Mohegan Sun Pocono president resigns

PLAINS TWP. — After more than a decade spent building and running Mohegan Sun Pocono, president and General Manager Mike Bean announced Monday he is resigning from the company.Bean , 51, sent an announcement to employees saying he intends to leave his post at the end of the month. In a phone interview, Bean said he had plans at another company, but he declined to say what they were because it was “not an appropriate time.”“I’m moving on from [...]

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How to Win Free Chipotle for a Year (Plus Tickets to Lollapalooza!)

Would you like free food from Chipotle?

Trick question. At this point, I think it’s more fitting to ask, “How would you like your free food from Chipotle?”

You could get it by playing a game, via snail mail, through a text message or just by clever ordering.

And now you can get your free Chipotle with a side of Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lana Del Rey and Ellie Goulding.

Chipotle’s Ultimate VIP Lollapalooza Sweepstakes

Now through May 31, you can enter to win free Chipotle for a year, plus a trip for four to Lollapalooza in Chicago this July.

All you have to do is send a text!

To enter, text any of these words (only one) to 888222:

• TIX
• CHICAGO
• LOLLA
• BEATS
• ROCK
• CHIPOTLE
• PRIZE
• SWEEPS
• CONCERT

You’ll receive the confirmation, “You’ve been entered for a chance to win.”

If you prefer to enter online, you can do so with your email and phone number here.

Good luck, and rock on (or whatever someone cooler would say on your way to a music festival)!

Your Turn: Are you headed to Lollapalooza this year?

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 How to Win Free Chipotle for a Year (Plus Tickets to Lollapalooza!) appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Could You Live WIthout Money? This Woman’s Been Doing It for 17 Years

Penny Hoarders know the importance of saving money and living frugally.

But have you ever imagined what your life would be like if you gave up money entirely?

It might sound completely impossible, but German psychotherapist Heidemarie Schwermer proves it’s not.

She’s lived without using even a cent… for 17 years.

How to Live Without Money

When she was 53, Schwermer decided to forego money and material possessions for a full year.

After setting aside 200 euros (about $226) as an emergency fund, she canceled her lease and gave away everything she had, except for a few daily necessities and a change of clothes.

“After my apartment was emptied, I jumped around for joy,” Schwermer says.

She then began a bartering lifestyle, exchanging psychotherapy sessions, window-washing services and other household help for room and board in a number of private homes.

Once the year was up, Schwermer’s experiment was still going strong — and she was happy with the freedom her new lifestyle afforded her.

So she kept it up.

Now, she’s 70 years old… and still hasn’t touched her 200-euro emergency fund.

Can Money Buy Happiness?

Today, Schwerner stays busy giving lectures and consultations to those curious about how to live without money.

In exchange for her wisdom, she’s been offered lodging, food and often, free travel.

She’s also the subject of the 2010 documentary “Living Without Money,” which has been screened more than 300 times in 30 countries.

Schwermer’s story is a fantastic reminder that in the end, money is just a utility — a key that unlocks your freedom to travel, move to a different city… or, yes, make a purchase.

But if you take the time to figure out what you value and what makes you authentically happy, you may discover you don’t need money to get what you really want out of life.

Your Turn: Would you give up everything you own to live without money?

Jamie Cattanach (@jamiecattanach) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. Her creative writing has been featured in DMQ Review, Sweet: A Literary Confection and elsewhere.

The post Could You Live WIthout Money? This Woman’s Been Doing It for 17 Years appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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This Custodian Just Graduated From the College He’s Cleaned for 8 Years

“You go through life and you say, ‘someday I’m going [to] do this. I’m going [to] do that,’ and very often in life you’re hit with a curveball that kind of throws you off track,” Michael Vaudreuil told CBS Boston.

For Vaudreuil, like many others, that curveball was the recession. In 2007, his plastering business went under, and his family lost pretty much everything and filed for bankruptcy within six months.

His “decimation was completed,” he said.

He finally found a job as a custodian at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a private technical university in Worcester, Massachusetts. Though it was a far cry from owning his own business — and boring to boot — this position would turn out to be life-changing.

How a Custodian Job Changed His Life

To counter the boredom, CBS reports, Vaudreuil began taking some classes tuition-free, a WPI employee benefit.

After eight years of classes during the day and cleaning the campus at night, 54-year-old Vaudreuil graduated Saturday, May 14, as a mechanical engineer.

The custodian walked at graduation with classmates, the majority whom were nearly a third his age, and is hopeful about starting the next phase in his life. He plans to turn his highly sought-after degree into a lucrative new career — the median starting salary for mechanical engineers is about $63,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Very few times do you ever get to experience a real ‘someday,’” Vaudreuil told CBS. “And so it feels like, welcome to my ‘someday.’”

Your Turn: Do you know a story of someone who turned a financial disaster into a blessing? Share it in the comments!

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 Custodian Just Graduated From the College He’s Cleaned for 8 Years appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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7 Ways to Ensure You Maximize Your ROI From Content

I’m not going to lecture you.

You already know that content marketing can be a very successful form of marketing.

You also know that producing great content takes a lot of time or money, sometimes both.

But there’s something that you might not know, at least not for sure.

Just because a piece of content gets thousands of views or hundreds of social shares, doesn’t mean that it returned a positive return on investment (ROI).

You could spend $100,000 on the most spectacular piece of content on how to pet a cat. It’s very unlikely that it would ever make you anywhere close to that amount back.

Content marketing is only effective if it’s profitable.

From what I see and hear, only a small fraction of marketers actually achieve a significantly positive ROI with their content.

That’s a HUGE problem.

While there’s a lot of factors that contribute to your ROI, I’m going to assume you have the basics of content marketing down.

That allows me to show you 7 different ways to maximize your content’s ROI.

If you apply even a few of these tactics, it can take your content from a breakeven or slightly negative ROI to a healthy, positive ROI.

Achieving this will allow you to ramp up your content production in a sustainable way. 

1. Pick 1-2 channels and design around them

A common mistake I see is creating a piece of content, and then trying to promote it everywhere.

I’m talking Facebook, Twitter, forums, Reddit, and any number of marketing channels.

The reason that this is a mistake is that audiences on different channels and platforms within those channels typically behave very different from each other.

Content that may be very popular on one channel, isn’t necessarily going to do well on another channel.

That makes a shotgun approach for promotion a waste of your time, and it’s going to kill your ROI.

The solution? Get specific: You need to find 1-3 channels where your content does best.

For Quick Sprout, I use mainly Facebook and Twitter, along with my email list.

Ideally, you want to identify these channels before you even create your content. Then you can tailor everything from the topic and angle, to the title just for those specific audiences.

Here’s your practical takeaway: Stop promoting your content every place you can think of – you’re wasting your time. Focus on the sites that send you the most visitors for your time, effort, and money.

How do you pick a channel to focus on? Analyze your past content and determine the amount of visitors or subscribers you got from each channel. Create a simple table like this for each piece of content to measure your results.

 

• Time spent – how much time do you need to spend to promote content on this channel
• Cost of time – your time has value, input a $/hour value here
• Other costs – put in any money you spent (like on advertising)
• Total cost – add your time and other costs together
• Sales/subscribers/visitors – pick a metric and record the results

Then, divide the sales (or subscribers, or metric of your choice) by the time it cost you, to get a return per hour metric.

You will see that certain channels vastly outperform others.

2. Never stop updating

As you may know, there are 2 types of content…

Evergreen content, which stays relevant for years (possibly for the foreseeable future), and non-evergreen content, which will go out of date in the near future.

You’ll probably end up creating both types of content.

The main downside of non-evergreen content is that once you get the initial value out of it, it fades into irrelevance and won’t help your business much.

However, you can essentially erase this negative by continuously updating your content.

It’s something that Brian Dean does very well, he’s the example you should be following.

For example, he created an incredibly thorough guide of SEO tools:

He updates this guide on a regular basis.

Why is updating so important? Updates are all about the reader. They make the content so much more valuable.

SEO tools come and go all the time.

If you go look at other lists of SEO tools that are a few years old, most of the tools are either ineffective these days, or not even still available. Plus, they also don’t include some great tools that were recently released.

While Brian isn’t ranking #1 for “SEO tools” in Google, he ranks very highly, and I expect his rankings will continue to rise (it’s a tough keyword):

Google is going to see that users find his guide the most useful, and it will be promoted.

Updating has a few other side benefits.

First, it allows you to keep promoting your content. Usually, you publish something and then you go all out on promoting it for a week or two.

After that, you probably have a bit of anxiety doing more promotion, because you feel like your content already isn’t that “fresh.”

If you update your content, it allows you to send a quick Tweet or email to people who have enjoyed it before, letting them know you’ve added a few cool tidbits (like new tools for Brian). That’ll get you extra shares and links.

Finally, a lot of things influence what your readers will share with their friends and communities.

Mainly, they want to share things that make them look good. That’s why they rarely share old content, that’s probably not correct anymore. By updating your content, visitors will still have no problem sharing it, far past your first publish date.

3. Never stop promoting

I’ll let you in on a little secret:

Most of your ROI is going to come from your content promotion.

While great content is a good start, it’s nothing without a substantial amount of promotion.

Some top marketers, like Derek Halpern, even spend up to 80% of their time promoting content (the other 20% on creating it).

But here’s the problem: Even if you do a great promotional push for a week or two, your traffic will spike, and then quickly die down.

I guarantee that you haven’t reached even a fraction of the people that could benefit from your content during that time frame.

There’s no rule that says that you can only promote new content.

If you want to maximize your ROI, you likely need to spend more time promoting your old content as well.

For starters, you can simply repost your content on social media and forums every once in awhile.

Additionally, you can set up Google Alerts to let you know when anyone is talking about the topic you wrote about. You can then pop in and suggest they visit your guide.

On top of those, most promotional tactics are still viable. Very few don’t work simply because your content was published a month or two ago.

4. There are diminishing returns between quality and ROI

This is where creating great content gets really tricky.

Generally, I’m a supporter of creating truly “epic” content.

But it’s not always a good idea.

Sometimes, making your content better will leave you with a worse ROI.

The reason behind this is pretty simple. To design custom images and layouts, it takes a lot of time and/or money.

Even the table of contents for my advance guides (in the sidebar) cost a ton to make:

At some point, you may have a piece of content that’s really good. If you spend another $100 on a custom image, will that bring you more than $100 later on?

That’s the question, and it’s a tough one.

When do you stop improving content?: It’s going to vary in every case, but I’ll get as specific as possible.

Let’s start with a fundamental principle – your content should be better than all of your competitors.

If it isn’t, you’ll be lucky to achieve any positive ROI at all.

The better your content is, the more it stands out from the rest:

But you reach a limit.

Once your content is significantly better than all the other content on that subject, readers can’t tell the difference if it gets better.

Readers determine the quality of your content in large part by comparing it to others. So even if you improve your already-better content, in the eyes of most readers, it’s still just “better” than the rest.

If there’s no significant difference in perception, there won’t be a significant difference in your return. And since you spent more to improve your content, that means your ROI declined.

Your practical takeaway: Make your content significantly better than your competition, and then stop. Any further improvements will be costly and you’re ROI will likely decrease.

Of course, you should test this yourself, but that’s a good rule of thumb to follow.

The one exception to the rule: I mentioned my ultimate guides before. These obviously broke the rule because I went way above and beyond what was already out there.

I did this for one main reason: So that no one could come in later and create something significantly better.

These guides have driven hundreds of thousands of visits to my site since being published. Even though they are years old, no one has comprehensively been able to create content that “beats” them.

They allow my site to retain its position as the leader in each of those areas, and deliver constant traffic even now.

If you know that a piece of content has the potential to deliver a large volume of traffic (usually through SEO) for years, and that others will try to create better content than you, you can take this route.

Alternatively, you could just upgrade your content as others catch up and hope that none of them create a guide like this that you can’t really beat.

5. Advertising is not the enemy of inbound marketing

I told you earlier that Facebook is an important channel for Quick Sprout.

But if you’ve used Facebook for your business, you know that the organic reach percentage, the number of your fans who see your posts, is dismal:

If you only rely on organic traffic on most social channels, you’re missing out on a lot of reach.

But a lot of marketers, especially newer ones, really hate advertising. If you’re a strict inbound marketer, you might not want to tap into outbound marketing options.

But outbound (“interruption” in the picture) marketing and inbound marketing do not need to be exclusive.

You can use both of them at the same time to promote a piece of content. And when you find the right combination, you can see big gains to your ROI.

6. The biggest mistake you can make – not optimizing your funnel

It’s the first word in ROI – return.

If you have no way to make money, no content will have a positive ROI.

It’s absolutely essential that you have some sort of sales funnel in place, ending with some sort of product (or alternative monetization method) for visitors and subscribers to buy.

Most of what I’ve written in this post focuses on your content and promotion, but just as important is what happens after.

Have you optimized your email marketing? Do you have a clear path to where you can generate revenue from visitors?

If you don’t, you need to.

Doubling the conversion rate at any point near the bottom of your sales funnel is an easy way to double the ROI of all your content.

Here’s a good starting point to optimizing your sales funnel.

7. Simple, but crucial – Measure  your ROI

Your ROI for a piece of content is determined based off a variety of factors.

You need to understand how to calculate your ROI, and then measure it for every piece of content you produce.

If you don’t measure it, there’s no way to try out different content creation and promotion techniques and see which ones actually improve your ROI.

Good marketers continually refine their content marketing strategies and find incremental improvement.

Conclusion

Content marketing can be a great tool in your marketing arsenal.

But only if it actually makes your business more than you spend on creating it (aka a positive ROI).

I encourage you to test out all the ways to maximize your ROI that I just showed you. In most cases, you’ll see a significant bump in your ROI.

At this point, I’d like to hear from you. Specifically, what kind of ROI have you achieved with your content in the past? Leave me a comment and let me know.

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Asking prices rocket for first-time buyers

Gary Adams

rising-house-prices.jpg

First-time buyers have been dealt another blow as figures released by property agent Rightmove reveal that the typical asking price of a first-time home has risen by 6.2% over the month to May.

First-time buyers have been dealt another blow as figures released by property agent Rightmove reveal that the typical asking price of a first-time home has risen by 6.2% over the month to May.

read more

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Questions About a Case Study, Rental Properties, Life Insurance Loans, and More!

What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to summaries of five or fewer words. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. Renting out house to students
2. Loan against life insurance
3. Home loan with middling credit
4. Rental property willed to tenant
5. Negotiate now or later?
6. Which debt first?
7. Pay off mortgage first?
8. Living off last month’s income
9. Paying myself first?
10. Opening a Vanguard account
11. Getting interest from taxable account
12. Setting priorities

This week, I’m trying something a little different with the latter half of the reader mailbag.

A reader sent in a very lengthy case study about her and her family, which she graciously agreed to have shared on the site for discussion purposes. Since she also included a lot of questions about her situation, I decided to include the full thing in this week’s reader mailbag. The case study starts with question 6.

I don’t intend for this kind of thing to become a regular part of the reader mailbag, but I do think it is an interesting thing to look at and the case study and resultant questions do lead down some interesting paths.

If you’d like to do the same thing, here are some important guidelines.

First, alter personal details. Don’t give me your exact age or your partner’s exact age – being within a few years is fine. The same is true for your children and their genders. For your career, be vague with it, or as vague as you can be while still having valid answers to your questions. Be approximate with your location, too.

Why do these things? The biggest reason is that, if you’re too specific, other readers might actually figure out who you are, and that can lead to embarrassment.

Second, try to come up with several questions you want answered about your situation. Don’t just send in five pages of information and say “what do you think?”

Finally, understand that I won’t necessarily be able to include your story in the mailbag. I receive many more questions than I can use in a given week, and a case study will take up a significant portion of the mailbag in a given week.

Don’t hesitate to send in a question using the contact link at the bottom of the website or by sending me a message directly on Facebook.

Q1: Renting out house to students

I’m in the process of getting divorced. We own a house that I will be responsible for afterwards. I can’t reasonably stay in the house and maintain any type of lifestyle that I’d like to. The house is worth less than I owe on it, so if I short sale it I’m still going to be responsible for the difference that’s owed. I have a realtor that recommended trying to rent it to college students (I live about a mile and a half from a mid-size university). The university subsidizes housing, even for students living off campus. The house has 5 bedrooms so could fit 5-8 students. If I was able to move in 5 students it would cover the mortgage, insurance, and property taxes; anything more is profit. Do you think this would be a good idea to try to maintain the house without affecting my credit, and make a little money besides? Also, would you recommend hiring a property management company?
– Andrew

I think this is a reasonable approach for your situation, provided of course that you have a place to live elsewhere that’s low cost.

I would strongly recommend using a property management company in this situation. Make sure that the company is reputable and that you can still make solid money after paying their fees. Don’t hesitate to shop around a little bit.

You also need to make sure that you’re properly insured for this. This will require different insurance than your typical homeowner policy, so contact your insurance company well before you do this.

Q2: Loan against life insurance

I live in Canada and am looking to loan against my life insurance policy and was wandering if you could recommend either someone or a reputable company. I would appreciate any help you could offer.
– Annie

I’m assuming from your question that you have some form of whole life or universal life policy. You can’t borrow against a term policy because the benefits in those policies expire.

In general, you have two routes you can take. One is borrowing directly against the balance of your life insurance policy, which can really only be done through the company that issued the policy. The other route is to get a loan elsewhere that uses your policy as collateral, which is something that many banks will consider.

I can’t specifically advise you which one is better. Some, but not all, financial institutions will lend you money using your insurance as collateral, so you have a number of options there. I’d probably suggest starting with a local credit union and then shop around for the best rates.

Q3: Home loan with middling credit

I’m willing to buy a house… my credit score is 620… first time buyer… I have the money for down payment and closing cost, but, I dont want to spend my savings in down payment and move to my new house with no back up for rainy days… so… I was looking at the LINE OF CREDIT that banks offer… and my cuestion is; would a line of credit affect my purchase power some how? And, is that a good idea? I just dont wanna be with no back up like i said… do you have any other idea.. One more thing; if I wait for my credit score to at least be at 640, the mortgage company that i want to get the loan with can help me get first time buyer’s help for the downpayment, but, I dont want to be paying rent any more…any thoughts?
– Noelle

Here’s the thing: you won’t be paying rent any more, but you will be paying a similar amount in interest on a mortgage, and just like rent, that money is gone. You get nothing in return for it.

That’s why it makes little sense to jump into a mortgage until you’re in a situation where the interest is lower than what you’d be paying in rent – and ideally it’s substantially lower than what you’d be paying in rent.

How do you get there? Start building your credit score for one. Try to get your credit score over the 700 line, and you do that by paying all of your bills on time and getting your credit cards down to a reasonable level. You’re correct that you should maintain an emergency fund through all of this, too.

Q4: Rental property willed to tenant

What are the pitfalls for a tenant if a rental property is willed to the tenant?
– Maxine

First of all, your inheritance does depend on what exactly happens with the estate. Even if that property is willed to you, if the person who willed it to you left behind a bunch of debts that can’t be easily resolved with other assets, if this is a rental property and not a primary residence for the owner, it can potentially be sold to cover those debts. Such decisions are in the hand of the executor of the estate of the original owner of the house.

Unless the person is very wealthy, estate taxes shouldn’t be an issue.

When you inherit the property, it will have to be appraised immediately, and that will become the new basis for that property, meaning that if the value of that property goes up, you may owe taxes on the increase in property value when you sell that property.

Those are the pitfalls that immediately come into my mind from this situation.

Q5: Negotiate now or later?

My husband and I have a lot of debt at the moment and our current income is not covering our expenses so at the moment we have late payments and overdue notices everywhere. We are working really hard to bring in more money but I also want to reduce our expenses. I’m wondering if it is even worth me trying to negotiate lower interest rates or consolidate debt on lower interest with all the red in my current history. Am I better off trying to get a few months of good payment history down (once hubby gets a full time job) or can I try now? If I do have to wait when will I be able to do this and not get rejected?
– Diane

In your current situation, you should definitely negotiate. Start calling up the credit card companies and flat-out tell them that in your current financial situation you cannot keep up with the bills, period. Tell them that you must negotiate your interest rate and payments or you are potentially facing bankruptcy, which appears to be the truth.

Now, some lenders – particularly credit card companies – may end up closing out your line of credit at this point, but they often will negotiate and lower your rates.

Don’t sweat those cancelled lines of credit. If you’re going to get out of this, you have to stop relying on them, period. You have to figure out how to get by on less than what you earn. This isn’t optional. It’s not going to ever work if you don’t.

My advice, then, is to start negotiating immediately. Get those payments and rates lowered as soon as you possibly can.

So, let’s get started with this case study!

Q6: Which debt first?

Please feel free to use me as a case study. I would love any and all advice!

Age of wife 42
Age of husband 43
Age of daughters 6 and 5

Jobs:
Her – Teacher
Him – Police officer

CURRENT ASSETS

1) $22,000 in college savings through state sponsored plan scholarships – We put in $400 in a month after tax for our two girls ($200 in each account).

2) $48,000 + $13,000 in two separate 403b retirement accounts for myself – put in $500 a month pretax – going to consolidate them in July 2016.

3) $62,000 balance in state pension for myself. Putting in $500-769 a month pretax. it is a defined benefit plan.

4) $200,000 in husbands county pension. Putting in $2,000 a month pretax. It is a defined benefit plan as well.

5) $11,000 in cash savings – Currently put in $1,000 a month with goal of building to $15,000.

6) $2,600-$5,000 average in checking.

7) Toyota Tacoma truck used as the mommy mobile. Paid in full. 2005 model.

8) 2 bed/1 bath 950 sq foot home in Napa, CA purchased in 2005.

DEBTS

1) $22,000 loan on a very large towable camper (2 bed/2 bath…yeah…that big), which also acts as a guest house in our back yard.

2) $16,000 loan on a diesel truck to pull said fifth wheel (which hubby also uses to commute to work 10 days a month).

3) $300,000 mortgage left to pay. ($500,000 appraised value) $610,000 current zillow value.

GOALS

1) For me to have more flexible time so that she can volunteer at daughters school (cook more homemade meals and do more gardening) Is semi retirement (part time work?) a workable/ goal?. I’m a teacher so I already have some significant time off work. But I want more school days off work so we can leave and travel more on a flexible schedule. If they go on a choir trip to Europe I want to go. I want to see their performances. I want to be that mom that car pools for other working parents.

2) To have some investment income to be able to earn interest and have our money start working for us.

3) To possibly buy a mobile home or small condo for my mom who is somewhat homeless and in her sixties. May share financial burden with one other sibling.

4) To buy our next used car with cash combined with trade in value. I don’t ever want to do another car loan again!

HISTORY

I know the bad: the debt! It has been a six year battle for me trying to convince my husband that our money can work for us instead of us working so hard. When I went part time after the girls were born he had a heart attack and it was a huge fight. I told him that it would work out and showed him the numbers and how in some areas we would have to cut back but he was convinced it wouldn’t work. My goal was 50% but we compromised at 70%. I did that for two years and then went back full time in year three. We had to change some priorities and it was good for me. Something in me clicked. I was working part time and all I kept thinking was how I could save more/spend less to make it less hurtful at the end of each month. I wanted to work smarter/not harder.

We had tons of medical debt related to our children’s birth even with insurance and I was determined to never be sitting in that cesspool of debt again. I didn’t want our daughters growing up like that. I snowballed everything and paid off ALL of our debt: credit cards, medical, car loans, refinanced the house for a lower interest rate and less years for a savings of $80,00 in interest and paid off my school loans. It took us two -three years but we did it! I had already started the savings accounts for the girls, every time someone gave us cash for birthday or Christmas I put it in an account and when it reached $10,000 I rolled it into the state sponsored savings plan and continued adding to it every month.

I also saved money for rainy days (something I’d never done before) and saved up our emergency fund.

Then my hubby started looking for trailers and I knew I was in trouble. While I liked the idea of a trailer and traveling the country I felt we should have saved up the money and bought something with cash. Something he would feel comfortable letting me drive. But my hubby likes big and impressive and we now have a truck and trailer debt. He really has no concept of how much things cost. I tried to slow down the train by asking him to research how much the trailer would cost per month to see if we could afford it but all he could come up with would be the trailer loan amount of $300 per month. I would ask what about insurance? interest? Maintenance? Improvements? Things that came up later that I didn’t even predict was trailer storage until we finally fit it into our back yard. That grand total trailer cost is closer to $800 a month! Ugh!

But I agreed to it. I admit I get sucked into the fun aspects of the trailer too. Now I don’t have regrets that the trailer allowed us to spend three weeks traveling Idaho, Montana and Wyoming last summer… Stayed in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons and we used it for the first three years at least once a month for a quick trip to various locations all along California. I don’t regret one bit of the travel. Could it have been done cheaper? Absolutely.

So, first question: what to attack first? (Truck and trailer debt?) Saving up for a minivan? (carpooling is hard in a truck!)
– Renee

The first thing you should attack is your husband’s spending habits. Given what you’ve described here, it doesn’t really matter what financial moves you make. If you have money to spend, your husband is going to find a way to spend it. That needs to be put in check immediately, or else all of the smart financial moves in the world are going to be for naught.

Now, how do you do this? The thing that worked best in my own marriage was simply talking about goals. What exactly do you each want out of life in the next ten years? Where do you want to be in ten years? With the debts you currently have, debt freedom is a pretty good goal. The challenge for your husband is to see that goal as important compared to having more stuff.

Now, if you’re looking at your financial options, assuming your truck is an extended cab and can in fact carry your family, I would focus on paying off the highest interest debt first. My guess is that it is your truck and trailer debts, but I don’t know for sure as you didn’t include the interest rates. Whichever one of those two debts has the higher interest rate should be the one you tackle first and foremost.

Q7: Pay off mortgage first?

Do I try to pay off mortgage earlier before doing investments in a place like Vanguard? I have a 15 year loan at 3% interest. I figured out that it may be possible to pay off our house in four years…if we snowball all our debt payments and savings payments (not counting retirement and college). Hubby doesn’t believe me.
– Renee

If you have a mortgage at 3%, I wouldn’t be in a rush to pay it off. Normally, it’s a good move to pay off a mortgage as fast as possible, but that is an exceptionally low interest rate. I’d probably stick with paying it off slowly at this point.

However, this is all predisposed on the idea that you’re taking the money that would have gone toward extra payments and are doing something smart with it. Are you investing toward big future goals with that extra payment money? Are you paying off your trailer and truck debt? Those are smarter things. Buying a bunch of stuff you don’t really need isn’t a smarter thing – your money is better off going toward your mortgage if that’s your other option.

In other words, if you’re saving toward sensible goals and/or getting rid of or preventing other debts, I would do those things first before putting more money toward that low interest mortgage.

Q8: Living off last month’s income

I heard living off last months income is helpful for budgeting so I’ve been trying to save enough to have for that. Does that really work?
– Renee

This is actually a really smart way to handle things. The way it works is that, at the end of the month/start of the next month, you essentially have a month’s worth of income (that which came in during the previous month) to live off of. You use that money to pay bills, to save, and so on during the following month.

Also, during that following month, more income will come in, which you’ll set aside for the moment. At the end of the month, you just switch to using the income that came in during the month and balance out your budget. It’s pretty easy.

The big advantage of this system is that you can actually budget and plan at the start of the month and make all of your savings choices and so on immediately. You don’t have to wait until a check comes in to do certain things. Also, there’s a bit of an “emergency fund” factor, too, as the extra money serves as an emergency fund.

Q9: Paying myself first?

I want to semiretire. I want to earn my other income with interest from my investments. This is my quandary. I have paid off all debt twice now and it lasts one year. Hubby decides he wants something and he goes and gets it and we are back in loan land. So I was thinking that I should pay myself into a Vanguard fund first before paying off the debt? I know it sounds crazy but then I could prove to him that it can be done.
– Renee

This is not crazy in the least. It’s a good idea to do your savings for big goals right off the bat in a given month. Before you do anything else, you take the money you want to save for big goals – like semi-retirement – and put it where you want to put it. Then, you live off of what’s left.

It goes really well with the “living off last month’s income” plan that you described in the previous question. At the start of the month, you just take some of the money you start with and put it aside immediately for your goals (semi-retirement, in other words).

Paying yourself first, in that you’re saving for big goals before living your everyday life, is a surefire way to make sure you keep making progress toward those goals.

Q10: Opening a Vanguard account

How much money do I need to start a Vanguard account? Do you open it directly with Vanguard?
– Renee

You don’t need any certain minimum to open up a Vanguard account. However, having said that, almost all of Vanguard’s index funds and other investment options have a $3,000 minimum to start investing. A few have less, but unless you’re going to stick with those for the long term, it’s not really worth it to put money in there for several months just to move to the investment you actually wanted when you hit the $3,000 mark.

My suggestion is to save in an ordinary savings account until you hit $3,000, then buy into a specific Vanguard fund that matches your needs. I like the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index for longer-term investments (things longer than a few years down the road).

You should make that savings plan automatic so you don’t have to think about it. Then, when you hit that $3,000 mark, turn off the automatic savings at the bank and turn on that same amount at Vanguard so money goes automatically into your new investment.

Q11: Getting interest from taxable account

Logistically how do you get the interest to you? All my 401ks reinvest.
– Renee

When you sign up for a Vanguard fund, they give you options as to what to do with your interest and dividends.

If you want, you can reinvest it. It’ll just roll right into the investment and you don’t receive a penny. You do have to pay taxes on that income, but it will be a percentage of a small percentage of the balance. For example, if you have $100,000 in there, your total dividends on a Total Stock Market index fund would be about $2,000, so you’d owe somewhere around $300 or $400 in federal income taxes. Not a huge deal.

You can also tell Vanguard to just send you a check whenever dividends are paid. Again, with the $100,000 example, that means you’d get about $500 a quarter from them, but you’d owe about $80 or so of that amount in taxes.

Q12: Setting priorities

I’m all over the map trying to squirrel away money and save so we can reach our goals before we spend it!! I can’t seem to settle on which priority to start first.
– Renee

This comes back to the very first answer I gave you: it’s all about goal setting. The thing you need to do more than anything else is to sit down with your husband and talk about your goals. Where do you want to be in the future?

This is not about dollars and cents. The money is just there to support what you guys want to be doing.

I will say this, though: when you choose to do one thing with your money, you close the door on other things. If you buy big expensive toys, then you might be closing the door on semi-retirement, for example.

It sounds to me like your number one challenge is that you and your husband have different goals and ideas about the coming years. If you can resolve those differences, things will start falling into place.

Got any questions? The best way to ask is to follow me on Facebook and ask questions directly there. I’ll attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive many, many questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours.

The post Questions About a Case Study, Rental Properties, Life Insurance Loans, and More! appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Want to Make $150? This Only Takes 20 Minutes

Need some help starting an emergency fund?

I’ve got a really simple way to make it happen: Open a separate bank account, put a free $150 in it and don’t touch the money. Ever.

Check your budget to see what you can spare to save, then designate part of your paycheck to automatically go into the account. And then set it, forget it and don’t touch that account unless catastrophe strikes.  

With that money directed into a special account where you don’t see it, it’s easy to avoid the temptation to spend it on other things.

How to Get $150 When You Open a New Checking Account With Santander

If you’re a new customer, Santander Bank will give you $150 for opening a new checking account. Use this account to hold your savings, and you can kickstart your emergency fund with free cash!

The offer works for Basic, Classic and Premium checking accounts, which offer a variety of options to fit your needs.

Here’s how the deal works:

1. Open an eligible new Santander checking account with a minimum deposit of $25 (if you prefer, they’ll send you a coupon code to open your account in person at a local branch.

Use the promotional link below to grab the bonus:

2. Have direct deposits totaling $500 or more within the first 90 days.

3. Keep your account open for at least 90 days.

4. Once you meet these conditions, your $150 will be paid within 30 days.

Start Your Emergency Fund Now

Open your new checking account with $25 today. Direct deposit at least $500 into it over the next 90 days, then keep adding a small amount from each paycheck — even if it’s just $10 or $20 — until you have enough to cover an unexpected car repair or medical bill.

Then, just as you’re watching your emergency fund grow, Santander will give you a $150 bonus within the month to boost it even further.

This deal is good until June 30. 

Your Turn: Do you use a separate bank account to avoid temptation and save money? Do you have an emergency fund? Why or why not?

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. We would have shared them with you anyway, but a true “penny hoarder” would be a fool not to take the company’s money.

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Should New College Grads Pay Down Student Loans, or Start Investing?

Read any personal finance site and you’re going to find the same piece of advice over and over again: Start saving and investing as early and often as possible. 

It’s good advice. Simply saving money is the single best investment you’ll ever make, and the sooner you get started the better.

But it’s not always easy advice to follow, especially if you’re a recent college grad with student loans and an entry-level income.

I’ve talked to a lot of people in that exact situation who are understandably stressed out. They want to be saving and investing, but that student loan obligation stands in the way and they feel like they’re falling behind.

So, what do you do? How do you balance the need to invest with the need to pay down your student loans? How should you prioritize these two big goals?

Let’s walk through it step-by-step together.

Step 1: Know Your Investment Options

Before you can make any kind of decision, you have to know what your options are. Let’s start on the investment side of things.

The first place to look is your employer. Does your company offer a retirement plan? Is there an employer match on your contributions? Are there good, low-cost investment options? You can ask your HR rep for answers to these questions, and you can also request a summary plan description to dig into the details.

No matter what your employer offers, you likely have access to some other tax-advantaged investment accounts as well:

• IRAs and Roth IRAs: Individual retirement accounts are like a 401(k), except that you open them yourself.
• Health Savings Account: Possibly the best retirement account available, if you qualify for one.
• Self-Employed Accounts: If you earn any money on the side, you may be able to open your own retirement account for extra contributions.

Step 2: Organize Your Student Loans

There are three critical pieces of information you should know about each of your student loans:

1. Your outstanding balance (how much you owe)
2. Your minimum monthly payment
3. Your interest rate

For federal student loans, you can get all of this information through the National Student Loan Data System. This will also give you information about the type of student loans you have, which will be important later as you look into repayment and consolidation options.

For private student loans, you can get this information by pulling a free copy of your credit report at annualcreditreport.com.

Step 3: Pay the Minimum on All Student Loans

No matter what, pay at least the minimum on all your student loans. This keeps your credit history in good shape, keeps you out of default, and maintains your eligibility for potential loan forgiveness.

Automate your minimum payments so that it happens every month without you even thinking about it.

Quick note: This would be a good time to look into your eligibility for income-driven repayment. Even if you can afford to pay more each month, enrolling in one of these repayment plans can give you added flexibility that may be valuable down the road.

Step 4: Maximize Your Employer Match

If your employer offers a match for contributions to your company retirement plan, you’ll want to contribute enough to get that full match.

Let’s say your employer matches 50% of your contribution up to 6% of your salary (pretty typical). That means that if you contribute 6% of each paycheck to your 401(k), your employer will contribute another 3%.

That’s a 50% immediate and guaranteed return on your investment every time you make a contribution. You won’t find that kind of return anywhere else, so it’s something you should take advantage of while you can.

Quick note: Your employer match may be subject to something called vesting, in which case that return wouldn’t be 100% guaranteed unless you meet certain requirements — for example, working at the company for at least five years. You can find out whether your company does this by asking your HR rep or reading the plan’s summary plan description.

Step 5: Prioritize High-Interest Debt

The first four steps here are pretty cut-and-dry. But this is where it starts to get a little less certain.

There isn’t a clear cut right path from this point forward, so the best you can do is understand the trade-offs between your various options and make the best decision for your specific goals and needs.

A good place to start is by targeting any high-interest student loans first. There’s no definitive cut-off point that defines “high interest,” but 7% is a good benchmark.

Here’s the reasoning:

• Over the long term, the stock market has produced an average return of about 9.5%. It’s been slightly lower recently though, and many experts expect long-term returns to be in the 7%-8% range going forward.
• Though the stock market has always gone up over the long term, it’s still not guaranteed and there will be many bumps along the way.
• Any extra payment toward debt with a 7% interest rate represents a guaranteed 7% return on investment.
• That guarantee, and the fact that it’s comparable to what you might expect from the stock market anyway, makes it hard to pass up.

One other option you have for dealing with high-interest loans is refinancing, but you need to be careful. Refinancing a private loan for a lower interest rate can make a lot of sense, but refinancing a federal loan means giving up a number of valuable protections. Just make sure you understand all the trade-offs before signing on the dotted line.

• Related: Student Loan Consolidation Guide

Step 6: Mix and Match

From this point on, instead of thinking about this decision as either/or, why not try both/and?

Take any extra money you have and put 50% toward your investments and 50% towards your student loans. That way you’re making steady progress toward being debt free AND taking advantage of the stock market.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be 50/50. It can be any proportion you want, and I would encourage you to think about the emotional impact of your decision in addition to the math. If one route would lead to more happiness or less stress in your life, don’t be afraid to tilt things in that direction.

Any Progress Is Good Progress

It’s stressful to have to pay down your student loans when you feel like you should be saving and investing. I know a lot of people who feel like their debt is making them fall further and further behind.

The key thing to remember is that investing and paying down debt are two sides of the same coin. Both efforts get you closer to financial independence, so any progress you’re making on either front is good progress.

Matt Becker is a fee-only financial planner and the founder of Mom and Dad Money, where he helps new parents take control of their money so they can take care of their families. His free book, The New Family Financial Road Map, guides parents through the all most important financial decisions that come with starting a family.

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I Cleaned My Whole House with Cheap Denture Cleanser — and It Worked

I just cleaned my whole house with Polident, and I’m never going back.

I heard I could use the effervescent denture cleanser to clean everything from coffee pots to toilets, and I wanted to put it to the test.

After all, replacing four or five different cleaners in my house with one $6 box of denture cleaning tablets could save a lot of money!

But how well could it work?

Turns out, it kind of blew my mind.

How to Save Money with Denture Cleanser

No one in my house uses dentures, a retainer or any other appliance one would typically clean with denture cleanser.

I bought it today just for household cleaning.

I picked up the Well at Walgreen’s store-brand denture cleanser comparable to Polident. An 84-tablet box of antibacterial, three-minute denture cleanser costs $5.49 in the store.

It worked on everything!

Here’s how I used denture cleanser around the house, and how much money I’d spend otherwise.

1. Toilet Bowl Cleaner

32-ounce Seventh Generation Toilet Bowl Cleaner: $2.99

Clean your toilet bowl by dropping a few tabs in the water. Some sites suggest you wait about 10-15 minutes for the tablets to act, then scrub as normal.

I used three fast-acting tabs, so I only waited about three minutes before scrubbing — and it was clean as a whistle!

At an estimated 10 uses per 32-ounce bottle, toilet bowl cleaner costs 30 cents per use. Three tablets of denture cleanser do the same job for 21 cents.

2. Sink Cleaner

26-ounce Seventh Generation All Purpose Cleaner: $2.99

After I saw how well denture cleanser cleaned the toilet, I was curious to see how far it could go. Would it have the same effect on the rest of the bathroom?

I filled the sink about halfway with warm water and dropped in two tabs. I let them effervesce for a few minutes, then wiped it clean.

It looked just as good as with the Lysol I typically use to clean the bathroom.

An estimated 26 uses per bottle of all-purpose cleaner means each time I clean the sink costs 12 cents. One tablet of denture cleanser does it for 7 cents.

3. Bathtub Cleaner

Next, I decided to tackle the bathtub — my least-favorite chore of all time.  I avoid this one like the plague that’s probably growing in the corners of my tub by now.

I know denture cleanser is meant to work while dentures and appliances are immersed and soaking in the cleansing bubbles.

Filling the toilet and sink had the same effect on their porcelain surfaces.

But I wasn’t about to fill my bathtub and drop in dozens of tablets. Instead, I decided to use just three tablets in a small bucket of warm water.

I didn’t expect it to work.

But. It. Worked.

I let the tablets effervesce for a minute or two, then slowly poured the water over the dirty bottom of my bathtub, with the drain plugged. I spread the water around lightly with a brush and let it sit for a few more minutes.

Then I scrubbed.

Nothing will make me enjoy cleaning a bathtub. But denture cleanser, at least, made it easier than I was expecting. I couldn’t believe it.

And instead of inhaling the smell of bleach and toxic chemicals the whole time, I was awash in the refreshing scent of mint.

It’s for your (fake) teeth, remember?

It also means denture cleanser ingredients are safe enough to come into contact with your mouth (though you should never ingest it and should be aware of a potential allergic reaction).

Conservatively, I’d estimate I use five times the all-purpose cleaner on the tub that I use on the sink, so that’s 60 cents per cleaning.

Three tablets of denture cleanser got my tub minty clean for just 21 cents.

4. Coffee Stain Remover

I used the denture cleanser on both my glass coffee pot and two ceramic coffee mugs. All were marked with stubborn coffee or tea stains.

It worked like a charm on the mugs. I filled each with warm water and dropped in one tab. I wiped them clean with a sponge after three minutes — good as new.

The denture cleanser was less effective on the glass carafe. Again, I filled it with warm water and used one tablet. It was certainly cleaner after three minutes, just not crystal clear.

I’ll probably continue to use vinegar on my coffee pot. It’s more effective, even though its scent is far from minty fresh.

For most other things — pots, pans, earbuds and other hard-to-clean items around the house — I’m converted to denture cleanser.

Your Turn: Have you used denture cleanser to for unusual household cleaning?

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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Cold-callers forced out from the shadows

Tom Wilson

cold-calling-madness.jpg

Telemarketers, payment protection insurance (PPI) claims handling companies, and other cold callers are no longer allowed to disguise or hide their phone numbers under new rules brought in today.

Telemarketers, payment protection insurance (PPI) claims handling companies, and other cold callers are no longer allowed to disguise or hide their phone numbers under new rules brought in today.

Companies must now display their numbers when calling consumers in the UK, even if they are based overseas.

read more

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The Lonely, Unusual Way This Guy Paid Off $25K in Student Loans in 9 Months

Robert Langellier just needed to pay off his student loans.

It was May 2014, and armed with a journalism degree from the University of Missouri, he drew up a plan.

For the next year he’d forget his aspirations to be a literary journalist.

Instead, he’d tuck himself away in his parents’ Springfield, Illinois, home and piece together an income with part-time odd jobs. He figured within a year he could pay off the nearly $25,000 he collectively owed to the government and his parents.

One of his first stabs at employment was as a waiter at a shiny new restaurant in town. On Langellier’s second day, he battled the (insert expletive here) point-of-sale machine.

Within an hour of his second shift, an owner pulled him aside and fired him. That was that.

Finding the Right Gig

Langellier went back to square one: Craigslist.

He’d been using the online classified site to look for odd jobs. In the midst of the freelance writing gigs and a glut of restaurant positions, he noticed an abundance of long-haul trucking jobs.

The more he thought about it, the more attractive hitting the road sounded.

Always up for an adventure, Langellier decided to take out one last $3,500 loan to pay for trucking school.

The Perks of Being a Truck Driver

Long-haul trucking is appealing on many levels when you break down the statistics (from the Bureau of Labor) and the logistics:

• Average median pay in 2014 was $19 an hour, nearly $40,000 per year.

• No experience is necessary, but a high school diploma is recommended and a commercial driver’s license (CDL) is required.

• Job training is short term and the industry is currently short 48,000 drivers.

• No rent

• No insurance payments

• No car payments

It’s also a free form of travel.

Langellier stopped in Denver; Kansas City, Missouri; Minneapolis; Oklahoma City; Memphis, Tennessee; St. Louis; and Wichita, Kansas to see old friends. He even stopped by his home in Springfield.

Once every three weeks, drivers are allowed a few days off. He used his to hike Yellowstone National Park, soak in New Mexico springs, explore New York City and work on an organic farm in Wisconsin.

Saving Money While Trucking

Langellier hit the road in October 2014.

Though there are some complicated pay calculations, Langellier basically earned 28-45 cents per mile. He drove an average of 8.5 hours a day — about 500 miles — and made a minimum of about $4,000 a month.

By April 2015, he’d paid off his last federal loan. By mid-July, he’d paid his parents back. But he continued to drive with the intention of stockpiling funds.

On his one-year trucking anniversary, he decided he’d had enough and turned in his keys with about $18,000 in the bank.

Next, he capitalized on his adventure by writing about it in Esquire and gaining a freelance gig.

The Pitfalls of Trucking

Before jumping into the driver’s seat, Langellier’s biggest piece of advice is to consider the downfalls of trucking.

Most notably, Langellier got pulled into these weird, inwardly reflective journeys — alone.

He spent most of his time trying not to run over cars, dodging debris in the road, talking to himself, counting the money he was making — and money he was still owed — and getting sidetracked with thoughts about the number of subways in the nation.

Although Langellier often opted to drive during the day, he was initially paired with a training partner who enjoyed nighttime drives. That’s when Langellier drifted off into a post-sleep, incoherent world — and into a field on the side of the road.

Not only was it mentally taxing, but he physically perched in a seat all day as he maneuvered a truck-full of anything from cat litter for PetSmart to mattresses for IKEA.

Langellier was young and more immune to these hardships, but truckers are known to have high obesity rates and have at least one chronic health risk, such as smoking or hypertension.

This could partly be due to the food available on the road. Piecing together meals at gas stations — think Zebra Cakes, Cheetos, hot dogs — wasn’t ideal.

Injuries aren’t uncommon either. Langellier remembers the time a 1,000-pound pallet of toilet paper fell on him.

Considering these factors, the 87% industry turnover rate makes sense.

Would You Try Trucking?

The gig certainly takes the right personality, Langellier says.

If the job sounds appealing, he suggests simply Googling “trucking school,” plus the city you live in. Schools typically work to place you with a company upon graduation (or, of course, you can just hit up Craigslist).

And if you like the idea of driving to pay off your student loans but aren’t too sure about all of those 18 wheels, consider these other driving jobs.

Your Turn: Have you ever driven a commercial truck? Did it help you save money or meet a financial goal?

Carson Kohler recently earned her master’s degree in journalism. Cut off from her parents, she is studying the art of The Penny Hoarder.

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Small Biz Salute Celebrates Small Businesses

Sponsored by The UPS Store It’s no secret that running a small business is challenging. Small business owners are involved in every part of their business, and they give 110% in everything they do. To celebrate these hardworking small business owners, The UPS Store is launching its annual Small Biz Salute to bring together small […]

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