Putting out the flame

When regulars to Pocono Candle Shop in East Stroudsburg visited the store’s Facebook page on Wednesday to peruse the more than 100 scented choices featured there that include fruits, flowers and spices, many found themselves saddened to see something new.A “For Sale” notice.After 44 years in business, owner Vicki Cobb is ready to retire.So, she’s decided to either sell the business and, if a deal cannot be consummated by the end of the year, [...]

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Suspect, possibly with fake beard, sought in Wayne Bank robbery

Police are looking for a suspect in the Wednesday afternoon armed robbery of the Wayne Bank in Middle Smithfield Township.According to police, a white male, approximately 5 feet 6 inches tall and 150 to 170 pounds, entered the bank, pointed what appeared to be a small black handgun at two tellers, and demanded money.The tellers handed over an undisclosed amount of money and the suspect fled the bank in an unknown direction.Police said the suspect was wearing a dark- [...]

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9,000 PNC Bank ATMs to receive security upgrades

PITTSBURGH (AP) — PNC Bank says it's upgrading 9,000 ATMs to improve transaction security. The bank says the ATMs will be able to read chip cards.Each chip card transaction will have a unique code that can't be reused. Card information taken from the machine essentially becomes useless.ATMs will also be able to email receipts. MasterCard plans to begin transferring card fraud liability for ATM owners beginning on Oct. 1. Visa is expected to do the same beginning in the [...]

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Calling All Ye’ Travel Experts: Apply To This Work-From-Home Job Today

Are you passionate about traveling on a budget?

Do your friends ask you about the latest travel hacks and cheapest days to fly? (Spoiler: It’s Tuesday and Wednesday.)

Do you scour the internet before purchasing your own ticket? Do you plan vacations based on the cheapest travel fares?

Most importantly: Do you know some good pirate puns?

Travel Pirates rounds up the best travel deals for U.S. and Canadian travelers, and it’s hiring full-time, work-from-home travel deal hunters and editors.

How You Can Become the Next Travel Deal Hunter

Are you ready to hop aboard with all hands on deck? (Ugh, I keep reading this in the pirate voice from “SpongeBob SquarePants.”)

Anyway, as a travel deal hunter, you’ll research the best travel products online, as well as create and develop articles to help readers. And there’s a lot of them; Travel Pirates has more than 7 million Facebook followers.

If you’re interested, there are some planks you must walk first. Perhaps most importantly, you should know how to research travel deals. (Hi. You can always use The Penny Hoarder as a source.)

You should also have a keen sense for details. Think about all the fine print and asterisks involved in travel deals. You also should have some experience in online editorial work, though the posting doesn’t disclose a specific number of preferred years.

Although the online startup is based in Berlin, the group of 145 employees operates 11 websites from 32 different countries in seven different languages. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the U.S. is the newest addition to the company’s locations map.

But don’t get discouraged if you’re not in the New England area. The Travel Pirates strongly encourages anyone — no matter your landlocked location — to apply for these jobs. Remote candidates will work from home on a contractor basis.

I reached out to the pirates to find out more about pay and benefits, so I’ll update this once I hear back.

Until then, all you swashbucklers, get yer booty in gear (not the treasure kind), and draft a cover letter outlining your experiences with travel research tools. Then submit this simple, straightforward application.

Fair winds, my friends.

Your Turn: Will you apply to be a travel pirate?

Carson Kohler (@CarsonKohler) be a junior writer at th’ Penny Hoarder. After recently completin’ graduate sword fightin’ academy, she focuses on savin’ doubloons — ’n survivin’ th’ move back in wit’ her parents.

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Pokemon Go is Hiring! Plus 18 Other Cool Ways to Boost Your Bank Account

Sick and tired of your job?

Want to find a new one — one that actually inspires you?

Keep reading.

Below, we share some cool jobs hiring right now, including openings at fun companies like Pokemon Go, Lisa Frank and Yelp — plus a few other ways to boost your bank account.

1. Catch ‘Em All for Pokemon Go

Seika/Creative Commons

Good news: We’ve found a way for you to make money off your Pokemon Go obsession.

Niantic Labs, the company that runs the game, is hiring eight positions in its California and Seattle offices.

The openings are mostly for tech-savvy job-seekers — ranging from software engineer to game developer — but you could still apply to either the operations or office manager positions.

Good luck catching one of these jobs!

2. Help Doctors Find a Cure

sturti/Getty Images

Could medical testing be a fun way to make money?

Jillian Shea thinks it is: She made $12,000 from participating in sleep studies. She answered a few questions online from her home in Florida before heading to Boston for the lucrative study.

Want to give it a try? If you have one of these ailments, you might be able to earn a little extra cash…

– Migraines: If you’ve never had a migraine, be glad you can just take my word for it: They really, really suck. Local research studies may offer payment/compensation up to $625 (learn more here). These studies help doctors discover better ways to treat — and hopefully eliminate — migraines.

– Arthritis: If you have rheumatoid arthritis in the knee and/or hip and are otherwise healthy, you could qualify for a study that offers up to $625 compensation for sharing your thoughts and opinions.

– Osteoarthritis: If you’re suffering from osteoarthritis and qualify, you may earn up to $1,000 for participating in this study.

3. Become a Professional Cuddler

PeopleImages/Getty Images

Wanna get paid to spoon?

The Snuggle Buddies is hiring snugglers across the country.

You’ll make $40 per hour, plus $15 for each hour spent in transit to the cuddle location. (However, the listing notes you’ll have more bookings if you accept clients into your own home.)

You’ll work 5-15 hours per week, and can be based anywhere in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. or Australia.

4. Get $5 From Stash to Start an Investment Account

AlekZotoff/Getty Images

I’m kind of obsessed with Stash (and not just because it gives you $5).

What I like about Stash is it’s an uncomplicated way to start investing. You just choose from a set of simple portfolios reflecting your beliefs, interests and goals, and it’ll do the rest.

To get the $5 bonus, just enter your email here, download the Stash smartphone app and set up your account with the same email address. Within two business days, you’ll see the bonus added to your account.

I already got my bonus and now I’m investing $5/week. I’m already up to $40! That might sound small, but for someone who resists saving money like the plague, it’s a pretty remarkable start.

5. Drive with Uber

PeopleImages/Getty Images

If you find solace on the road and enjoy discovering the best route across town, you might as well make money doing it.

As an Uber driver partner, you’re responsible for setting your schedule and motivating yourself to work — no one is keeping tabs on you. You get 80% of everything you earn as a driver (Uber keeps 20%).

Want to give it a try? There are a few things to keep in mind: You must be at least 21 years old and able to pass a background check, and you must have three years of driving experience, an in-state driver’s license and a clean driving record.

6. Share Food- and Travel-Porn

ParkerDeen/GettyImages

As the social media manager for Tastemade, you’ll get to curate a platform of beautiful food and travel photos and videos. YUM.

Since you’ll need to create the channel’s calendar and voice, you should have at least four years of experience managing social media for a lifestyle brand, plus a passion for Tastemade’s mission.

In return, you’ll receive a slew of benefits, including health insurance, a 401(k), stock options, new hardware and flexible vacation days.

7. Choose Killer Jewelry (in Your PJs!)

Aleksa_D/GettyImages

Jewelry subscription service Rocksbox is searching for part-time stylists to curate boxes filled with designer jewelry from the comfort of their own homes.

No specific experience is required, but you must be “passionate about fashion with an ability to recognize and spot new trends.” And pick the right frosting for every client, of course.

You’ll start as soon as possible and work anywhere from 10 to 40 hours per week.  

8. Design Unicorns for Lisa Frank

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Yes, all your ‘90s-child dreams are coming true: Lisa Frank is hiring digital artists to help the company “[paint] the world in rainbow colors.”

Requirements for this position include a bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in graphic design, as well as proficiency with the Adobe Creative Suite. You also must be a non-smoker.

You’ll work in Tucson, Arizona, so you should live there or be willing to relocate for the job. The company offers a “competitive salary and benefits based on experience.”

Better get doodlin’!

9. Gossip About Celebrities

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Is TMZ your homepage? Then you might be the perfect fit for this remote celebrity writer job at The Cheat Sheet.

This fast-growing website is looking for someone with an “almost encyclopedic knowledge of celebrities and entertainment trends.”

You’ll need a four-year degree or equivalent experience, a strong understanding of SEO and a passion for entertainment. The company offers “competitive” salaries, health insurance and 401(k) plans.  

10. Open Another Bank Account

Eva Katalin Kondoros/GettyImages

Did you know some banks will pay you just to open a new account? We have a huge list of banks that do just that — some pay up to $250!

And there’s nothing wrong with having multiple bank accounts. You actually might find it’s helpful to have more than one place to save; you’ll be less likely to touch the money if it’s in a totally separate account!

The top bank bonus is $250 right now… click here to see all the banks in your area offering free cash.

11. Cruise to Work

danzil raines/Creative Commons

All aboard! In this unique job, you’ll work as a deckhand for a Jacksonville, Florida-based cruise line.

You’ll live onboard a cruise ship for 16 weeks and help with an array of tasks, from customer service to steering the ship, as well as standard maintenance and cleaning. The position pays $700-$900 per week.

You won’t have any expenses, because the position covers room and board — and, since you’ll be sequestered on a boat the whole time, you won’t really have anywhere to spend your earnings.

Translation? You’ll return to land with a nest egg of at least $11,200.  

12. Play Video Games

baron valium/Creative Commons

Are you a total video game nerd? Then I couldn’t think of a better position for you than becoming a beta game tester with VMC.

You’ll get your hands on AAA games, which have the highest development budgets and levels of promotion, prior to any national release. Think: “Star Wars: Battlefront,” the “Call of Duty” titles and “Grand Theft Auto.”

To apply, you must be at least 18 years old, and have the ability to keep a secret, follow instructions and be professional.

13. Rep Your Hometown

greychr/Creative Commons

Yelp, the ultra-popular online review service, is searching for community ambassadors in nine cities.

If you live in (and love!) one of the locations, and are the “go-to person” for restaurant and activity recommendations, then this job might be for you.

You’ll need to be a “social connector,” who’s “passionate about event planning, social networking, guerrilla marketing and PR.”

You’ll work 10-15 hours per week from anywhere with a Wi-Fi connection. You must be over the age of 21 and have reliable transportation.

14. Get a Free $5 from Clink to Start Saving

Eduardo García Cruz/Creative Commons

If you’re anything like me, you might make excuses like, “I don’t have enough money,” or “the stock market isn’t safe” — and not do anything with your money. So it sits in a savings account — and rots. Not even earning enough interest to keep up with inflation.

Sound familiar?

That’s how I dealt with my money, just hoping some investment fairy would come and show me the magical ways of stocks and index funds and compound interest.

But only until recently. I just started using an app called Clink that lets me invest in the stock market with just $1 a day. Plus, it’ll give you a free $5 just for downloading the app!

Even better, it didn’t require me to get my master’s in finance to understand the terms, or give up my firstborn to pay the fees.

To get the $5 bonus, download the Clink smartphone app and set up your account with the same email address. Be sure to use the promo code: PH2016.

15. Teach English Online

gpointstudio/GettyImages

Now this sounds like a fun side gig!

If you’re a native English speaker with at least an associate degree, you could spend 15 hours per week teaching English online with Education First.

You must be willing to commit to the position for a minimum of eight months. You’ll earn $10 per hour with the opportunity for a raise after three to five months.

16. Travel the World as a Personal Chef

http://ift.tt/2arPgDH

Got some culinary chops?

Then you should definitely take a look at this personal chef position. It’s based in Greenwich, Connecticut, but includes travel to the family’s other homes in Aspen, Colorado; Palm Beach, Florida; New York City and Europe.  

You’ll cook “simple, healthy, family-style meals” for a family of four, and occasionally host special dinners and parties.

The job pays $70,000-$90,000 per year, with the possibility for bonuses. Pretty tasty, if you ask me!

17. Fix Budgets for YNAB

sturti/GettyImages

We love You Need a Budget. And the only thing better than the site’s easy-to-use personal finance app? Its sweet career opportunities.

As a confidently humble part-time support rep, you’ll keep the company’s customers happy by answering questions over email.

After a paid, eight-week trial period, you’ll earn $13-$17 per hour and work a set schedule of 20 hours per week — all from the comfort of your own home.

18. Use Your Brain (and Google)

United Soybean Board/Creative Commons

If you’re a curious cat, listen up: This researcher job at Wonder means you’ll get paid to answer interesting questions.

As a freelance researcher, you’ll work remotely, set your own schedule and choose which research requests you complete.

Former researcher and TPH staff writer Jamie Cattanach says typical pay is $13 and up per request — which means you could earn $13 per hour or more.

“You have to complete a research project gratis to qualify, and that’s about a two-hour time investment,” she points out. But overall, “It’s not bad. And if you’re genuinely interested in learning, it’s awesome.”

19. Write for Upworthy

http://ift.tt/2arPgDH

You’ve heard of Upworthy, right? It’s that publisher always sharing heartwarming stories on important topics. And right now, it’s seeking a remote writer to join its team.

You must have strong communication skills, plus two years of experience in journalism, copywriting, performing, marketing or activism.

In addition to competitive compensation, you’ll receive equity, unlimited time off and parental leave, as well as health and retirement benefits.

Your Turn: Which of these cool jobs is calling your name?

Disclosure: This post includes affiliate links. Adding these links helps us keep the lights on in The Penny Hoarder HQ, which makes it a lot easier to play shuffleboard after a long day of deal-seeking!

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Rotisserie Chicken isn’t as Good a Deal as You Think It is. Here’s Why

Their mouthwatering smell hits you as soon as you’re within 20 feet of the deli section, outdone only by the sight of their delectable, crispy skins.

Rotisserie chickens.

They’re the undeniable MVP of quick, cheap dinner options that are still healthy and delicious. Heck, I grab one almost every week — I mean, what puts you in less of a mood to cook dinner than hauling in all the bags after a grocery shopping trip?

But have you ever wondered why those rotisserie chickens are such a sweet deal?

In most stores, they cost about the same — or even less! — than fresh, whole raw chickens in the meat case. And the work’s already done for you!

What gives?

Here’s Why Ready-Made Rotisserie Chickens are So Darn Cheap

Karin Klein took matters into her own hands and tackled this apparent conundrum, hitting stores and talking to experts to figure out the elusive answer to The Chicken Question.

After all, the cost of rotisserie chicken “seems like an unbelievable bargain,” as she writes in her piece at Priceonomics. But as Klein discovered, not everything is always as it seems.

Yes, rotisserie chickens are often cheaper than their raw counterparts… but it’s not because they’re about to expire.

Nor, in most cases, do the chickens act as loss leaders — appealing, intentionally underpriced goods intended to get customers to spend more elsewhere in the store.

It’s because they’re smaller.

So although it seems like the chickens are the same price, you’re actually paying more for the ready-made rotisserie, pound for pound.

“Rotisserie chickens tend to the small side,” Klein writes — “maybe two to two and a half pounds. The broiler chickens that sell for the same price are more like four and a half pounds.”

“Even after they’ve been cooked — a process that, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, reduces their weight by a little more than 20%” she discovered, “the refrigerated chicken almost always weighs significantly more than the rotisserie option.”

Fortunately for the store, however, this size difference is usually invisible to the consumer — especially one who’s hungry and pressed for time.

Plus, since the smaller, rotisserie-bound birds come ready-to-cook from a separate producer than the fresh ones — and are usually pre-seasoned and “pre-injected” with additives like water, salt and carrageenan — the store doesn’t have to do much work to get them ready to sell.

Are Rotisserie Chickens Worth It?

Klein ran a price comparison to see how much money you’d save, per pound, by ditching the pre-made bird for a fresh one cooked at home.

She pitted rotisserie chickens against fresh ones from seven different California marketplaces, remembering to factor in loss of volume and the price of the oil and modest seasonings she used in cooking. She even included the cost of heating up the oven and cleanup afterwards.

In five out of seven cases, “the homemade chickens were cheaper by about a dollar or more per cooked pound. When [fresh] chicken was on sale — and it goes on sale a lot — the difference was closer to $2 per pound.”

In the remaining two markets, the chickens were intended as loss leaders — but they were still almost the same price as fresh, saving consumers less than 20 cents per pound.

Considering the final product’s usually three pounds or less anyway, you’re looking at a total savings of about $6, tops — certainly nothing extravagant.

But the thing is, a whole chicken is about the easiest thing in the world to cook. My go-to recipe looks something like this:

1. Season chicken with salt, pepper and whatever else seems palatable at the time.

2. Put chicken in 350-degree oven on a cast-iron skillet or roasting rack.

3. Wait.

Of course, it’s hard to argue with the convenience of a rotisserie chicken when you remember you have nothing planned for dinner just as you’re getting ready to leave work at 4:57 on a Thursday afternoon.

And as Klein points out, when you factor in your time as labor cost, “whole chickens become more expensive than rotisserie options.”

Should You Buy Rotisserie Chickens?

For many of us, be we lazy, busy or simply uninterested in running a hot oven during a sweltering Florida summer, rotisserie chickens will continue to be a worthy splurge, subpar size not withstanding.

Besides: I don’t know what they put in that “mojo” rub at Publix, but that’s one flavor I cannot recreate at home.

Your Turn: How many nights a week do you pick up a pre-made rotisserie chicken for a quick and easy dinner?

Jamie Cattanach is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder and a frequent, enthusiastic eater of rotisserie chickens. Her writing has also been featured at The Write Life, Word Riot, Nashville Review and elsewhere. Find @JamieCattanach on Twitter to wave hello.

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31 Days to Financial Independence (Day 2): Finding Direction in the Deep End and Cleaning Up the Shallows

“31 Days to Financial Independence” is an ongoing series that appears every Thursday on The Simple Dollar. You might want to start this series from the beginning!

In the first part of this series, we took a long look at the things that shape our lives – the things we spend our money, time, and energy on – and figured out which ones were most important to us. More specifically, we chose roughly five things that were of prime importance and five more that were of secondary importance. Going through that first exercise is vital for everything that follows, so before you continue, take some time to jump back to that first exercise and try it. It’s an essential exercise for figuring out your path to financial independence.

The key thing to remember with that exercise is that you’re figuring out what areas of your life are “deep” and which ones are not. The “deep” areas are the ones that you’re willing to devote your spare time and energy and your money to, both in the sense of enjoying those things and in the sense of preserving and securing those things for the future. The other elements of life – the things that you find less important – are things that you can and should cut back to an absolute minimum.

This kind of shift – going deeper on the things you really care about while stepping back from the things you don’t care as much about – is easier said than done, but I consider it an absolutely essential key to successful personal finance. The reality is that many people get themselves into financial trouble by spreading themselves too thin. They try to spend money on every whim that crosses their path, but in doing so find that they don’t have nearly enough money left over for the things they care about most. The same phenomenon is true for a person’s money and energy – they waste it on things of lesser importance and find that they have little left for the things that they really care about.

Great, but what on earth does all of this have to do with fixing my finances!? I need help with my debt! Here’s the reality of it: the reason you’re in debt is because you’ve stretched your life an ocean wide and only a few inches deep.

You’re devoting money to all kinds of things that are really unimportant in the big scheme of things, but the modern world and all of its marketing and distraction has convinced you that many such unimportant things are vital to you. So you give it some money – you buy some things – and maybe you give it some time, too, but not enough of either to really make it meaningful and worthwhile.

To fix that, you need to start with some real life basics, and that’s what the first steps of truly fixing your finances are all about. It’s all about figuring out what you really care about, giving those things proper feeding and nutrition, and then cutting back on all of the stuff that you don’t really care about all that much.

Once you start really committing to those kinds of changes – and we’re heading right down that road – what you’re going to find is that you’re suddenly spending a lot less money and you suddenly have more time and money for the things that you care about. You’ll have money left over each month with which to tackle that debt.

Here’s the reality about debt: you can’t really tackle it unless you’re consistently spending less than you earn, and you probably didn’t build up debt unless you’re consistently spending more than you earn. Something has to change before you can transition from consistently spending more than you earn to consistently spending less than you earn. I consider that to be the first and most fundamental step of personal finance change, and that’s the exact thing we’re addressing right now.

So let’s get on with it, shall we?

The problem at hand is the idea of being spread too thin, something we started to address in the first day of this journey to financial independence. How can a person fix that problem? I don’t think there is a ready-made answer that works for everyone, unfortunately, but what I can talk about is what works for me. Figuring out a strategy for dealing with this conflict has been utterly transformative in my life, giving me the time and space and resources to really commit myself to things I care about without feeling overcommitted.

For me, the solution has been establishing what I call “deep” goals. These are very long term goals that I set for my life as a whole that turn the vague “deep” areas of life that we established last time into something more tangible, concrete, meaningful, and exciting.

At the same time, in order to find room for these ‘deep’ goals, I commit myself to cleaning up the shallows – dealing with the difficulty of letting go of some habits and responsibilities that a person has recognized as being less important in life.

Here’s your game plan for doing just that.

Exercise #2: Establishing ‘Deep’ Goals and Cleaning up the Shallows

During the previous exercise, we focused in on identifying three or four key areas of life that really mattered to us, as well as five or so secondary areas of life that were important but not quite as vital. The idea behind this was that these were the areas that we would go “deep” on, committing adequate money and time and energy to, and we would allow the other areas of our life to go “shallow” (committing minimal time, money, and energy).

For me, this list of items ended up looking like this:

Being a good husband
Being a good father
Reading
Learning new things
Playing board games
Hiking
Writing
Getting in better shape
Having a rich network of friends
Being involved in a couple of community groups

This is what really matters to me in my life. I’m family oriented, I value personal growth, I like activities that make me think, and I want to be a strong participant in my community. That really describes me well, at least in terms of what I most care about.

As I said before, your list will probably be different. You may even find that, as you reflect on it, some surprising things bubble up to the top, while some other things are really unimportant to you.

A person’s life should center around those key things and the things they need to do to preserve them. Everything else in life should involve minimal distraction in the form of money, time, and energy.

The thing is, while I’m excited about each of these areas in my life, many of those areas are also nebulous. They might describe something a person can be doing… but how exactly does one “be a good husband”?

More than that, these things don’t really help me decide things to do today that really help me live out these things. (I’m not really going to tackle this on day #2… that’s going to be day #3… but it’s worth mentioning here.)

So, let’s start bringing these things to life.

First, ask yourself what exactly you would need to do to feel as though you have accomplished a specific item on your list over the next ten years. Yes, we’re thinking big here. Why? Big things inspire us. They feel challenging, sure, but they make us feel like we’re really changing our lives and achieving something… and we are.

Let me pull out a few items on my list and show you what that looks like.

What exactly do I need to do to be a good husband over the next ten years? Be a consistent listener and communicator. Support my wife in her choices. Make her laugh and smile. But what does that all boil down to? It adds up to committing time regularly toward supporting her in whatever way she needs.

So, here’s my goal: I will support Sarah to a depth that exceeds what I would want her to support me, regardless of momentary reciprocation. In other words, I will actively be there for her for whatever she needs – an ear, a kiss, some companionship, a laugh, a helping hand, honesty. (We’ll worry about specifics tomorrow.)

What exactly do I need to do to become well-read over the next ten years? I think it would involve reading a large number of meaningful and thought-provoking books, not just page turners (but a few of those, too). A book, to me, is meaningful if it changes how I see the world and it’s thought-provoking if it makes me think.

So, here’s my goal: I will consistently read challenging books and progress through them at a steady, strong pace. This is reasonable because, if you notice, this is one of my major forms of entertainment going forward. I’m essentially saying that a significant chunk of my free time is going to be devoted to reading challenging books going forward.

Notice that this does not include buying books or owning books, but reading them. Going to the bookstore does not fulfill this goal. I should try to get these books as inexpensively as possible, which means I’m going to be hitting the library a lot.

What exactly do I need to do to be a good father over the next ten years? It involves time. It involves listening. It involves trying to understand who each of my children is now, not necessarily the image I have of them from their younger days.

This brings me to my goal for my children: I will give them regular focused time, attention, listening, and conversation beyond meeting their basic needs. By doing this, I can hopefully be there for them at every step along their path to adulthood and understand how they are doing and growing as people.

What exactly do I need to do to be a hiker over the next ten years? I absolutely love hiking and trail walking. There are few things more enjoyable to me than exploring trails of varying difficulty and finding unique and beautiful vistas. The problem, as always, is carving out time to do it.

So, what kind of goal can I set? I will walk at least one significant trail or go on at least one significant off-trail hike per week, on average, for the next ten years. By “significant,” I simply mean a trail that’s new to me that is longer than a mile. This is actually a fairly specific goal, which will make the next part of this exercise (tomorrow’s part) easy.

What exactly do I need to do to get myself in better physical shape over the next ten years? This actually lines up well with hiking, but it needs to go beyond that. I want a fitness routine I can follow easily that produces the kind of results I want.

So, here’s my goal: I want to average 10,000 steps a day, triple my “pounds overhead in ten minutes,” and move up twenty rungs on the fitness ladder in the next ten years. These are the fitness tools I’ve found the most success with over the last several years, so I’m going to stick with them and push them as hard as I can. Again, as with the previous goal, this one’s pretty specific, which is a good thing.

If I do this same exercise with every single item on my list, I’ll have a clear list of the ways in which I’ll spend the hours of my life that I’m not maintaining myself and that I’m not working to do these things or preserve them.

Let’s do one more. What exactly do I need to do to dive deeply into tabletop gaming over the next ten years? This might seem like a strange one, but tabletop gaming is perhaps my most “fun” hobby. I get a great deal of enjoyment out of playing board and card and other tabletop games. So, how can I dig deeper into this hobby?

It’s simple: I want to play every game in my top 100 games list at least ten times. That might seem straightforward, but I have a taste for some rather long games – multi-hour strategic affairs. Not only that, I remake my top 100 list every year, something I do purely for fun to reflect my changing tastes and kind of take stock of where I’m at with the hobby, so it will actually end up being more than 100 games. This goal is all about playing games I already love as opposed to acquiring new ones, so it’s both personally exciting and also takes the edge off of spending money and acquiring things.

Now, the tables turn to you. Take that list of “deep areas” in your life that you developed on Day 1 of this journey and reword each one of them into a ten year goal. Each one can be as specific or as vague as you want, depending on your motivations.

Some people thrive on very specific and measurable goals so they can track their progress over time (me, for instance). Others thrive more on general direction, so less specific goals actually work better for them – some interpret this as not even having goals at all and yet they still find great success.

Don’t be afraid to spend some time on this step. It’s sometimes harder than you expect it to be. However, finding even a little bit of overall direction in a significant area of your life can be incredibly empowering.

At this point, we’re left with a few additional pieces. First, how will you earn income in order to do these things? This means that it makes sense to set a long-term professional goal or two. My long term professional goal centers around providing strong personal finance and life advice on a highly consistent basis, for example.

Second, how will you maintain yourself? Similarly, this means you should set some kind of investment goal for yourself, as well as perhaps some goals related to minimizing spending. My goal is to simply contribute a certain percentage of my income to financial independence / early retirement.

Finally, how will you clear out the shallows? This is very tricky, and it deserves some careful consideration.

As I stated above, the “shallows” refers to the areas of your life that you devote a little bit of time and energy and money and other resources to, but not extensive time and energy. It’s a small part of your life, but it consumes an amount of money (and perhaps time) that’s above and beyond what it should be consuming.

As you rethink your life, your goal should be to leave the elements of your life that you’re not focusing on high and dry. You need to dial all of them down to the minimum.

So, now’s the time to go back through the billing statements and the time diary that you accumulated during the first step and ask yourself which things you spent money and time on are ones that you’re not “going deep” on.

Your broad goal should be to absolutely minimize the spending and the time devoted to each of those areas. This is probably going to be a fairly big goal, and it’s also going to take a lot of your time in the near future. However, as you move through it and come out the other side, you’ll find yourself in far better shape than before.

Why is “cleaning out the shallows” so important? The reason is that you’ve committed more than the minimum time and energy and money to these things in the past, and it can be a difficult transition to moving to minimal time and energy and money for those things.

Remember, this is all about general directions. You’re trying to give some overall shape to where your life is going to head in the future in terms of how you use your money, your time, and your energy. Rather than just having some sense of vague things that are important to you, you want a sense that you’re really digging into something.

One last thing, and this is a big one: what do you do if you start to realize that maybe you left out something important, or you overemphasized something less important to you? Don’t worry about it! It’s absolutely normal during this process to rethink things about your life and decide that some things are more important to you and other things are less important. In fact, if you don’t have those kinds of shifts, then you’re probably not thinking about what really matters to you, in which case you’re going to stay trapped in a cycle of never having enough time or money for the big things you care about and wondering why you’re always in debt and feel strangled for time.

Next time, we’re going to start talking about specifics for these goals. We’re going to break these bigger goals and directions down into actionable things that you can take on today. From there, we’ll start really digging into cleaning up the shallows, because that’s where a lot of the hard work really lies.

The post 31 Days to Financial Independence (Day 2): Finding Direction in the Deep End and Cleaning Up the Shallows appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Thousands due refund after RBS student account error

Tom Wilson

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Tens of thousands of people will receive refunds, plus interest, for charges incorrectly applied to student current accounts held with RBS and NatWest between 2002 and 2016.

Tens of thousands of people will receive refunds, plus interest, for charges incorrectly applied to student current accounts held with RBS and NatWest between 2002 and 2016.

The RBS Group, which RBS and NatWest are both part of, says it has written to affected customers.

Refunds will be paid within the next fortnight, according to a letter to customers seen by Moneywise.

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How to Spend Only $200 on Groceries in 6 Months (It’s a Little Extreme)

“My question is, if that much food is being wasted, how much of it is still good, and can I eat it?” Grant Baldwin asks at the start of food waste documentary “Just Eat It.”

The film, which he made with producer Jen Rustemeyer in Vancouver, British Columbia, documents the couple’s six-month challenge to eat only food that would otherwise be wasted — whether expired, thrown away or donated.

“I don’t think we’re foodies. We’re more like food fans,” explains Rustemeyer, who’s been passionate about reducing food waste for years.

They made the film to illustrate our culture’s massive problem with food waste, inviting analysis from experts Tristram Stuart, Jonathan Bloom and Dana Gunders.

They didn’t intend to run a frugality experiment, as you might expect, but eating found food turns out to be an incredible way to save money on groceries.

Throughout the challenge, the couple rescued over $20,000 worth of food and spent less than $200 on groceries.

These were the challenge’s only rules:

1. Eat only discarded food (anything expired, about to be thrown away or already in the trash).

1. It’s OK to eat what friends and family serve. That is, if a friend invited them to dinner, they wouldn’t turn it down to avoid eating not-yet-wasted food.

Where They Found Food

The first score came early. Baldwin’s brother was moving and cleaning out his very full refrigerator, so the challenge was off to a strong start.

Throughout the next six months, a few supportive friends offered their refrigerators for clean-outs as well. The couple also relied on just a bit of good luck when they could.

“Oh my god, it’s a motherlode!” Baldwin exclaimed after getting a call from a friend who was working on a photo shoot for a pizza chain, letting the couple know about loads of photographed food being thrown away — more chicken and bacon bits than they could possibly eat.

But mostly, the couple relied on finding their own food.

Though they were willing to pay for food that was destined for the trash, they found out most places wouldn’t sell it to them. They had to resort to dumpster-diving instead.

“We found 18-foot dumpsters all the time filled with food,” Rustemeyer told NPR. “and the majority of that was because it was near the date label, but rarely past it.”

Causes of Food Waste

Where is all this waste coming from? In making the film, the couple learned of two major sources:

• Sell-by dates for freshness cause grocery stores and households to waste — literally — tons of good food.

• So-called ugly vegetables rarely even make it to shelves, because we’ve come to expect the same kind of standardization in grown foods as in manufactured foods.

Because most of the couple’s dumpster-found foods were dated out of their spots on grocery or warehouse shelves, the quantities were shocking.

Image from Just Eat It

“I thought we would really be scrounging for foods,” Rustemeyer explains. “But it’s more like (we’re finding) mass quantities of certain foods.”

For example, there’s the swimming-pool-sized dumpster filled with near-expired — note, not yet expired — hummus.

Or $13,000 worth of organic chocolate bars, which they gave out at Halloween. The kids weren’t privy to the source of the candy — they were just excited to get a full-size bar!

Common dumpster finds included dried goods like rice, plus frozen meats, bread and dairy.

Image from Just Eat It

They had little luck finding food behind grocery stores in the city because bins were usually locked, or the food was in a compactor. So they’d venture further out of the city, where these are less common.

Rustemeyer pointed out the quality and amount of food surprised skeptics.

“I’m pretty sure people think we’re eating food scraps, (but) we’ve been eating pretty well,” she explains.

In fact, they were finding far more in wasted food than they could eat alone. They could only take home a fraction of what they discovered in dumpsters.

To keep from re-wasting their rescued food, they even invited friends to “shop” in their kitchen when they were overstocked.

More Ways to Rescue Discarded Food

Besides rescuing food from dumpsters, where can you find discarded food?

Here are some of the tricks the film suggests:

Barter with sellers. Many places wouldn’t sell them “expired” food, but Rustemeyer rescued produce in one store when she saw it in a box about to be discarded.

The couple also bartered with sellers at farmers markets to buy the fruits and veggies no one else wanted. It usually came at a steep discount or free, since the seller would otherwise have thrown it out.

Go gleaning for wasted crops. You can join a gleaning outing to gather crops that would otherwise be left in fields to rot or be plowed under because it doesn’t meet buyers’ standards.

Shop in friends’ pantries. Develop a network among your friends and family, so when someone has excess food — say, after a holiday or before a move — you can take it off their hands before it hits the trash.

Health Considerations

While they didn’t encounter food safety issues, Baldwin did raise one health concern.

After about four months, he discovered he’d gained 10 pounds since beginning the challenge, which he attributed partly to consuming more processed foods.

Cans and boxes of food tend to be the ones discarded because of sell-by dates, so you could wind up with a lot of them when you’re eating out of dumpsters.

Baldwin admitted, though, that the main issue was probably eating too much during the challenge.

He found himself rescuing more than he needed from dumpsters, sad to imagine it going to a landfill the next day. Once the food was in the house, he’d eat more than he needed, just to avoid wasting it again.

Who would have thought you’d risk overeating on a freegan diet?

After the challenge, Rustemeyer said she’d continue to buy food that’s destined to be wasted — but was happy to end her dumpster-diving adventures.

You can learn more about the film and find or host a screening near you, at foodwastemovie.com.

If you’re in Canada (or have a Canadian VPN), you can also stream the movie online for free.

Your Turn: Have you ever gone dumpster diving for food?

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 Spend Only $200 on Groceries in 6 Months (It’s a Little Extreme) appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Are You a Freelancer… or an Exploited Worker?

Two in five workers will be independent contractors by 2020, according to one study. That’s an estimated 60 million of us toiling without the restrictions (or benefits) of full-time employment.

The downside, of course, is that this freedom isn’t necessarily free: For every freelancer you meet who shrugged off the shackles of Corporate America and struck out on his own, you’ll meet several who were forced into part-time, contract, or temporary work by the economy. And, regardless of how you became a freelancer, working on your own means going without even the illusion of job security, as well as common benefits like health insurance, retirement plans, and paid time off.

If you’re a freelancer, though, the first question to ask isn’t whether you adopted the lifestyle on purpose, or even if it suits you — but rather, are you really a freelancer in the first place? If you work for one primary client, and that client can dictate the terms of your work… the answer might well be no. In this worst-of-both-worlds scenario, you’re treated like an employee, without receiving any of the benefits.

In determining whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor, the IRS and the Department of Labor are concerned primarily with two things: control and independence.

The IRS offers three common law rules that establish whether or not a worker is an employee:

• Behavioral: Does your employer/client control your work, and the way in which you do it?
• Financial: Are the business aspects of the job controlled by the entity that pays you? For example, does the company provide the supplies and equipment you use to do your job?
• Type of relationship: Does the work continue on an ongoing basis, or do you do a certain amount of work by a certain date and time? Does the company provide sick time, vacation time, and benefits like health insurance or retirement plans?

Now, meeting some of these criteria doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re an employee, and not meeting some of them doesn’t mean you’re a contractor. Only an employment attorney can really tell you whether or not you’re secretly an employee, by legal standards.

Forget legal standards for a minute. What about practical ones?

Independent workers who want to stay independent need a few things—enough money to live on, but also autonomy, satisfying work, and the ability to combine making a living with living a life.

The financial piece is obvious: If you’re forced to work 80 hours a week, indefinitely, to make ends meet, you’ll probably find yourself crawling back to the cubicle farm sooner rather than later. Ditto if you can’t find enough work to sustain yourself.

Autonomy is a less obvious requirement for a successful, long-term freelancer, but it’s equally important. If you have to work regular hours, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (or so), five days a week, and your boss can tell you when to jump and how high… you’re not a freelancer in spirit, regardless of what the law says.

Truly independent workers control their time and work, to the extent that they can decide to change their hours, graciously decline a project, or rearrange their priorities without asking for permission from another person or business. That doesn’t mean that you won’t be working regular business hours most days, or that you’ll want to get in the habit of saying no to requests from paying clients — being reliable and available is essential for anyone who’s running their own business. But if you don’t feel like you can say no — even if you want to — you’re not really independent.

In short, if you can’t take an afternoon off now and then or switch your projects around without getting the thumbs up from someone else, you’re probably not a true freelancer — but rather a contracted employee in a precarious position.

Note: This post is provided for informational purposes only and doesn’t constitute legal advice. If you think there’s a chance that you’ve been misclassified as a freelancer or contract worker, consult with an employment attorney to learn your rights.

Related Articles: 

• The Ultimate Freelancer’s Guide to Getting Jobs, Getting Paid, and Getting Ahead
• Don’t Try This at Home: You Are Not Going to Make Money With These Five Side Hustles
• Do You Hate Your Job — or Your Boss?
• Why Freelancing Can Be Safer Than a 9-to-5 Job

The post Are You a Freelancer… or an Exploited Worker? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Earn 5%-plus on your savings with the September issue of Moneywise out now

Helen Knapman

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Savers can find out how to earn 5% or more with the September issue of Moneywise magazine, which goes on sale in WHSmith stores today.

Savers can find out how to earn 5% or more with the September issue of Moneywise magazine, which goes on sale in WHSmith stores today.

For just £3.95, we explain the risks and rewards of using peer-to-peer lending to beat low interest rates on cash savings, plus we detail the providers you can trust.

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This Guy Built a Perfect Credit Score. Here’s Exactly How He Did It

Mike Scanlin has always had a high credit score.

But as a 50-year-old venture capitalist who runs a website about investing, he wanted to see if he could get a perfect 850 — just for the fun of it.

“I like puzzles,” said Scanlin, who lives in Los Angeles. “Reverse engineering how [a credit score is calculated] was a game for me. I wanted to get to 850 just to see if it could be done, since I didn’t know anyone who had done it.”

It took him two years, but with some careful financial maneuvering, Scanlin achieved his goal.

A credit score is a number ranging from 300 to 850 that’s based on your payment history, credit utilization, length of credit history, diversity of credit, new credit and other factors. Banks and credit card companies use it to help determine if they want to lend you money and what interest rates they’ll give you.

Scanlin started with a credit score in the mid-700s and a clean credit history — no debt in collections, no missed payments. Because his score was relatively good, he never paid much attention to it… until it was time to buy a house.

“I’ve always paid for my cars and large consumer goods without financing,” he says. “Because of this, my credit score was not as high as it could have been because I wasn’t showing maximum use of different kinds of credit.”

He started reading online message boards, filled with advice from “fanatics,” scheming to improve their credit scores.

Scanlin’s Steps to Get to 850

For starters, he closed out his retailer credit cards from Men’s Wearhouse and Pier 1 Imports, which had very low credit limits.

Next, he began increasing the credit limit on his three remaining credit cards as often as he could, typically every six months.  

“They pretty much doubled or tripled my credit limits,” he said.

By keeping low balances on those cards, Scanlin was able to maintain a low credit utilization rate, which he believes helped boost his score.

“Fewer lines of credit with higher limits improves your score,” he says.

Finally, he took a look at the diversity of his credit. Because he’d always paid for new cars in cash, he’d never taken out an auto loan.

The next time he bought a car, he took out a loan with a low interest rate and paid it off three months later.

And even though he didn’t need it, he also took out a $25,000 personal installment loan and paid it off in six months.

“By getting that loan that I didn’t need, I was able to increase by credit score about 20 points with that one act alone, by including that type of credit in my history where there wasn’t any,” Scanlin said.

Factors That Affect Your Credit Score

After two years of slow and steady work, Scanlin checked his credit score and saw the magic number: 850.

“It’s nothing you can do every day,” Scanlin said. “You have to wait a little bit and see, wait a month to see what has an effect and do something else.”

Of course, he admits he can never be sure what truly caused his credit score to go up each time. After all, each day that passed increased the length of his credit history, another important factor in the credit score formula.

“It’s hard to pinpoint the cause and effect,” he explains.

Today, his credit score is 836, likely because he bought a house about a month ago, he says.

“I got a great rate on the mortgage,” he explains. “That will save a lot of money for me over 30 years.”

He notes the number he sees when he checks his score online with a subscription to MyFICO.com was slightly higher than the number his lender used when he applied for a home loan.

That’s because each credit bureau and lender uses a different scoring model. There are a dizzying number of credit scores out there, each created with a unique algorithm.

Scanlin broke even on the $25,000 loan by investing the money and earning enough from his investments to cover the loan origination fee and interest.

Of course, he runs a website about investing, so he has a deep knowledge many of us don’t.

Are Credit Scores a Good Measure of Financial Health?

 

For the most part, though, Scanlin believes his feat is repeatable by anyone who has a good credit score and wants to make it better.

Now, he’s considering helping his wife improve her credit score with a similar plan.

But even though he ultimately achieved his goal of a perfect credit score, Scanlin says the journey has caused him to question the way lenders loan money and why.

“It’s really bad that they don’t consider assets,” he said. “They only consider debts. Your credit report says nothing about how much money you have in the bank or how much possible equity you have in real estate. It’s a poor estimate, in my opinion, for someone who has assets.”

Scanlin’s own parents — who Scanlin describes as wealthy — pay for everything with cash because they don’t need to take out loans. But it’s also likely hurting their credit scores, which are supposed to be an indicator of financial health and discipline.

“For people who have problems dealing with loans and credit cards and making payments on time, the credit score is probably a decent indicator of that person’s ability to pay back the money,” he explains.

“But when I’m out getting a loan for a house, I feel like my credit score shouldn’t be the only thing triggering the interest rate they’re going to offer me.”

Your Turn: What tricks have you tried to improve your credit score?

Sarah Kuta is an education reporter in Boulder, Colorado, with a penchant for weekend thrifting, furniture refurbishment and good deals. Find her on Twitter: @sarahkuta.

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