Best Business Line of Credit for 2016

Getting a business line of credit is often a good idea to help manage your cash flow, deal with business expenses, and even invest in long-term growth plans. Unlike a business loan, however — in which you lock in to borrowing and paying interest on a set amount — a business line of credit allows you to borrow up to a certain limit, but only pay interest on the amount you actually borrow. So, how do you know which business line of credit lender is best for you?

The answer is going to be determined by your individual financial goals (what you need the money for and how much); your credit score; your annual revenue; the number of years you’ve been in business; and a few other factors too. The good news is that there are great business line of credit options out there for just about anyone.

The Simple Dollar’s Top Picks for Best Business Line of Credit

• Best for New Businesses with Decent Credit and Strong Revenues: OnDeck
• Best for New Businesses with Decent Credit and Small Borrowing Needs: StreetShares
• Best for New Businesses with Lower Credit Scores: Kabbage
• Best for Established Businesses with Strong Credit Scores: Lending Club
• Honorable Mention: Lendio

How I Found the Best Business Line of Credit Lenders

You may notice that all of my choices for Best Business Line of Credit are platform lenders — also known as “alternative lenders” or “online lenders.” Banks are a major source of business lines of credit too, of course, and if you can get a good deal from your bank, that’s often the best place to start looking for a line of credit. But many business owners cannot get approved by a bank, need cash fast and don’t have time to wait for a bank loan approval to go through, or can’t get the right amount of money from a bank. That’s why my top picks are all platform lenders; they offer just about any small company a chance to receive a business line of credit, and on good terms.

To determine which online lenders offered the best business line of credit, I first looked at the following criteria:

• Lender reputation
• Funding amount limits
• Minimum credit requirements
• Time in business/revenue requirements
• Funding speed/convenience
• APR and fees
• Repayment terms

After comparing each online lender’s attributes in these key areas, I then used the information to determine the best business line of credit lender for the most common user groups.

The Best Business Lines of Credit Lenders

Best for New Businesses with Decent Credit and Strong Revenues

Learn More on OnDeck.com's secure website

OnDeck Highlights

• Credit Limit:
  $100,000
• APR Range:
  14-40%
• Minimum Credit Score:
  500

OnDeck approves line of credit limits of up to $100,000 for borrowers with a credit score of 500 or more (most OnDeck customers have a credit score of 675 or higher), at least nine months in business, no bankruptcies in the past two years, and annual business revenues of at least $75,000. OnDeck provides relatively fast cash, disbursing funds within a few days, or sometimes as quickly as within 24 hours. OnDeck’s line of credit APRs range from 14-40%, with an average APR of 29.99%. There is a $20 monthly account maintenance fee, but you can have this fee waived for six months if you borrow $5,000 or more within the first five days of opening your line of credit account.

OnDeck requires lines of credit to be repaid weekly with automatic deductions from your business bank account — but you have flexibility for how much money you pay back per week, and you can pay off the full balance at any time with no extra fees.

If your business needs quick cash and you can handle the weekly repayments (for example: if you’re running a retail business or a restaurant with steady sales, and you need a quick infusion of capital to buy inventory or cover temporary expenses), OnDeck will likely be your best choice.

If your business tends to have slow receivables and uneven cash flow, however, (like if you’re a freelance graphic designer whose invoices get paid on 30- to 60-day terms), then OnDeck’s weekly repayments might not be the best fit for your overall cash flow. In that case, I’d recommend trying Kabbage or Lending Club instead.

Who it’s good for: New business owners with decent credit and strong revenues, or more established business owners (OnDeck’s typical customer has been in business for nine years).

Who should pass: More established businesses that can qualify for lower APRs; businesses that need bigger credit limits than $100,000; business owners with credit scores lower than 600 (although OnDeck says it will consider a minimum credit score of 500); businesses on the OnDeck restricted industry list.

Best for New Businesses with Decent Credit and Small Borrowing Needs

Learn More on StreetShares.com's secure website

StreetShares Highlights

• Credit Limit:
  20% of your annual revenue, up to $100,000
• APR Range:
  9-40%
• Minimum Credit Score:
  600

StreetShares was founded by US military veterans with the goal of encouraging and supporting entrepreneurship by other veterans and military spouses, but all business owners, veterans and non-veterans, are welcome to apply. It offers business lines of credit starting from $5,000 up to $100,000 to companies that have been in business for at least one year, with annual revenues of at least $25,000, plus a credit score of 600 or more. StreetShares will also lend to even younger companies (as few as six months in business) if you have $100,000 in annual revenue. APRs range from 9-40% and funds are disbursed within one to five days.

Your maximum credit limit with StreetShares is determined by calculating 20 percent of your total annual revenue — so if you have $150,000 in annual revenue, your maximum limit on a line of credit would be $30,000. Borrowers cannot have had any bankruptcies within the past three years, and cannot have any current tax liens or collections (unless you can provide documentation to explain the situation).

Like OnDeck, StreetShares requires automatic weekly repayments, so if your business has uneven cash flow (e.g., if you’re regularly waiting on your invoices to get paid), it probably won’t be your best option. Try Kabbage or Lending Club instead.

Who it’s good for: Business owners who are US military veterans, as well as new business owners with decent credit and high revenues, or who only need to borrow relatively small amounts of money.

Who should pass: Fast-growing businesses that need to borrow larger amounts, or that do not have good credit. StreetShares is currently not available for business owners in North Dakota and South Dakota.

Best for New Businesses With Lower Credit Scores

Kabbage is one of the fastest and most flexible platform lenders, disbursing cash within minutes to qualified borrowers. It offers line of credit amounts from $2,000 to $100,000, and, unlike our other top picks, does not require any minimum personal credit score. Because of this, it will likely be your best option if you have bad credit, your business is still in startup mode, or if you sell products online.

Kabbage uses alternative indicators to evaluate your creditworthiness, such as eCommerce sales and shipping data — things traditional banks don’t take into consideration, but nevertheless affect your ability to repay borrowed money. Kabbage requires borrowers to have been in business for at least one year and to have $50,000 or more in annual revenue, however. Borrowed money can be repaid within six to 12 months, with APRs ranging from 32-108%.

Who it’s good for: New businesses or business owners with bad credit, and businesses that need small amounts of money (lines of credit starting at $2,000) — although, Kabbage does also provide lines of credit up to $100,000.

Who should pass: More established businesses with better credit scores that can qualify for lower APRs elsewhere, and businesses that need credit limits over $100,000.

DISCLOSURE — I work as a freelance blog writer for Kabbage, but it did not pay me to write this article and it was not involved in its creation. I have personally interviewed many small-business owners who are customers of Kabbage and I know that Kabbage’s product can be a great help for business owners who need fast, convenient access to working capital.

Best for Established Businesses With Strong Credit Scores

Learn More on LendingClub.com's secure website

Lending Club Highlights

• Credit Limit:
  $300,000
• APR Range:
  6.25-21.85% (variable)
• Minimum Credit Score:
  600

Lending Club is a peer-to-peer lending marketplace where business owners can get a line of credit by borrowing from individual investors. From the borrower’s perspective, Lending Club essentially works the same as the other platform lenders, but instead of borrowing money from a finance company, you’re using a non-bank “peer-to-peer” alternative model for borrowing. In this model, a collection of individual people directly decide to invest in your company by funding your line of credit, and then you repay their investment with your loan repayments. It’s kind of like “crowdfunding,” but instead of asking people to just give you money, you’re asking them to lend you money, and you agree to repay them with interest so they can see a return on their investment, just as if you were borrowing from a bank.

Lending Club offers business lines of credit ranging from $5,000 to $300,000, and requires a minimum of two years of business history, at least $75,000 in annual revenue, and a personal credit score of 600 or more with no recent bankruptcies or tax liens. You must repay any money borrowed within 25 months, and you need to offer collateral for lines of credit over $100,000.

Lending Club’s lines of credit have variable rates from 6.25- 21.85%, with an average rate of 15.08% for lines of credit in the last 12 months, ending May 15, 2016. (Averages are based on a one-year offer.)

Who it’s good for: Established businesses with decent credit scores.

Who should pass: Younger businesses with lower credit scores or annual revenues under $75,000. Lending Club loans are currently not available to residents of Iowa.

Best Business Line of Credit At A Glance

Lender	Borrowing Limits	Credit Requirements	Annual Percentage Rate (APR)	Repayment Terms
OnDeck	Up to $100,000	Minimum credit score of 500 At least 9 months in business and $75,000 in annual revenue	14-40%	Weekly repayments required No prepayment fees $20 monthly account maintenance fee
StreetShares	$5,000 to $100,000; maximum line of credit is limited to 20% of your annual revenue	Minimum credit score of 600 At least 1 year In business and $25,000 in annual revenue	9-40%	Weekly repayments required No prepayment fees
Kabbage	$2,000 to $100,000	No minimum credit score At least 1 year in business and $50,000 in annual revenue	32-108%	6-12 months
Lending Club	$5,000 to $300,000	Minimum credit score of 600 At least 2 years in business and $75,000 in annual revenue	Variable rates from 6.25-21.85%	25 months Collateral required for lines of credit over $100,000

Best Business Line of Credit Honorable Mention

Learn More on Lendio.com's secure website

Lendio is not actually a financing company — it does not provide loans. Instead, Lendio is an online marketplace for lending that connects small-business owners with alternative lenders (“platform lenders” — including some of the ones featured in this article) and lets you compare rates, fees, and details to find the right loan or line of credit for you, based on your qualifications and parameters.

Lendio has an easy-to-use interface that quickly brings up lots of options for loans and lines of credit, depending on the amounts of money that you want to borrow and other details that you select. Its platform uses machine learning to quickly match business owners with lenders, and then you can apply to multiple lenders at once with a single application. Lenders then compete for your business, and you can choose the loan with the best rate and terms. It’s a good way to quickly get an overview of the various line of credit options that are available to you, while saving time and ensuring that you get the best possible deal on a line of credit.

Why Get a Business Line of Credit?

A business line of credit combines some of the advantages of both a term loan and a business credit card — it tends to offer a higher credit limit than a credit card (for example, depending on the lender, you can borrow up to $100,000, $200,000, $500,000 or more), but generally offers lower interest rates than a credit card. A business line of credit, like a credit card, is a revolving credit account — so you can borrow as much or as little as you want (within your predetermined credit limit), and then you usually have the option to pay off the debt as quickly as you like (as long as you meet your minimum payments and uphold other requirements of your agreement with the lender).

In general, business lines of credit tend to have lower interest rates and higher credit limits than a credit card, but more flexibility than a business loan. Lines of credit also tend to be unsecured — meaning you don’t have to put up collateral and risk losing your house or car or other property if the loan cannot be repaid.

Other Ways to Obtain Working Capital

Business Loans

A traditional business loan, also known as a “business term loan,” is a loan for a specific amount of money, paid off over a specific “term” of time, usually with fixed monthly payments and a fixed interest rate. Term loans are typically used for one-time purchases, such as buying business equipment, real estate (land and buildings, etc.), or making other capital investments in the business. Business term loans are often secured loans — meaning the lender gets added “security” for the money it loans to you in the form of collateral, such as real estate or other business property. Secured term loans typically offer the lowest interest rates, however — generally lower than either business lines of credit or business credit cards. One disadvantage of a term loan is that they have to be repaid each month in the same amount — so if you ever have a cash flow crunch, you could be in trouble if you fail to make your monthly loan payment in full.

While a business term loan is often best for one-time investments or major purchases, a business line of credit is typically the best financial solution for ongoing purchases or expenses of varying amounts — such as buying inventory, making payroll while waiting for client payments to arrive, dealing with seasonal cash flow shortfalls, or other short-term outflows. A business line of credit gives you flexibility to deal with various financial challenges or investment opportunities (new product development, new inventory purchases, etc.) throughout the year.

Business Credit Cards

Business credit cards work just like personal credit cards, but they are in the name of (and build credit history for) your business. Business credit cards are typically unsecured debt — meaning there is no collateral backing up your loan — so the bank is able to charge you higher interest rates for it. Many small business credit cards have a limit of $10,000 or less; although, this can be negotiated with your bank. They are a revolving credit account, which means they give you the flexibility to pay off as much or as little of your debt each month as you choose, and you can borrow as much or as little as you want, up to the credit limit. One reason why business owners often seek a line of credit is that their business credit cards do not have a high enough borrowing limit, and they need to borrow more money than what a business credit card can offer in order to expand.

If you are a solopreneur and your borrowing needs are simple and can be met with a smaller credit limit, you might be perfectly fine just using a business credit card instead of opening a line of credit. As Meredith Wood, director of education at Fundera, explains: “Ask yourself if a line of credit is the right product for you. While it is always nice to have a line of credit on hand, you could have a business credit card that serves that purpose. Depending on what you need the money for, a term loan might be easier to qualify for and more affordable. If it’s a one-time investment you’re wanting to make, look at term loans first.”

How About Getting a Business Line of Credit Through My Bank?

If you’re running your own business, you’re already working with a bank or credit union. So why not just get a business line of credit from your bank? You certainly can, but know that there can be a few pitfalls involved, especially for small or newer businesses.

Oftentimes, banks won’t offer a line of credit or small business loan to a young company, or a new startup that doesn’t have a well-established business credit history. As Wood says, “A bank line of credit is one of the hardest products to get, and we’ve seen a lot of banks pulling lines of credit from their customers.” She advises to “start first with where you bank, but if you can’t qualify for a bank line of credit, which is very hard for the average small-business owner to do, you can look online, shopping with a marketplace.”

Brian Smith, SVP of small business banking at Capital One, explains: “There may be an upside to working with a bank you have a relationship with already. At Capital One, we reward loyalty and long-term customer relationships with special offers, so it’s worth looking into that as well. Of course it’s always prudent to come prepared to a meeting with a banker. Be sure to understand and communicate the need for the line of credit, cash flow impacts to your business, and how you intend to use it. This level of communication will convey a deeper trust in your banking relationship and help a banker provide tailored recommendations for a business. For example, being able to describe the timing of your cash flow, the vendor discounts available, the sales cycle, and how you will use the line of credit to leverage those, thereby increasing profitability, will set you apart from the crowd.”

Stephanie Travis, owner of Cash Flow Signals, an accounting and cash flow management consulting company, says that even if you can’t get a line of credit right away, it pays to be creative when you’re trying to get a business line of credit from a bank. She says, “I’ve seen a situation where the borrower had a Certificate of Deposit (CD) at the bank. The lender wanted the borrower to open up an installment loan secured by the CD. With that, the lender then agreed to a line of credit. So, ask the bank what types of combinations of loans and cash security would get a good deal. Also, consider dealing with a local bank that has a loan officer with local authority. For example, I was able to get an unsecured $15,000 loan with just the local bank guy’s approval. I knew him from business networking around town. It was pretty unusual that it was unsecured. But he had power to lend money at low amounts locally.”

Also, keep in mind that even if you get approved for a business line of credit from a bank, that doesn’t mean your borrowing needs are covered forever. Sometime in the future, the bank might decide to re-evaluate your credit line and reduce your available credit, at its own discretion, for reasons beyond your control. According to a National Small Business Association Survey cited by SBA.gov, as of 2014, “29 percent of small-business owners report having their lines of credit reduced in the last four years, and nearly one in 10 had their line of credit called in early by the bank.” So even if you get a small business line of credit approved from your bank today, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be a permanent solution — you might find yourself needing to look for other options in case your bank cancels or reduces your credit line.

The Bottom Line

If you need working capital for your business, first talk to your bank — it might be able to cut you a deal on a business line of credit that you couldn’t find elsewhere. But if you need cash more quickly than a bank can approve your application, or if your business has poor credit or nonexistent credit history, try one of the platform lenders I recommended. Depending on your credit score, business history, and business goals, one of these lenders will be able to provide you with the business line of credit that’s right for you.

 

The post Best Business Line of Credit for 2016 appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar http://ift.tt/2crFdpg

Time to Break Out the Stretchy Pants! National Cheeseburger Day is Sunday

The onset of autumn means it’s time to get ready for the year-end slew of holiday celebrations.

But just when you thought Thanksgiving was as #America as a holiday could possibly get, National Cheeseburger Day steps up to the proverbial plate.

And the literal one.

National Cheeseburger Day 2016

National Cheeseburger Day is Sunday, Sept. 18, and if you’re anything like me, you absolutely cannot wait to celebrate.

And you don’t have to spend a ton to do so. In fact, if you play your cards right, you might even make money off chowing down on a burger this weekend.

Here are our six favorite national cheeseburger deals to sink your teeth into this weekend.

1. Burger21

Although it’s not technically a deal specifically made for National Cheeseburger Day, you can still score a free Cheesy when you download Burger21’s loyalty app for iOS or Android.

Plus, you’ll get $5 every seven visits.

2. BurgerFi

Per Nerdwallet, BurgerFi is dishing out $5 cheeseburgers all day on Sept. 18 if you ask the nice person manning the register.

3. Fuddruckers

Got a serious appetite?

Down Fuddruckers’ three-pound burger, with a one-pound side of fries, in an hour or less this Sunday to receive two free future Fuddruckers meals — just in case you’re ever hungry again — and a free t-shirt boasting your meaty victory.

More than 50 nationwide locations are participating — most of which are in Texas. I guess everything really is bigger there!

But if you want to participate in the challenge, you’ve got to plan ahead, and not just because you’ll need to starve yourself for a day or three first. The flier states 24 hours’ notice is required, so call your favorite Fuddruckers soon if you’re up to this considerable task.

4. Ruby Tuesday

Get a free burger up to $10 in menu value with your purchase of any one adult entree from Ruby Tuesday this Sunday.

To get the coupon, you’ll have to sign up for their email newsletter — and take a quiz!

But don’t worry about flashing back to 8 a.m. pop quizzes in geography (*shudder*). The questions are multiple choice, and include gems like “If you were a cheeseburger stranded on a desert island, who would you like to accompany you?”

Possible answers include “onion rings,” “a vegan” and, my personal favorite, “another cheeseburger.”

5. Shake Shack via Delta Airlines

Yep, you read that right.

If you happen to be flying Delta One business class from JFK to LAX this Sunday, you could be in for a treat: a Shake Shack burger, yours to consume 5 miles in the sky.

Granted, that’s a lot of ifs, and nowhere does it say that the burger is free.

But, man… Shake Shack is almost worth the price of booking a business class ticket two days before takeoff.

…Almost.

6. Wayback Burgers

Penny Hoarder overachievers, take note: You could earn a decent start to your emergency fund this weekend just by eating a cheeseburger… if you can eat a really, really big one, really, really fast.

Burger chain Wayback Burgers is holding its annual burger-eating contest this Sunday — just in time for National Cheeseburger Day. If you win, you’ll earn “the prestigious title of Triple Triple ‘Chompion,’” to say nothing of a hefty payout: the $3,330 grand prize.

Of course, in order to earn it, you’ve gotta be the fastest person to eat the nationwide chain’s “triple triple,” which features nine (nine!) patties, nine slices of cheese, and, of course, lettuce and tomato.

The press release wisely suggests participants “bring their stretchy pants” as well as using the hashtag #TripleTripleChallenge while discussing their questionable life choices on social media.

If you don’t win, you’ll still get a free T-shirt… but you’ll be on the hook to pay for the burger, which rings up at about $18.99.

Happy holidays!

Your Turn: How will you celebrate National Cheeseburger Day this year?

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

The post Time to Break Out the Stretchy Pants! National Cheeseburger Day is Sunday appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/2crqo67

This Expert Told Us Exactly When to Buy the Cheapest Thanksgiving Flights

Football is officially back, and the leaves are starting to change (unless you live in Florida, like me) — which means it’s time to start thinking about your holiday travel plans.

If you want to fly home for Thanksgiving, but don’t want to spend your life savings, keep reading.  

I enlisted the help of Patrick Surry, chief data scientist at Hopper, an app that helps you predict when to buy flights. (It’s also one of my favorite travel tools!)
This guy has a Ph.D. in mathematics and statistics and is literally paid to analyze airline algorithms and figure out when flights will be cheapest.

Bottom line: He knows what he’s talking about.

Don’t miss his advice on when to book Thanksgiving flights and which days to travel — it could save you 20%!

The Best Time to Book Flights for Thanksgiving

So, bad news first: When it comes to Thanksgiving, “you tend to pay about twice as much for your flight as you would for the same trip on different dates,” Surry says.

Ugh.

Now for the (kind of) good news: “It tends not to matter too much how far ahead you book,” he explains. “As long as you book more than about 10-14 days ahead, you’re not likely to pay a huge amount more.”

So if you haven’t booked your Thanksgiving flights yet, don’t panic.

“Airlines know that you need to travel for very specific dates for Thanksgiving, and those prices just start expensive and stay expensive,” Surry says.

If you want to save money on Thanksgiving flights, the sweet spot to buy them is about 60-70 days ahead — in other words, right about now.

 

If you’re not ready to buy yet, it’s OK; Surry says prices don’t vary much until about a month ahead.

He advises you “set an alert for your trip in the Hopper app” and “finalize your Thanksgiving air travel plans by Halloween.”

After that, “prices rise about $1.50 per day.” And in the 10 days leading up to the holiday, they “spike up $6 per day.”

Another way to save money? If your plans are flexible, consider flying on less popular days.

“Besides traveling on Thanksgiving Day, the cheapest days to travel are Monday, Nov. 21 through Friday, Nov. 25,” says Surry. Traveling then will save you about 20%.

In summary: Book soon if you can — definitely before Halloween. If you want to save even more, travel out on Monday and back on Friday.

And read this post with six more tips for finding cheap holiday flights.

Got it? Good. I’ll be back with Surry’s advice for December holidays in a few weeks!

Your Turn: Did you book your Thanksgiving flights yet?  

Susan Shain, senior writer for The Penny Hoarder, is always seeking adventure on a budget. Visit her blog at susanshain.com, or say hi on Twitter @susan_shain.

The post This Expert Told Us Exactly When to Buy the Cheapest Thanksgiving Flights appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/2d3i3EG

Faith Counts: US Religion Contributes Billions to US Economy

Faith Counts: US Religion Contributes Billions to US Economy

Source CBNNews.com http://ift.tt/2ctyE2p

Holy Cow! This Guy’s Lucky Find Scored Him Free Chick-Fil-A for a Year

A caper involving a missing Chick-Fil-A inflatable cow has a happy ending — both for the franchise owner and the man who found it.

The Chick-Fil-A inflatable cow holding an “Eat Mor Chikin” sign had been displayed at an Arizona State University football game, but after the store’s team packed it up, the cow disappeared from the back of Phil Thomas’ company truck.

“This is the only 24-foot inflatable cow in the state of Arizona,” Thomas, owner of two Tempe-area Chick-Fil-A franchise locations, told Fox 10.

Chick Fil A at Camelback/Facebook

How One Guy Got Free Chicken Sandwiches for a Year

Through Phoenix’s Fox 10, Thomas offered a reward: free Chick-Fil-A sandwiches for a year for the person who could bring the 350-pound cow home.

Luckily, someone spied the cow in a local backyard and called it in. When police paid a visit to the yard in question, the resident said he got it at a garage sale, where he thought he was buying a bouncy house.

ABC15 reports the cow has been returned to the local franchisee.

We do not know the identity of the honorable tipster, but we salute his newly achieved chicken-sandwich habit.

Your Turn: What is your most regrettable garage-sale purchase?

Lisa Rowan is a writer and producer at The Penny Hoarder.

The post Holy Cow! This Guy’s Lucky Find Scored Him Free Chick-Fil-A for a Year appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/2cYbNPn

Employee bonuses rise to £1,600 with financial services workers bagging the biggest bonus

Tom Wilson

a-man-who-got-a-bonus.jpg

Employee bonuses rose by 4.4% in the 2015/16 tax year, taking the average payment from £1,500 to £1,600, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Employee bonuses rose by 4.4% in the 2015/16 tax year, taking the average payment from £1,500 to £1,600, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Bonuses accounted for about 6% of annual pay, higher than in 2014/15, but still below the pre-crash peak when 7.1% of employees’ total income came from bonus awards.

read more

Source Moneywise http://ift.tt/2cB9qNl

This Startup Makes Cute Photo Books — and It’s Hiring Work-From-Home Reps

In the world of posting photos on social media for likes, printing photos might seem like a lost art.

News flash: It’s not — it’s just evolving. Chatbooks is one of many companies approaching technology head on, letting you print memories from your new iPhone.

More important news flash: The company’s hiring work-from-home, part-time customer support troops.

What You’ll Do as Customer Support for Chatbooks

This job is part time and lets you work from home (yes!), so you’ll work 20-35 hours a week. I reached out to Chatbooks about pay and will update the information as soon as I hear back.

You should have these key personality traits: be personable, motivated, empathetic and devoted.

Do you pass? Keep reading.

You don’t need prior customer service experience, but it’s considered a plus. You should be able to handle any customer. Think: From the kid down the street who is probably a computer hacker to the grandmother who just wants to make a book for her grandkids.

You also need to be familiar with technology.

Nope, you don’t need to be a computer scientist, but you should be fluent in the languages of “iPhonese” and “Androidese,” which include words like gif, app, screenshot and hyperlinks.

You’ll need to have one of those devices, too — one that’s not cracked and hanging on by a wire (aka no more than 2 years old).

You should also have a reliable computer that doesn’t require a lot of Geek Squad CPR (Computer Program Resuscitation — OK, I totally made that up.).

Also, know your way around a keyboard.

“Being a lighting-fast typist is a must; although we will also accept race-car fast, or even just mass-transit fast — if you can do it with a smile,” the posting states.

In addition, you should be able to pass an eighth-grade math test. (IDK, I’m kind of intimidated.)

How To Apply for This Work-From-Home Job

First, you might want to invest in an $8 Chatbook. The company wants someone who loves Chatbooks and is familiar with the app.

You also need to be a U.S. citizen, fluent in English and be at least 16 years old.

You also need to completely fill out the application. “We will not review any applications that are not 100% complete,” is the second line in the posting.

You can find the application here. You’ll fill out your contact information and list your availability to work.

You’ll be guided through five sections of questions that cover your previous work experience, schooling and “fun” (think: your favorite hobby). You’ll also need to take a basic math test and upload your resume.

We estimate the application will take less than an hour to complete, so get started and good luck!

To check out more work-from-home jobs, follow our Facebook Jobs page!

Your Turn: Are you applying to this 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 This Startup Makes Cute Photo Books — and It’s Hiring Work-From-Home Reps appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/2caX6CG

5 Ways to Get Your NFL Fix — Without Paying for Cable

I remember not having cable for long periods of time when I was growing up.

It was torture, listening to the kids at school talking about all the programs I was missing. So, when I got out of the house, I immediately subscribed.

But when I got into my 30s, things changed. I got married, bought a house and had kids. Suddenly, I didn’t have endless hours to stare at the TV, but what I did have was a ton of bills. So the decision to cut the cord was pretty easy for me.

Sure, there were a few shows my wife and I tried to keep up with, but that was secondary. I did the research and wanted to save.

It’s hard to put an exact figure on the savings because I mix and match streaming services fairly often. (It’s one of the beauties of cord-cutting — no contracts, so, for example, you can sign up for HBO Now during Game of Thrones, and cancel once it’s over.)

All in all, I’ve saved $50 to $100 per month over the last two years. That’s somewhere between $1,200 and $2,400 overall back in my pocket.

However, like many others looking to cut the cord, I was scared I’d miss out on live sports. In particular, the most popular sport in the U.S.: NFL football.

As it turns out, there are plenty of ways to get all the football you can handle without having cable.

5 Ways to Watch Football Without Cable TV

Want to catch this NFL season without an expensive cable contract? Let’s take a look at the best options at your disposal.

1. Antenna

If you’re a fan of the local team, the easiest way is with an antenna. That’s right, even your parents’ old bunny ears probably still work.

However, I opted for a newer, sleeker model — the Mohu Leaf 50, which runs around $60. It worked well in my area, and my wife liked the way it looked. A win-win.  

Of course, there are plenty of other antennas on the market — you’ll need to find one that matches your needs. I recommend heading over to TVFool.com and running a report to help you decide. If you have trouble digesting the site, this subreddit is a good guide.

If you live within range of the big four networks’ (CBS, FOX, NBC and ABC) over-the-air signal, you’ll be able to pick up every one of your local team’s games for the season.

On top of that, you’ll also receive regional games on Sunday afternoons, Sunday Night Football on NBC and all of the Thursday Night Football games from CBS and NBC. (NFL Network owns sole rights to a few of them, so you’ll have to skip out on those.)

That’s a lot of football. For free and in HD. More than enough for the average fan.

2. Sling TV

If you’re a diehard fan, you’ll probably want more coverage. And that means you need cable networks like ESPN or NFL Network. While both of these used to be cable exclusives, you can now get them without a contract through a few streaming services.

First up is Sling TV, which I personally use. Sling offers various skinny bundles of channels to live stream over your internet connection. If you want to get the stream on your TV, you need a device like a Roku or Apple TV.

The Sling Orange package comes with ESPN, which means you can watch Monday Night Football each week, along with all of ESPN’s NFL coverage. It’s the cheapest skinny bundle you’ll find at $20 per month.

However, if you’d rather not listen to ESPN talk about Tim Tebow half the time even though he’s no longer in the NFL, then you probably want NFL Network. Not only does this station give you 24/7 football coverage, but it also broadcasts most Thursday Night Football games.

You can get this as part of Sling TV’s Blue package for $25 per month. Or if you need both Sling Orange and Blue, you can subscribe to both packages for $40 per month. The NFL regular season is four months long, so you’re looking at $160 to get you through the season.

Of course, keep in mind that you aren’t just getting the NFL. That $160 per month is pretty much a cable replacement with channels like AMC, USA, CNN and more.

There’s no commitment, so you can cancel whenever. You can also try it free for 7 days.

3. PlayStation Vue

Your other option for both ESPN and NFL Network is PlayStation Vue. The service is pretty similar to Sling TV. You pay month to month and you get to stream cable channels to various devices. And you can cancel whenever you want.

The starting price is $29.99 ($39.99 in the markets where they offer local channels). The base package gives you ESPN and a bunch of other channels, but you have to upgrade to the $34.99 tier if you want NFL Network.

Of course, if you’re really looking to save money, you could consider borrowing a cable login from a friend or family member. Depending on their cable package, this could give you access to the NBC Sports app, FOX Sports Go, WatchESPN and the NFL Network online.

Is it wrong to share a login? Depends on who you ask. I haven’t seen an official word from any of the companies mentioned above, so I guess you proceed at your own risk.

Recent rulings in a password-sharing case may result in this being deemed illegal by the courts, so check your local laws before sharing passwords.

4. NFL Sunday Ticket Streaming

For many football fans, NFL Sunday Ticket is the be-all, end-all. However, you generally have to have DirecTV to get it… except there are a couple caveats. If you live in an apartment or condo where you can’t have a satellite dish, DirecTV will sell you a streaming version of Sunday Ticket. But it isn’t cheap, at $49.99 per month.

If you happen to be a college student, you’re in luck: You can get the same service for only $24.99. That’s a little easier to swallow. You can find out if you’re eligible here.

5. Verizon Wireless

Happen to be a Verizon customer? Or maybe you’re considering changing wireless providers? Then you might have the cheapest option of all. Verizon customers can stream every NFL game of the season using the NFL’s mobile app.

All at no cost. That’s right, if you’re a Verizon customer, free NFL comes with the service.

As you’d imagine, there’s a catch. It’s only available on your mobile device. So you can’t the stream to your television. But if you don’t mind watching on your phone or tablet, this might work for you.

Whichever option you choose, one thing’s for sure: It’s cheaper than paying $100 or more per month for cable.

Chris Brantner is the founder of CutCableToday, where he provides crucial info for people to find the content they want, like NFL football, without cable. You can also find his blogging expertise on Scribblrs.com.

The post 5 Ways to Get Your NFL Fix — Without Paying for Cable appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/2ch6VlM

31 Days to Financial Independence (Day 5): A Living Budget

“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!

Last time, we went in a bit of a different direction and spent some time discussing our “true hourly wage.” As a quick refresher, a person’s “true hourly wage” is the amount they actually get to keep in their pocket per hour of time devoted to work.

Before that, we took an extensive look at our lives: how we’re stretched way too thin in terms of both time and money and how to use a basic principle of frugality to start changing direction by figuring out the handful of things that really matter and focusing on them while going minimal on the rest.

Today, we’re going to bring those two points together to build a new kind of budget, one that goes beyond a dry listing of dollars and cents and reveals some real hard truths about your life. This will set the stage for a lot of specific financial changes in your life, which is what the rest of the series focuses on.

We’re starting with the big picture so that we understand why we’re doing all of the specific things.

This big picture is, yes, a budget of sorts. Countless personal finance books recommend that you create a budget for you and your family, but they often don’t really explain what’s meaningful about it. It tends to just be a framework to juggle spending around a little bit so that the dollars and cents add up.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t really find that useful or life-changing at all.

For me, what’s meaningful is the time and energy I spend in my life. I work a lot of hours in a given week when I add together the time I spend writing, the time I spend doing projects and researching articles, the time I spend reading new personal finance books and article and taking notes, the time I spend on media interviews, the time I spend on emails … all of that is time I could be spending on other things in my life, other things that are probably more meaningful for me.

It’s worth saying here that a great life is one where you spend as much time as possible on meaningful things.

So, for me, I feel far better about my working hours when I know that a lot of those hours are generating the money I need to have the meaningful life I want. Perhaps that time will be spent earning money that will pay for something that I really care about, like saving for a big hiking trip (Yellowstone, next summer, it’s happening).

On the other hand, perhaps that time spent is being used to earn money that’s simply going toward accelerated retirement savings so that I can actually step away from work responsibilities earlier in life and devote tons of time to my other meaningful life goals.

The point of all of this is to simultaneously add more meaning to my work while also realizing how much of my time is actually spent just “spinning the wheels.”

“Spinning the wheels”?

Here’s the truth: you spend a significant portion of your working hours earning money that’s spent solely to maintain your life so that you can, well, work more hours. Unless you derive a significant amount of life value from your work, that’s a pretty depressing cycle. It’s not really meaningfully connected to any of your core values. You just work to buy the minimal things you need to go work more.

When I was at a point in my life where almost all of my hours devoted to working didn’t really build up any of my long-term goals, it felt really empty. I was honestly working just so I could afford to work some more with just a few short term pleasures to take the edge off of things. The depressing part? Three quarters of Americans do this exact thing – they live paycheck-to-paycheck. They simply work so that they can feed themselves, clothe themselves, and then make it to work next week, with just a few pleasures to make it all tolerable.

That’s not a life I want to live. That’s not a life you want to live.

For me, everything improves when you start shifting that around. When you start reducing the number of hours you spend working just to “spin the wheels” and start increasing the number of hours you spend working in order to achieve the things you want most from your life, work becomes more tolerable and even enjoyable.

The fact that I can spend whole workdays knowing that I’m working so that I can retire earlier or so that I can spend several days hiking at Yellowstone next summer makes that workday feel invigorating. It also makes me want to figure out ways to make more and more and more of my working hours work for me in that way.

So, where do we start?

The best way to start, in my opinion, is to build a “true hourly” budget. It’s a look at how you “spend” the hours you devote to work and what you really get out of them. It’s similar to how you would normally build a budget – you list some categories and figure out how much you spend in each of them – but then you convert that to hours spent devoted to work by dividing each category by your true hourly wage. In other words, you end up budgeting your working hours instead of your dollars.

Why do things this way? What’s the benefit? For me, this kind of budget is far more inspirational than a dollars and cents budget. I get to clearly see where the hours I spend on work tasks are really going and I’m really inspired to have more and more of my work hours go toward meaningful things. I want my work to be as meaningful as possible and when the proceeds from that work go to forgettable things, that’s … well, that’s not meaningful.

In other words, this budget is simultaneously useful and meaningful. It’s useful in that it can identify areas in my life where I’m overspending (both in terms of money and hours) and it’s meaningful because it pushes me toward trying to find ways to give more of my working time to the most meaningful areas of my life.

Let’s walk through how to do this.

Exercise #5: Building Your True Hourly Budget

This step relies heavily on the things you’ve done in previous steps, so let’s get started by gathering those up.

You’ll need your true hourly wage as well as the estimate of hours devoted to work that you figured up while working on your true hourly wage.

You’ll also want your list of meaningful areas of your life (or goals, depending on how you develop them).

So, take out a piece of paper and make three columns on it. (Another option is to use a spreadsheet; if you’re comfortable with Excel or another such program, it will work wonderfully for this exercise.) One column will list each of those meaningful areas of your life. The second column will be spent hours, so write “spent hours” up there. The third column will be dollars and cents, so just put a big dollar sign up there.

Now, here’s the thing: you know exactly how to convert back and forth between those columns. You know your true hourly wage – that’s exactly how much an hour of your life is worth.

In the first column, as the very first entry, write WORK in big capital letters. Then, in the hours column, write down your estimate of hours in a month that you spend at work (take your weekly estimate and multiply it by four). Then, in the money column, take your true hourly wage and multiply it by the number of hours you work in a month.

So, let’s say my true hourly wage is $10 and I calculate that I spend 60 hours per week on work-related tasks. In that case, the “hours” column would have 240 in it (60 hours in a week times 4 weeks in a month) and the “money” column would have $2,400 in it.

There’s the start of your monthly budget.

The first thing you’re going to do is add all of the pieces of a typical household budget to the first column. Here’s a list of the things you should include

Housing
Transportation
Utilities
Food
Insurance
Healthcare
Entertainment
Donations
Clothing
Education
Hobbies
Vices
Debt Payments

Under this, write “Subtotal” and draw a big line across the page under that.

Under that, write your list of meaningful areas of your life.

Under that, write a line across the page and then beneath that line, write “Total.” Ideally, at the end of this, your total will be zero.

Now, take out your last few months of bank statements and credit card statements and use them to make your best estimate for each of the budget categories you have listed. Try to fit every single expense on your bills into one of those categories, but if you have to create a new one, do so. How much do you really spend on food in a month? Write that in the $ column across from “Food.” How much do you really spend on housing – your mortgage payment or your rent and any home maintenance costs? Write that in the $ column across from “Housing.” You get the idea.

What if I’m married? There are two ways to go here. One way is to figure your spouse’s true hourly wage, then combine the numbers together (multiply each person’s true hourly wage by the hours they spent on work, then add the total dollars and total dollars together, then divide the combined dollars by the combined hours to get your “shared” true hourly wage). Another is to keep them separate and just use the items that you’re financially responsible for.

Once you’ve done that with all of the actual dollars and cents budget areas, convert all of those dollar amounts to hours by dividing them by your true hourly wage. So, let’s say your true hourly wage is $10 per hour and your housing is $800 per month. You divide $800 by $10 and you end up with 80 hours. In other words, you devote 80 hours per month to your job just to keep your roof over your head.

Once you’ve done this with each category, it’s time to subtotal things. Take your total number of hours listed right at the top and then start subtracting the hours from each category from that. If your total is, say, 240 hours and you figure your housing is eating 80 of those hours, take 240 and subtract 80 from it. Then, from that total, subtract the hour amount for each other entry on the list. (I prefer to do this type of thing in a spreadsheet program like Excel, as I noted earlier.)

Soon, you’ll have your subtotal of hours. That’s the number of hours you have remaining in your life for those life goals. It will probably be a surprisingly small number. (You can do the same thing with the dollars column if you’d like.)

Now, stop here and look at this picture of your life. Right now, you’re devoting the vast majority of your working hours to all of those budget categories. The hours of your life are drained away by the cost of your home/apartment, your car, your vices, entertainment, your hobbies.

In the end, you’re left with very little for the things that you claim really matter to you the most. For example, you might be devoting 240 hours per month to work, but only 10 hours of that effort are actually spent on the big goals in your life.

Think about all that you go through in a typical workweek. Think of how many of those hours are spent to afford each of the things above – your housing, your meals, your cable subscription, your vices, and so on. Then, think about how little is left for the big goals.

Is this how you want to be spending your life?

Do you want to be devoting hour after endless hour to watch almost all of it get sucked up by forgettable things, by simply keeping the wheels turning so that you can do it all again next week?

Or do you want to be devoting as much as possible to the truly important areas in your life, the things that make your heart sing with joy?

In my mind, financial success is all about moving the hours from the ordinary budget items down to those key goals in my life. Whenever I can make a change in my life so that I can cut back on those ordinary budget areas, I can then devote those hours to the key areas in my life that I care the most about.

That takes three forms. One, obviously, is frugality: how do you trim the hours devoted to those ordinary budgetary areas. The second is to work more: how do you add more hours to the total amount spent working each month? The final one is to become more efficient with your work: how do you earn more per hour of work?

The rest of this series is going to focus on those things.

Many of the entries are going to talk about how to effectively cut back in each budget area. Remember, the goal is to cut back very hard on areas that aren’t truly important to you and that the proceeds from every cut is going to be devoted to your big toals.

Later on, we’ll talk more about how to increase your hourly wage and also how to smartly increase your hours a little bit, too.

The goal, in the end, is to maximize the number of hours per week you work for your big goals and minimize the number of hours per week you work just to keep the wheels running. In other words, your goal is to work as much as possible for the life you want to live and work as little as possible for the life you have now.

Ready to get started? Next time, we’ll talk about the first life-changing step.

The post 31 Days to Financial Independence (Day 5): A Living Budget appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Source The Simple Dollar http://ift.tt/2ch4wr6

More over-65s remaining in work

Rachel Lacey

man-fixing-a-chair.jpg

The UK workforce has more older workers than ever before, according to the latest government figures, with some 1.1million over 65s remaining in work.

The UK workforce has more older workers than ever before, according to the latest government figures, with some 1.1million over 65s remaining in work.

The unemployment rate for over-50s has also dropped to 3.3%, the lowest rate recorded since 2009.

read more

Source Moneywise http://ift.tt/2cI1fCq

E*TRADE Review – Best for Active Traders

E*TRADE is one of the most popular trading platforms in the US today. They offer the full range of investment services, as well as investment options. You can invest in a wide range of securities, including more than 8,000 mutual funds and ETF’s. You can also get as much – or as little – personal assistance as you need. E*TRADE can work with you, whatever your level of expertise may be.

E*TRADE is an excellent platform for long-term investors, such as those who favor buy-and-hold investment strategies that involve relatively little trading. Their fee structure is on the higher end of the large brokerage firms, but they more than compensate for this with all of the investment services and tools that they provide.

About E*TRADE

E*TRADE is one of the leading financial services companies in the US, and has been serving the needs of individual investors for over 30 years. The company is one of the pioneer firms when it comes to online brokerage accounts, and it provides everything that you need to be a successful trader, including investment education.

The company was incorporated in 1982, and executed its first ever online trade in 1983. E*TRADE became a public company in 1996, and has grown steadily and rapidly ever since. It now has 3.3 million brokerage accounts, and $285 billion in client investment accounts, including more than $49 billion in retirement assets.

In the 2016 Webby Awards, E*TRADE received an official honoree distinction in the Web: Financial Services/Banking category.

In March 2016, E*TRADE earned four out of five stars overall in Barron’s annual online broker survey. The company scored high in research amenities, customer service, education and security, and mobile.

Also in March 2016 E*TRADE was recognized as a member of NerdWallet’s 2016 Investing Awards, “Best Online Brokers” for its investment selection, and both “Best Roth IRA Providers” and “Best IRA Providers” for having no account minimum.

Meanwhile in February 2016, Stockbrokers.com come gave E*TRADE an overall 4.5 out of 5 stars rating, and #1 Smartphone App Industry Award, along with nine Best in Class distinctions, including overall, offering of investments, platforms and tools, research, customer service, education, mobile, new investors, and order execution.

E*TRADE Features and Benefits

Here is just a summary of some of the more significant features and benefits offered by E*TRADE:

Opening an E*TRADE account. In order to open an account you must complete an online application. It will require only general information, including your address, date of birth, Social Security number, and employer name and address.

You must be a US resident with a valid Social Security number in order to open an E*TRADE account.

Available account types. You can open a taxable brokerage account (individual or joint), a futures trading account, a Forex trading account, and an investment club account. You can also open custodial accounts, accounts for trusts, estates and conservatorships, as well as Coverdell education savings accounts and business corporate LLC accounts.

E*TRADE also offers a full range of retirement accounts. This includes traditional and Roth IRA accounts, small business retirement plans, 401(k) rollover accounts, beneficiary IRAs, individual 401(k)s, IRAs for minors, SEP IRAs and Simple IRAs, and both profit-sharing and money purchase plans.

Investments offered. E*TRADE enables you to trade stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, target date funds, bonds and fixed income securities, options and futures.  Their ETF investments helps them compete with brokers like Motif who only deal in ETFs.

Minimum Initial Deposit. To open an investing and trading account requires a minimum initial deposit of $500. No minimum initial deposits are required for either custodial or retirement accounts.

Platform. E*TRADE’s platform offers free independent research, streaming real-time quotes, customizable planning tools, and everything that you need to manage do-it-yourself investing. The platform provides easy access to everything that you want to trade, including stocks, options, funds and bonds. There is also a wealth of research education to help you make better investment decisions.  The platform will also sync directly with your Personal Capital account, making tracking of all your investments easy to do in one place.

E*TRADE Mobile. The mobile app is available for iPhone, Android, tablets and now Apple Watch. The app provides mutual fund research tools, enhanced quote details for stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, options, indices, and conditional orders, including one-triggers-other (OTO), contingent and stop loss orders. You can also access your personalized retirement center, as well as your full dashboard.

Customer service. You can contact E*TRADE by phone 24 hours a day. They also offer email contact and online live chat, as well as direct mail in the event you need to mail checks or other documents.

E*TRADE also has branches in many major cities around the country, in case you prefer face-to-face contact.

E*TRADE Bank. This is E*TRADE’s own bank, that was created for the benefit of E*TRADE customers. The banking service offers a free transfer money service, a mobile app for your phone, and of course FDIC insurance on accounts up to $250,000 per depositor.

The regular checking account does not pay interest, but there is no account minimum balance, and no monthly account fees. You must make an initial minimum deposit of $100.

The bank also offers its Max-Rate checking account, that pays interest and requires a minimum monthly balance averaging at least $5,000 in order to avoid the $15 monthly fee. It also requires an initial minimum deposit of $100.

The banking service provides you with a free Visa debit card, and unlimited check transactions. The banking service also provides mortgages.

Asset protection. All E*TRADE bank accounts have FDIC insurance up to $250,000 per depositor. But there is also extended insurance for deposit accounts with coverage up to $1.25 million.

E*TRADE also provides SIPC insurance, protecting securities and cash of up to $500,000, including $250,000 for cash. There is also additional brokerage protection for up to $150 million through a London Insurer.

Account security. E*TRADE uses secure firewalls, as well as 128 bit encryption to safeguard your logon and transaction activity. They also provide session timeouts and security alerts. In addition, E*TRADE Fraud Protection is the company’s promise to cover any loss that results from the “unauthorized use of their brokerage, banking, or lending services”.

E*TRADE Tools and Calculators

E*TRADE has one of the largest offerings of tools and calculators in the industry, including:

E*TRADE Pro. This platform provides enhanced speed, insight, and performance and is E*TRADE’s top platform for the most active traders. It provides an Enhanced Options Analyzer to evaluate positions and strategies with greater precision, as well as professional grade streaming Greeks to assess the underlying risk of your options positions.

E*TRADE Pro uses a point and click order entry system that you can trade more quickly. And you can use it to trade stocks, ETF’s and both basic and complex options from anywhere within the platform.

Stock & Fund Screeners. This tool enables you to sift through thousands of stocks and funds to find investments that best match your investment goals. The list of screeners available includes the Stock Screener, Mutual Fund Screener, ETF Screener, Bond Screener, and the Bond Fund Selector, which provides professional bond fund recommendations.

E*TRADE 360. E*TRADE bills this as it’s “do-everything platform for traders and investors”. It provides free independent research, streaming real-time quotes, and customizable planning tools.

My Virtual Advisor. This tool will recommend an asset allocation and help you to determine the right investment solution to help you reach your investment goals. It enables you to allocate your assets – based on what’s important to you – in a matter of minutes. The tool will recommend a target asset allocation based on your financial goals, risk tolerance and time horizon

E*TRADE Community. E*TRADE has merged investing with the social media through this community. This is the place where E*TRADE investors come to swap ideas and strategies with one another. It’s also a place where you can connect with financial professionals, as well as an opportunity to see which stocks E*TRADE customers are buying and selling. There are also discussion boards for personal exchanges, as well as monitoring of community sentiment.

E*TRADE Fees

In many cases, E*TRADE has two fee structures, based on the number of trades you make per quarter. The best pricing is for investors who make 150 or more trades per quarter, while there are higher fees if you make fewer trades.

Stocks and options trades. E*TRADE charges a commission of $7.99 per trade on transactions involving stocks and simple options if you make 150 or more trades per quarter. If you make fewer than 150 trades the commission is $9.99 per trade. In either case, there is an options contract fee of $0.75 per contract.  This puts them directly in competition for pricing with brokers like Scottrade, but slightly higher than the deep discounters like Trade King.

For complex options, the commission is $7.99 +0.75 cents per contract on options/options trades if you make 150 or more trades per quarter, and $9.99 plus $0.75 per contract if you make fewer than 150 trades.

The fee for options exercise/assignments is $19.99.

ETFs. There is no commission to trade commission-free ETFs. On other ETFs, the fee is $7.99 per trade if you make 150 or more trades per quarter, and $9.99 per trade if you make fewer than 150 trades per quarter.

Mutual funds. If you trade no-load, no-transaction-fee funds*, there is no commission fee charged. Other fund purchases have a commission of $19.99 per trade. Broker assisted trades carry an additional $25 fee to the applicable commission.

*E*TRADE offers 2,700 no-load, no transaction fee mutual funds.

Futures. The fee on futures contracts is $2.99 per contract, per side, plus applicable futures exchange and NFA fees, as well as floor brokerage charges for execution of non-electronically traded futures and futures options contracts. These secondary charges will vary by exchange, and are not charges made by E*TRADE.

Bonds. There are no commissions charged for either U.S. Treasury auction trades or US Treasury secondary trades online. On other bond types, the fee is $1 per bond, subject to a $10 minimum and a $250 maximum. If you make a rep assisted trade, a commission of $20 per trade will be added to fee.

Margin interest rates. Margin rates range from a low of 4.14% on account balances of $1 million or more, to a high of 8.69% on balances of less than $25,000.

Other fees. E*TRADE also charges the following fees:

• Paper statement fee – $2.00 per statement
• Outgoing account transfers – $25 for partial transfers, $60 for full transfers
• Stock certificate requests – $250 per certificate
• Wire transfers – free for incoming transfers, $25 for outgoing transfers

E*TRADE Investment Management

If you are not entirely comfortable investing on your own, E*TRADE can provide as much or as little investment assistance as you need. They have financial consultants available who can provide advice whenever you need it. This is one-on-one assistance with a financial advisor, who can help you create an investment plan, choose the investments that you need, and also help to manage the risk involved in the portfolio.

They also have E*TRADE Capital Management, which can select and even actively manage your portfolio for you. This also extends to retirement plans, where financial consultants can help you create a plan, allocate your assets, and estimate your projected income in retirement.  Since you will be working directly with an individual, this is going to be more expensive than using a robo-advisor like Betterment, which manages your investments by algorithm.

You can certainly go the do-it-yourself investment route on E*TRADE, and they have all the tools to help you do it. But if you feel that you need a little – or a lot – of help along the way, they have that covered too.

E*TRADE Caveats

There’s not much to complain about with E*TRADE, and this is all we could come up with:

Fee structure is at the higher end of the large brokerage firms. If you are a frequent trader, E*TRADE may not be the best platform for your investing activities. There are other large brokerage firms who charge substantially lower fees. However, the strength of E*TRADE is a combination of relatively moderate fees, in conjunction with one of the very best trading platforms available.

Will E*TRADE Work for You?

E*TRADE is currently offering up to $600 when you open up either a new brokerage account or an IRA account. They are also offering 60 days of free trades on deposits of $10,000 or more. And that’s actually just the beginning. E*TRADE offers a graduated level of cash incentive and free trades depending upon the amount that you deposit with the firm. For deposits of $1 million or more, you can receive up to $2,500, plus free trades for 60 days.

E*TRADE is an excellent investment platform for investors at all skill levels. It has all of the tools and information sources necessary to improve your investment ability, no matter what level you are at. Since the fees are not the lowest in the industry, E*TRADE is probably best suited to long-term investors, rather than very active traders. But even active traders might find that the wide range of trading tools, applications and calculators more than offset the lower fees at some other brokerage firms.

Source Good Financial Cents http://ift.tt/2cAz70v

Over half of people give 'no thought' to funeral costs

Gary Adams

hands-on-a-coffin.jpg

Over half of people (52%) and a third of over-55s have not thought about their own funeral costs, let alone plan for it, according to new research from industry body the Funeral Planning Authority (FPA).

Over half of people (52%) and a third of over-55s have not thought about their own funeral costs, let alone plan for it, according to new research from industry body the Funeral Planning Authority (FPA).

Meanwhile only 14% of the 1,000 people surveyed made an accurate estimate of how much a funeral costs.

read more

Source Moneywise http://ift.tt/2d0DMtN

Bank of England holds interest rates at 0.25%

Tom Wilson

bank-of-england.jpg

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has unanimously agreed to keep the base rate at 0.25%, its lowest-ever level.

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has unanimously agreed to keep the base rate at 0.25%, its lowest-ever level.

read more

Source Moneywise http://ift.tt/2d0CM90

Dubious claims: There's no such thing as hidden fund fees

Tom Wilson

“Are hidden fees the Loch Ness Monster of the investment world?” asked a recent press release from the Investment Association (IA). The industry group representing fund managers claimed to have proof that stealth charges on investment funds are a non-existent threat.

“Are hidden fees the Loch Ness Monster of the investment world?” asked a recent press release from the Investment Association (IA). The industry group representing fund managers claimed to have proof that stealth charges on investment funds are a non-existent threat.

read more

Source Moneywise http://ift.tt/2cLDzvi

Krispy Kreme Will Give You a Dozen Free Donuts If You Do This

Arrrrrr you ready to get a free donut at Krispy Kreme? How about a free dozen donuts?

On September 19, participating shops in the U.S. and Canada will hand out free donuts to guests celebrating Talk Like a Pirate Day, one of the more enjoyable nonsense holidays.

“Any swashbuckling guest who talks like a pirate will receive one free Original Glazed doughnut, while fans who dress like a pirate will receive one dozen Original Glazed doughnuts,” the company’s Facebook event explains.

No purchase necessary!

But even if you’re planning on reusing it for Halloween, a full pirate costume isn’t exactly cheap, and Krispy Kreme’s specifies you must wear at least three “pirate items” to qualify. If only there was an easier way to get a dozen free donuts…

Oh, wait. There is.

Don’t Want to Dress Up? You Can Still Get Free Donuts

Look for a custom Krispy Kreme Snapchat filter starting September 17 to “digitally dress” like a pirate.

“Any guest who shows their Snapchat image at a participating shop will qualify for a dozen Original Glazed doughnuts. Show your snap to a team member inside the shop and score ye bounty,” Krispy Kreme says on Facebook.

Of course, if you’re trying to practice a life of moderation (and don’t have an office of hungry co-workers to share with, ahem), you can simply toss around some quick pirate banter and slip out of the store with your free donut.

Krispy Kreme’s Pirate Doughnut is a cream-filled donut decorated with a cute pirate face. Cute enough to eat, right mateys?

Your Turn: Will you celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day for a free donut — or a dozen?

Lisa Rowan is a writer and producer at The Penny Hoarder. There’s not much she wouldn’t do for a free donut.

The post Krispy Kreme Will Give You a Dozen Free Donuts If You Do This appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/2ctuqb3