MAKE MONEY ONLINE POSTS: 04/14/17

الجمعة، 14 أبريل 2017

Poconos making a splash with indoor water parks

STROUDSBURG (AP) — The picturesque Pocono Mountains — with pristine lakes, vibrant forests and majestic waterfalls — have long attracted people seeking adventure, relaxation or both.Now the region is re-emerging as a haven for family fun, much as it was in the 1950s, with the popularity of indoor water park resorts that provide year-round entertainment. Guests can ride waves, race down water slides and swim up to pool bars no matter if it's snowing or sweltering [...]

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These are the Homebuying Mistakes Millennials Regret Most

Millennials get a bad rap.

Yes, we may do things differently than other generations, but we don’t all want to live with our parents forever or forego homeownership indefinitely in favor of renting.

Yet with mountains of student loan debt, wages that aren’t keeping up with inflation and all the questions that come with buying your first home, there’s good cause to hesitate a little.

When the time is right, we want to do it right. And the best way to do that is to learn from those who have messed up in the process.

Sharing is caring. Hopefully someone’s pain can be a lesson for the next person.

Millennial Regrets About Homebuying

NerdWallet’s 2017 Home Buyer Reality Report showed that 57% of millennial homeowners surveyed would do something differently if they got a do-over on the homebuying process. More than a quarter — 28% — wished they’d saved more before making the purchase.

After buying their homes, 11% felt less financially secure.

That’s not to say millennial homeowners regret their purchase overall — only 4% did, and only 10% thought they should’ve waited longer. But there are some major changes some would have liked to make.

If They Could Turn Back Time

Nearly 1 out of 5 — 19% — wished they’d purchased a larger place. Twelve percent said the amenities and features they initially appreciated have gone down in value since they bought their homes.

Almost half — 46% — found the homebuying process stressful, although 37% reported it was manageable and rewarding.

Of those who would change things if they had a second chance, 15% would research the homebuying process more; 12% would research the mortgage-lending process more; and 14% would keep better organization of all the paperwork.

Unexpected Homebuying Budget Items

While it’s easy to get caught up in the home price itself, there are a bunch of related costs that can derail homebuyers if they don’t think them through.

HSBC’s 2017 Beyond the Bricks study surveyed over 9,000 millennials in nine countries and found that 56% of U.S. millennial homebuyers exceeded their budgets when they purchased their homes.

Of those who reported overspending, 45% cited renovation costs and 41% cited furniture costs.

Of those surveyed who were not fully satisfied with their homes as-is, 45% said it would take renovations or remodeling to bring their approval up to a five-star rating.

Fifteen percent said they’d need bigger or more rooms; 10% would prefer a better location; 9% want specific features added, like a pool; and just 4% wanted more or improved outdoor space.

So before you put all your hard-earned money into your first house, make sure you fully consider all the costs involved in making it a place you love to come home to every day. Take time to crunch all the numbers — even if it means stepping away from the glory that is HGTV.

Your Turn: Do you have any homebuying regrets others can learn from?

Nicole Dow is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She can’t wait to buy her first home — but will wait until she’s saved more money and done all her research.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, one of the largest personal finance websites. We help millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. In 2016, Inc. 500 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the No. 1 fastest-growing private media company in the U.S.

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Here’s Why Banks are Making it So Hard to Finance a Car in 2017

For years, banks have been making it super-easy to get a car loan.

Not anymore.

Because of rising interest rates and auto loan delinquencies, lenders are tightening their standards and getting choosier about who they give credit to.

That’s a real downer for vehicle sales in the U.S. In fact, sales plummeted to a two-year low in March.

“We’ve been having a party for a few years and it was fun,” auto industry consultant Maryann Keller told Bloomberg News. “Now lenders are getting back to basics.”

This isn’t good news if you’re looking to buy a car. But never fear.

Here’s What You Can Do to Score a Car Loan

You can still get a car loan — and a decent car — if you follow our advice.

For starters, know your credit score before you head to the dealership or used car lot. Most car buyers don’t know this, but it gives you an immediate advantage.

A good credit score is a powerful negotiating tool and can help bring down a car’s price, interest rate or monthly payment. Take a look at our credit score explainer, and use some of the resources we mention to get your score for free.

If your credit score isn’t great, follow this guy’s example — he raised his score 234 points in seven months.

Finally, think used. Used cars are often a better deal. Thanks to the law of supply and demand, 2017 is a good year to buy a used compact car, even though used car prices are going up on average.

For more tips on buying a used car, go here or here or here.

Because of the tightening standards for car loans, we’re likely going to see car buyers move away from expensive new vehicles and gravitate toward cheaper used cars.

So if you end up settling for a vehicle that’s not quite your dream car, don’t worry: You’re not alone.

Your Turn: Are you planning to get a car loan this year?

Mike Brassfield (mike@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. He’s still paying off the loan for his latest used car, thank you very much.

Acorns Vs. Stash: Which App is the Best Place to Invest Your Loose Change?

Let’s admit it: Some of us are not good at saving money. (Author sheepishly raises hand.)

With so many bills to pay, it’s hard to save.

It’s even harder to start investing your money.

But the sooner you start, the better off you’ll be. Investing is one of the best ways to build your wealth. Taking baby steps now will pay off later in a big way.

And you don’t have to be Warren Buffett to be an investor. You don’t have to follow the stock market. You don’t have to read The Wall Street Journal or watch CNBC.

Actually, you don’t have to know anything. And you can do it from your smartphone.

Stash and Acorns are two popular apps that offer easy, automatic ways to start investing.

These apps have the same goals for you, but use different methods to get you there.

Set It and Forget It

So let’s get to it: Stash vs. Acorns.

Both of these apps are aimed at millennials, although it’s never too late in life to start investing.

Both are available on Apple and Android smartphones.

Both apps have mastered the “set it and forget it” method of investing. They’re really useful for tricking your brain into saving more. You’ll invest without even realizing you’re doing it.

Stash sets up automatic stock market investments for you. It lets you invest as little as $5 into a set of simple portfolios reflecting your beliefs, interests and goals.

You can set it up to pull a specific sum of money from your bank account at regular intervals, so you can grow your investments over time.

As for Acorns, CNBC calls it “the new millennial investing strategy.”

Once you connect the app to a debit or credit card, it rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar and funnels your digital change into an investment account.

You can have it automatically round up all your purchases, or manually round up only the transactions you choose. Because the money comes out in increments of less than $1, you’re less likely to feel an impact in your bank account.

Again, each of these apps is using different methods to achieve the same ends.

Here’s a more in-depth look at each.

Stash It Away For Later

Stash’s mission statement is: “Investing should be simple and accessible.”

You can start with just $5. If you sign up here, you’ll get an extra $5 to invest when you open your account.

Once you sign up, you can set up “Auto-Stash” to withdraw a certain amount of cash from your bank account every week or every month.

Now, where should you invest your Stash money? You can choose from over 30 investment funds.

Instead of overwhelming you with industry jargon, Stash curates and categorizes these funds and gives them understandable names.

You can invest in tech companies or green energy providers or cybersecurity firms through funds like “American Innovators,” “Clean & Green” or “Data Defenders.” Or you can invest in funds with names like “Roll with Buffett,” “Moderate Mix” or “Global Citizen.”

You pay just a $1 monthly fee, and your first month is free. When your account reaches $5,000, you’ll be charged 0.25% of your account balance per year. (As an example, that’s just $12.50 for a $5,000 portfolio.)

You can control all of this from your cell phone, with the security of a 4-digit PIN.

Acorns — Not a Squirrelly or Nutty Way to Invest

Like Stash, Acorns’ is super simple for saving and investing.

You download the app to your phone, connect it to your bank account and select a few settings. This takes 10 minutes, tops.

Then you forget it.

Whenever you use your debit card to buy coffee, groceries, movie tickets or anything else, the app rounds up your purchase to the next dollar and diverts your change into an investment account.

Acorns calls these “Round-Ups.” But they don’t have to be automatic — that’s a setting you choose. You can also add Round-Ups to your Acorns account manually by going through a list of transactions in the app.

Penny Hoarder writer Dana Sitar tried out Acorns and was surprised to find herself painlessly saving $35 a month.

“I’ll save $420 a year — without thinking twice,” she said. “That’s a round-trip flight. It’s Christmas presents for my whole family. It’s groceries for two and a half months. It’s probably the cost of the next thing that stops working on my car.”

Where does Acorns invest your digital change? You answer a few questions on the app to create a financial profile. Acorns uses it to build your investment portfolio, which ranges from conservative to aggressive.

How much does Acorns cost to use? For an account with a balance below $5,000, the monthly fee is $1 plus 0.5%.

When Sitar checked her Acorns balance after the first three months, “It felt like free money,” she wrote. She put the app’s service into perspective:

“Because the amounts are so small, the gains with this kind of investing won’t blow your mind. I’m using Acorns to make saving easy.”

“The price is totally worth this service to help me save a few hundred dollars this year, and several thousand over the next few. It’s something I know I wouldn’t achieve on my own.”

The Bottom Line

So, here’s the million-dollar question: Which will grow your money faster: Stash or Acorns?

The thing is, there’s no simple answer.

With Stash, it depends on how much cash you divert into your account. With Acorns, it depends on how many transactions you round up.

The bottom line is that either of these apps will get you into the investing game.

Even if you don’t have an extra $10,000 to hand to a stockbroker or invest in Etrade.

Even if you don’t understand stock market mumbo-jumbo like “annualized rate of return” or “dividend yield” or “small cap” or “no-load mutual fund.”

Business magazine Fast Company ran an article about Stash with this headline: “Meet The Startups Helping Broke-Ass Millennials Invest Their Couch Pennies.”

There’s some truth to that. Even if you’re starting small, with “couch pennies,” it’s better to start now.

It’s the same thing they say about exercising:

A year from now, you’ll wish you had started today.

Your turn: Have you started investing yet?

Disclosure: Here’s a toast to the affiliate links in this post. May we all be just a little richer today.

Mike Brassfield (mike@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. He invests, but needs to invest more.

5 ways to upgrade your home without blowing your budget

Everyone wants to turn their house into their dream home, but that’s often easier said than done. Whether you’re upgrading your space or gearing up to sell, renovating your home is a big financial decision. After all, it’s not only the place you live, it’s most likely your largest investment. “So how much does a home remodel cost?” you ask. If you have a home equity line of credit, or HELOC, you have a higher degree of flexibility. [...]

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An Inside Peek into the Home Staging Profession

By Holly Reisem Hanna I love me some HGTV (Home and Garden Television); from Fixer Upper and House Hunters to Flip or Flop – I could watch this channel for hours if my daughter and husband would let me. So, needless to say, when I saw a business opportunity on HGTV for Home Stagers, I […]

The post An Inside Peek into the Home Staging Profession appeared first on The Work at Home Woman.

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Disney, Universal, Hulu and Comcast are Hiring, and the Perks are Amazing

Good job opportunities are few and far between these days. And when the good ones do present themselves, they’re usually snatched up before you can even dust off your resume.

And that’s why we get pretty excited around here when we hear about companies hiring hundreds of people at once.

So here’s some good news: Disney World, Universal Studios, Comcast and Hulu are all hiring a lot of people this year. Read on to see if one of these jobs is right for you!

1. Disney World is Hiring 1,000 People

In anticipation of opening of its newest attraction Pandora: The World of Avatar at Animal Kingdom, Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, is hiring up to 1,000 new cast members. Positions will be available at each of the four main parks, the water parks, the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, Disney Springs and at more than 20 of the nearby resort hotels.

The company is looking to fill both full- and part-time positions, specifically in food and beverage, transportation, safety and parking.

Aside from the obvious advantage of getting to spend each day at the Happiest Place on Earth, the benefits and perks Disney cast members enjoy are pretty sweet: discounts at dining, merchandise and recreation locations, including the resort hotels; free theme park admission, plus a few free and discounted admission tickets for friends and family; on-site child care; exclusive sneak previews of new rides, attractions and parks; wellness programs; and the list goes on!

Full-time employees can also qualify for health insurance, vacation and sick leave. Both full- and part-time positions may be eligible for retirement plans.

Pay varies by position and experience, but Disney pays all cast members weekly.

Go here to apply to become a Disney cast member — and make dreams come true!

2. Comcast is Hiring 5,500 People

Comcast is hiring 5,500 people across the country to fill mostly entry-level customer support roles.

The customer service roles will pay $16 an hour and up, depending on experience.

Full-time Comcast employees enjoy benefits such as comprehensive medical, dental and vision insurance plans, 401(k) matching, and courtesy TV and internet service.

Go here to search current openings and apply for a career at Comcast.

3. Hulu is Hiring 500 People

The streaming video service recently announced it’s opening a new headquarters in San Antonio, Texas. The company says the facility will create 300 jobs by the end of 2017 and an additional 200 jobs by the end of 2018.

Employees at Hulu receive health, vision and dental insurance, a 401(k) match, vacation time and sick days, plus additional bonuses such as a $40 monthly wellness stipend and, supposedly, lots of free food.

Pay depends on position and experience.

You can go here to see what positions Hulu is hiring for in your area.

4. Universal Studios is Hiring 1,700 People

Universal Studios Orlando announced earlier this year that it’s hiring 1,700 new team members before the opening of its newest water park, Volcano Bay, this summer.

Culinary, food services, security and safety (including more than 400 lifeguards), custodial, ticket sales, transportation and parking attendant positions are available. So basically everything.

Benefits for Universal team members include free park admission, discounts on food and merchandise, complimentary guest passes and discounts on resort hotels.

Pay varies by position.

You can go here to browse open positions and apply to become a Universal Orlando team member.

And if you love the jobs listed here (but maybe you don’t live close enough to apply), make sure to like The Penny Hoarder Jobs Facebook page — we post jobs that fit every lifestyle.

Your Turn: Do you have your resume ready?

Grace Schweizer is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder.

Stressed at Work? You’re Probably Forgetting This Important De-Stress Tool

The pants are always the first to go.

If you’re like most people, one of the first things you do after work is change into comfortable clothing. Sweats, pajamas, leggings — anything but the restrictive clothes we’ve been wearing all day.

A new study by Paychex took a look at what else we do after work, and we need to talk.

How We Chill After Work

Wondering how your after-work habits stack up to other people? Here’s what about 2,000 other folks do when they get home.

Watch TV: 65.2%

Surf the internet: 59.5%

Put on comfy clothes: 53.6%

Have a meal: 47.6%

Hang with friends or family: 40.5%

At the end of the workweek, the same 2,000 folks’ after-work habits look more like this.

Watch TV: 54.4%

Hang with friends or family: 53.1%

Surf the internet: 49.7%

Put on comfy clothes: 46.5%

Participate in a hobby: 45.5%

Only 20.2% of them have an after-work drink on weekdays, but oh boy, the weekend is a different story. At the end of the week, 39.4% of them hit the sauce.

Notice Anything Missing From These Lists?

Those are all great ways to unwind and de-stress after work, but both lists are missing something important.

We aren’t taking care of ourselves as well as we could be.

Forms of self-care like exercise, baths and napping came in at the bottom of these lists. Here’s why that’s not cool.

Post-Work Self-Care Is Important, Too

The study also shows that many of us are stressed out at work.

More than 80% say there’s at least one stress point in their work life.

Over 42% rate their stress at a 3 on a scale of 1 to 5.

Nearly 26% rate their stress at a 4 on the same scale.

About 5% rated their stress level a 5.

Clearly a lot of us are super stressed out.

Health educator Abby Wolfe says it can be tough to carve out time for personal indulgences like naps and exercise, but it’s critically important to try.

“You must be in top-notch condition to do your best work, and you must be at your best before you can help others be at their best,” says Wolfe. “That includes partners, friends, family members, co-workers and—yep—your boss (gasp).”

Find Your Happy Place

If you can’t grab a quick snooze or go for a run, here’s a relaxation method you can do anywhere.

Incorporating mindfulness into your workday is a proven way to reduce stress, and you don’t need a bathtub, kettlebell or nap space to do it.

Work stress is probably not going away anytime soon, so it’s important to manage it before it impacts your life and family.

Your Turn: How do you manage work stress? Also, sweatpants or pajamas?

Lisa McGreevy is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. Pajamas.

Millions of Jobs are Open — But Companies May Not Be Hiring. Here’s Why

If you’ve always wanted to be a doctor, accountant or engineer, now might be a great time to land your dream job.

Or maybe not.

Before you switch your major or quit your current job, read this.

There Are Millions of Open Jobs in the U.S.

As of the last business day of February 2017, there are roughly 1.3 million open jobs in the health services and education industry, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.

The professional and business services sector accounts for another one million open jobs around the country.

Meanwhile, mining and logging, along with the media and information sector, have the fewest available job openings. They clock in at 18,000 and 69,000 respectively.

So does that mean anyone thinking about going into mining, logging, television or publishing should forget about it and find a new line of work?

Not necessarily.

It turns out the number of available jobs doesn’t equal the number of people who actually get jobs.

Why Aren’t Some Companies Filling Their Open Jobs?

The Bureau says a large number of open jobs available in a given field doesn’t necessarily mean companies are filling them.

Take companies in the information and business industries, where the availability of jobs fluctuates along with the economy.

These organizations may have lots of open jobs but not enough qualified candidates. Or maybe those companies aren’t offering a reasonable wage and skilled workers are taking a pass.

Yet some industries are always hiring, and jobs are consistently scarce.

“Construction is the one industry in which hires are always high and job openings are always low. Turnover is high because workers can move from site to site and employer to employer,” says the Bureau. “Unfilled openings are low because of employers’ ability to quickly find the workers they need.”

It’s the same in entertainment, recreation, retail and the arts. The skills needed for jobs in those areas can often be easily transferred from company to company.

For example, the skills needed to work at Macy’s are largely the same as what you’d need to work at Nordstrom or Old Navy, so finding a new job isn’t usually too difficult.

Manufacturing and government sectors generally have the lowest number of hires and the lowest available jobs, because turnover tends to be fairly low, which means jobs don’t open up as often.

How Should I Decide Which Industry to Enter?

To be honest, the Bureau isn’t a lot of help when it comes to answering this question.

“Jobseekers and career changers can use [this] data to guide their education or job search,” reads the report.

That’s all the Bureau’s researchers have to say on the matter, but here are a few more tips on choosing your career path:

Dr. Heidi Grant, Senior Scientist at the Neuroleadership Institute, says, “[Y]ou can begin by choosing a career that fits well with your skills and values. Since you actually have some sense of what those are (hopefully), this is a good starting place.”

Read up on job descriptions. Search Google to find personal experiences and to gather information on specific niches.

Make informed choices to help future-proof your career when choosing your college major.

Tap into your local library for a wealth of free resources to help you with everything from transitioning to a different field to how to hone your interviewing skills.

Do Your Research

Everyone wants a job that fulfills and motivates them, but we’ve also got to pay the bills, right? A little research goes a long way toward helping you find a job that ticks all those boxes.

Once you know what you want to do with your life, check out what the Bureau has to say about that specific industry so you know what to expect during your job search.

Good luck!

Your Turn: Would you rather work in a field with lots of available jobs or one with fewer open jobs but good longevity?

Lisa McGreevy is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s been a writer for more than 20 years and is too chicken to look at what the Bureau has to say about her industry. Ignorance is bliss.

These Hatching Toys Could be Deadly, so Target is Recalling 560K of Them

We all know how it works: A toy hits the market, and every child is suddenly enthralled with it (a la Furbies and Beanie Babies).

For Easter this year, Target released Hatch & Grow Easter eggs and Dino toys. These popular seasonal toys “hatch” when you put them in water. If I were a kid, I would definitely want one.

If you bought one for your child, though, you might need to return it, because Target recently recalled some due to a serious ingestion hazard.

Why Hatch & Grow Toys Were Recalled

On April 13, Target announced it was recalling 560,000 of its popular Hatch & Grow seasonal toys. The retailer sold the toys for about $1 each in February and March.

If swallowed by a child, the toy “can expand inside a child’s body and cause intestinal obstructions, resulting in severe discomfort, vomiting, dehydration and could be life threatening,” according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Woah.

The CPSC also wants parents to know that the toys might not show up on an X-ray.

If your child were to ingest a toy, doctors would have to remove it surgically.

Thankfully, no accidental swallowings have been reported.

Target is offering full refunds for these recalled toys.

To find out if your product is affected, compare the model number on your product to the recalled product numbers: 234-25-1200 (Hatch & Grow Easter Eggs and Easter Grow Toys) and 234-09-0016 (Hatch Your Own Dino Egg).

You can find the product number for the Hatch & Grow Easter Eggs and Easter Grow Toys on the back of the package. The Hatch Your Own Dino Egg product number is on the label inside the package.

Your Turn: Will you have to return your Hatch & Grow purchase?

Kelly Smith is a junior writer and engagement specialist at The Penny Hoarder. Catch her on Twitter at @keywordkelly.

How to Tell a Gripping Story on Your About Page

Your About page.

It’s one of those requisite elements of your website that’s easy to overlook.

But really, is it even that big of a deal?

How many visitors will actually take the time to check out your About page?

Well, here’s an interesting statistic.

According to a study from KoMarketing, “52% of your visitors want to see an About page.”

Without one, you’re instantly creating some distance between your company and over half of your visitors.

That’s why an About page is more important than you may think.

And here’s something else I’ve noticed.

A lot of brands (even some of the bigger ones) lack in the About page department.

Some fail to include an About page altogether, and others halfheartedly slap one together without putting any real thought into it.

Such About pages often miss the mark, which throws a wrench in the overall sales funnel.

I want to be fair and say that not everyone needs an About page. But most companies, individuals, and websites do. It’s a standard thing to do.

And it can be really valuable. As long as you do it right!

For this post, I would like to discuss A) the importance of a well-crafted About page, B) what goes into a well-crafted About page, and C) how to tell a gripping story on your About page that will resonate with your visitors.

Redefining an About page

First of all, let’s start with a formal definition of an About page.

According to Your Dictionary, it’s

a type of web page commonly seen on websites, containing general information about the person or organization that is responsible for the website in question, usually a description of the site’s history and mission or purpose.

Most people probably would say this definition is spot on.

But in my opinion, it has one fatal flaw.

It talks about only the person/organization and doesn’t address the needs or concerns of visitors.

Of course, you’ll want to talk about your company, its history, philosophy, values, achievements, etc.

But there’s more.

A great About page will answer some major questions for your visitors.

What types of questions should I answer?

Copyblogger nails it in this article.

Here’s their take on things.

Some of your visitors’ unanswered questions are:

What’s in this for me?

Am I in the right place?

Can this person help me with my problem?

Don’t send your readers screaming for the exit by talking only about yourself. Instead, make them want to pull up a chair, chat with you a while, and keep in touch long after the party.

How many times have you clicked on an About page only to hear a company ramble on about how awesome they are without ever answering any of the pressing questions of their visitors?

I see it happen all the time.

What you should aim for

The point I’m trying to make here is that the term About page can be a little misleading.

It shouldn’t be just about you. It should be about your audience as well.

And now, here’s my formula for telling a gripping story.

Know thy customer

I’m sure you’ve heard the Ancient Greek aphorism “know thyself.”

It speaks to the importance of an examined life.

But when it comes to an About page, you want to thoroughly know your customer.

And I’m not talking just about gender, income level, education, etc.

You need to know where your average person is at in the sales funnel.

And if they’re looking at your About page, it’s safe to say they’re in the earlier stages of the sales funnel.

The large majority will be prospects with some level of interest and minimal awareness of your brand.

Most are looking to become more familiar with you.

Not only do they want to know more about your product/service, many want to know if you share their values and beliefs.

Try to put yourself in the shoes of an average prospect and figure out what specific information they’re seeking.

This will guide your efforts.

Start with a killer headline

Your headline is everything.

If it pops, visitors will want to read on.

If it sucks, many will leave never to return.

What makes a great headline?

As I mentioned in another article on NeilPatel.com, you should make your headline simple, clear, and benefit-driven.

Here’s a good example from Yellow Leaf Hammocks:

You can instantly get a sense of what’s being offered and the benefits. In this case, high-quality, comfy hammocks.

Here’s another good example from Gini Dietrich:

Be authentic and transparent

You want to be professional with your About page. That’s a given.

But some brands are overdoing it to the point of sounding stiff and almost robotic.

Unless you’re in a super formal industry (e.g., you’re a lawyer or an insurance broker), I think it’s a good idea to “let your hair down” a little.

Paint a realistic picture of what your company is and what you do.

If you’re snarky, be snarky. If you’re quirky, be quirky.

No matter how teched out we get, business is still ultimately founded on people buying from other people.

And they naturally want to do business with someone they like and trust.

Authenticity and transparency are two major elements in gaining that trust.

I think that Pete Adeny (a.k.a. Mr. Money Mustache) does a great job of doing this on his About page:

His page instantly allows his readers to get a sense of who he is, his philosophy, and his sense of humor.

Provide a brief but compelling back story

You don’t need (or even want) to go into elaborate detail, but I recommend giving visitors an idea of where you came from and how your company came to be.

In other words, tell them your brand’s story.

For instance, on NeilPatel.com, I explain how I started my first website at the age of 16 and how I was disillusioned with the first marketing firm I hired.

That (and being broke) was the catalyst for me learning marketing.

I also mention some of my first clients and how my initial results helped me realize the power of marketing.

Just touch on some of the key points of your development that show prospects how you got to where you’re today.

Here’s how Dollar Shave Club does this with its own signature brand of humor:

Be clear about your values

This is a biggie.

You want to offer insight into your company culture and what distinguishes your brand from the rest of the pack.

Yellow Leaf Hammock pulls this off flawlessly as well:

As you can see, there’s a strong emphasis on being socially conscious, sustainable, and adventurous.

Wild Friends Foods effectively conveys its values as well:

The bottom line is to show visitors what you believe in.

Answer these 3 questions

As I mentioned earlier, most visitors will have three main questions:

What’s in it for me?
Am I in the right place?
Can this person help me with my problem?

This is where a lot of About pages drop the ball.

You’ve talked about YOU.

Now, you need to explain how you can help THEM (your visitors).

Allow me to use my approach as an example.

On the About page of NeilPatel.com, I mention that I’ve helped huge companies such as Google and Viacom.

But I also point out that one of my biggest passions is helping small businesses succeed.

That right there answers the first two questions.

If a small business owner seeking help with their marketing visits my website, they can instantly see they’re in the right place and that I can help them increase their sales.

Later on, I point out that marketing doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult and that there’s a proven formula that gets results.

Since not having the financial means or marketing knowledge is a common problem for many small businesses, I quell their skepticism and let them know that I can, in fact, help them with their problems.

Regardless of your industry and your product/service, answering those three questions is your means of making the necessary connection that gets visitors interested and motivated to take action.

Exploring alternative formats

Here’s the beautiful thing about an About page.

You don’t have to limit yourself to any traditional format.

You’re completely free to use whatever format or combination of formats you want.

In fact, I skip the conventional text-based format altogether and use a brief video to explain myself on NeilPatel.com:

Moz uses an illustrated timeline to tell its history:

Don’t feel you have to stick with the same old tried-and-true formula companies have been using since the 90s.

If you’re looking for some inspiration, check out this post from Search Engine Journal.

It features 25 creative and engaging About pages that can get some ideas flowing.

Conclusion

Let’s recap.

An About page isn’t just about your brand. It also needs to be about your audience and how you can solve their pain points.

You must address their needs and concerns and position your brand as a trustworthy resource so they can feel comfortable doing business with you.

The key elements of your story should include:

A killer headline
A brief back story
Your values
Answers to visitors’ three big questions

It’s also important to customize your About page in a way that’s interesting and that represents your brand.

Often this means experimenting with different formats.

By hitting all the right notes, you can establish instant rapport, build trust, and motivate visitors to browse the rest of your site.

When it’s all said and done, this can positively impact multiple metrics, such as increasing the average time spent on site, lowering your bounce rate, and improving conversions.

What do you think is the most important element of an About page?

Source Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2oupbN1

Stocks vs. Bonds: What You Wanted to Know (but Were Too Afraid to Ask)

Upon my recent transition from a full-time, salaried position to the #freelancelife, I quickly discovered I needed an education in investing.

Having left a company with a generous 401(k)-matching program (*cough* The Penny Hoarder *cough*), my small nest egg and I were suddenly on our own.

My retirement is important to me, so I wasn’t going to let the money languish. I did enough research to figure out I should roll the funds over into a Roth IRA, but when I opened the online interface of my brand-new brokerage account, I was overwhelmed.

How should I “allocate my assets,” as the friendly adviser had put it over the phone? What were my options in the first place?

What’s the Difference Between Stocks and Bonds?

When it comes to investing your retirement savings, you have two main options: stocks and bonds.

Stocks are small portions, or “shares,” of a company. They’re also known as “equity.” (Because investing wasn’t confusing enough already.)

For instance, let’s say you buy a share of Lululemon. Congratulations! You now actually own a piece of the business.

The company then uses your investment to help its growth efforts. As a result, your stock increases in value if the company does well, which means you can sell it for more than your original purchase price down the line.

Of course, the opposite also holds true. If the company goes under, your money goes with it.

Bonds, on the other hand, are actually a form of long-term debt issued by either a company or a government.

As Lifehacker’s Kristin Wong puts it, “When you buy a bond, you’re basically buying a debt and loaning a company (or government) money.” The growth comes in because the seller agrees to pay you interest on the loan at a fixed rate (also called a “coupon”) and schedule. The borrower must repay the entirety of the loan by a given “maturity date.”

Since you know the interest rate and term ahead of time, bonds are a much more stable, predictable investment — and for this reason investors also call them fixed-income securities.

They do, however, tend to yield less return for investors.

Which Should I Invest In: Stocks or Bonds?

A quick caveat before we go any further: I am not a professional investor nor any kind of finance expert.

All the advice you’ll see here is from folks who, presumably, have a better idea of what they’re doing than I do.

That said, there’s no way to tell you the magic ratio that will make your investment portfolio blow up — or fizzle, for that matter. (And even if there was, it would be super illegal to do so.)

All investment comes with some risk. You’re putting your money into an intangible entity, like ownership or debt.

But obviously, some investments are riskier than others. (R.I.P. Pets.com.)

As we established above, stocks carry more risk than bonds — but also have a greater potential to earn you profit.

Thus, most finance professionals advise younger investors to allocate more of their funds to stocks, since they have a longer stretch of years separating them from retirement. All that time gives you a margin of error, allowing you to ride out short-term fluctuations in the market.

But if you’re a little longer in the tooth, you might want to shift your portfolio to include proportionately more bonds. They’re a surer thing and have the added benefit of an exact time frame for payoff — useful if, for example, you know you want to retire in the next 10 years.

Of course, even bonds are not guaranteed. Occasionally, an issuer will not be able to pay off the loan.

The Motley Fool offers this guideline to help you figure out the right ratio for your retirement portfolio based on your age:

As a general rule of thumb, subtract your age from the number 110 in order to determine your target stock allocation. For example, if you’re 35, this rule says that approximately 75% of your assets should be in stocks.

It’s no silver bullet, but it’s a start, and you can adjust your personal ratio from there as you see fit. For instance, if you’re willing to gamble a bit in pursuit of aggressive growth, you might change the number to 120. If you’re more conservative, you might knock it down to 100.

No matter what ratio you choose, it’s definitely a bright idea to buy a little bit of both. “Diversify!” is perhaps the most common investment advice — and for good reason.

It’s just like that old saying about eggs and baskets. And when it comes to your retirement, you don’t want to end up with yolk on your face.

How to Get Started on Your Retirement Portfolio

Of course, there’s a whole lot more to investing than we can outline here.

And luckily, there are lots of great, free resources out there to help you. (The Penny Hoarder is one of them!)

If you’re looking for the right IRA, check out NerdWallet’s top picks for 2017. Many brokerage accounts and management companies offer free advice and guidance, even if you’re not an account holder. All you have to do is pick up the phone.

And if you work for a company that offers a 401(k), don’t be shy about asking the company accountant for details… and for goodness sake, if there’s a match, take the money.

No matter what you do, just make sure you do something. That retirement isn’t going to pay for itself.

Stocks vs bonds

Your Turn: What’s your preferred ratio of stocks to bonds?

Jamie Cattanach (@jamiecattanach) is a freelance writer who *just* became enough of an adult to start investing. Her work has been featured at Ms. Magazine, BUST, Roads & Kingdoms, The Write Life, Nashville Review, Word Riot and elsewhere.

How You Can Get Up to $1,350 Just for Giving Up your Seat on a Plane

You spent months saving. You took time off work. You stayed up all night packing to make sure you had everything you needed to fly out before sunrise.

Then you get to the airport, and you hear the announcement: The airline overbooked your flight, and the gate agents standing between you and vacation bliss are looking for volunteers to give up their seats. Nope. Not interested.

With your vacation moments from potential ruin, your first thought is probably: Why on earth would an airline sell more tickets than seats?

The answer is actually pretty simple. On average, 5-15% of travelers who paid for a ticket on your flight won’t show up. Airlines oversell tickets in hopes of keeping flights full, even if there are no-shows.

So why do they need volunteers to give up seats? Well, the statistics for no-shows aren’t perfect. Sometimes, more people show up than the airline anticipates.

Save Your Vacation and Lower Your Chances of Getting Bumped

Unfortunately, there is no foolproof way to guarantee you won’t get bumped if the airline overbooked your flight. That’s because when you purchase a plane ticket, you are actually paying for the journey itself not a particular seat on a particular flight, according to TechCrunch.

And if no one volunteers to give up their seat, airline employees must decide who to bump. Experts at The Wall Street Journal have some suggestions on how you can make it less likely you’ll be the one the airline bumps.

1. Choose a seat assignment when you book your flight. If you already have an assigned seat, chances are you’ll get to keep it when boarding time comes. Some airlines charge a fee to do this, but it could be well worth it to avoid getting bumped.

2. Check in early. Some airlines use check-in times to determine who to cut. The last to check in is often the first the airline bumps.

3. Travel with a group. Airlines are less likely to bump families traveling with children, according to The Wall Street Journal. So if you want to ensure your seats are safe, either purchase all the tickets at once, or call the airline to make sure employees know all your tickets are part of the same reservation. (This might also work when traveling with friends.)

Although these tips will improve your chances, you may still get bumped on a seriously overbooked flight.

Getting Bumped From an Overbooked Flight? Here’s How to Make the Best of it

Airlines are often willing to pay up for the inconveniences that come with overbooked flight delays.

By now, you’ve probably heard how one family racked up $11,000 in flight vouchers during a particularly heinous weekend of weather-related delays that impacted more than 150 Delta Airlines flights.

While the airline doesn’t owe you anything for minor delays or cancellations of domestic flights, they can be liberal with freebies in the name of good customer service.

If you volunteer to give up your seat on an overbooked flight, you could ask for flight vouchers, airline miles, meal vouchers for airport restaurants or lounge passes, and the airlines are likely to pony up to keep you happy.

As a bonus, if you paid for the trip with a credit card and experience major delays that require unplanned overnight stays, your credit card company may help pay for the extra expenses that arise. For example, those who have a Chase Sapphire Preferred could get up to $500 reimbursed per ticket to cover the cost of meals and lodging if an airline delays a flight more than 12 hours.

In many cases, if the airline bumps you involuntarily, you have some rights that could help even more.

While an airline doesn’t owe you anything if it bumps you from an overbooked flight but still gets you to your destination within an hour of your originally scheduled time, it may have to pay up if your wait is longer, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

If you arrive one to two hours late, the airline owes double the price of your ticket up to $675. If the airline makes you more than two hours late, it owes you quadruple the price of your ticket up to $1,350.

There are some eligibility requirements to receive this compensation, according to DOT. First, you must have a confirmed reservation on the flight. Second, you must check in before the airline’s deadline — typically 10-30 minutes before a domestic departure (up to an hour in some cases) or up to three hours before an international departure. Some airlines consider checking in as being at the ticketing and baggage counter, but most consider this as being at the boarding area.

Hopefully the compensation will ease the pain if our tips to keep you in a seat don’t work out.

Your Turn: Have you ever been involuntarily bumped from a flight? How did the airline compensate you?

Desiree Stennett (@desi_stennett) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She has never been bumped from an overbooked flight voluntarily or involuntarily.

Assessing Your Financial Progress With Honesty but Without Negativity

I’m going to let you in on a couple of dark secrets about financial improvement.

First of all, it’s a slow road. Once you get past that initial burst of changing things around, automating your savings and some of your bills, selling off a bunch of stuff to eliminate a few debts quickly, and taking a few big frugal steps that are essentially the “low hanging fruit,” it feels like your progress slows down. Way down. The reason is that your destination is almost always very far off in the distance, so far off that it feels almost unreachable.

Have you ever driven on the Kansas Turnpike, where the road seems to go in a straight line forever on what amounts to completely unchanging terrain, with only the glimmer of a destination off in the distance? That’s kind of what financial change can feel like sometimes.

The simple nature of long, slow progress means that financial change can be a real drag on your mental state. You feel like you’re putting so much into this and moving forward an almost imperceptible amount on the big journey. Hundreds vanish into retirement savings and emergency funds and debt payments and it still seems like the destination is so far off that it might as well be unreachable and all of the effort amounts to practically nothing.

To put it bluntly, the long road to financial progress can easily detour right into some intense negativity. Whenever you feel like you’re making huge sacrifices but aren’t seeing any sort of positive change as a result of it, it can feel painful.

One response to that negativity, of course, is to simply give up on your financial turnaround. Many people do this. They convince themselves that the system is rigged because they’re not seeing any direct success. They begin to believe that anyone who does find financial success is somehow “cheating” or is doing something so ridiculous that they won’t even consider it.

Another tactic that people use is to rely on outward signs of wealth as “proof” of financial success. “I must be doing all right if I can afford this Escalade,” they think, but when you’re barely able to keep food on the table, and most of your income goes to debt payments, you’re not building wealth. You’re robbing the future to pay the past.

Yet another tactic that people use is to focus entirely on one single metric that looks like it’s going well and then revert to old behaviors with everything else. They start contributing to retirement and look exclusively at that retirement number going up. Meanwhile, they’re racking up credit card debt and are behind on their mortgage payments, but their retirement balance is going up so everything must be great!

I’ve seen all of these responses. Each one of them allows people to either give into pure negativity when assessing their financial progress or else allows them to avoid any sort of honesty when looking at their money situation.

Here’s the truth: You want honesty, but not negativity. Honesty means that you’re seeing the truth and recognizing that it’s not all good but it’s not all bad, either. It means that you see that you are making progress but that you can still do better and it opens you up to finding ways to do better, which is one of the most important elements of financial success. Negativity, on the other hand, puts an enormous emphasis on the negative and convinces you that your good efforts have far less value than they actually do, which is disheartening and can often convince people to fall away from their financial progress.

How, then, can you look at your financial progress with honesty – allowing yourself to see the good and the bad – without giving into negativity?

First, stop comparing yourself to others. A lot of negativity about personal finance comes from people comparing themselves to others. If they’re doing well at saving, they’ll compare their possessions and current lifestyle to others and feel inadequate and jealous. If they respond by cutting back their savings, they’ll quickly start to convince themselves that big financial goals are impossible. The root of that negative feedback is other people, and comparing yourself to others is useless.

Remember, you have no idea what a person’s full life picture looks like – how much debt they have, how much help they’re being given from the Bank of Mom and Dad, or anything else. Comparing your situation to anyone else based on a few signs that you can see from the outside is a huge mistake.

Instead, focus your comparisons on yourself. Keep your eyes squarely on the direction of your own progress and let other people do their own thing. Compare your situation now with what it was in the past and look at the positive change that’s occurred due to your financial and professional efforts. The goal here is to see that you are making real progress and to see how little changes really do accelerate that progress.

Second, use your recent past for comparisons. I recommend using your financial state from a month ago and, if you have the information, a year ago as guideposts (we’ll get to how to specifically do that next). You can also use the moment of your financial turnaround as a guidepost, too, mostly in a “see how far you’ve come” way for inspiration, not because it’s particularly useful.

The reason to use recent comparisons is that the differences between you right now and the version of you that existed a month ago aren’t very many, and there aren’t even that many differences between the you of today and the you of a year ago. In many ways, you’re living the same life with the same interests as you were a month ago and even a year ago. Thus, when you’re comparing your financial state right now to your state from a month ago or a year ago, you’re eliminating most of the factors that excuse bad behavior or inflate good behavior. You see the truth of your behavior as clearly as possible.

Third, use your overall net worth as a central indicator of progress. A person’s net worth is simply the sum of their assets minus all of their debts. So, if you have $10,000 in retirement, $5,000 in savings, and a $5,000 car, and you have $10,000 in debt, your net worth is $10,000 ($10,000 + $5,000 + $5,000 – $10,000). That should be the one number you use as an overall comparison point between your financial state right now and your financial state a month ago or a year ago.

One great way to do this is to just get into a routine of calculating your net worth once a month. I suggest using a spreadsheet for this if you’re familiar with how to use one. Just make a row for each major asset that you want to keep track of and for each major debt that you want to keep track of. Make a sum of the debts, then a sum of the assets, and then subtract debts from assets to get your net worth. Yes, it might be negative, especially early on.

When you compare your net worth right now to where it was a month ago or a year ago, you see, right there, what your financial progress looks like. Paying off debt and saving money for the future helps your net worth. Spending foolishly hurts it. It’s as simple as that. If you have the individual debts and assets up there, you can quickly see what’s gone up and what’s gone down from month to month, so you can see where the problem is – if it’s your checking account that’s shrinking, you probably have a spending problem.

Fourth, focus on how far you have come, not how far there is to go. It’s easy to feel bad if you have a negative net worth or if your net worth is tiny compared to what your goal is. Don’t worry about that number on its own and don’t worry about your overall goal too much, either.

Instead, focus on the change you’re making. What’s the difference between your net worth right now and where it was a month ago? A year ago? When you started? If you’re putting forth effort, that number is going to be positive, and the harder you work for it, the higher that number is going to be.

Your net worth is not an indication of your effort in its own. The change in your net worth, though, that’s an indication of effort. Right there, you can see the difference you’re making. Don’t worry about how much of your overall goal that represents. Worry instead about making that difference a little bigger.

This brings us to the last principle: Use your progress, good or bad, to set reasonable and achievable short-term goals for yourself. Your net worth went up by $1,000 last month! Awesome! Can you shoot for that amount again next month and make it repeatable, or maybe even shoot to beat it? Your net worth went up by $15,000 last year? Awesome! That’s an average of $1,250 per month. Can you beat that average this coming month?

If you find that your progress isn’t what you want it to be, sit down and look at your most recent history and see what went wrong. Why did you spend so much last month? That’s your focus. You can see that you’ve made great progress overall for the past several months and it’s only the last month that’s problematic. What can you fix?

Don’t look at such situations as a sign of failure. Look at it as a misstep or two after a long journey in the right direction, a brief wrong turn when you’re well into the Appalachian Trail of your journey. You can look at comparisons to where you were at the start or where you were a year ago as proof positive that you’re heading in the right direction overall. Such reviews and improvements are meant to keep it that way and to perhaps even accelerate your journey a little.

In the end, it’s all about honesty without negativity. You need to understand that you’re not perfect and that missteps will happen with everyone, but you need to look at those missteps with honesty and ask yourself how to truly correct them. That’s the path to success in almost everything you tackle in life.

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The post Assessing Your Financial Progress With Honesty but Without Negativity appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Career Quest job fair to be largest yet

Pennsylvania state troopers will be stationed at the 15th annual Career Quest at Northampton Community College' Monroe campus. But the troopers won’t be there to enforce the law. They are looking to hire future law enforcement members.The job fair, billed as the largest in the area, will feature 77 employers in a new expansive area in the college’s Pocono Hall.“We are holding Career Quest to benefit both the employers and job seekers gain access to quality [...]

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This Writing Specialty Can Pay up to $100/Hour. Here’s How to Get Started

Streaming Service Smackdown: Hulu vs. Netflix vs. Amazon Prime

Streaming video services are the best thing to happen to TV and movies since the invention of film technology.

We are truly living in an age of wonder, when we can watch old episodes of “Golden Girls” while making dinner or an Academy Award-winning movie at 39,000 feet.

There are several online streaming services out there to choose from, but Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video are among the most popular.

What Do Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Have in Common?

The three platforms are very similar in a handful of ways:

All have closed captioned programming, though only Netflix’s service has it for every English-language movie and TV show in its catalog

All offer at least a partial ad-free viewing experience. Netflix and Hulu are ad-free, though you’ll pay more for the option with Hulu. A lot — but not all — of Amazon’s content is ad-free

Content from each service can be watched on virtually every modern device that connects to the internet, though some content on Hulu is restricted from TV and mobile access

All have parental control features to restrict access to mature content

Best of all, all services allow viewers to watch an unlimited amount of programs for one flat fee per month

How are Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Different?

Each platform has a number of unique features that set it apart from its competition, most notably in the type of programming they offer.

None of the companies offer discrete numbers on the amount of titles or program hours in its catalog. As of early 2016, researchers say the amount of content on each platform looks something like this:

Hulu has 10,244 titles

Netflix has 7,008 titles

Amazon Prime Video has 20,386 titles

Whether you’re trying to Netflix and nap, Hulu and hang or Amazon and avoid life for a while, this list of pros and cons can help you weigh which option is right for you.

Hulu:

How much: One week free trial. Plans start at $7.99 per month for limited commercials, $11.99 per month for no commercials. A Showtime add-on is available for an additional $8.99 per month.

Available on: Laptops, PCs, TVs, phones, tablets and game consoles.

You can add as many different devices as you want to your account, but you can only stream to one at a time.

Pros:

Larger catalog of currently-airing TV shows

Full seasons of older and current popular TV shows

Episodes of some current TV shows are available the day after they air

Cons:

Less breadth and depth of programming than Netflix

Some programming is not yet closed captioned

No audio descriptions on any shows

Website is not screen reader-compatible

Cannot stream content when traveling outside the U.S.

Best For:

Viewers who watch a lot of current U.S.-based TV programming and want to see episodes they’ve missed as soon as possible.

Netflix

How much: One month free trial. Three plan options beginning at $7.99 per month up to $11.99 per month, depending on the number of devices and type of HD you want.

Available on: Laptops, PCs, TVs, phones, tablets, game consoles, smart TVs, Blu-ray players and streaming media players.

You can add as many different devices as you want to your account and stream content to up to four at a time, depending on the plan you choose.

Pros:

Many TV programs and movies are available for downloading and viewing offline

Tons of original programming

All English-language programming is closed captioned

Audio descriptions available for many shows

Website is compatible with most OS X and Windows built-in screen readers

Cons:

Available seasons of currently-airing TV shows are usually at least a year old, so prepare to avoid spoilers for a very long time.

Best for:

Viewers who like a lot of content choices across a variety of genres and languages.

Amazon Prime Video

How much: 30-day free trial. Free with an eligible Amazon Prime membership or $8.99 per month. Premium channels like HBO and Showtime are available for an additional monthly charge.

Available on: Laptops, PCs, TVs, phones, tablets, game consoles, smart TVs, Blu-ray players, streaming media players, Fire tablets and Fire phones.

Pros:

If you already have an Amazon Prime membership, Prime Video is free.

Many TV programs and movies are available for downloading and viewing offline

Huge catalog of available content

On-screen integration with the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) lets you access actor bios, background information and other show-related information

Cons:

It’s sometimes difficult to determine what content is included in your subscription and what costs extra

Some programming is not yet closed captioned

Audio descriptions only available through Fire Stick

Limited content available for streaming when traveling outside the U.S.

Best For:

People who already have an eligible Prime Membership.

How to Choose Between Hulu, Netflix and Amazon

At first glance it may seem like Netflix is the slam-dunk option with fewer disadvantages. However, its lack of current programming may be a big deterrent for many people.

If original programming is important to you, Netflix is amping up its self-produced content to the tune of more than 1,000 hours of new series, specials and movies in 2017. Netflix is also a good value if you like a wide selection of indie, foreign language, and older content.

Hulu is a great choice if you want to stay on top of the latest popular TV shows. Unless you own a DVR, it’s one of the only ways you can catch up on episodes you missed.

If you want access to the largest catalog of programming, Amazon is the way to go. Its integration with IMDb is a cool feature you never know you needed until the first time you use it.

Your turn: What’s your jam: Hulu or Netflix or Amazon Prime? Or all of them?

Lisa McGreevy is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She subscribes to all three services because she’s all about having choices.