Water leak forces shutdown of Susquehanna reactor Unit 1

Operators on Monday disconnected the Unit 1 reactor at Talen Energy Corp.'s Susquehanna nuclear power plant from the regional power grid to address a water leak.The shutdown was prompted by a leakage from the seal on a reactor recirculation pump, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said there is no danger to plant workers or the public.Both Sheehan and Talen said the leakage, while radioactive, has been captured [...]

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Local adviser's serial firings show 'big problem' at brokerages

SCOTRUN (AP) — He was fired from one company, then another, then another. And still Anthony Diaz continued handling other people's money.The smooth-talking securities salesman affiliated with 11 different investment firms in 15 years, getting booted from five of them and resigning from another amid customer complaints and rules infractions. Yet his checkered employment history never seemed to slow him down on his way to earning millions by pushing high-fee, high-risk [...]

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Water leak forces shutdown of Susquehanna reactor Unit 1 (of 2)

Operators on Monday disconnected the Unit 1 reactor at Talen Energy Corp.'s Susquehanna nuclear power plant from the regional power grid to address a water leak.The shutdown was prompted by a leakage from the seal on a reactor recirculation pump, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said there is no danger to plant workers or the public.Both Sheehan and Talen said the leakage, while radioactive, has been captured inside the [...]

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Leak forces shutdown of Susquehanna reactor

Operators on Monday disconnected the Unit 1 reactor at Talen Energy Corp.'s Susquehanna nuclear power plant from the regional power grid to address a water leak.The shutdown was prompted by a leakage from the seal on a reactor recirculation pump, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said there is no danger to plant workers or the public.Both Sheehan and Talen said the leakage, while radioactive, has been captured inside the [...]

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Code Guac: Here’s How Nurses Can Get BOGO Burritos at Chipotle

We love our nurses — they take such good care of us.

And we love our Chipotle, because… well, sort of the same reason. They just can’t stop giving away free food.

So it’s fitting to put the two together — and we don’t mean in the E.R. after the sort-of recent, but resolved, E. coli scare.

Nurses get free food at Chipotle this week!

Free Chipotle for Nurses

Bring your nurse I.D. to any U.S. or Canadian Chipotle location after 3 p.m. on Wednesday, June 8 for a buy one, get one free burrito, bowl, salad or tacos.

All types of nurses are eligible for this promotion. Get a free burrito if you have any of these acronyms (or local equivalents) behind your name: RN, NP, CRNA, CNS, CNM, LVN or CNA.

Valid I.D. includes your nursing license or hospital/medical office nurse I.D.

Thanks for the work you do, and enjoy!

Your Turn: How do you take your Chipotle — burrito, bowl, salad or tacos?

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 Code Guac: Here’s How Nurses Can Get BOGO Burritos at Chipotle appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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5 Uncomfortable Money Questions You Need to Ask Your Aging Parents

First things first — we know this post is kind of a downer.

And we know the next time you head to your parents’ house for dinner — let’s be real, to do your laundry without digging into your stash of quarters — end-of-life planning is probably the last conversation you’re going to want to have.

But the ugly fact of life is, children (hopefully) outlive their parents — and after mom and dad are gone, you might have a monetary mess on your hands.

Maybe your parents don’t have your Penny Hoarding habits, and you’re left doing damage control.

Even if your parents’ finances are pristine, there’s likely to be a lot of red tape involved.

There’s more to it than knowing where your folks keep their financial documents… if they’re organized enough to have a dedicated spot in the first place.

If you talk to your parents about their finances and get the information you need now, you’ll thank yourself later during the emotionally wrought and confusing time of mourning.

And the sooner, the better. These issues can become prescient even while your parents are still alive if, heaven forbid, illness or senility makes them unable to continue to manage their own finances.

It’s gonna be awful, no matter how you slice it — but having what you need organized ahead of time will offer some comfort and control.

How to Have an Awkward Conversation

So maybe you’re thinking, OK, I understand why I should have this conversation… but how the heck do I broach this subject?

Depending on your relationship with your parents, this may be one of the most delicate conversations you’ve had since the mortifying “birds and the bees” talk back in seventh grade.

It’s not like you can just casually change topics from the football game to post-funeral finances.

But we’ve got a few tips to make it go as smoothly as possible.

Plan for a couple of interruption-free hours. If you have small children, you’ll probably want to leave them with a sitter.

Diffuse tension by bringing up the discussion during a relatively quiet shared activity, like cooking or maybe a board game.

Consider letting your parent know you plan on bringing it up ahead of time. Not only will you avoid springing an unpleasant reminder of your parents’ mortality on them out of the blue — you’ll give them time to organize the information you need.

Don’t be judgmental. This is a rough conversation for mom and dad — the last thing you need to do is shame them about their financial habits, which are an incredibly private matter.

Finally, be open, be honest and be yourself. They’re your parents, after all. They probably won’t bite.

The Financial Questions You Need to Ask

Since your hands are now comfortably occupied chopping carrots or counting Monopoly money, you’re ready to take the plunge and get talking.

A quick disclaimer: We aren’t legal experts here at The Penny Hoarder, and every situation is different.

While this post should serve as a solid starting point, you may need even more information from your parents, especially if there’s a special circumstance.

For instance, do your parents own a small business? If so, you might need to be prepared to take it over — and fulfill payroll — at a moment’s notice, unless your parents have made other plans.

When in doubt, seek legal counsel to determine the most accurate details in your specific case.

Alright, ready? Here’s the information you need to get from your folks.

1. What’s the Plan?

Get this one out of the way first: Have your parents even thought about any of this stuff yet?

Do they have a will? Is it up to date? Have they done any estate planning or organized a trust?

Many people don’t want to think hard about their last wishes — after all, it necessitates thinking hard about the eventuality of your own death.

But your first priority should be ensuring your parents know what they want — and documenting it.

Then, you need to find out whether or not you’ll be the person in charge of carrying out those wishes. Legally, this involves your parents granting you power of attorney and/or making you the executor of the will.

Power of attorney grants you the right to handle your parents’ affairs while they’re still living. Will executors are only able to fulfill the terms of the will after a person’s death.

Get this part squared away first — the rest doesn’t matter much if you have no power to actually do anything with the information.

Plus, it’s a great time to open a dialogue about what your parents want in general — a conversation that should probably extend beyond finances into other end-of-life planning.

2. Where’s All the Money?

The next step is assessing the lay of the land.

Make sure you know where all your parents’ funds are — in checking and savings accounts,  wrapped up in stocks and bonds, or maybe just under the mattress.

If you can, gather account and routing numbers, as well as online usernames and passwords. Don’t forget about the safety deposit box!

Don’t think you’re going to be able to whip out your parents’ ATM card and make a withdrawal — even after death, using someone else’s checking account is fraud.

When the time comes, you’ll need to bring the death certificate to the bank, even if only to close the account.

But knowing where everything is will help you feel organized and in control during the legal proceedings to settle your parent’s estate and distribute their assets. It’ll also help you manage their funds for them while they’re still alive, should they begin to lose their mental faculties.

3. Who Else is Involved?

Do your parents have an attorney or accountant helping them manage their funds?

If so, you should have their name and phone number in case you need their help during estate-related legal proceedings. Maybe even ask mom and dad for an introduction during their next appointment, too.

4. What’s Paid Off — and What’s Not?

Your parents may have non-capital assets.

Do they own their house free and clear? What about the car?

Ask your parents for the location of any deeds and titles they may have in hand, and learn what debts they still owe.

Although you can’t be called upon to pay off their credit debt, your parents’ mortgage or lease might be passed on to you if you’re the beneficiary.

5. What are You Paying For?

Think of all the recurring charges in your own life.

You’re probably going to need to track down and cancel at least that many charges after your parents pass away — if not more.

While electricity and cable might be obvious, it’s easy to forget about the small expenses, like magazine subscriptions, Netflix or a Costco membership.

Get a complete list of everything now so you don’t discover six months’ worth of charges you weren’t aware of later on for a service no one’s using.

Get Organized

Now that you’ve done the heavy lifting and had the hard talk, make sure you have everything organized for when the time comes.

Create — or ask your parents to create — a master list with all of the information you gathered. This should include account names and numbers, usernames and passwords, as well as contact information for legal and financial advisors.

Then, make sure all the documentation is together in an easily identifiable location, digitally and/or physically.

Include:

• The master list and account documentation

• Tax files (It can be helpful to see past years’ returns if the estate is complicated.)

• Insurance policy information — including life, health, automobile, homeowner’s/renter’s and medical insurance/Medicare

• Deeds and titles

• Outstanding loan documentation

Not only will you be well-prepared for a bad day down the road, you’ll know how to organize your own finances to make it easier on your children.

Phew! Glad that’s over with.

Now you can get back to enjoying quality time with your family — with some additional peace of mind.

Your Turn: Have you had “the talk” with your parents yet?

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 5 Uncomfortable Money Questions You Need to Ask Your Aging Parents appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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The Best — and Worst — Places to Live if You Want to Start a New Career

Whether you’ve just graduated (congratulations!) or are in search of a change, starting a new career is difficult.

You have to figure out how to learn new skills, connect with the right contacts and make a name for yourself… and that’s just for starters.

You’re more than likely up-ending your living situation in the process — even if you don’t make a big move, you might shift social circles, your daily schedule and exactly how you spend the bulk of your time and energy.

In many ways, transitioning your career means transitioning your life.

So if you add moving on top of all of that, you might as well make the most educated guess you can. As tempting as it is to spin a globe and throw a dart, some places really are better than others.

(And those darts have a tendency to land in the middle of the ocean, where there aren’t very many job openings.)

Starting a New Job? Changing Careers? Here’s Where to Live

To help class of 2016 grads and other young professionals looking to get their foot in a new door, WalletHub recently conducted a study of the 150 largest U.S. cities, using 17 criteria to rank them from best to worst place to launch a new career.

Weighted metrics included the essentials you’d expect, like the number of available entry-level positions and the affordability of housing.

But the study also factors in more esoteric, quality-of-life-based variables, like percentage of the population between ages 25-34 and the strength of social ties between friends and family.

After all, you can have a baller job and an affordable place to live, but it all means nothing if you’re not happy where you are.

Since its criteria are so diverse and inclusive, this isn’t another study directing new grads to flock to New York and San Francisco (as if anybody could afford to). In fact, those cities don’t even show up in the top 25.

Here are WalletHub’s top and bottom five cities for starting a new life:

Best Cities to Start a Career

(With #1 as the best)

1. Salt Lake City, Utah
2. Denver, Colorado
3. Austin, Texas
4. Sioux Falls, South Dakota
5. Minneapolis, Minnesota

Worst Cities to Start a Career

(With #1 as the worst)

1. Detroit, Michigan
2. Fresno, California
3. Moreno Valley, California
4. Akron, Ohio
5. Hialeah, Florida

Be sure to check out the full study here — it also includes some other fun, specific metrics.

For instance, the city with the highest job growth adjusted for population growth is Oxnard, California, while the city with the lowest is Glendale, Arizona.

However, nearby Gilbert, Arizona boasts the most affordable housing. The least affordable market is unsurprisingly Oakland, California.

Even if you’re stuck in one of the “worst” cities, take heart: There’s always a silver lining.

For instance, you can actually get paid just to live in certain parts of Detroit. And if you take on the right kind of freelancing business and become location independent, where you are becomes irrelevant.

But having grown up in a city neighboring Hialeah, I can vouch: You’ll probably be happier elsewhere, especially if you’re not into cockroaches or hurricanes.

Your Turn: Where does your city fall on this list? Would you move to any of these places to launch your new career?

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 The Best — and Worst — Places to Live if You Want to Start a New Career appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Be a Better Teacher and Writer: 6 Teaching Techniques You Should Know

Marketing is a chance for education.

Sometimes, marketing takes the form of entertainment, but often, you get to assume the role of a teacher.

This is really powerful. You can become one of the few educational influences in most people’s lives after they leave school.

Beyond helping your business grow, inbound marketing allows you to make a real impact.

Partly, that’s why I’m still so passionate about it even after all these years.

Once you start thinking of yourself as an educator, you can become an even better marketer by learning from traditional teachers.

I’m going to show you 6 different teaching techniques you can use to make your marketing content even more useful to your readers. 

1. Use the “desire” method

You might already be using this method even if it’s not intentional.

The “desire” method is all about getting students’ attention.

Think of an average class, even at the university or college level. Most students don’t want to be there.

They feel like they’re learning something that probably won’t be very useful and just want to know what’s on the exam so that they can pass it.

One of the main reasons for this is because lectures are set up to teach about a topic, not to satisfy a desire.

For example, in a computer science course, you might have a lecture about sorting algorithms or asymptotic complexity.

Even if you have an interest in computer science, those titles alone won’t get you excited about learning.

What happens in the first few minutes of those lectures?

More or less the same thing every time. It’s usually a slide about “what you will learn,” which again just lists the specific things included in that topic.

The solution is to build desire: What if you started off with the benefits of learning the topic?

Back to our example about asymptotic complexity, which basically just classifies how fast an algorithm can run (how complex it is).

What if, as a teacher, instead of saying that your students will hear a lecture on “asymptotic complexity,” you say that they will learn how to “find inefficiencies in code and speed up their applications.”

That’s already more attractive and speaks to what students really want to learn.

The intro slides could focus on how coders at Google use the concept of asymptotic complexity in their daily work. Or how a long-time coding problem was solved because someone found a way to reduce the complexity of the coding solution.

Using the desire method in your content: This concept is all about focusing on benefits to readers and customers. More so, it’s about conveying those benefits in the headline and at the beginning of any content.

While many marketers don’t know why they do it, this is the reason why having a benefit-driven headline is so important. If you’re teaching something that will help your reader accomplish something, make it clear!

In addition, your introduction is your chance to show your reader what could be possible if they learned what you are about to teach. Cite statistics, case studies, personal experiences, and anything else that shows how great the results can be.

2. Games are more fun than work

Ask anyone whether they’d rather read a textbook or played a video game, and you’ll get the same answer 99% of the time.

Educators have realized that students learn better if they are fully engrossed in a lesson, which happens if they are having fun.

That’s where the concept of “gamification” came from.

No, you don’t have to create a video game for your content, but there are ways to make your content more game-like and fun for readers.

Let’s look at a few ways you could do this.

Example #1 – Quizzes can be fun: A quiz can be either fun or boring, depending on the topic.

Online quizzes draw engagement and grow in popularity when done right—that’s a fact. A study of 100 million articles in 2013-2014 found that 80% of the most popular pieces of content were quizzes.

For example, the top one was: “What Career Should You Actually Have?”:

By framing it around fun careers (Oprah on the intro image), the creators drew people to the quiz.

When you create a piece of content, consider designing a quiz to go with it.

There are many free tools, such as Qzzr, that you can use to create a quiz. You just copy and paste the HTML code that it gives you into your content:

If you use WordPress, you could try the SlickQuiz plugin, which allows you to create quizzes from inside your admin panel:

Another benefit of using quizzes is that most people who take them will consider sharing their results with friends, bringing you additional traffic.

Most quiz tools include social sharing buttons on the results screen to encourage sharing.

Example #2 – The M&M’s pretzel scavenger hunt: This was a fun but simple game that M&M’s made in 2013.

The whole came consisted of one simple picture in a Facebook post.

The objective was to find the hidden pretzel man in the image. Even without getting any prize, Facebook users loved the simple game and shared it with their friends.

This game resulted in 25,000 new likes on the product’s Facebook page plus over 10,000 comments and 6,000 shares.

Example #3 – How Heineken successfully used an Instagram game: During one of the biggest events in tennis, the 2013 US Open, Heineken created an Instagram account.

A new account was loaded with 225 pictures of people in tennis audiences.

To win the game, you had to follow clues in the pictures that led you to the final picture.

It was essentially a complicated scavenger hunt.

This game lasted only 3 days, but Heineken increased its follower count by 20%.

3. Start with pain

This tactic goes well with the desire method (from #1 above).

People are motivated in two main ways:

• To get benefits
• To avoid pain

It’s natural to want to get good things and avoid bad ones.

Focusing on inducing desire was about the benefits. It’s achieved through showing what learning about your topic will do for your reader.

Here, though, you want to drill home what will happen if they don’t learn from your content.

For example, if you write a guide to correct posture, you could point out that if the readers don’t learn from your guide, they may develop poor posture, accompanied by back and neck pain and chronic discomfort.

Desire and pain can be used together, or they can be used separately.

Here are a few headlines that focus on benefits:

• 4 Ways to Boost the Conversion Rates of Your Link Building
• 5 Ways to Make Your Content Mobile-Friendly for Increased Traffic and Engagement

Here are a few that focus on pain:

• 7 Warning Signs Your Free WordPress Theme Is Sabotaging Your Blog
• Don’t Get Left Behind: The 8 Most Effective Link Building Tactics For 2015

The same goes with your introduction. Pain, especially if the reader is already aware of it, is a great way to get their full attention.

If you illustrate the pain well, readers will pay close attention to your work, which will result in better learning.

4. Chunking works wonders

There’s more to teaching than just getting the attention of your students.

You also want to teach your material in a way that maximizes how well a student learns as well as remembers what you taught.

That’s where chunking comes in:

Chunking involves breaking up a complex topic into smaller “chunks.” Studies have shown that this improves short-term memory retention.

The classic example is phone numbers.

Most phone numbers consist of 10 individual numbers, for example: 2338223948.

If someone just read out those numbers, they’d be hard to remember. However, if you separate them into three chunks, it gets a lot easier: 233-822-3948.

Applying chunking to content: The main principle behind chunking is breaking down something tough to learn into smaller bits.

When it comes to content, you can use that in two ways.

First, divide up your content into smaller subsections by using subheadlines.

If you look through any of my posts, you’ll notice that I have subheadlines every 200-300 words.

While there’s no specific length you need to aim for, make sure the subsections don’t get too long. If they do get long, break them up again into further subsections (usually h3 or h4 tags).

Next, you can apply chunking to paragraphs. It’s hard to focus and learn reading long paragraphs.

You should have 2-3 sentences per paragraph maximum in almost all situations. You can see that I have short paragraphs like this one in all the content I create.

This is a simple change that makes a big difference.

5. Understand and use VAK

Something that educators need to understand is that not everyone learns the same way.

One popular viewpoint is “VAK,” which stands for visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Or in regular terms: seeing, hearing, and touching.

Different people learn best in different ways. Some need to touch things to learn, while others prefer seeing.

However, the vast majority of people learn best when more than one (or all three) ways of receiving information are involved.

To illustrate this concept, let’s go through an example.

Pretend you were teaching how to pump up a basketball. Here are examples of different ways to teach it:

• Visual: Write a blog post on how to pump up a ball; you could include pictures. Or create an infographic, detailing the process.
• Auditory: Create an mp3 recording explaining the steps.
• Kinesthetic: Give a student a deflated ball and pump, and explain how to pump it up (would also include a visual or auditory explanation).
• Visual+Auditory: Create a video that shows you pumping up a ball and explaining how to do it.

As you can see, there are multiple ways you can teach a topic for each learning type.

In addition, you could create multiple forms of content for a single topic. For example, you could create a podcast narration of a blog post so that your audience could both read (visual) and hear it (auditory).

The takeaway here is to try to involve multiple ways of learning for all your content. If you can get your audience to take action (i.e., go find a ball to work on), you can involve kinesthetic learning as well.

6. Engagement leads to knowledge

Many studies have shown that the more engaged students are, the better they learn.

The term engagement covers a bunch of different concepts, but it usually refers to any time when a student is actively doing something while learning. Examples would be things like asking questions, talking productively with peers, thinking, and answering quizzes.

While some of the other techniques we’ve looked at are difficult to apply online, improving engagement is very possible—not only in your content but in other areas of marketing like social media and email.

For example, we’ve already looked at including quizzes in content, which is an opportunity for students to engage.

Additionally, you can change how you write content and the type of content you write in order to get more engagement.

Here are some other guides that dig into this topic in more detail:

• 7 Psychological Principles to Get More Engagement on Social Media
• How to Cut Your Bounce Rate in Half with Interactive Content
• 5 Engagement Metrics That’ll Help Improve Your Search Rankings

Conclusion

Being a teacher is a big responsibility, especially online, where you could be teaching thousands with your content.

By using the proven teaching techniques described in this post, you can help your readers learn better and take more action.

Ultimately, you’ll make a bigger impact, which will also benefit your own business.

Many of these techniques can be combined, so use any or all of them—whatever applies to your content.

If you have any questions about how to be a better teacher, just leave them in a comment below.

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Savings update: NS&I cuts Direct Isa to 1%: where to get a better deal

Sylvia Morris

sad-piggy-bank.jpg

Rates on offer from National Savings & Investments go down from today (Monday 6 June). Its Direct Cash Isa now pays 1%, down from 1.25%, while its Income Bonds pay 1% before tax (0.75% after tax) and Direct Saver 0.8% (0.64%).

Rates on offer from National Savings & Investments go down from today (Monday 6 June). Its Direct Cash Isa now pays 1%, down from 1.25%, while its Income Bonds pay 1% before tax (0.75% after tax) and Direct Saver 0.8% (0.64%).

read more

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Questions About Loan Forgiveness, Skilled Nursing, MLM Networks, 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. Military student loan forgiveness
2. Retirement options without Roth IRA
3. International banking troubles
4. Making business ideas a reality
5. Building my MLM network
6. Cost of skilled nursing
7. Using HRA in retirement calculations
8. Stolen cash
9. Large purchases on rewards cards
10. Starting out with IRA
11. Keeping credit card open
12. Cheap shipping

During the months of June, July, and August, our family is going camping at least four times. We’re camping in state parks, (likely) a national park, and on private land as well.

This isn’t extraordinary for us in the least. In fact, this is a pretty normal summer for us. Multiple camping trips are completely normal and actually make up the backbone of our summer, with Sarah off of work, our children out of school, and with my flexible work schedule. We often camp during the week to avoid crowds, so the parks are usually practically empty and we have all of the trails and other features nearly to ourselves.

Thankfully, we have the whole process down to a fine art. Everything we need for camping is stored in a few boxes, so we literally just have to grab those boxes and go (and stop at a grocery store for a few items). At the end of a trip, everything just gets repacked into those boxes.

We camped this past weekend. We didn’t even start packing to go camping until after 6 PM, we camped in another county, and we still had our campsite fully ready to go with a fire going before dark.

Like anything in life, the more times you do it, the smoother it all gets.

Q1: Military student loan forgiveness

I am currently active duty in the coast guard. I have about 5k in student loan debt from before I joined. I was wondering if there were any student loan forgiveness programs that I am eligible for since being in the military?
– Tom

There do seem to be multiple programs to help military members with student loans, but only one is clear and easy to find.

Military members are eligible for the Public Student Loan Forgiveness Program, which enables your public student loans to be forgiven after a period working in a public service job (of which the military is considered to be one).

There are additional programs, but they are really hard to find documentation about. You’ll want to start by looking at this document from the Department of Education about loan dismissal for military members, starting on page 34.

Good luck!

Q2: Retirement options without Roth IRA

I am working as a consultant with a company. My company doesnt have any 401k option. So whatever is earned, it directly comes to me with obviously tax cuts and all. I thought a Roth IRA is a good option for me so started with that. But this year when it was turn to file taxes it looks like that my income bracket doesn’t allow me and to stop that. So currently what are my options for my retirement plan ? I can put around $200-300 / month aside.
– Kerry

If you’re earning enough to be above the Roth IRA eligibility ceiling, that means you’re earning well into the six figures per year, and if you don’t have any sort of plan through work, your options are limited.

If you are single or if your spouse doesn’t have an employer-based tax plan, you can use a traditional IRA in much the same way as a 401(k) plan. You’ll be able to deduct the amount you put into the IRA and then pay taxes on the withdrawals when you make them in retirement.

If that doesn’t work for you, your best bet with such a high income is to simply save in a normal taxable investment account. Just choose investments that are smart in terms of taxes – like broad-based index funds – and you’ll be fine. You’ll receive dividends occasionally, but you can just roll those over and pay the very small amount of taxes on them (they’ll be qualified, so the tax rate will be quite low) out of pocket.

Q3: International banking troubles

I feel as though maybe my husband and I have gotten in over our heads. We are self employed, own rental properties and recently signed a purchase agreement to buy a condo in France.

We have friends who live in France and bought a second home here in the states. They use it strictly for personal use, as Europeans vacation more then we do here in the states. They seem to have navigated banking here fine. While visiting France, we fell in love and decided we’d like to own a condo there if it were the right price.

Anyway, we are running into issues figuring out how to bank here and there. Our first major hurdle is wiring funds. Because they use notaries not title companies, funds go into a sort of treasury account held by the government. My bank does not know how to wire funds to their account. They are telling me I don’t have all the correct information.

Currently I only need to wire the deposit of £5000. If I am having issues now, with a small amount, I am worried about how I will wire the purchase price of £100,000.

HSBC would be a great possibility, however their minimum balance requirements are pretty stiff. Not to mention, I am a little nervous about having a large mount on deposit in a foreign country. I know people do it all the time, but I am sure they have more disposable income than we do.

We are going to need a checking account in France, for depositing rental income and expenses, ie: utilities, etc. Ideally, we would like having the convenience of seemless transferring of funds back and forth as needed without high wire transfer fees.

Maybe I am asking for champagne on a beer budget? Any suggestions?
– Connie

In general, Europe has stiffer banking requirements than the United States does, which is why your friends found it much easier to buy property in the United States.

That being said, you were on the right track with using HSBC to handle all of this. International banks that operate in both your country of origin and your destination country are going to be a very big help when you’re going through procedures like this. They’ve done it countless times before, so it’s old hat for them.

I’d spend some time evaluating many of the big international banks. Citibank, for example, has a reputation for making it easy to wire funds internationally. Take a look at Chase, CapitalOne, Schwab, ING, and others, too. You’ll probably find a bank that meets all of your needs quite well.

Once you’ve chosen a bank, I’m pretty sure that those large banks should make this type of process pretty easy.

Q4: Making business ideas a reality

I’m scared of telling people my business ideas because I’m afraid others will use the my business ideas to do them themselves. What can I do to find help to create my ideas a reality?
– Aaron

The number one most important thing you can do is document, document, document. I’d start by going to the library and checking out some books on business plans, then do your best to flesh out a plan on your own. Then save this document and store it somewhere safe, preferably offsite, in a dated file, so you can prove that you had this idea at a particular date. I have some DVDs in the bank with some of my ideas on them so that I can prove they were mine if I ever need to do so.

If you’re talking about sharing your idea with another business, I suggest forming a company around your nascent idea and getting a trademark.

When you talk about someone with an idea, be as vague as you can. Give only the minimal information necessary to convey what your idea is and keep most of the idea to yourself. If they want to know more, then have them sign a non-disclosure agreement – you can get a lawyer to prepare one for you.

Another important step is to do your homework with regards to who you’re talking to about your ideas. Don’t talk to someone you barely know – find out exactly who this person is, who that person represents, and what their reputation is to the best of your ability.

Q5: Building my MLM network

I want to know more about how to build my MLM network.
– David

My number one tip when it comes to building a multi-level marketing network is to not build one. Instead, run as fast and as far away from the whole concept as you can.

You’ve already hit upon how MLMs make money – they don’t make it through selling product, they make it by adding people to your network and convincing them to sell product. This only works if you assume that there are infinite people out there willing to sell that product – but there isn’t. Most people avoid it like the plague, and those that do get sucked in tend to not sell very much and end up primarily selling to their friends, which might generate a few bucks for you but leaves the whole enterprise with a bad taste in a lot of peoples’ mouths.

Take the time and effort you would have devoted to building up an MLM network and invest it in something else. Build a legitimate business for yourself. Try selling real estate or insurance, for example. You’ll have much better success with that than you will with recruiting people into a MLM.

Q6: Cost of skilled nursing

When calculating how much money you’ll need to in order to retire (for however long that ends up being), why don’t the amounts typically include the cost of skilled nursing facilities or full-time residential care needs? My wife works for a medical group and pointed out that her elderly patients all eventually need this type of care at a certain age and that it is not covered by health insurance (I was surprised to learn this). Apparently, the cost of these types of facilities can be really expensive – as much as $70k/year. Sometimes a family member caring for someone in this situation can work, but some medical conditions require professional care. Clearly, this significant cost is a huge thing to plan/budget for when considering how much money one needs throughout one’s retirement, but I haven’t seen it reflected in many of the scenarios that discuss how much to save. Any thoughts?
– Angela

There are a number of reasons. First of all, it’s a very unpredictable expense. Many people never find themselves in this situation at all. Because of that, buying long term care insurance – which is the type of insurance that would cover this – tends to be relatively low on the priority list.

Because it’s a fairly low priority, because it isn’t even needed in many cases, and because of the expense of long term care insurance, many people simply forego that step. They simply don’t buy a policy.

Many people can barely afford to retire – or can’t afford to retire at all – even without considering long term care insurance. When you add in the cost of long term care insurance, it tips the balance even further away from retirement for many people.

In other words, in the big scheme of things, skipping over long term care insurance often appears to be an acceptable risk for people.

That’s really the story of personal finance. What’s an acceptable risk? If we try to cover every single potential risk for ourselves, we’re going to be spending a ton of money on contingency plans and insurance. The approach most people take is to simply figure out the biggest risks and cover them and not worry about the smaller risks, though the line between “big” and “small” risk varies for everyone.

Q7: Using HRA in retirement calculations

Since my wife uses my insurance instead of her employer’s, her employer makes a monthly contribution of around $500 to a HRA on her behalf that will be available to her after retirement. My question is: How would you factor this amount into retirement planning since it can only be used to reimburse medical expenses? In the past I’ve just treated it as a tax-free account in retirement calculators, but I think this may be incorrect since there are rules on how the money is spent. Any advice?
– Maxwell

I think you have two options.

One is to not include it in retirement planning at all, since it is money that you may or may not be able to use. In this perspective, you treat the money as a “bonus” if it turns out that you need it.

Another way to use it is to include it up to the level of an average couple’s health care spending in retirement. It is usually recommended that people save $10,000 per year for each year that they plan to retire before enrolling in Medicare at age 67, so if you’re going to retire at 62, you should figure $50,000. After Medicare, there will still be some costs which are hard to estimate given the seemingly constant changes to the Medicare program.

If you’re not going to retire until you’re eligible for Medicare, I probably wouldn’t include the money. If you’re retiring before Medicare eligibility, I’d probably count $10,000 per year that you’re retiring early.

Q8: Stolen cash

If I left my money clip on the bar at a club and someone took the money out and left the credit card what can I do?
– Megan

The cash was taken and the credit card left behind because the cash is untraceable. In all likelihood, someone saw a money clip on the bar, snagged the cash, and left the rest of it there in the hopes that you wouldn’t notice it for a little while, giving them plenty of time to just vanish and basically eliminate their chance of being caught.

Unfortunately, you probably can’t do anything. It’s essentially impossible to track down stolen cash, especially if you leave a money clip on a bar and someone takes the cash. Since there is no evidence left behind in any way, you’re basically out of luck unless someone happens to be honest at that club.

Having said that, the one step you can take is to contact that club and see if there is a chain of honest people that can get your cash back to you. I wouldn’t bet on it, but the world does contain a lot of honest people (unfortunately, it takes just one dishonest person here for you to never see your money again).

Q9: Large purchases on rewards cards

I am young and just starting out and have never bought a home or a condo. I have decided that I would be more comfortable foregoing mortgages and waiting to have 100% down in order to buy property. I realize this may take a long time but I figure that I will need the flexibility to move around for years to come. Until that time, I will either live with my parents or rent an affordable place.

I am also a fan of responsibly churning credit cards for rewards when I know that a large purchase will be coming up. I have scoured the internet and haven’t been able to find the answer to my question.

Let’s say that in the future, I have a no limit credit card. Is there a way to buy a house with a credit card and pay off the balance at the end of the month? If this is possible then I would be able to get quite a lot of rewards points.
– Anna

If you can find a realtor that will enable you to make this transaction and your credit card allows such a large single transaction to go through, you probably can earn a lot of rewards using this strategy.

Unfortunately, unless you’re very wealthy, you’re not usually going to find a card that’s going to allow this. Even cards that are “limitless” will likely put a halt on a six figure transaction on a credit card.

Q10: Starting out with IRA

I am 23 years old and finally financially responsible enough, with a little money saved up (around 5k) to consider investing. I read Michael Gardon’s article on the best IRA Accounts of 2016 and have decided it’s time for me to open an IRA. After reading through the article as well as the Betterment and Wealthfront reviews I am leaning towards Wealthfront to get started with. I know for a fact I can get 2-3 people also signed up and funded so I am looking at 20-25,000 managed for free. Is this the best option for me or for my first IRA should I go with something more traditional like an E-Trade account or even my local PNC investment banker?
– Neal

It really depends on what you’re looking for or you need from the management of your IRA. Are you looking for someone to hold your hand and walk you through everything step by step? Or are you more comfortable with a large degree of self-management?

Basically, the more help you want, the more you’re going to pay. Although it may not seem like it on the surface, the “more you’re going to pay” usually comes about in the expenses related to the funds you’re investing in, which means that your returns are going to be slightly lower over time. While the difference between, say, a 6.5% annual return and a 7% annual return might not seem like much, it turns out to be a lot over time, especially given your age – you have a lot of years until retirement.

I usually encourage people to forego the extra help and get an IRA that doesn’t have much active intervention in order to save money. That’s why, of the avenues you mention, I’d be most in favor of the E*Trade route, though I would specifically use Vanguard instead of E*Trade as I prefer their investment options.

With an account like that, you’re going to be doing most of the homework yourself, but when you actually invest, the investments are going to be better long term options. This moves some of the work onto your plate – you have to spend the time to learn about investments and know what you’re doing. However, having that knowledge is going to be useful for the rest of your years.

Q11: Keeping credit card open

If I open a credit card with finance capabilities and pay it off in the introductory time period. Do I have to keep using that card once I pay off the balance in the time period or will it hurt my credit to have it open and not keep making finance purchases of $100.00 or more?
– Deann

The biggest benefit in just leaving a credit card open is that it can help establish your credit history and it can help a little bit with your overall debt-to-credit utilization ratio, both of which are factors for your credit score.

So, the first thing to ask yourself is whether this is your oldest credit card. If it is, then you should hold onto it until you have another card that’s been open for several years (at least four, I’d say). If it’s not your oldest credit card or if you have another card that’s been open for several years, this doesn’t matter.

Another factor is the debt-to-credit ratio. Do you currently carry a balance on other cards? If so, is it close to the credit limit on those cards? If you rarely carry a balance on other cards or if that balance is low, keeping this new card isn’t going to make a difference; it’ll only help if you keep a high balance on your other cards.

If the new card isn’t helping with your credit score, there’s really no reason to keep it open. Having a card that’s sitting around unused and not helping your credit score is nothing more than a route to potential identity theft and other misuse. I’d cancel it in that case.

Q12: Cheap shipping

I need to ship personal effects from Vegas to Staten Island, NY What do you recommend? I’m on a tight budget.
– Victor

It depends on the volume and weight of the personal effects, really. It also depends on whether or not you’re also going.

If you’re shipping, say, the entire contents of a house, then you’ll want to look at something like U-Pack, which is a trailer that you pack up yourself and then it’s hauled across the country. If you’re also going, renting a moving truck and driving it yourself should be on your plate.

If you’re shipping on the order of 100 pounds of stuff, there really aren’t any cheap options if you’re not going as well. You will need to shop around with the package shippers like UPS, FedEx, DHL, and so on to see their rates. If you are going, the best way to do it is to pack it in very large suitcases and take a flight with Virgin Airlines, which allows you to check a large number of large bags like this.

The smaller you get, the better the postal service gets, especially their parcel post rates. Again, I don’t know how large or small these personal effects are, but there’s a good chance that if it’s just a few items, sending it in a package via parcel post through the US Postal Service is your cheapest option.

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 Loan Forgiveness, Skilled Nursing, MLM Networks, and More! appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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The 7 Essential Musts For An Epic Family Road Trip

Summer is here, which conjures images of swimming pools, hot dogs on the grill, and epic whiffle ball games. There’s nothing I look forward to more than warm, lazy summer days. You can’t talk about summer without talking about a summer vacation.

Some of the best memories of summer vacations when I was a kid include taking epic road trips with my mom and step-dad. We would either hop in a car or our little camper and tour all parts of the west coast.

Places like northern California, Nevada and even as far north as Oregon. Much of my inspiration of taking road trips with my family is based on those memories.

That’s why incorporating an epic road trip as part of your summer agenda is a must.

Before you embark on your own version of the Griswold’s trip to Walley World, here are seven musts to make your family road trip epic.

1. Earn reward points while you are on the go.

Although the price of gas has tapered off in recent years, if you have a family of four or larger, family road trips can be very expensive. One of the ways to benefit is to take advantage of the reward points that credit cards offer. We currently funnel all of our personal and business spending to credit cards to take advantage of some amazing reward points.

One card to consider is the BuyPower Card from Capital One. The BuyPower Card will give you 5% Earnings on your first $5,000 in purchases every year, then 2% unlimited Earnings thereafter. Take advantage of these amazing Earnings, that don’t expire, to put towards the purchase or lease of an eligible, new Chevrolet, Buick, GMC or Cadillac vehicle.

2. Have one major destination.

Anytime we take a road trip, we always have one destination in mind. Whether it’s to visit Pikes Peak, Lake Tahoe, or some national forest in northern California.

When my family and I went on our epic RV trip two summers ago, our main destination was the Grand Canyon. It didn’t matter what happened on the trip, it would be considered a success if we reached the Grand Canyon and back.

Having one major theme for your road trip gives it a general purpose so that the entire family is on board and excited about the destination.

3. Leave out the small details.

While I think it’s important to have one major destination in mind, you still can’t try to plan every single day and every single hour. You’ll drive yourself crazy.

Last year for our family’s spring break, at the spur of the moment, we decided to go to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. That was our main destination.

The part about what we were going to do when we got there? That was completely up in the air. We wanted to be spontaneous, and just figure it out as we went along. I can’t tell you how much less stressful that was, not sweating over the small details.

We still had a blast riding go karts, touring the Smoky Mountains and taking advantage of all the tourist attractions.

Take the stress out of your next vacation and be spontaneous.

4. Newer car helps.

I know, I know, I know. You’re saying to yourself, “What does a new car have to do with a road trip?” Hear me out.

I remember as a kid our car only had a cassette tape player.  My step-dad would play his favorite cassettes over and over and over again. I didn’t have a personal stereo at the time so I was forced to sing along to popular songs from the late ‘60s.

Compare that to the SUV and the van that we have now which have CD players, USB ports, DVD players and TVs, which makes for much more peaceful road trips – especially if you have three crazy boys like we do!

If you are in the market for a new car, rewards credit cards like the Capital One BuyPower Card are great to invest in because you can redeem your Earnings whenever you’re ready to purchase or lease a new GM vehicle.

5. Car games pass the time.

Nowadays, tablets, DVD players and apps make trips much more enjoyable for mom and dad. But don’t let electronics be the only thing that occupies your kids’ time while in the car.  Fun car games can be a blast and keep the entire family engaged.

Our boys love to play “I Spy” where one person finds something and then shares, “I spy something green,” and everyone else takes turns trying to guess what it is.  We also play this game in a restaurant to pass the time until our food arrives.

Another game that is a blast on a long car ride is the Alphabet Game. In this game we take turns trying to find a sequential letter of the alphabet using road signs, license plates and buildings until we finish the entire alphabet.   My middle son and I recently played this on a two-hour drive to St. Louis and he absolutely loved it.

6. Snack bags are a must.

We have three boys which are human trash disposals so if we had to stop every time we heard the words, “I’m hungry,” we would be stopping about every 7.5 minutes.

My wife and I both know that traveling with no snacks is setting ourselves up for family vacations purgatory. Snacks we pack include crackers, cookies and fruit snacks. You can also plan accordingly to bring fresh fruits and sandwiches packed in a small cooler.  It is also important to pack water, juice or milk in the cooler.

Another must is packing baby wipes and a small trash bag.  Kids have a knack for getting sticky hands in everything they do and believe me the car floor is a trashcan.  These two items will save a ton of grief.

7. It’s About the Family

There’s nothing I want more than having the perfect family vacation, but what you consider to be perfect, might not be perfect for your wife and also for your kids. Make sure to put the family first. Make sure there’s joy in the time that you spend.

One of the things that we do at the end of each day while on family vacation is share our most favorite thing about the day and what we enjoyed the most. It’s fun to hear from our kids’ perspective what the best part of their day was.

It’s usually the simple things like, ice cream cones, a park playground or laughing at someone’s jokes.

It doesn’t always have to be epic in your eyes, just epic in your family’s eyes.

Have fun and safe driving!

Thank you Capital One for sponsoring this post! This is a paid endorsement. All opinions are my own and were not directed by Capital One. Learn more about the BuyPower Card from Capital One.

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I Started a Business in 30 Days for Under $1K. Here’s Exactly How I Did It

Even though I’d been a freelance writer for almost 10 years, I only recently committed to doing it full time.

And with my decision came the inevitable “I’ll-do-anything” mentality. I accepted every job that came my way, from $50 personal essays to $50/hour content marketing tasks.

After a year of this, I decided to move into full-time copywriting. It was the work I enjoyed most and I knew I could charge more than my smaller clients were willing to pay me.

So I stepped away from the “freelancer” label and become a business owner.

To do this, I needed an actual business — one with a proper name, website, packages, clear rates and a marketing plan. I wanted to start yesterday, so I dedicated the entire month of April to creating all the pieces of my business.

Here’s how I built my business in 30 days on the cheap — and have already made almost $7,000 with it. Plus, a seemingly small decision now has me completely booked for my first two months in business.

Why I Fired All My Clients to Specialize in Only One Thing

You wouldn’t pay good money to eat diner pizza, but you would wait in line for two hours and pay double for the best pizza in town.

Customers go out of their way and pay higher prices for “The Best.” And “The Best” is usually created by people who specialize.

Turns out, there’s one project I love most: About pages.

A company’s About page is the most important page on its website. But businesses ignore it because it’s hard to write and even harder to get right. Even though it’s the most popular page, it often has the highest exit rate, meaning people take one look and leave your site completely.

I wanted to turn the boring page into a sticky one to help companies convert more visitors, while also building obsession with their brand.

While many copywriters offer About pages for around $500 a pop, I couldn’t find a single copywriter who specializes in it.

I now charge triple most copywriters’ rates by offering brand strategy, customer research, one round of revisions and a professional editor as part of my flat-rate package.

How to Start a Business in 30 Days for Under $1K

I gave myself 30 days to create all the pieces I’d need to launch my business, from the name to the logo, website design and copy.

I paused all incoming client requests and gave existing clients one month’s notice I wouldn’t be able to provide certain services until after May 1.

I’ve managed website launches since 2009, so I already knew the varying pieces that go into a launch. With extra time in April, I tackled my to-do list and started building.

Step 1: Name the Business

Time: 5 minutes

Cost: Free!

I wanted a fun and quirky name with a nod to weird internet culture.

One night, as I was falling asleep, the name just popped into my head. The next morning I did a quick Google search to see if it was available. It was, and Oh Hai! Copy was born.

Step 2: Set Up a Squarespace Account

Time: 1 hour

Cost: $16/month

Because I bootstrapped my launch, I didn’t have the budget to hire a designer or developer. I wanted a clean design I could easily customize.

Choosing Squarespace was a no-brainer. Their platform is easy to use, with gorgeous templates and quick customer support.

The Squarespace Personal plan is $16/month, but you can save $4/month if you pay $144 upfront for the year.

Step 3: Purchase a Domain

Time: 10 minutes

Cost: $20/year

I had to pay separately for the domain I wanted (OhHaiCopy.com), but I could do it all through Squarespace — without having to mess around with other domain platforms.

Step 4: Set Up a Company Email Address

Time: 10 minutes

Cost: $50/year

I’ve spent too long combining my personal email with work.

So since I was now a company, I needed a separate email to keep things neat and separate. When you register your domain through Squarespace, you can save $10 off your first year with Google Apps.

Step 5: Design a Logo

Time: 5 hours

Cost: $318

Before I could customize Squarespace to feel more like a brand and less like a template, I needed a logo.

I turned to 99Designs for help. The process was easy and I received 40 designs in four days.

I went through a fair amount of back and forth, but by the end I had a quirky logo of a llama with a yellow speech bubble that read, “Oh hai!”

With a final design to guide me, I could now make decisions on the fonts and colors on my site.

Step 6: Write All Web Copy

Time: 20 hours

Cost: Free (except for my time)

I spent about a week playing with Squarespace colors, fonts and layouts.

Because I’m a visual writer, I prefer to see my words how they’ll appear as I write. I formatted my website in tandem with writing my web copy.

This was the most fun part! Coming up with the perfect words to sell what I do was enjoyable, but also the longest part of the process. Not only was I trying to sell my services, but I was also displaying them.

I did a bunch of customer research during this time, as well. I followed the same brand exercises I use with my clients while writing my web copy.

If you’re not a copywriter and need to hire someone to do this for you, costs vary. A decent copywriter will charge at least $1,000 for a full site.

Step 7: Create an Opt-in Offer

Time: 5 hours

Cost: Free

The services I created aren’t cheap. And it’s rare for someone to stumble across a small business website, then immediately shell out over $1,000.

I needed to warm them up. To do so, I needed to get them on my email list.

The hands-down best way to get people to sign up is to create a free offer. It could be a coupon, ebook, free consult, whatever.

I created a short ebook featuring my favorite About pages — the ones I go to for inspiration. I collated them into a PDF, used Canva (free image editing software) to knit the screenshots together and designed a pretty cover.

I uploaded the PDF to my site, created a simple page explaining the offer, then set up a MailChimp email account to automatically send the guide when new people signed up.

Step 8: Write Email Autoresponders

Time: 20 hours

Cost: $10/month

So what do I do with all those emails after people sign up?

I hit them with a secret copywriting weapon: the autoresponder.

An autoresponder is simply a series of emails new subscribers get on a regular basis. It’s not a newsletter you have to send and create each month. You create autoresponders all at once, then automatically send them to every subscriber at regular intervals.

Autoresponders “warm up” your leads. You can give them advice, answer questions, provide case studies or resources.

I chose to provide new subscribers a TON of great content about personal storytelling. I wrote eight emails containing everything from writing exercises to About page teardowns.

The ninth email is a sales pitch for my About page package (and includes a discount code for those who read the whole thing). The final email is another tip, plus a reminder to use their code before it expires.

After writing these sequences for a ton of other businesses, I knew these emails would result in the majority of my sales, so it was important I get them right.

I use MailChimp, which is $10/month to access its automation services. The price increases as your email list grows.

Step 9: Polish Website Design

Time: 2 hours

Cost: $340

The problem with Squarespace is even with customization, your website will look a little “Squarespacey.”

I didn’t have the budget to get the whole thing professionally designed, but I decided to hire a designer at her day rate to polish it up.

Once I finalized my copy, photos, forms and testimonials, my designer went in and added a splash of color, better text hierarchy and adjusted my photos.

She spent around eight hours on the whole thing, and I spent around two to hire and manage the process.

Step 10: Work With an Editor

Time: 1 hour

Cost: $150

I can’t afford not to have the best copy ever on my website.

The good news is, I’m great friends with one of the most talented editors on earth (she’s the editor I’ve partnered with on my About page package).

It only made sense to have her take a final pass through my site. She made sure the commas were in the right places and my story was clear and compelling.

Step 11: Create a Pop-up

Time: 2 hours

Cost: $29/month

Once I finalized my free ebook and set up the automation emails, I needed an effective way to capture new visitors after they arrived.

I used WisePops to create a pop-up with a catchy headline offering a free download of my About page guide. I customized the targeting options so the pop-up would only appear to visitors after they’ve scrolled through 50% of the page.

Step 12: Fix Website Bugs

Time: 15 minutes

Cost: $25

Even though Squarespace is easy to use, some of my designer’s customization required altering some code. I went onto Fiverr and spent $25 on a Squarespace developer who could help.

Step 13: Announce Website

Time: 2 hours

Cost: Free

After all the blood, sweat and tears, I was finally ready to announce my site!

I started off simply announcing it on Facebook, just in case there were any bugs or typos (I knew my friends would let me know). Once I was ready, I posted it all over social media, sent an email to my blog subscribers and wrote a post about the business launch.

Finally, I sent a personal email to old contacts and clients, which I organized into a handy spreadsheet. Here’s a template if you want to make your own.

How It’s Going So Far

My business went live on May 3, 2016. By May 15, I’d signed on three new clients, bringing in a total of $6,900 in new business.

And because I emailed my personal network (which includes journalists), my business has already been featured on The Freelancer and The Huffington Post.

I haven’t spent any money on advertising. From my personal and social media networks alone, I’m now booked up for the next two months.

Your Turn: Will you start your own online business? Would you ever do it this quickly?

Marian Schembari is a writer, blogger and founder of Oh Hai! Copy based in Düsseldorf, Germany by way of San Francisco. She writes about travel and creativity, and spends way too much time on the Internet.

The post I Started a Business in 30 Days for Under $1K. Here’s Exactly How I Did It appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Six Numbers You Need to Know to Actually Get Out of Debt

Just like there are many ways to get into debt, there’s more than one way to dig yourself out. Where some people focus on the debt snowball or debt avalanche methods, others might transfer high-interest balances to a 0% credit card, sell possessions to raise cash they can use to pay down debt, take on a part-time job to speed up the process — or some combination of all these methods.

Any of these strategies can work wonders for your finances if you’re serious about becoming debt-free and prepared to follow through with your plan. And of course, the sooner you get started, the faster you’ll finish and the better off you’ll be in the end. The longer you let your credit card balances and loans languish at high interest rates, the more money you’ll waste along the way.

But, where to begin? While getting out of debt requires a change of mindset more than anything else, there are a handful of numbers you should absolutely know before you begin any journey out of debt – and no matter which plan of attack you choose.

As with anything else, knowledge is power. And when you know your situation inside and out, it’s easier to create a realistic plan that might actually work. If you’re ready to get out of debt, it helps to know exactly “where you’re at.” The best way to find out is to sit down with a pen and paper and write down these incredibly important figures and stats:

Figure #1: The Total Amount of Money You Owe

Some aspects of getting out of debt are particularly painful, and confronting the total amount you owe can be one of the worst moments you’ll experience.

When you owe money across several credit cards and loans, it’s easy to focus on monthly payments and individual balances only. Unfortunately,  focusing on each debt without adding them all up can keep you from seeing how dire your situation really is.

To get out of debt, you need to face this number head on. Start by grabbing your bills, a pen, and a piece of paper, and tallying up the total of each balance you’re carrying. While this will look different for everyone, the total amount of debt you need to keep track of includes any outstanding loans or balances you or your spouse are responsible for. This will include credit card balances, car loans, student loans, mortgages, loans in collections, personal loans, and private loans made by friends. List these debts on the left side of one page so that we can add more information as we go along.

Figure #2: Interest Rates for Each Balance You Carry

Now that you know the total amount of debt you owe, you’re in the best position to figure out which debts should be wiped out right away. The best way to do this is to prioritize all of your debts based on their interest rate. If you don’t know the annual percentage rate, or APR, you’re paying on each loan or credit card, you will need to look on your monthly statement, check your online account management page, or call your loan provider to inquire.

If some of your balances are carrying an especially high interest rate (anything over 10% APR), you’ll likely want to prioritize paying those debts off first. The math behind this strategy, commonly called the “debt avalanche method,” is pretty cut and dry: These balances are costing you the most each month. By throwing your extra cash at balances with the highest interest rate first, you can lessen the amount of interest you pay each month. Plus, you’ll create a situation where more of your repayment dollars go directly toward the principal balance of your loans.

Some people choose to take a different approach, however. Instead of paying off high interest balances first, they start by attacking loans and credit cards with the smallest balances instead. Commonly called the “debt snowball,” this strategy can help you win the crucial psychological battle of overcoming debt: Paying off the smallest balances first means you’ll score some “big wins” and start gaining momentum right away in what can be a long, discouraging process.

No matter which debt payoff strategy you use, it still helps to list each debt’s interest rate next to the balance on the page you already created. Once you know the interest rates on your loans, you can decide which debt repayment method is best for you – and which balances deserve your attention first.

• Related: Debt Snowball Concept: How I Made it Work for Me

Figure #3: The Minimum Payment On Each of Your Loans

No matter how you plan to tackle your debts, you need to know the minimum payments required for each and every one. If you’ve been paying your bills and debts haphazardly until now, you may not know exactly how much – or how little – progress you’re making toward debt repayment each month.

On your list of debts with their respective interest rates, create a third column where you can list each debt’s minimum payment. Once you’ve listed each minimum payment, add them up to find out the minimum payment you need to make across all of your debts each and every month.

Figure #4: The Sum Total of Your Bare Bones Budget

To dig your way out of debt, you need to put a halt to the behaviors that got you there. For most people, that means going on a spending diet, cutting the “extras” out of their monthly budget, and figuring out how to create a lifestyle they can actually afford. At the very least, it’s time to stop adding to your debt.

One place to start is with your “bare bones” budget – a budget that includes only the minimum amount of expenses and bills you need to get by each month. Generally speaking, this strategy requires you to live without all the extras – to get by without much entertainment spending, your monthly cable bill, or your bi-weekly trips to the salon. By living within a bare bones budget, even temporarily, you can free up extra cash to throw toward your debts.

Using a bare bones budget may not sound fun, but it doesn’t have to be forever, either. Once you’re out of debt and have a clearer picture of what you can actually afford, you can begin adding some of the “extras” back into your life.

If you don’t think you need to cut your spending and adopt a bare bones budget, think again. Remember that your current spending habits are what got you into debt in the first place. To change your financial situation, you need to change yourself, first.

• Related: Five Monthly Bills You Could Live Without

Figure #5: Your Monthly Take-Home Pay

Getting out of debt isn’t rocket science, but it does require an in-depth knowledge of your own finances. Part of the equation is figuring out exactly how much money your family brings home each month. While this sounds crazy to the financially minded, many families with more than one earner and multiple paychecks may not even know their exact earnings until they file their taxes each year.

You may know your annual salary, but to get out of debt, you need to start thinking of your income in a “monthly” context. Your bills all arrive monthly, right? You also need to be working with your actual take-home pay, not your gross salary. If you want to use your own monthly income to get out of debt, you need to know how much of it you have in your bank account to work with each month.

One way to do this is to simply sit down and add up your household paychecks during a single month. Alternatively, take your weekly take-home pay (after taxes, health care, 401(k) contributions, etc.), multiply it by 52 weeks, and divide the total by 12.

Once you know your true monthly income, you’ll have a greater understanding of what you can actually afford – and how much money you have available to pay off debt.

Figure #6: Your Discretionary Income

At this point, you should have an understanding of your total debt load, the interest rates you’re paying, your minimum monthly expenses, and your monthly income. When you compare all of those numbers together, it should become apparent how much money you could be throwing at your debts every month.

When you live on a bare bones budget, the amount of money you aren’t spending each month should grow tremendously. This “extra cash” is called your “discretionary income,” and this is where the rubber hits the road.

By throwing those extra funds toward your smallest balances or the loans with the highest interest rate, you can start really digging your way out of debt once and for all.

However, this strategy only works if you use those funds to pay down debt instead of wasting them somewhere else. To get out of debt and stay out of debt, you must truly be mindful when it comes to every dollar you make – and every dollar you spend.

The Bottom Line

If the idea of getting out of debt has you feeling overwhelmed, remember that it’s just simple math. Income – expenses = savings, right? To create a scenario where you have extra money to use towards debt repayment, you have to either a) boost your income, or b) cut your expenses. While debt might make your life overly complicated, the math behind getting out is actually rather simple.

Still, it’s almost impossible to get out of debt when you’re unaware of your total debt load, how much interest you’re paying each month, and the bare minimum amount of money you need to get by. To get out of debt, you have to face these cold, hard truths.

Getting out of debt is hard work, but it isn’t impossible. More than anything else, you’ll to face the one true enemy who keeps holding you back – you.

How did you get out of debt? Was it easier knowing all of these numbers first?

Related Articles:

• Six Surprising Tools to Get Out of Debt
• The First Step Out of Debt
• Debt Payoff Calculator

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