NEW YORK (AP) — California and federal regulators fined Wells Fargo a combined $185 million on Thursday, alleging the bank's employees illegally opened millions of unauthorized accounts for their customers in order to meet aggressive sales goals.The San Francisco-based bank will pay $100 million to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency created five years ago, $35 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and $50 million to the City and County [...]
Source Business - poconorecord.com http://ift.tt/2c2b9hd
الخميس، 8 سبتمبر 2016
MudWorks offers pottery classes
MudWorks Pottery will hold “Leaf Workshop” at 2 p.m. Saturday and 6 p.m. Wednesday at the MudWorks studio, 3278 Route 115, Effort.The Saturday class is for ages 10 and up, while the Wednesday class is for adults only. Participants will make two pieces: one flat piece and one, more complicated piece, such as a mirror, bowl or platter. The cost is $48 per person; students should bring some leaves.In addition, MudWorks will hold the first class of its [...]
Source Business - poconorecord.com http://ift.tt/2cdFOW6
Source Business - poconorecord.com http://ift.tt/2cdFOW6
9 Things You Could Buy Instead of a 256GB iPhone 7 Plus
The new iPhones are coming, and guess what: They are ridiculously expensive.
The 256GB iPhone 7 Plus, which has a 5.5-inch display in five colors, costs a whopping $969 at retail.
Not sure why 256GB matters? It’s the first time Apple is offering this much memory in an iPhone, and it’s probably as much memory as you have available in your entire laptop.
Sure, you might be due for an upgrade through your wireless carrier, which would save you from paying full price for a gleaming new phone.
But what if you’re planning to pay outright for a new phone?
What else could you buy instead?
1. MacBook Air 13-inch 128GB Laptop ($961.70)
It’s got less memory than the snazzy new iPhone, but here’s what the 13-inch Macbook Air does have: a big screen, a headphone jack, a keyboard, reduced strain on your eyeballs.
2. A Week in Paris ($847)
PocholoCalapre/Getty Images
Plan your trip well, and you could spend a week in a three-star hotel in Paris.
You don’t even have to risk discount, bare-bones airfare: Our search pulled flights from Air France and KLM.
3. 41 Packs of Quilted Northern Ultra Plush Toilet Paper ($23.55 each)
On a practical note, now could be time to stock up for any/all potential apocalypses.
We’re talking 41 packs, with 24 rolls per pack, which means means 984 rolls of toilet paper — that’s more rolls than dollars you’d spend on your new phone.
4. 8 Harry Potter Hardcover Box Sets in Collectible Trunks ($119 each)
lozikiki under Creative Commons
Your local school librarian would totally lose it if these wizarding box sets showed up at the circulation desk.
5. 8 pairs of Air Jordans ($110 each)
Cherish under Creative Commons
Yeezy Boosts are sold out forever, but you can still stock up on Air Jordans. They’re classic.
6. Whirlpool 4.5 cu. ft. High-Efficiency Front Load Washer With Steam ($899.10)
Look at this beautiful appliance that will be useful for many years. You can wash your clothes, but I do not recommend washing your phone. Not even if it’s supposed to be water-resistant.
7. An Electric Scooter ($740 + $179 Shipping)
Jonathan Leung under Creative Commons
You could get a new phone, or you could get yourself a brand new mode of street-legal transportation.
8. 9 Community College Credits ($105 each)
If you’re an in-county student, that’s almost a full semester of classes.
9. Three EpiPens ($341.50 each)
Samantha Dunscombe – The Penny Hoarder
No prescription coverage? No problem. You can take your $900 straight to the Walmart pharmacy to pay full price for these brand-name, life-saving medical devices.
Your Turn: Are you planning to get a new iPhone 7?
Lisa Rowan is a writer and producer at The Penny Hoarder. She thinks 64GB is enough.
The post 9 Things You Could Buy Instead of a 256GB iPhone 7 Plus appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/2cst0x6
Amazon is Hiring for Seasonal Work-From-Home Positions. Here’s How to Apply
Rather than binge-shopping on Amazon this holiday season (#guilty), I’m going to suggest you make money with the online shopping giant instead.
Amazon is hiring seasonal, work-from-home customer service associates to “swiftly respond to spikes in customer needs.”
Your main job will be solving problems and answering questions from Amazon customers.
The catch? You have to live in one of these 20 states: Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin or Virginia.
Is your state on the list? Good. Keep reading.
Perks of Becoming an Amazon Customer Service Associate
First off, you’ll work from home. In flannel pajamas. Maybe your pup is snuggled up nearby. Or a fire is crackling in the fireplace — or your favorite candle is flickering, if you’re from Florida.
You’ll also be able to choose your own hours from a pool of available shifts — posted weekly. You can choose to work one hour or 30 hours, but the average associate works about 12.
During the holiday season (November to January), you might be asked to work 20 to 40 hours a week and perhaps on a holiday or two.
Either way, you’ll earn $10 an hour, which is a decent income for part-time, seasonal work. It’s at least enough to put into your holiday gift fund.
Are You Qualified to Work for Amazon?
You should have a high school diploma or equivalent and a year or more of exposure in a service environment. You should also be able to type, speak on the phone (hey, you’d be surprised…) and navigate a computer.
There are also technology requirements, but Amazon ships you a headset and a token (not the golden kind, unfortunately).
Finally, you must attend a mandatory training, but it’s online — and you get paid.
Also, if this makes you feel any more confident, two of your fellow Penny Hoarder readers let us know they applied for the job and were hired. Congratulations, Melissa and Marie!
Get going, and apply today.
You can also find more open jobs by liking our new TPH Jobs page on Facebook.
Your Turn: Did you apply for this work-from-home job?
Carson Kohler (@CarsonKohler) is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder. After recently completing graduate school, she focuses on saving money — and surviving the move back in with her parents.
The post Amazon is Hiring for Seasonal Work-From-Home Positions. Here’s How to Apply appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/2cgBxUS
As US puts breaks on megadeals, Walgreens prepares to unload
Walgreens believes that it will probably have to unload more stores than expected to ease antitrust concerns over its pending, $9.41 billion acquisition of Rite Aid, a deal that would make the nation's largest drugstore chain even larger.While it still expects to complete the acquisition this year, the Deerfield, Illinois, company said Thursday that it will probably have to divest more than 500 stores. The company previously said that it expected to divest 500 or fewer. [...]
Source Business - poconorecord.com http://ift.tt/2c1hBop
Source Business - poconorecord.com http://ift.tt/2c1hBop
31 Days to Financial Independence (Day 4): Figuring Out Your True Hourly Wage – and What It Means
“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!
The first three entries in this series started off in something of an unexpected place for people looking for solutions to their financial problems. Rather than digging right into the dollars and cents of the situation, we started off this journey by “zooming out” a little bit and looking at our lives as a whole. What do we want to do with our life? Why do we feel as though we’re spread so thin? What can we do about that?
The truth of the matter is that it’s very difficult to make any lasting change in your financial life if you’re spread too thin in the other areas of your life. Thus, the first step is to simply fix that state.
From there, now we can move onto the next steps, the foundational pieces of getting your financial life in order on top of a firm foundation.
It starts with your true hourly wage.
* * *
So, what exactly is a “true” hourly wage? Most of us know what our hourly wage is for the work that we do, but what isn’t “true” about it?
While your hourly wage is how much you are paid for each hour you work, your true hourly wage is how much money you keep for each hour you devote to your work. That turns out to be a drastically different thing.
I first learned about this concept from the wonderful personal finance book Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, but over the years I’ve seen this idea pop up in my life in countless different ways.
The easiest way to demonstrate a “true” hourly wage is by example, so let’s dig into one.
Our friend John works 40 hours per week for 50 weeks a year. For that, he earns a salary of $40,000. So, if we do the math here, we’ll see that John works 2,000 hours per year (40 hours/week times 50 weeks/year), and thus earns $20 per hour at work ($40,000/year divided by 2,000 hours/year). That’s straightforward enough.
However, that doesn’t include the many other hours that John devotes to his job.
He has a half an hour commute to work and another half an hour commute from work, which adds five hours per week or 250 hours per year.
Once or twice a week, he spends two hours in the evening doing work-related tasks, which adds three hours per week or 150 hours per year.
Twice a year, he has to work an extra full day on a weekend, which adds 16 hours per year.
It’s basically mandated that he goes out to lunch with coworkers at least three times a week, which eats another hour out of his day, which adds three more hours per week or 150 hours per year.
We could add more things, but let’s just stop there. The truth is that instead of just working 2,000 hours per year, John actually devotes 2,566 hours per year to his job.
Now, what about that income? He makes $40,000 a year, right?
Well, he loses $4,000 of that immediately to federal income taxes and another $1,000 to state income taxes.
He spends $10 more on lunch three times a week than he otherwise would, which adds up to $1,500 per year ($10 times 3 lunches per week times 50 weeks per year).
He spends about $0.50 per mile during his commute for fuel, maintenance, registration, insurance, and depreciation. His commute is 15 miles each way, so he drives 30 miles a day for his commute, which means it costs him $15 per day. Multiply that by 5 days per week and 50 weeks per year and you wind up with $3,750 in annual expense.
He has to maintain a decent work wardrobe, which adds up to $250 a year.
Again, we could add more things to this scenario, but you get the idea. These extra job-related expenses are taking money out of his pocket – $10,500, to be exact.
Suddenly, rather than making $40,000 from working 2,000 hours, he’s actually making $29,500 from devoting 2,566 hours to his job.
His hourly wage on paper might be $20/hour, but his true hourly wage is $11.50/hour.
That’s painful to think about, and most people don’t want to think about it that way. The truth is that John is repeatedly trading away an hour of his life – his time, his energy, his focus – for $11.50. He does it over and over and over and over again.
(The truth is that the exchange rate is probably worse than that – we didn’t include nearly all of the factors that add “work time” nor did we include all of the factors that reduce the money that you actually keep.)
Knowing your true hourly wage is important for a bunch of reasons, but two really stand out.
First of all, it gives you a strong baseline as to whether something is worth your time. If John can spend an hour doing something that will save him $20, then it’s worth it to him. It’s far better than the true hourly rate he gets from the time devoted to his job. If he went just by his stated hourly wage, then such a task might not seem as good, but $20 an hour in his pocket is way better than the $11.50 an hour in his pocket that his real job gives him.
What I’ve found over the years is that knowing my true hourly wage really makes frugal tasks look quite good in terms of dollars and cents. There are tasks that, at first glance, I wouldn’t imagine would be worth the time, but when I actually thought about them and then considered my true hourly wage in comparison, they actually seemed pretty good.
Second, your true hourly wage lets you see how many hours of your life you’re exchanging for various goods. If John buys a $1,000 television, he previously thought that was just a little more than a week’s wages – $20 an hour times 50 hours equals $1,000. Not bad. However, the truth is that he’s only getting $11.50 per hour of his time and energy, which means he’s trading 87 hours of his life away for that television.
Those kinds of comparisons are even worse for small things. If your “true” hourly wage is just $8, for example, buying a $2 slice of pizza and a $2 beverage means you’re literally trading away half an hour of your life for that stuff.
For me, at least, those kinds of comparisons are downright agonizing. I do not want to be in the business of trading away chunks of my life for small, forgettable things. If I’m going to work for a large number of hours to be able to pocket the money to pay for something, I want that purchase to be a meaningful one. I don’t want to trade my life away for an endless string of forgotten little “treats” and relatively meaningless splurges.
Let’s step back now and take a look at your true hourly wage.
Exercise 4 – Calculating Your “True” Hourly Wage and Putting It to Work
To begin with, figure out how much money you made in the past year. You can do this by looking at last year’s tax returns or paychecks. You’ll also need to estimate, to the best of your ability, how many hours you worked last year. Don’t worry about adding in extra work – just focus on the hours spent in the office working on tasks.
Got that? Now, if you take that annual income and divide it by the number of hours worked, you have your approximate hourly wage… but that’s not your true hourly wage.
To get your true hourly wage, you’re going to have to walk through your life a little bit in order to figure out where you’ve spent extra time and spent money on things directly related to your job. The time you spent increases the hours you’ve devoted to work, while the money spent decreases the actual amount that makes it into your pocket.
I’m going to break these things down into a few categories. I suggest taking out a piece of paper and tabulating all of the time and money spent on these things throughout the year.
First of all, how much did you pay in state and federal income taxes? That’s money taken straight out of your pocket, so you need to include it.
Next, let’s look at the general area of commuting, something that most employees have to do.
How much time do you spend commuting each day? This includes things like walking or riding a bike or even riding mass transit.
How many miles do you drive? Once you know the daily mileage to and from work, you’ll want to multiply that by $0.58, which is the AAA estimate of the per-mile cost of operating a vehicle (gas, maintenance, oil, insurance, registration, depreciation, and so on).
How much do you pay for tollways?
How much do you pay for parking each day (or each month or year, depending on how you pay for it)?
If you have to use mass transit to get to and from work, what’s the daily cost for that?
Multiply those things by the number of workdays in a week, then the number of weeks that you work in a year. You’ll quickly see how much those factors add up.
What about taking work home or weekend work? Make sure you’re including that when you include your total number of work hours.
What about work clothes? You should include the cost things like makeup and briefcases and extra grooming and other such items here, as well as the time spent shopping for them and the time spent actually using them.
What about meals? How often do you go out to lunch or dinner with coworkers or with professional guests? What about entertaining for work, like hosting dinner parties? How often does your job force you to eat convenience foods, and what do they cost (think of a vending machine or a fast food stop)?
What about hired help? If you have to have child care in order to be able to work, then you absolutely need to include that expense. Maybe you also hire people to help with other household tasks like cleaning or laundry.
What about decompression and entertainment? How much “down time” do you need to unwind when you get home? What do you spend on entertainment during that “down time”? Do you use entertainment or other things to “escape” from your everyday life – and if you do, how much does that stuff cost and how much time does it eat up?
What about extra lifestyle expenses – things that you buy because you think you should because of your salary or status? Do you go on excessively expensive vacations because you can “afford” it or need to “escape”? Do you have to use a gym to keep in shape because your job is sedentary (I’d probably count the cost here, but I’ll leave the time involved at your discretion)? What about owning a “summer house” that you “escape” to every once in a while – what does that cost? Think about the extra lifestyle expenses you have in your life that are far beyond what you’d need to do for basic enjoyment.
What about other work expenses? Do you buy any books related to your career? Do you subscribe to any magazines or trade journals? How much time do you spend with these things because you think it’ll help your career (don’t count the time if it’s truly personal enrichment)?
As you can see, these expenses – both in terms of time and in terms of money – really add up. I strongly encourage you to go through each of these questions and think about whether those time and money expenses really exist in your life and, if they do, how much they add up to over the course of a year. If it’s a daily expense, multiply it by 5 (days per week) and then by 50 (weeks per year). If it’s a weekly expense, just multiply it by 50 (weeks per year).
Then, when you’ve calculated all of those numbers, add up the annual hours and annual expenses. Add the annual hours to the initial number that you estimated – the amount of hours actually spent at work – and then subtract the annual expenses from your annual income.
Then divide the two – take your adjusted annual income and divide it by your adjusted hours devoted to work.
That’s your true hourly wage. And it’s probably painful.
Most people don’t realize how little they’re willing to exchange an hour of their life for, yet over and over again you’re making that trade. You’re trading an hour of your life for that true hourly wage and you’re likely doing it 60-70 times a week (or even more).
That alone can be enough to make you strongly think about your career choices. Driving across town to make $10.50 an hour might be a worse move than working for $8 an hour at the gas station across the street, for example. It’s very possible that the gas station job across the street will leave more money in your pocket for each hour you work – in fact, I’d say it’s quite likely.
However, you might find an even bigger impact when using that true hourly wage to evaluate your purchases. This one can be a real life changer.
If you previously didn’t think about your true hourly wage at all, you might just see a $1,000 television as being a very expensive item, but one you’ll enjoy a lot. It’s bigger than that $500 television and would look great in your living room.
What if your true hourly wage is just $8 an hour, though?
That $1,000 television means you are devoting 125 hours of your life just to put that television in your living room. That doesn’t include the hours you’ll spend each month just to afford the programming on it – if you have a $100 cable bill, for instance, that’s 12.5 hours of your life gone just to have that cable package. Over the course of just one year, that’s 275 hours of your life that vanishes just to have this television.
On the other hand, maybe you stick with just that $500 television and, instead of cable, you just subscribe to Netflix for $9 a month. The television now costs you only 62.5 hours of your life, while Netflix is costing you only 1.125 hours of your life each month. This option is only costing you 76 hours of your life for a year of television.
The Big Follow-Up Question
The obvious question that people have from these calculations is what happens to the hours that I “save” by making better spending choices? In the example above, buying that less expensive television “saves” 200 hours out of my life this year, but in reality, we don’t directly see those hours. We don’t suddenly have 4 more hours of free time in a week if we make that choice.
So how does that pay off? It pays off in several ways that you don’t expect, actually.
First of all, it pays off in the form of reduced stress. Take that savings and put it aside for an emergency, like a car breakdown or a sudden job loss. Suddenly, you feel more secure about your day to day life – a little bit of the stress of walking the high wire is gone.
It pays off in the form of lower debts, which is the very first inkling you’ll get of the power of money over time. If you instead apply the hours you would have spent to get that big television and cable bill and instead apply them to paying down your debts, you’ll see that your debt payment gets smaller and the amount of interest you owe each month goes down, too. Your bills start to shrink, meaning you can devote fewer of your hours each month just to earning the money needed to keep afloat and you can spend more of your hours each month earning money for building the life you actually want.
In fact, that’s exactly how I like to look at my time spent working. I have to spend a certain amount of work time each week doing things to simply pay the bills and keep things going – my life expenses, in other words. The rest of my work time is spent earning the money I need to build the life I want. I want to spend less of my work time on merely paying the bills and covering basic life expenses and more time building the meaningful life I want – and I’m guessing you feel the exact same way. The easiest way to do that is to be conscious of what my purchases are actually costing me in terms of my working time.
Next time, we’re going to tie this “true hourly wage” concept directly to the life changes we talked about in the first few days of this journey. What are you really working for? We’re about to figure that out, and it will provide you with a rocket ship full of meaning and motivation for getting your financial life straight.
The post 31 Days to Financial Independence (Day 4): Figuring Out Your True Hourly Wage – and What It Means appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
Source The Simple Dollar The Simple Dollar http://ift.tt/2cnpKVs
Not Sure Where to Go to College? This Tool Can Help You Decide
When it comes to major life decisions, choosing which college to attend ranks high on the scale of sheer nerve-wrackingness.
You want to go somewhere affordable, but also somewhere that will lay the best foundation for a successful future.
You want a school with top-notch academics, but also a place you’ll truly be able to call “home” for the next four years.
You likely have other “dream college” must-haves, whether that’s a bustling urban location, great financial aid options or a certain male-to-female ratio. (Hey, we won’t judge.)
That’s a lot of information to weigh. And while you can find college rankings aplenty online, assimilating all of that data to determine which schools have just the right mix of features for you can be overwhelming.
Until now.
How to Make Your Own Custom College Rankings
Meet Money magazine’s cool new college search tool.
It incorporates some of the best parts of typical college rankings while adding an extra level of personalization to help you better determine which of its more than 700 four-year schools are the best value for your specific needs and wants.
Here’s how it works:
First, you create your list of top colleges by using up to 10 different filters:
- Location (state or region)
- Majors/study areas
- School size
- Type of campus (urban or not)
- Type of school (public or private)
- Selectivity (acceptance rate)
- Typical student test scores (ACT/SAT)
- Test requirements
- Varsity sports teams
- Male/female ratio
Then, you can sort your schools based on four additional factors:
- Likelihood of need-based financial aid
- Likelihood of merit-based financial aid (like scholarships)
- Typical student loan debt incurred
- Expected graduate earnings
Once you’ve generated and ranked your list, you can then click to learn more about each school on detailed profile pages.
Best of all? The tool is totally free to use.
But Does It Work?
I was curious see how my own life may have differed if this tool existed when I was a college hopeful, so I tried plugging in the factors I (or, rather, 18-year-old me) would have been seeking.
For location, I chose the Northeast (high-school-me was obsessed with Hollywood images of autumn campuses and vaguely New England-y settings).
I entered my preferred major, English, and was given a list of potential study areas, from boldfaced general categories to more specific concentrations. I selected “English Language and Literature” and added “Creative Writing” as a concentration.
I do better in a setting where I can get to know my fellow students and professors, so I limited my school size to small and medium. I left type of school, varsity sports teams and male/female ratio blank as those factors didn’t matter to me, but I did select “not urban” for type of campus to get me one of those big, leaf-strewn quads I always dreamed of.
I also chose “Highly” and “Somewhat” selective so I’d have a better chance of being among the best and the brightest (and of getting in if they wound up being better and brighter than I anticipated). Finally, I entered my SAT score.
With every filter I chose, a list of my top college options appeared and refreshed itself on the right side of the screen, with each school’s overall rank displayed in a circle next to its name.
I then sorted my list based on my financial preferences. Need- and merit-based financial aid: “very important.” Zero debt upon graduation: “very important.”
Likelihood of a high-paying job: “moderately important,” as I’ve always been more interested in quality of life than making a ton of cash.
My results?
Sarah Lawrence, one of my top picks back in the day, came out no. 2 on my list, even though its overall rank on traditional lists is 585. I saw a few other vaguely familiar names on my 21-school list, but none I’d considered seriously based on the pretty brochures and catalogues I was largely working from in the ‘‘90s.
My top recommendation, The College of New Jersey, was one I’d never even heard of, but after browsing its stats and student reviews, I could see why it might have been worth considering.
My custom rankings list certainly opened up my mind to new options, and I’d be interested to see how my list would change if I played around with adjusting some of my filters. (Maybe I could look at pricier schools if I was also hoping for one of these weird scholarships?)
One thing is for certain: I would have loved to have this tool available to me when I was on the college hunt.
Your Turn: Students, what do you think of MONEY’s new college search tool?
Kelly Gurnett is a freelance blogger, writer and editor who runs the blog Cordelia Calls It Quits, where she documents her attempts to rid her life of the things that don’t matter and focus more on the things that do. Follow her on Twitter @CordeliaCallsIt.
The post Not Sure Where to Go to College? This Tool Can Help You Decide appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/2ccB8St
Housing market 'settles down' post-Brexit, says RICS
House prices and sales will likely continue to rise in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, with prices predicted to go up by 3.3% a year over the next five years, according to the latest poll of surveyors.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) found that a higher proportion of surveyors expected sales to rise in the next three months than at any time since February.
Source Moneywise http://ift.tt/2cIokGz
From $0 to $108K per MONTH, Here’s How Much 12 Bloggers Actually Earn
So you wanna start a blog? Welcome to the club.
It seems like every week, someone emails or asks me about launching a blog, since that’s how I began my writing career.
Blogging is fun, but it’s certainly not an easy way to make money — that’s why I focus on freelance writing instead.
BUT.
There are bloggers who make tons of money — usually after a long time and a lot of work.
Many of the most successful bloggers earn the majority of their incomes teaching others to do what they do (which is a bizarre and cyclical system to me — kind of like life coaches coaching other people into becoming life coaches — but that’s beside the point).
To show you the wide range of incomes you can earn with blogging, I decided to pull income reports from bloggers in different niches. Before reading it, be sure you understand the basics of affiliate marketing.
Here are 12 blogger income reports — from negative all the way to very, very positive.
1. The Extra Income Project: $-115.21
This fairly new blog chronicles Lloyd Phillips’ journey out of debt.
He earned a decent amount of money through affiliate links and ads, but actually posted a net loss in July 2016, because he invested in a business course and subscription to a website management tool.
Though blog overhead costs can be very low, it often takes money to make money — and it looks like that’s the track Phillips is on.
2. Gluten Free With L.B.: $80.43
London Brazil shares gluten-free recipes and resources on her blog, and in June 2016, she grossed more than $300 through sponsored content and ads.
However, her costs meant she only netted around $80. It’s important to note Brazil has been blogging for two years. As I said before, blogging isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme!
3. Keep it Simple, DIY: $211.39
I’m impressed with how much money Kari Jonard earns with her blog Keep it Simple, DIY.
She only received around 1,000 unique visitors in July 2016, yet still managed to earn more than $200. She doesn’t reveal a lot about her income strategy, noting only the majority of it came from ads.
5. Freelance Doodle: $997.29
Although Harlan Yee used to have a freelance business, he decided to focus his spare time on creating passive income streams — which is what he writes about on Freelance Doodle.
In May 2016, the last month he published an income report, he earned nearly a grand from self-publishing and Amazon affiliate sales.
6. This Fairy Tale Life: $1,079.73
Who knew you could earn money blogging about Disney and weddings?
Mindy’s managed to do it; in her June 2016 income report, she details her first four-digit month ever. She earned the majority through ad networks and Etsy affiliate links.
7. Travel Blog Breakthrough: $1,874.59
As a former travel blogger, let me tell you: It’s a HARD way to make money.
So I’m impressed Will Tang earned more than $1,800 from writing and ads in June 2016. What might contribute to his success is the fact he has two separate blogs: one focused on his travels, and the other on the business of travel blogging.
8. Single Moms Income: $7,783.75
Alexa Mason started her blog nearly four years ago, and is now earning a pretty penny. In July 2016, she earned close to $8,000 from freelance writing, virtual assistant work and ads.
One thing I don’t like? In her income report, Mason didn’t outline her expenses, so we don’t know how much of her earnings was actual profit.
9. Just a Girl and Her Blog: $24,861
Wow! I’ve never heard of this girl (Abby Lawson) and her blog, but she’s apparently crushing it while writing about organization, decor and, well, blogging.
She works on the site with her husband, and they earned a whole lot of money in June 2016 — mostly through the sale of an ebook (about monetizing your blog) and affiliate links for her web host.
10. Pinch of Yum: $32,971.75
Pinch of Yum’s income report was one of the first I ever started following. I found the behind-the-scenes look at this popular food blog fascinating — and I couldn’t believe how much Lindsay Ostrom was making.
Although she and her team continued to share their numbers (here’s June 2016), their last month with all the totals added up is June 2015… during which they netted more than $30,000.
11. Smart Passive Income: $93,359.90
I’m pretty sure Pat Flynn was the first blogger to start doing income reports. And even if he wasn’t, he’s definitely the most famous.
In July 2016, he earned nearly $100,000 through affiliate and book sales, niche sites, podcast sponsorships, software and apps. (Read the report for the full breakdown; it’s awesome.)
12. Making Sense of Cents: $107,985
I was absolutely shocked to see Michelle Schroeder’s blog beat Smart Passive Income in July 2016. Go, girl!
She earned an absolutely ludicrous $112,594 — which, after expenses, came to nearly $108,000. In a single month.
She did it mostly through affiliate sales, and income from her affiliate marketing course, where she teaches others her tricks.
Can’t get enough of blogger income reports? Check out these lists from Real Ways to Earn and Cash Flow Diaries.
Your Turn: Did you have any idea you could earn so much money blogging?
Susan Shain, senior writer for The Penny Hoarder, is always seeking adventure on a budget. Visit her blog at susanshain.com, or say hi on Twitter @susan_shain.
The post From $0 to $108K per MONTH, Here’s How Much 12 Bloggers Actually Earn appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/2cIfJUp
Lifetime Isa given green light, but doubts remain over launch date
The government has confirmed the Lifetime Isa will go ahead as planned and has so far resisted calls to expand the list of lifetime events that qualify for the generous bonus.
Source Moneywise http://ift.tt/2crroUb
Seven in ten Moneywise users find an accountant through word of mouth
Word of mouth is the most popular method Moneywise.co.uk readers use to find an accountant.
According to our latest poll results, which garnered 203 votes between 30 August and 6 September 2016, nearly seven in ten people (66%) employ this seemingly traditional method to find a reliable accountant.
Source Moneywise http://ift.tt/2crsmzG
These People Found Some Bizarre Ways to Pay Off Their Student Loans
What would you do to be free of student loan debt?
Would you work two jobs? That’s how 22-year-old Jordan Arnold paid off $23,150 in student loans in just one year after graduation.
Would you find a bizarre side gig? Kat Tretina braided horse manes on the weekends and paid off $30,000 three years early.
Would you live with your parents again? Millennials are returning home in droves to try and pay off record-setting student loan debt, and most of us still aren’t sure how to feel about it.
Would you be homeless and sleep in your car or live in your van?
Would you live in a house this tiny to save $8,000 in college housing costs?
Would you flee the country? These four debt-dodgers did. It’s, er, effective, as long as you never want to return … and don’t mind leaving co-signers on the hook.
Would you join the armed forces? One woman used payment from her last tour of duty to pay off $53,000 in student loan debt.
Are You Paying More Than You Should?
It’s not fun to hear, but it’s also no surprise to learn the extremes some people go to to get out from under student loan debt.
The average student loan debt balance as of 2014 was $15,000, the New York Fed reports.
That means, regardless of what you did to save wisely and pay off your debt in a timely fashion, you likely owe lenders enough money to buy a small SUV.
And the debt grows as we age.
The average balance for borrowers in their 30s (who likely have been out of college for more than a decade) is about $31,000.
The longer you take to pay down your student loan debt, the more interest you’ll pay beyond the actual loan amount.
So, if you don’t want to give up your home — or way of life — to get rid of this debt, what can you do?
How to Pay Off Student Loans Faster
If you did what many of us do after high school, you filled out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid, collected the grants and loans you were eligible for and went to college without another thought.
Six months after your last class, you got the first reminder in the mail. You might not have even landed your first job yet.
To complicate things, maybe FAFSA didn’t yield everything you’d hoped.
You needed to find additional college funding via private loans, and now you owe money to a slew of people you dealt with years ago and barely remember.
If you’re struggling to make several payments each month and keep track of a variety of interest rates and debt obligations, refinancing might help you clear the air.
Student loan refinancing combines your loans into one, so you have just one lender, interest rate and monthly payment.
Could You Save Money Refinancing Student Loans?
Along with simplifying the process, refinancing could actually save you money, as well.
Starting fresh on your loans could help you:
- Owe a lower monthly payment, in case you’re struggling to keep up with payments now.
- Get a lower interest rate, which means you’ll pay less over the life of your loan.
That means you could start paying down your debt with one affordable monthly payment. Plus, with a reduced interest rate, you’d save money in the long run!
For example, Jammie Proctor took more than 10 years off of school, before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech when he was 36 years old — with over $50,000 in student loans.
He wanted to pay off his house and start investing in his future, but couldn’t move forward with his loans hanging over his head.
Proctor saved between $6,000-$7,500 on his loans refinancing with Credible and will be debt-free in just seven years.
Simply put, refinancing could help you sleep easy — in your own bed.
Find your new rate and options at Credible.com, a marketplace that lets you see personalized rates from multiple refinancing lenders without affecting your credit score or sharing your information with lenders.
Your Turn: What bizarre things have you heard of people doing to pay off student loan debt?
Sponsorship Disclosure: A huge thanks to Credible.com for working with us to bring you this content. It’s rare that we have the opportunity to share something so awesome and get paid for it!
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 These People Found Some Bizarre Ways to Pay Off Their Student Loans appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/2c9hTaD
Three Reasons You Shouldn’t Pick Your Career Off a ‘Hot Jobs’ List
Media outlets love to issue “hot jobs” lists (we’re as guilty as anyone), telling you which careers to target based on considerations like occupational outlook and earning power. But while expected salary and job opportunities are perfectly valid factors to include in your decision, they’re far from the only reasons to pick a career path.
Here are three reasons why you should take such rankings with a grain of salt.
1. Today’s hot job is tomorrow’s law degree.
Years ago, career counselors (and well-meaning relatives) advised humanities majors to take their LSATs before graduating with their bachelor’s degree — “just in case.”
“After all,” the conversation generally went, “You can do anything with a law degree.”
Then, due to a variety of factors (the recession, for example, and websites like LegalZoom that offer basic legal services on the cheap), the bottom dropped out and law blogs started running pieces like “The 20 Law Schools With The Most Unemployed Graduates.”
The point is, you have no way of knowing whether today’s promising occupation will still be in demand tomorrow. If you choose a field based on your interests, aptitudes, and passions, you’ll at least be willing to fight for it when tough times hit.
Pick something off a list, and you may be stuck chasing a career that was never really going to lead to your dream job.
2. Fit is everything when it comes to careers.
“When looking for a job, you want to take into consideration your own unique personality, values, interests, and skills,” says Penny Loretto, associate director of the Career Development Center at Skidmore College.
“’Hot jobs’ that are continually advertised all over the media may be good for some individuals as long as it’s a career that matches your own personal attributes and expectations,” Loretto says. “Selecting a job based on current trends or salary alone could be a big mistake, since it’s just a list of jobs or career fields and doesn’t take personal attributes into consideration.”
If you long to write the Great American Novel, and can’t concentrate in math and science classes, you’re probably never going to be a success as a software engineer, no matter how hot a career it is. And if you can’t stand the sight of blood, you’ll never be happy as a registered nurse. There’s no point trying to shoehorn yourself into a job that will always be a bad fit.
As a career counselor once told me during my own years of carving out a career path, “Trying to make yourself happy in the wrong job is like trying to write with your non-dominant hand. You might learn to do it passably, but it will take longer and never feel natural.”
3. ‘Picking’ a career is a process, not a one-time choice.
Another popular trope of the career advice world is the old, “You’ll have X different careers in your lifetime.” It might interest you to know that no one really keeps tally of that.
It’s true: the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is where most people would look for such data, doesn’t track that information, in part probably because figuring out where one career ends and another begins is increasingly hard.
Unless you go back to school and retrain for something drastically different than what you have been doing, your career will likely evolve gradually as you figure out your strengths, weaknesses, and interests. That’s all to the good, since there’s no real way to know how you’ll fit into a career until you’re in the middle of it.
Regardless of where you start out or hope to end up, the rules of building a successful career are the same:
- Listen to your heart, but don’t confuse fear with disinterest. Sometimes, you need to take a class that’s a stretch or volunteer for a project that will require you to try something new. That’s not the same as doing a job that feels like writing with your non-dominant hand.
- Do whatever you can to build your network, including doing internships and being socially active in your field.
- Look for ways to build your practical skills while you follow your dreams. That might mean taking STEM classes to balance out your humanities courses or finding ways to get a valuable certification before graduation, to set yourself apart from the field of prospective hires. Being pragmatic doesn’t mean walking away from what you love; it just means taking deliberate steps to get yourself where you want to go.
Related Articles:
- The Myths and Realities of ‘Doing What You Love’
- Why Taking a Pay Cut Was the Best Career Move I Ever Made
- You Already Have All The Skills You Need to Succeed
- Earn and Learn: 10 Great Jobs That Start With an Apprenticeship
The post Three Reasons You Shouldn’t Pick Your Career Off a ‘Hot Jobs’ List appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
Source The Simple Dollar The Simple Dollar http://ift.tt/2crjyKu
Why Saying ‘No’ to Clients Could Mean Saying ‘Yes’ to Your Business
By Sesselja Bigseth When you are starting out as an entrepreneur, be it as a coach or a writer, a web designer or a retailer, all you want is to land that important first client, to make your very first sale. But as time progresses, you might find those first clients becoming more of a […]
Source The Work at Home Woman http://ift.tt/2bVTCsD
Source The Work at Home Woman http://ift.tt/2bVTCsD
الاشتراك في:
الرسائل (Atom)