Mrs. Roxanne Birchfield, 32, U.S. Army Reserve chaplain from Tamiment, will compete for the title of Mrs. Pennsylvania America 2017 on June 10 at the University of the Arts, Terra Hall, Philadelphia. She will be competing under the title of Mrs. Pike County PA America 2017.In addition to being a wife and mother, Birchfield is also a graduate of Penn State University and is pursuing a doctorate of ministry. She may also be recognized as a castaway on season 25 of CBS "Survivor. [...]
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الخميس، 30 مارس 2017
CLOSING BELL: Banks, energy, oil lead stocks higher
Banks were rising along with bond yields, which can result in higher interest rates on loans and bigger profits for banks from lending money.
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Source Business - poconorecord.com http://ift.tt/2oDS8oK
This Insane Internship Will Make You CEO for a Month (You’ll Make $10K!)
Internships can be rough.
While they’re invaluable learning experiences (I learned how to peel hard-boiled eggs, for one), they’re often disheartening and frustrating: It’s usually painfully clear you’re at the bottom of the totem pole. And then maybe even a little lower than that. And then a tiny bit lower.
Don’t misunderstand me here — I’m not averse to the idea of working your way up. I believe that respect is earned, success doesn’t happen overnight and that you have to put in the time to climb the ranks.
But what if instead of doing everyone’s scut work, you could start out on top? What if there was a way you could go straight to being the CEO of a major company?
With a new internship program from Adecco, you — my entry-level friend — can become a CEO quite literally overnight.
And the position comes with some pretty sweet perks — to the tune of about $10,000.
Those Perks, Though
Adecco is a Fortune Global 500 company, so we’re talking the big leagues.
You’ll spend a month traveling to different cities across the U.S. with the company president and a handful of other business leaders, learning about what it takes to run a successful company.
You’ll also get to meet and work with major figures in the industry, pitch ideas and products, and gain some serious resume-building experience.
But we’re not even to the best part yet.
During this month-long internship, you’ll receive $10,000 and will have all expenses paid on your business trips, including travel, meals and hotels.
Ten thousand dollars! For a month-long internship!
In the eloquent words of one of our editors here at The Penny Hoarder HQ: This is bananas.
Become an Insta-CEO
The internship is based in North Carolina, and starts at the end of May 2017. You can apply for this incredible opportunity here.
No word yet on when the application process closes, but we’ll update you if we find out. With an awesome gig like this one, though, I’d say the sooner you send in that application the better!
Now I know that at this point you’ve probably already sent in your resume and packed your bags, but let me give you one last bit of crazy-cool incentive:
If you “successfully develop and pitch a new Adecco product or service” during your internship, you could be selected to be a Global CEO at the company’s month-long program based in Zurich, Switzerland, according to Adecco’s website.
So yeah. Go ahead and apply. Like, yesterday.
Your Turn: Do you think you’d be up for that jet-setting CEO life?
Grace Schweizer is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder.
The post This Insane Internship Will Make You CEO for a Month (You’ll Make $10K!) appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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A Guide for Busy People Who Want to Build New Income Streams
John writes in:
Recently, you mentioned in this article that you’ve set up some additional income streams to the point “where any income stream can go away and it won’t really adversely affect my family.” — I’m curious to know what they are and how you’ve achieved that.
I’ve been listening and reading up on multiple income streams for a few years now and from what I understand they are really hard to build for people with full-time jobs and young children to the point they would start providing a decent income.
Building new income streams takes a lot of work. Starting any kind of side gig takes a great deal of effort and that new income stream often doesn’t make a whole lot of money at first. It takes a great deal of continuous effort to start seeing results, and even then, it builds slowly. Most people give up before that.
It’s even harder when that income stream is a passive one. Most people think that a passive income stream means that you just make something, throw it out there, and profit from it. Sure, you can do that, but you’ll make income in a trickle.
So, let’s say you’re a busy person like John or myself. You have a main career with a full-time job. You have a family with children. You have all of the other maintenance of daily life. You have (hopefully) some semblance of social connections as well, and perhaps a hobby or two. Those things added together can eat up almost all of your day. How can you possibly build new income streams?
Over the past few years, I’ve been tackling this exact problem in a number of ways, with reasonable success. I’m going to describe some of these initiatives in detail, but for now, I’m not going to mention specifics. Why? I’m trying to build these things without using the audience I have for The Simple Dollar, because that would be an advantage that others do not have, and I intend to write about each of them in full detail once they’ve had some more time to mature.
Speaking of The Simple Dollar, let’s start with that one.
Blogging
The Simple Dollar started as a “side gig” for me back in 2006 when I felt the urge to start writing about my financial turnaround. It struck a chord and eventually grew into my full-time work. The Simple Dollar was a website I started completely on my own. I was able to earn an income from it by placing advertisements on the site, as well as using Amazon affiliate links when I would talk about a book or other product that had positively impacted my life.
Why it works well as an income stream: It’s easy to set up, for starters. Anyone can start a blog using Blogger for free, or you can host it separately using something like Squarespace. Adding advertisements is easy, too, using tools like Google Adsense, and you can join Amazon’s associate program to generate a bit of income when you describe a product and people click through to Amazon’s site to learn more about it. It’s low-cost, too, as you can basically start all of this for free.
Why it can work well for busy people: You can define your own posting schedule and make it nice and slow if you wish, though a slower posting schedule usually does mean that it’s harder to build up a lot of visitors (which you need to make money) because you simply don’t have a lot of articles for people to search for and find. You can pick your own topics as well. Another advantage is if you decide to take a break, your archived writings will continue to earn income for a while, though that income will slowly decline over time.
Why it doesn’t work so well for busy people: It takes a ton of consistent work to build an audience for a blog. Not only do you have to write on a very consistent basis for quite a while, you also have to put in the footwork to find communities in which to talk about and share your site with interested parties without being a spammer (which can result in very negative things for your site). Writing consistently takes a ton of work; building an audience takes a ton of work. You need both to succeed with a blog.
Another challenge is that you have to be focused on a particular topic. Websites that wander from topic to topic almost never find an audience. This means that you have to choose a topic that’s going to consistently provide something for you to write about all the time and then stick with that topic (and similar topics).
It’s a lot of very consistent work. Now, this can work well for some busy people who have highly consistent schedules, which I did when I was first starting The Simple Dollar. I locked in a very consistent daily routine that gave me a block of time each evening to work on the site. This site was built in the evenings after long days at work, and often in those evenings I was holding a baby on my shoulder while clicking a mouse or bouncing a toddler on my knee while typing.
Another challenge is that it’s hard to earn a lot of money unless you have a pretty big audience. You need thousands of consistent readers (or else lots of well-regarded pages in Google for people to find via lots of different searches) in order to be able to make consistent money via advertisements. Until you have that, you won’t earn a ton of money. My first year or two with The Simple Dollar showed monthly income that’s better described in pennies rather than dollars.
Should you do it? If you have a good broad topic in mind, enjoy writing short essays, and can do so quite often and with relative ease, blogging might really click with you. This describes my own writing style quite well. However, it takes a long time to start earning an income from blogging and you will need to do some self-promotion.
Now, we’ll move on to some of the other potential side gigs for busy people, many of which I have direct experience with and others which are drawn from the experiences of close friends. Right up front, let’s be clear: I have experience with each of these, but I’m intentionally not talking about specifics at the moment because I don’t want to “spoil” their results by using The Simple Dollar as a platform to advertise them. I want to, in the future, be able to write about the results a person can achieve without being able to leverage something like The Simple Dollar to help it grow. When that happens, you better believe I’ll talk about the exact things I’ve made, but until then, I’m going to speak in more vague terms.
YouTube
A YouTube channel is something that anyone can create. It’s a collection of videos uploaded to YouTube made by the same creator (or team of creators) that people can subscribe to and watch. You might, for example, make a series of cooking videos or pocketknife review videos or videos on hunting tactics or videos discussing the latest events in the NBA. It’s generally a good idea to have a consistent theme to your videos. These videos earn income through advertisements placed before and during the videos by Google (and some popular channels can earn income through product placement arrangements). Many YouTubers earn additional income through Patreon.
Why it works well as an income stream: It’s very easy to get started. Starting a channel is free. You can make videos and upload them to YouTube on a smartphone or virtually any computer with a good internet connection, and once they’re uploaded, they stay there forever. You can define your own video creation schedule, too.
Why it can work well for busy people: Much like blogging, you can pick your own production and posting schedule and you can pick your own topic. You don’t even have to worry at all about hosting issues – your only real worry is making videos and then promoting them. Another advantage is that you can take breaks from creating videos and your older videos will continue to earn revenue for quite a long time.
Why it doesn’t work so well for busy people: Video production can take a lot of time. Even though you’re posting at your own pace and schedule, it can still take quite a lot of time to come up with an idea for a video, plan out the content, film it, edit it, and post it. Making something look halfway decent also takes some video editing skills, which you may have to learn before you even start.
There’s also the issue of promotion, which is something we’ll come back to time and time again. To make money off of online content you create, you need viewers, and to get viewers, you have to promote what you’ve made. That means spending the time to get involved with a community that would be receptive to your videos. Of course, if you’re making videos on things you already enjoy, this should be relatively easy and fun, but it still takes a long time.
And, again, much like blogging, it takes a substantial audience to make more than pennies with this. You either need a lot of videos or a healthy handful of really, really good videos to start building an audience and that means a lot of work before you really earn much money at all.
Should you do it? If you have a good topic in mind and the idea of making videos about it seems fun to you, then this can be a good hobby. However, as with many of the ideas here, you should expect that you won’t make much money for quite a while, and you will need to do some self-promotion.
Podcasting
Podcasting centers around recording audio programs and releasing them via the internet for others to listen to as they choose. You simply list your podcast with various services, record episodes, release them, and then people who use those services can discover and listen to your podcast. I like to describe it as “independent talk radio.”
Why it works well as an income stream: It’s fairly easy to record a podcast episode; you can even do it on a smartphone, though the audio quality would be relatively poor and that should only be a method for getting started. You just need a website to host your podcast, which is easily done at Squarespace, so it’s not too involved to actually publish your episodes. The actual recording, editing, and publishing doesn’t take too long at all per episode. If you enjoy having conversations about a particular topic, it’s a ton of fun.
Why it doesn’t work so well for busy people: Most of the same challenges with other formats for earning money pop up here. You need to be consistent with it (though you can get away with a pretty infrequent schedule when podcasting), and you won’t earn much money for a while, if ever.
I’ve found that with podcasting, the need for consistent day-in-day-out work is less than with some of the other models discussed here, but it’s actually harder to get income going with it. You basically have to find your own sponsors; if you’re lucky, they’ll find you, but you’ll probably have to go find businesses that would be interested in advertising on a podcast on your topic and work something out with them. At first, it won’t earn you much money, because your rates are wholly dependent on your listenership. You can also use Patreon as an income stream, where your listeners pay you a small amount per episode.
So, while the actual content production of a podcast is relatively easy on a per-episode basis, you do need consistency, and it’s fairly challenging to find people to pay you for doing this, at least compared to other strategies listed here.
Should you do it? If you like the idea of recording a talk radio show on a topic you love, podcasting is a great hobby that can earn an income stream along the way. However, it’s fairly hard to get the ball rolling with this in terms of income generation, though the actual content production isn’t incredibly hard. I found podcast content to be the easiest to produce (after blogging) among the options here.
Ebooks
Another strategy for building some side income for yourself is to write ebooks and sell them, either through Amazon’s Kindle store or through other venues, including your own. You simply write a book on your computer, edit it so that it’s worth reading, format it correctly, and upload it (assuming you’re using the Kindle store). It’s then listed on the Kindle store and people can buy it, download it, and read it.
Why it works well as an income stream: This is very much a “work at your own pace” kind of side gig. You can write and edit at whatever pace you like. Once you do upload a book, it’s there for good and will be found by people searching through the Kindle store thereafter. There’s virtually no up front cost, either.
Why it doesn’t work so well for busy people: Your book basically won’t sell at all on its own. You have to promote it, perhaps more than any other option here. If you want it to consistently start selling and to build up a following who will consistently buy your ebooks, you’ve got to get the word out there about your books, and that starts with writing great descriptions for your book, finding lots of online communities to actively participate in, and talking about your stuff there in a non-spammy way. That’s a lot of additional work. I’ve personally found that promoting ebooks takes more promotional work than the other avenues here.
So, while the actual writing is probably the least intense option among the ones listed here, the work needed to promote the books is quite large in order to be successful.
Should you do it? Do you like to write long-form items like books or novellas? If that sounds appealing to you, this is a great avenue to do just that. Just be aware that in order to make significant money from this, you have to be willing to invest significant time in promoting your books. They’re not going to make a mint all by themselves.
Standalone Websites
Standalone websites are websites that serve as an information resource about a specific topic. Typically, these websites are supported by ads and exist solely to serve up detailed information about some relatively narrow topic that people might be interested in that isn’t really covered elsewhere. For example, you might make a website that offers detailed notes on all of the hiking trails at a national park near where you live or offers up detailed notes on how to get started with a particular niche hobby. Once you make such a website, you’d simply promote it a little and mostly look for ways to get it linked to from other sites in order to start welcoming visitors from Google, who will view the ads and earn revenue for your site.
Why it works well as an income stream: Once you actually have such a site established, it requires very little irregular work to keep earning income and even slowly grow that income. A website that’s bringing in Google traffic tends to keep bringing it in provided you update the site every once in a while with fresh info, which you can do irregularly. Hosting websites like this is extremely cheap, as almost any web host is up to the task. You can also sell sites once they start earning income if you want to completely get out of the equation, which is harder to do with other opportunities. That’s the big advantage of using this as a money making tactic.
Why it doesn’t work so well for busy people: It takes a lot of time to make a website with a bunch of pages that thoroughly covers a niche topic. You need some basic web design skills, too. After that, you’re going to invest a ton of time trying to get some links to that site built up, especially from reputable places. All of this occurs before you earn a dime and while you’re paying for site hosting for your site.
For this to really work, you need to have some writing skills and motivation, some limited web design skills, and a strong desire to self-promote, a mix of things that many people don’t have, and you’ll also need to be willing to dump in a lot of up-front time, though it doesn’t need to be regular time.
Should you do this? If you’re interested in writing some detailed guides to specific topics, building standalone websites is a great avenue for this. Just be aware that it is a fairly slow process to make it profitable. This is a good route if you find yourself with bursts of time here and there to devote to it rather than consistent time.
‘Chore Synergy’ Businesses
What if you don’t want to do any sort of online business? Most real-world businesses usually require a ton of consistent time, which make them a nonstarter when it comes to very busy people. The only approach that seems to work well in a busy lifestyle is what I call “chore synergy” businesses; things you can do that synergize really well with things you’re already doing.
For example, if you walk your dog for a mile or two every day, simply picking up some dogs along that route, walking a big loop, and then returning them would just extend your dog walk a little bit and earn you some money. A door-to-door laundry service that’s along your work commute would allow you to pick up laundry and drop it off during your commute, do it at home, and then return it in the mornings before work, again right along with your commute. The idea is to “synergize” things you’re already doing.
Why it works well as an income stream: It involves a relatively low time commitment, as it usually just increases the time you spend on something you’re already doing. Once you have some clients, it’s actually a rather effortless way to earn more money. Most of these types of businesses involve very little cost to you outside of the time and energy involved.
Why it doesn’t work so well for busy people: You have to have a good idea that people actually want, then you have to promote that idea, then you usually have to actually execute that idea, all before you ever see a dime. You will have to worry about things like billing and so forth. You’ll also be expected to consistently stick with the task you’re promising to fulfill and any time you step away from it, you’ll have to clearly notify your clients or else drop the business. It won’t earn any residual income if you step away, whereas the other options will.
Should you do it? If you can identify a task that you can synergize really well, like a laundry delivery service or a dog-walking business or a basic lawn mowing service, and you’ll actually enjoy adding more of that task to your life, then a synergistic chore business might be a really good fit for you. If you loathe your household chores, avoid this one like the plague.
Final Thoughts
If you look through this list, you’ll see that many of the ideas have some things in common. They tend to involve a lot of work at your own pace that won’t earn a lot of income up front, but can build into something that earns good money over the long haul if you’re patient. They tend to have very little up-front cost, so that if it doesn’t work out, you don’t have a deep financial investment. They tend to be able to produce some level of residual income if you walk away from them for an extended period or for good.
All of those are factors that work well for making a side gig for busy people, particularly the “low up-front financial investment” and the “work at your own pace but consistently” aspects of it. I have obviously found success with The Simple Dollar following this pattern and I’m currently exploring projects in almost all of these areas.
If any of these sound interesting to you, start by writing up a side gig business plan for that idea. Use that opportunity to figure out the ins and outs of actually pulling off what you have in mind in terms of how to actually do it, what the real time commitment is, and whether you could fit it into your life. Be sure to consider the drawbacks I’ve discussed here and how you will overcome them, as well as other drawbacks you discover.
You may just find that a side gig does fit well in your busy life and it can provide another income stream for you.
Related Articles:
- 50 Side Businesses You Can Start on Your Own
- Multiple Income Streams: My Father’s Lesson
- How to Turn Your Passion Into an Income Stream
The post A Guide for Busy People Who Want to Build New Income Streams appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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How Facebook Can Hurt Your Job Hunt (It’s Not Because of Racy Photos)
When’s the last time you Googled yourself?
The practice may feel vain and self-indulgent. But if you’re in the market for a job, it might be as necessary as updating your resume and polishing your cover letter.
You need to know the story your online presence and social media tell about you — because potential employers are probably reading it.
Over the past decade, however, that story’s importance has grown exponentially.
Employers are Checking Your Social Media
Sixty percent of employers use social networking sites to research job candidates, according to an annual CareerBuilder study. That’s up from just 11% in 2006.
Almost as many — 59% — look you up on search engines you when you apply for a job.
“Tools such as Facebook and Twitter enable employers to get a glimpse of who candidates are outside the confines of a resume or cover letter,” said Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer of CareerBuilder.
We’ve heard about these practices from career professionals for years. As a result, many job seekers have dramatically limited their online presence.
The Biggest Mistake You Might Be Making Online
But if you’re hiding your personal life by guarding your online presence entirely, you could be hurting your chances with potential employers.
A surprising 41% of employers say they’re less likely to interview you if they don’t find any information about you online.
So you could be better off sharing too much than too little.
Before you panic and start reposting your Facebook photos, there’s some good news.
Most employers — 60% — are looking for information that supports your qualifications for the job… not seeking ways to incriminate you.
And the results can be positive. About one-third of employers who said they screen candidates via social networks have found information that prompted them to hire someone, including:
- Background information that supports your job qualifications
- Professionalism
- Personality that fits company culture
- Proof of a range of interests
- Great communication skills
However, 21% admit they’re looking for reasons not to hire you. And half the hiring managers who use social media to screen candidates have found something that kept them from hiring a candidate. Yikes.
But the things hiring managers cite as turn-offs in your online presence aren’t shocking:
- Provocative or inappropriate photos, videos or other information
- Drinking or drug use
- Discriminatory comments
- Talking badly about fellow employees or former company
- Poor communication skills
How to Create an Online Presence Employers Will Love
So, hiring managers are almost definitely looking you up online, and you better make sure they find something when they do.
How do you ensure they like what they find?
1. Tailor Your Online Presence to the Type of Company You Want to Work For
First, there’s no magic formula for the perfect social media presence.
It’s a reflection of your personality, so it has to fit who you are and what kind of job you want.
I, for one, wouldn’t want to work for anyone who didn’t appreciate my online candor.
Other employers lean the opposite way, you might guess, and don’t want employees who flaunt their less-professional side online.
2. Focus on LinkedIn
If you’re unsure, stick with LinkedIn for now.
Being present and active on that network can show potential employers you’re serious about your job search without revealing too much.
And there’s little chance of a tactless friend or angry cousin sullying your profile with provocative photos or comments.
3. Use Privacy Settings Strategically
If you’re more certain of your personal brand and want to let potential employers vet you on more personal sites like Facebook and Instagram, get to know their privacy features.
For example, on Facebook, you can choose post-by-post who will see your content. Be smart about the content you make public and with which groups of friends you share the most revealing posts.
4. Make Sure You’re Sharing Something
You’re probably better off being choosy and making some content public than hiding everything.
Thirty-six percent of employers who screen via social media want to get to know you so badly they’ll send you a friend request even if your account is private.
Deciding whether or not to accept could become awkward! Avoid it by keeping strategic posts public.
5. Google Yourself — Often
The best way to know what someone will find when they search your name online is to — can you guess? — search your name online.
Facebook lets you view your profile as anyone you choose. So you can see what your mom sees, what your friends see and what the public sees when they land on your profile.
Google yourself in a private or incognito window to find out what strangers might see.
You can also set up Google Alerts for your name and get a daily or weekly report of where you show up online, or search your name at IceRocket to see who’s talking about you on blogs and Twitter.
Social Media Vetting Continues to Grow
“With more and more people using social media, it’s not unusual to see the usage for recruitment to grow as well,” said Haefner.
And usage has grown year after year. The share of employers vetting through social media has gone from 11% in 2006 to 22% in 2008 to 52% just last year.
As we all pour more of our time, personalities and history into our online presence, we can only expect those numbers to continue to grow.
Whether you’re actively seeking a job now or not, stay aware of the story you’re presenting — so it doesn’t come around to bite you when it’s too late.
Your Turn: Have you been accepted or denied from a job opportunity because of social media?
Dana Sitar (@danasitar) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s written for Huffington Post, Entrepreneur.com, Writer’s Digest and more, attempting humor wherever it’s allowed (and sometimes where it’s not).
The post How Facebook Can Hurt Your Job Hunt (It’s Not Because of Racy Photos) appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.
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Warning issued over contactless card fraud
Consumers must be given more protection against contactless card fraud, the regulator has warned.
In a letter to the Treasury Select Committee, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) says consumers are at an increased risk of fraud because of the way retailers handle payments.
Source Moneywise http://ift.tt/2olmgWE
Many Tax Refunds Going To Pay Down Debt
New Survey Shows Refunds Mostly Directed to Savings and Debt Reduction
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OPENING BELL: Stocks waver during early trade
All three major US indexes showing overall losses, but more stocks are rising than falling.
Source Business - poconorecord.com http://ift.tt/2ol7Wx9
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Tax Debt Relief the IRS Won't Tell You About
The deadline for filing your tax return is quickly approaching. But what if you're one of the millions of Americans who owes the IRS more money than you can possibly pay? Tax expert Dan Pilla shares tips on what to do in his book, How to Get Tax Amnesty.
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Source CBNNews.com http://ift.tt/2nz4sav
How to Get a Personal Loan Approved
In some cases, a personal loan is desirable.
You may want to start a home business, or you may want to borrow for a vacation, or you might have some other use for the money. Whatever the reason is, getting a personal loan can give you the money you need. A personal loan — usually unsecured — can provide you with a little extra cash to help you meet your goals.
Actually securing that personal loan can be a bit difficult, though. Many people find the process scary, and they don't know where to begin.
But I can help you navigate the process and offer a few ways on how to get your personal loan approved.
And if that doesn’t work, we have some other options, too.
EASILY COMPARE LOANS
There are several places where you can get rates for personal loans. The easiest one to use that I have seen is PersonalLoans.com. Their form is quick and easy to fill out, and you'll be comparing loan rates in no time. You only have to input what type of loan you want, the amount, your zip code, and a bit of other basic loan information, and then they provide dozens of loan options near you.
PersonalLoans has been around since 1999, and has excellent customer reviews. They also work with many different lenders, allowing you to not only get the best rates, but to also skip the salesmanship that you might get through a local bank.
QUALIFYING THROUGH YOUR BANK OR CREDIT UNION
It’s becoming increasing difficult to qualify for a personal loan through your bank or credit union, especially if you want a larger amount.
If you are a good customer and have good credit, you can usually get what is called a “signature” loan for $3,000 to $5,000. These loans are also called “character loans” or “good character loans”, because these loans don’t require any collateral. Instead, the lender will usually look for an income and a decent credit history.
Because these loans aren’t backed by anything, they will typically have higher interest rates than other loans. However, the interest rate on a personal loan at a bank that values you as a customer is usually quite low compared to some alternatives.
Check with your bank or credit union to find out whether they offer these loans, and what the application process is.
If you want a bigger loan, though, you will need to jump through some hoops. You will need to fill out a loan application, and you might even need to designate collateral. (Collateral is something of value that can be taken from you and sold to pay off the loan if you can’t pay it back.)
You will need to have a relatively high credit score (above 700 if you want to even be considered for an unsecured personal loan), and you may not be approved for as much as you would like.
Not sure how your credit looks? Use services from Credit Sesame, Credit Karma and Transunion to figure that out first.
OTHER OPTIONS FOR PERSONAL LOANS
If you have poor credit or don’t think you can receive an affordable loan from a bank or credit union, don’t worry. There are other options for personal loans, beyond your bank or credit union. Some of your other options include:
Peer to Peer (P2P) Lending
One of the increasingly popular options right now is P2P lending. Whether you are financing a business, paying for college, or trying to buy a motorcycle, P2P lending can help. You will have to apply for the loan, and your credit will be checked. BUT, a good story and business plan can help get the funding you need — and at a competitive rate.
Interested in learning more?
Check out Lending Club and Prosper. Both are leaders in the P2P lending space with solid processes for loan origination, repayment, and tracking.
My Lending Club review can help you get a better feel for how peer-to-peer lending works and whether it might be a good option for you.
Credit Cards
Many of us don't think of credit cards as loans, but, in reality, your credit card constitutes a personal loan. If you have good credit, and you are hoping for a larger limit, you can apply for a new credit card. You can boost your available credit, and then draw on that for your personal use.
However, credit cards usually have relatively high interest rates, and if you carry a balance, you could wind up paying quite a bit. Try to get a new card with an introductory period, and you will have an interest-free personal loan.
Here are some of the best credit cards you can get with a 0% introductory rate for either purchases or balance transfers:
- Chase Freedom®
- 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers for 15 months
- Earn 1x points on all purchases, plus 5x points on the first $1,500 spent in categories that rotate every quarter
- Earn a $150 signup bonus when you use your card for just $500 in purchases during the first 90 days
- No annual fee
- Citi Diamond Preferred® Card
- 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers for the first 21 months
- No annual fee
- Access to Citi® Private Pass® travel program
- Worldwide Travel Accident Insurance
- Travel & Emergency Assistance
Family and Friends
If you have family members or friends who can help you out with the personal loan you need, you can often get the best loan terms.
However, you want to make sure that you are positive that you can repay the loan; you don’t want to risk your relationship. Have a contract so that you are accountable, and so that your friend or relative knows that you are serious. Be sure to include the loan term and the interest rate in the contract.
While I wouldn’t recommend using friends or family for a loan, sometimes it’s the best (or only) option.
Editor’s note: Personally, I’m totally against borrowing from family or friends. In my own family, money led to a huge falling out between family members. It shouldn’t have, but it did.
BEFORE GETTING A PERSONAL LOAN: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
We are going to be honest, getting a personal loan isn’t easy. There are a lot of things you need to consider before you apply for a personal loan.
The first, and most obvious, is to decide how large a loan you actually need. This might seem like a ridiculous tip to include, but it’s important enough to reiterate. Before you apply for your loan, sit down and calculate how much money you will need.
Next, we need to make sure you understand how personal loans work. First of all, there are two main types of personal loans, secured and unsecured.
A secured loan will usually give you lower interest rates, but you have to put something up as collateral for the loan, which means that if you don’t pay back the loan, they take your collateral.
Unsecured loans, as you can guess, don’t require any collateral, but will have higher interest rates.
The other basic thing to know about personal loans is what you will need to get one. The information you’ll need will vary depending on which technique you use to get the loan. Just about every loan is going to require basic information like address, birthday, and social security number.
You will also need employment information, like your work history and pay stubs to verify your income. You will need to provide other sources of income like alimony.
Depending on the loan type and amount, the lender may ask for other documents like a copy of your W-2 and tax information, as well as proof of address, bank statements, and your mortgage or renting statements.
Once you understand the basics, you should spend some time researching the different loan types, examining which might work best for you. There are several different ways to get a personal loan, and not every type will be a good fit for your situation. Fully understand the type of loan you are getting, the loan period, the payment methods, payment amounts, and any other important information.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON PERSONAL LOANS
If you are looking for a personal loan, there are a number of options. From payday lenders (which you should avoid as much as you can), to credit cards, to friends and family, to random strangers via P2P lending, chances are that you can find a personal loan. But, depending on your situation, you might have to pay a lot for it.
Whichever path to a personal loan you select, make sure you track your finances well using a budgeting tool like Mint or Manilla. Both of these apps sync up with your financial accounts and are easy to use. They can show you all of your bills in one place, making sure you don’t forget any debts. You don’t want to have to take a personal loan out during a pinch and end up paying thousands in interest and late fees from mismanaging your money.
The post How to Get a Personal Loan Approved appeared first on Good Financial Cents.
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New market leading saver launched by Yorkshire Building Society
Yorkshire Building Society has launched a new savings account, paying a best buy rate of 1.15%, although withdrawals are limited to once a year.
Its Single Access Saver account tops the previous best rate – RCI Bank’s Freedom Savings Account, which pays 1.1%.
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Tax Debt Relief the IRS Won't Tell You About
The deadline for filing your tax return is quickly approaching. But what if you're one of the millions of Americans who owes the IRS more money than you can possibly pay? Tax expert Dan Pilla shares tips on what to do in his book, How to Get Tax Amnesty.
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Why You Should Never Feel Bad for Chasing the Money
I have had a wild ride the past couple of years, career-wise. I went from making just $22,000 per year working in the mailroom of a Hollywood talent agency to making far more than that at my current job at a startup.
Sure, I had to sell my soul and give up my artistic dreams, but that’s a small price to pay for a big raise, right?
I joke about selling my soul, but it’s something I actually think about. I was committed to making it as a TV writer, and now I pretty much do sales at my main gig. For a few months after making the decision to pursue a career with more immediate financial rewards, the thought that I was a “sellout” gnawed at me.
I imagined a younger version of myself, upon hearing that I’d taken a more corporate job, saying something like, “Good job, quitter. Have fun selling widgets the rest of your life.”
I think these are common, natural feelings for a 20-something to have after realizing that they’re making a career shift away from the creative and toward the traditional. The good part is that, after a while, the negative thoughts subside. And when they do, you’ll have the time to analyze your decision with more clarity. If you’re like me, you might come to the conclusion that you’re only a sellout if you think you’re a sellout.
Recognize That You Are Always Changing
Before I was trying to make it as a TV writer, I was trying to be a professional basketball player. And I succeeded! For three years, I actually got paid money to play a sport, which for many people would be a dream come true. But, I was never satisfied. I wanted to make the NBA. I felt like a failure.
When I eventually stopped playing basketball, I felt like I was giving up. Instead of realizing that I’d accomplished a lot and had much to be proud of, I wallowed in self-pity and stressed myself out thinking about my next career move.
But, as they always do, those feelings passed. I started to feel better about myself as I dove into the task of finding a job that would help me pursue my new passion: Becoming a big-time Hollywood writer.
There’s nothing wrong with that goal. I really believed at the time that TV writing was the path for me. My mistake, though, was not being able to apply the lessons I’d learned from ending my basketball career once I decided to end my TV writing career as well.
Rather than beating myself up for not pursuing the life of a starving artist, I should have been able to look at things more pragmatically. I mean, I’d pretty much gone through the exact same situation already with basketball!
But, I found that it’s hard for me to move on from pursuing lofty, shoot-for-the-moon-type career goals. And I’m sure it’s the case for many others out there as well.
The main thing I keep telling myself is that it’s okay to change. I’m happy I didn’t have all the same goals, principles, and dreams at age 12 that I did at age 18. Why is it such a big deal if I encountered similar changes between the ages of 22 and 24, or 25 and 28?
Your 20s are bound to be a time of growth, questioning, and reassessment. It’s better to embrace that than to stubbornly stick with Activity X because you were so sure you wanted to be the best in the world at Activity X a few years ago.
You’ll eventually want to settle on a set of core values and principles that matter more than anything, but it’s okay if takes you some work and some time to get there. I never appreciated that.
Trent made a great point along these lines a few months back, when he highlighted a quote by the philosopher Alan Watts: “You’re under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago.”
Don’t Fall Victim to ‘Fading Affect Bias’
A problem I faced after leaving my old career was that I couldn’t stop remembering the good times. There was the the time I won an award for a script I wrote, the time one of my jokes made it into the finished pilot for a show on CBS, and countless positive memories associated with just hanging out with my bosses.
It took some active effort for me to snap out of it and think, “If it was so great, why did I leave?” Then I remember the aspects of the career I wasn’t so enamored with, such as the late nights spent in a dingy edit bay, the countless hours spent on my scripts even though there was no guarantee anyone important would ever read them, and the low wages.
I’ve learned that I’m not alone in emphasizing the positives when looking back on a situation. In fact, there’s even a name for it: The Fading Affect Bias. Studies have shown that across all cultures, bad memories tend to fade faster than good ones. Some researchers think the purging of bad memories could be an evolutionary adaptation to make sure our self esteem stays sufficiently high.
And to that I say: Not all adaptations are universally good across all circumstances. I think when making a big, profound career change — especially leaving a job you once considered your “passion” — you’d do well to remember exactly why you left.
It can help to take some time to write down in a journal your reasons for moving on. Then you can refer back to them the second you start thinking, “If I had just stuck it out a little longer, I’d be writing on Modern Family right now!”
There’s Always Time for Your Hobbies
Just because you’re no longer doing something “fun” for a living doesn’t mean you have to completely abandon your passions. I still write (obviously). I still play basketball (poorly). And the crazy thing is that I genuinely love doing these activities, even though they are now only done in my free time.
If I wanted to, I could have kept writing scripts even after I took my new job. In fact, the one script I wrote that won an award was written during the free time I had at one of my office jobs.
Heck, I could have even kept training for basketball. Just last year a former college basketball player left his job in public radio and signed a professional basketball contract to play in Poland.
The point is, if you really want to pursue something and you aren’t an on-call surgeon raising six kids by yourself, you probably have some time to get good at it and still maintain a day job. In many cases, it just requires rethinking how you spend your downtime: The average American spends four and a half hours a day watching TV and another few hours surfing the web, some of which could no doubt be devoted to a side project or passion.
Money Matters
People like to say that money doesn’t buy happiness, but a now-famous study showed that earning more money does increase happiness — to an extent, before leveling off after around $75,000 per year. Let’s just say low-level European basketball players and entry-level writer’s assistants aren’t very close to reaching that bar.
I’m not trying to imply that people earning below a certain amount of money are going to be less happy. There are people I know in both the careers I abandoned who are perfectly content doing what they love for very little pay.
I’m just saying that in my situation, with mounting student loan debt and the dream of being able to retire before age 70, it was plausible that I could be happier if I pursued a more lucrative career path. I’m very grateful that such avenues were open to me, and I’ve enjoyed learning something new in a different field.
Summing Up
If careers in sports and the arts were easy, everyone would do them. It takes a special kind of dedication to succeed in either arena. I’ve finally come to grips with the fact that it’s okay to not be one of those people. It’s not selling out to do what’s best for you financially, even if that means you end up in a career you would have once considered boring. Who knows, if you pursue your side hustles hard enough maybe they will eventually become your main hustle. In the meantime, take the time to appreciate you have a job at all, and hold your head high as you crank out those widgets.
Related Articles:
- The Myths and Realities of ‘Doing What You Love’
- The Working-Class Reality of Your Superstar Dreams
- Three Famous Athletes Who Can Teach Us a Thing or Two About Frugality
The post Why You Should Never Feel Bad for Chasing the Money appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
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Learn smart family money tips with April’s Moneywise out now
Find out how to grow your money using investment Isas, save £1,000s on mortgage costs, energy bills and rail fares, plus much more in the April edition of Moneywise.
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