers at another part. Instead, you need an overall representation of your customers, through all parts of the cycle.

Your first step here is to determine what your business cycle is. The most common lengths are 1 week and 1 month.

To determine it, look at where your sales typically peak. The distance between your peaks is one cycle.

Next, run your split tests until you (1) reach the minimum sample size and (2) complete an integer of your business cycle, e.g., one, two, or three full business cycles—but never 1.5.

That’s the best way to ensure that you have a representative sample.

Conclusion

If you’ve started split testing pages on your website or plan to in the future, that’s great. You can get big improvements, leading to incredible growth in your profit.

But if you’re going to do split testing without the help of an expert, you need to be extra careful not to make mistakes.

I’ve shown you 6 common ways that people mess up their split tests, but there are many more.

Any single one of these can invalidate your results, which may lead you to mistakenly declaring the wrong page as the winner.

You’ll end up wasting your time and even hurting your business sometimes. Even if you get a good return from split testing, it might not be as much as it could be.

For now, keep learning about split testing, and make sure you completely understand the 6 mistakes I showed you here. If you have any questions about them, leave them below in a comment.

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Appreciation Versus Depreciation: A Powerful Insight for Your Spending Choices

No matter how careful we are about spending and saving our money, the truth is that all of us spend some significant portion of our income on a mix of things we need and things we don’t.

Some of those things are consumed, like food and water and gasoline and experiences, for instance – and you’re left with nothing but the memories afterwards. Other things are not – our car, our home, our hobby items, and so on. You continue to hold onto those possessions afterward and can, in theory, sell them.

Those things that you can potentially re-sell fall into two groups as well.

One group has a resale value less than what you paid for it. You paid $50 for something and can only get $5 for it later. That’s called depreciation.

Another group has a resale value that’s more than what you paid for it. You paid $50 for something and can get $60 for it later. That’s called appreciation.

In the end, you spend your money in one of three ways: on things that are consumed, on things that depreciate, and on things that appreciate. It’s all about the eventual money you can get from selling that item – it’s either nothing (because you used it all up), less than what you paid for it, or more than what you paid for it.

I’m going to make a very simple suggestion: the more of your money you spend on things that appreciate, the better your long term financial health will be.

It doesn’t require a radical shift, either. Simply spend a little less on things that return nothing or things that return less than what they cost, and spend a little more on things that return more than what they cost.

Let’s look at some things that fall into each camp. This is far from an exhaustive list, but it does cover many common things that people spend their money on.

Things That Return Nothing

Food is something that you simply consume. You eat it, it goes away, it doesn’t return any value to you. That doesn’t mean that you don’t need it to survive, but that every dollar you put into food and beverages disappears.

Experiences follow the same trajectory as food. When you pay money to experience something new, you’re left either with nothing or with something that cannot be resold. That’s not to say that there isn’t personal value in memories and experiences – there is – but most of the time, that experience doesn’t translate into money. (There are exceptions, which I’ll touch on below.)

Things That Depreciate

Cars depreciate quite rapidly. It’s not a stretch to say that cars lose a significant portion of their value the second you drive them off the lot and continue to gradually lose value over time after that. It’s extremely rare to get back what you paid for a car; that generally only happens with an extremely well maintained older car.

Appliances depreciate significantly with use. Most of the time, people use appliances until they fail and then haul them away to the dump. On rare occasions, people might sell used appliances, but they’re never going to get the full original value for it.

Computers and smartphones are great examples of depreciation. As soon as you buy them, their value starts slowly slipping away, drip by drip, drop by drop. Many people do eventually re-sell their phones and computers, but they get only a small fraction of the original value.

Clothes also depreciate rather rapidly. Sure, you can always get a little value for them via yard sales or consignment shops or even from the tax deduction that comes from donating them, but that value is a tiny fraction of what you originally paid for those items.

Entertainment items, such as DVDs, books, Blurays, video games, and so on all depreciate. You can almost always get at least some return from those items when you sell them, but that return is virtually always significantly lower than what you originally paid for the item.

Things That Appreciate

Homes, for the most part, tend to grow in value over time. The only real question is whether or not the additional costs of home ownership – property taxes, insurance, and so on – outstrip the gains.

Investments almost always appreciate in value. If you can buy something, hold it for a while, and sell it for more than it’s worth, that’s a great choice. Some investments, like bonds and dividend-paying stocks, even pay you money while you hold them.

Smart self-improvement can definitely appreciate in value, but it comes with the caveat that you can’t actually sell it. Instead, it adds more dollars and cents to your life than you paid for it. A great example of this is a college education, which will almost always pay you more in the long run than you ever paid for it.

Collectibles can appreciate, but you have to know what you’re doing, have some capital up front, and have a strong sense of when to buy and when to sell. In the end, the appreciation of collectibles tends to rely on a large set of domain knowledge from the collector – they have to know their stuff.

What About “Slow Depreciation”?

Like it or not, everyone is going to buy things that depreciate. That’s just a fact of modern life. Buying things that depreciate is going to have a negative impact on your finances – another fact of modern life.

However, you can choose to buy things that depreciate more slowly than other things. For instance, you can buy a more reliable car instead of a flashier car.

This has two real benefits.

First, the depreciating items go down in value more slowly. If something is reliable and has a known history of reliability – like, say, a Toyota or Honda automobile – it’s going to go down in value much more slowly. That’s because a used version of that item is going to have more value after, say, ten years of use than a Volkswagen.

Second, the depreciating items do not need to be replaced as often. This goes hand in hand with why the value of some items drop more slowly than the value of other items: it’s because they last. A well-made car with 100,000 miles on it is going to run for a lot longer than a poorly-made car with 100,000 miles on it. That means that you’re going to be able to keep driving that well-made car for many more years and you won’t have to deal with replacing it nearly as often (which is an expensive endeavor).

What Can You Do?

So, what’s the solution to all of this? What can you do to take advantage of these groupings?

First of all, spend a little bit less money on things that depreciate or that return no value at all, and spend a little bit more on things that appreciate. Cut down on your wardrobe and hobby spending a little bit and put some money into retirement or into smart self-improvement. If you’re going to put money into a hobby, invest in items that are going to grow in value if possible.

Second, if you’re going to spend money on things that depreciate, choose things that depreciate slowly if possible. Buy cars that have a history of reliability. Buy household items with a long warranty because they’re so well made.

Third, maintain your stuff. Take the time to do proper maintenance on the things that you own. Doing so will extend their lifetime and slow down their depreciation, which effectively means money in your pocket.

Final Thoughts

The value of spending money on things that do not depreciate came to me from a friend who had turned his Magic: the Gathering hobby into a side business. He had spent a great deal of time studying the market for those cards and figured out some pretty good methods for figuring out which cards will hold their value and appreciate over time and which ones would not, and thus he would trade for and acquire the ones that held value. Over the long haul, his collection has actually appreciated significantly in value because of his choices.

The same phenomenon really is true in all areas of life. If you spend your money on things that build value rather than lose value – or at least on things that lose value more slowly – your finances are going to end up in much better shape over the long run.

Good luck!

The post Appreciation Versus Depreciation: A Powerful Insight for Your Spending Choices appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Meet B: the new digital bank from Clydesdale and Yorkshire

Tom Wilson

B-logo.png

The latest digital bank and banking app, B, launched earlier this week, promising to “take the fear out of finance” with a range of tools and features to make managing money easier.

The latest digital bank and banking app, B, launched earlier this week, promising to “take the fear out of finance” with a range of tools and features to make managing money easier.

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How Young Is Too Young to Get a Credit Card?

It’s the quintessential catch-22: You can’t build credit until you have credit of your own. Then again, banks are hesitant to give you a credit card when you lack any type of credit history at all.

This is how young people start their adult lives every day – lacking a credit profile, yet unable to prove themselves to get credit to begin with. So, how does one get started? And, how young is too young to get a credit card anyway?

How the Credit CARD Act of 2009 Affects Young Consumers

You can apply for your own line of credit once you’re 18 years old, and that’s a good thing. By making it a point to build credit early, you can be on your way to a long history of responsible credit use by the time you’re ready to buy a home or finance a car.

The Credit CARD Act of 2009 throws a slight wrench into the equation, however. Created to protect people of all ages from predatory lending practices and fine print, the CARD Act adds some caveats that make it harder for young people to get credit on their own. Per the new rules, a credit card cannot legally be issued to a consumer under the age of 21 unless they submit a written application and meet the following requirements:

• A cosigner over the age of 21 is willing to sign onto the application.
• Any applicant under the age of 21 can prove an ability to repay their own debts.

In addition, card issuers cannot increase the credit limit of anyone under the age of 21 without the written approval of their cosigner. Plus, pre-screened credit card offers cannot be sent to those under the age of 21 unless the individual has manually opted in to receive them.

If you’re under the age of 21 and have a part- or full-time job that provides proof of income, you should have no trouble qualifying for a credit card – even after taking the new rules into account. If you aren’t earning an income however, you will need a parent or adult to cosign.

Okay, well that’s probably too young. Photo: _Dinkel_

Which Type of Credit Card is Best for Young People?

Young people with an income can start building credit early – as long as they can qualify for a credit card on their own or get a cosigner. As a general rule, there are two types of credit cards geared toward young people trying to build credit from scratch.

For students able to qualify for an unsecured credit card, the first type of card to consider is a student credit card. While student credit cards can really work for anyone, they are mostly designed for young people trying to build credit for the first time. Student credit cards tend to come with lower credit limits at first, and may not offer a lot of perks. However, they are generally easier to qualify for when you’re young and have a limited credit history.

• Related: Best Credit Cards for College Students

If you don’t have any type of credit history at all, a secured credit card might be your next best choice. Unlike unsecured credit cards that don’t require collateral, secured credit cards require a cash deposit upfront. This cash deposit is considered a security payment for your line of credit, and is generally equal to your credit limit.

If you put down a $500 deposit, for example, your credit limit should be close to $500. While this may not sound like an ideal way to build credit, a secured card might be the only type of card you can qualify for at first – and borrowing against your own money isn’t a bad way to learn the ropes of responsible credit use.

However, don’t feel like you’ll be stuck with a secured credit card forever. After many months of responsible use, you can usually upgrade your secured credit card to a traditional unsecured card. As long as you don’t default, you’ll also get your deposit back.

• Related: Best Secured Credit Cards

Building Credit without a Credit Card

Although getting a credit card of your own early on is often the easiest way to begin establishing a credit history, there are other options at your disposal. For example:

• Ask to be an authorized user: According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, adults can help teenagers build credit by adding them to their own credit cards as an authorized user. If the adult in your life has good credit, this can boost your credit score. However, both parties will be on the hook for any amounts charged on the card.
• Take on federal student loans: While you should never take on student loans (or debt) just to build credit, federal loans are a smart way to build credit from scratch if you need to borrow money for college. Because you don’t need a cosigner to get a federal student loan, you can qualify on your own regardless of income or status. Make your payments on time and you’ll start building a good credit history in no time.
• Take out a small loan at your bank or credit union: If you need to borrow money for school or a car and have a relationship with a bank or credit union already, you might try them out first. Securing a small installment loan is a great way to build credit as long as you make repayment a priority.
• Take out a peer-to-peer loan: Peer-to-peer lending firms like Lending Club and Prosper allow anyone to apply, and potentially get approved. You might pay a higher interest rate if you have a limited credit history, but your credit activity will be reported to the three major credit reporting agencies – Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.

The Bottom Line

Your parents can add you as an authorized user to their credit cards when you’re a teenager. Once you’re 18, however, you can apply for your own credit card provided you have a cosigner over the age or 21 or can provide proof of income.

Either way, building credit early is helpful if you want to be ready when you’re established enough in your career to buy a home, finance a car, or borrow money to start your own business. With a long credit history that illustrates years of responsible use, you’ll be able to borrow money at the lowest rates and take out loans with the best terms available. As always, the key to building credit and actually improving your score is building good credit habits early and using credit responsibly.

How old were you when you got your first credit card? Would you ever add your teen as an authorized user?

Related Articles:

• How to Build Good Credit
• Eight Tips to Make Credit Cards Work For You, Not Against You
• Three Simple Money Management Lessons for Teenagers

The post How Young Is Too Young to Get a Credit Card? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Should You Consider Medi-Share for Health Insurance? Here’s Our Take

Health insurance can be incredibly expensive, especially if you don’t have coverage through your employer.

And now that you can get fined under the Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA) for not being insured, some frugal families — particularly those who aren’t interested in Obamacare — are checking out other options.

If you’ve heard ads for Medi-Share, you might be intrigued by its promises to cover your health care costs, so you don’t have to get government-mandated insurance.

Curious? We looked into the details to find out how Medi-Share works — and whether it’s a good option for you. Here’s our honest, unbiased review of the program.

What is Medi-Share?

Medi-Share is a health-care sharing ministry made up of members united by their faith.

This program and similar medical-sharing ministries are exempt from the rules of the ACA. They rely on their members to take care of one another through financial contributions, as well as prayer.

The details work much like typical health insurance. Like having a deductible, members choose an amount they’ll contribute as a household before they can submit bills to the community for payment assistance.

A monthly share payment works like a premium, ensuring your eligibility for assistance, should you need it.

There’s no guarantee your medical expenses will be covered through Medi-Share, and there are plenty of exemptions to consider before you apply.

But if you’re particularly religious — and healthy — you may want to consider this alternative to traditional health insurance.

How Much Does Medi-Share Cost?

First, the up-front costs: It costs $50 to apply, and you’ll pay a $120 one-time member fee with your first monthly payment.

You’ll pay another one-time fee of $5 to have America’s Christian Credit Union (ACCU) set up your “sharing account,” and you can then save $3 per month by choosing to receive ACCU electronic statements.

As for your monthly payment options, Medi-Share’s system is sort of like choosing a health insurance deductible and monthly premium.

As an example, we calculated costs for a 30-year-old woman seeking membership for herself only. Share amounts change annually, based on the oldest member of the household.

If she chose a $1,250 annual household portion — the amount of medical bills you have to pay completely before you’re eligible for sharing — her standard monthly share would be $235.

If she met certain health and fitness requirements, she could qualify for a Healthy Monthly Share, which would lower her cost to $207 per month.  

When you need medical care and visit a Medi-Share provider, you pay $35 for doctor visits and hospitalizations, and $135 for emergency room visits.

A search for providers near The Penny Hoarder HQ in St. Petersburg, Florida, turned up 171 doctors, including plenty of nearby options for internal medicine, pediatrics and even specialties like sports medicine.

You submit the rest of your bills to Private Healthcare Systems (PHCS) for payment consideration.
“We do not collect premiums, make promise of payment, or guarantee that your medical bills will be paid,” the Medi-Share website explains. “Sharing of medical bills is completely voluntary.”

Christian Care Ministry, which operates Medi-Share, is a 501(c)3, but your payments aren’t tax-deductible.

We asked personal finance blogger Philip Taylor (no relation to our founder Kyle Taylor), about his Medi-Share costs for his family of five. He signed up for Medi-Share in 2014, and has updated his review of the service several times since joining.

Taylor initially signed up with a family share of $277 per month, which was a huge savings over his old insurance premium of $1,100 per month.

“My share cost is now $288 per month,” he says. “So we’re still experiencing a tremendous amount of savings.”

Do You Need to Be Religious to Use Medi-Share?

Just as Medi-Share embraces the idea of a community of members supporting one another, it also believes in having a membership that embraces Christian lifestyles.

The organization may even interview a church leader to verify your involvement before granting you membership. In addition to eschewing tobacco and illegal drug use, applicants “must only engage in sexual relations within a Biblical Christian Marriage.”

And as you might suspect, Medi-Share doesn’t cover abortions or treatment for sexually transmitted infections.

Medi-Share also assumes that if you’re willing to take care of your Christian community by sharing the burden of medical bills, you’ll do your best to take pretty good care of yourself.

Some health conditions, like obesity, high cholesterol or diabetes, put applicants in the mandatory Health Partner program, which pairs you with a health coach and costs an extra $80 per month.

What If You Have an Ongoing Health Condition?

While this might be an appealing option if you’re healthy, anyone who suffers from a chronic health issue is probably better off turning to an ACA health insurance program for coverage.

“The primary purpose of Medi-Share is to help share members’ burdens,” the program explains.

“Burdens are those unexpected medical bills you are unable to plan for (ie. broken bones, cancer, etc). Low monthly share amounts enable you to budget for your family’s routine care, which can be planned.”

Prescription drugs can be eligible for cost-sharing, but only for up to six months for the lifetime of the member.

Likewise, if you have mental health conditions, you probably won’t benefit financially from Medi-Share.

“Those with persistent mental health conditions, who need expensive prescriptions and therapy, would likely not see much benefit from becoming a member,” The Atlantic explained in a report on Medi-Share and similar programs.

But here’s the big catch: Routine health screenings aren’t eligible for cost-sharing either.

Well-patient care like annual physicals, pap smears and well-child checkups aren’t included. Dental and vision care aren’t eligible, either.

For instance, if your doctor recommends getting a colonoscopy because you’ve reached a certain age, you can’t submit the test for Medi-Share payment. If you have symptoms warranting the same test, the program might grant payment.

So, Is Medi-Share Legit?

Here’s our conclusion: Medi-Share isn’t a scam.

It’s totally legal and there’s a strong membership base to support it and similar programs.

But it’s likely not the most affordable health care option for most people. The ideal candidate for Medi-Share is in excellent health and also has a robust savings account to pay out of pocket for routine medical care.

One risk: Medi-Share and other cost-sharing programs aren’t subject to regulation like typical ACA programs.

So while a typical health insurance benefits booklet might clearly explain what’s covered and guarantee coverage up to a certain amount or percentage, Medi-Share participants might not be able to figure out ahead of time which medical bills will be paid by the program.

In addition, the cost-benefit analysis might not work in your favor. For example, let’s look at what one of our writers pays for health insurance.

She has coverage through her state’s ACA exchange and pays $220 per month. She has a deductible of $1,500 and pays $25 each time she visits any doctor’s office. Medication for her ongoing conditions costs her less than $10 per month with her plan’s coverage.

She might not be as wholesome as the typical Medi-Share member, but she’s paying about the same to stay in pretty good health.

While Medi-Share probably isn’t the best financial choice for most people, it does at least serve as an option for anyone who doesn’t have access to a job-sponsored health insurance plan or who finds individual ACA coverage options prohibitively expensive.

Taylor explained the magic combination of factors that makes Medi-Share worth considering:

If you: Don’t have access to an employer-based group health insurance plan, don’t mind being held to the lifestyle standards, make enough money to miss out on Obamacare subsidies, and don’t have ongoing major medical issues.

He noted that a Medicaid or ACA plan probably better serves those with chronic conditions.  

For Taylor, the numbers definitely work out. “I feel bad for those that don’t have this choice,” he said.

Your Turn: Have you tried Medi-Share? We’d love to hear about your experience.

The post Should You Consider Medi-Share for Health Insurance? Here’s Our Take appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Looking for a Summer Internship? Six Flags is Hiring

Want to get paid to spend your summer at Six Flags?

*hands shoot up*

Roller coasters aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but if you love them, a Six Flags internship could be your chance to become familiar with the inner workings of the summer pastime.

Full-time graduate or undergraduate students are eligible for available internships at Six Flags parks across the U.S.

Summer Internships at Six Flags

Jobs at Six Flags go beyond operating rides and shaking hands from inside heavy character costumes all summer.

You’ll find internships in various departments, from marketing to human resources to culinary, retail and guest services.

You could create video content, manage social media and edit photos as an Interactive Marketing Intern at Six Flags Great America near Chicago, Illinois.

You could work with marketing clients in internships with Six Flags corporate in Texas or New York.

You could even care for and perform with animals as a Land Animal Intern at Discovery Kingdom near Vallejo, California.

Hundreds of positions are available. To find a position that fits your bill, check out the internship programs at these parks:

• Six Flags Great America & Hurricane Harbor near Chicago, Illinois

• Six Flags Discovery Kingdom near Vallejo, California

• Six Flags America near Washington, D.C./Baltimore, Maryland

• Six Flags Great Adventure & Safari in Jackson, New Jersey

Start and end dates for internships are flexible based on your availability and run between 10 and 24 weeks.

Pay varies by department and position, and job descriptions don’t list hourly pay. However, self-reported salaries at Glassdoor list Six Flags intern pay around $9-$10 per hour, consistent with reports for similar supervisory positions.

All internships are paid, though; most are hourly and guarantee 25-35 hours per week.

And you’re working for a theme park, so what about those rides?

Interns enjoy Six Flags employee perks, including free park admission for you and family members; exclusive employee events, including employee-only park nights (no lines!); and discounts at local businesses.

As a student, you’re also eligible for college credit and scholarship opportunities. Some parks also provide employee housing for a weekly cost.

And you’ll find typical corporate internship benefits, like educational seminars, meetings and training with senior employees and experience in your field.

International Jobs Programs

Not a student?

In addition to available internships, most parks also have an international jobs program for those from outside the U.S.

Through a partner agency like World Wide Culture Exchange or United Work and Travel, foreign students or non-students can find jobs and housing at Six Flags locations throughout the U.S.

Your Turn: What is your dream summer internship?

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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