By Sarah Landrum Real estate is not normally a job most people associate with flexibility — you’ve got a full schedule trying to show houses, close deals, and keep up with all the new properties that are appearing on the market. If you’re interested in a career in real estate but worried about the hours, […]
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Every now and then, the bravest among us attempt to do something life-changing.
Sometimes they succeed. Sometimes they fail.
Sometimes the victory is simply in their willingness to take a leap of faith and try the impossible.
Carter Wilkerson, a 16-year-old high schooler from Reno, Nevada, is one of those brave souls. His quest? One year of free nuggets from Wendy’s in exchange for 18 million retweets.
He still has miles to go before he hits the 18 million mark, but holding the record for the most retweeted post ever — beating out former President Barack Obama and Ellen DeGeneres — might be the fuel he needs to stay motivated.
Despite the fact that Carter hasn’t hit the 18 million mark yet, Wendy’s has already given him his year’s worth of free nuggets. Additionally, Wendy’s donated $100,000 to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption in Carter’s honor.
It started as a joke.
Inspired by posts from other kids seeking retweets to convince their parents to get pets, Carter decided to go for the gold. Golden-brown nuggets, that is.
That’s what led to the tweet that started it all.
“Yo @Wendy’s how many retweets for a year of free chicken nuggets?” he tweeted. Wendy’s replied with a mammoth “18 million.”
Eighteen million retweets was a huge and likely impossible goal. But Carter put his hopes in our hands. In us, the 313 million active monthly users of Twitter.
In the first 48 hours, he broke 1 million retweets.
From there, it took a month to get more than 3.4 million retweets and finally win the spot as the most retweeted post ever. Obviously, not everyone was on his side. DeGeneres’ famous Oscars photos, which once held the top spot, raked in more than 100,000 additional retweets during Carter’s ascent.
Carter quickly became a social media phenom.
He not only grabbed the attention of regular folks like me, but huge brands like Microsoft, which also called Amazon and Google into the push for Carter’s nuggets and pushed Carter’s retweet count up. The CEO of T-Mobile got in by offering to pay for the nuggets himself if Carter’s family was willing to leave AT&T. Also supporting this young man’s dream of free nuggets was “Breaking Bad” star Aaron Paul.
Possibly the best part of a story is the kid himself. Carter seems to be pretty awesome.
When this started, Carter, the oldest of four children, had 138 followers on Twitter. Now he has more than 100,000, and he’s been using his growing popularity for the greater good.
He launched the website nuggsforcarter.com and sells T-shirts.
He will donate the proceeds from the shirts to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. Why? Because he feels like he hit the jackpot by being born into his family and wants to help the 110,000 children in the U.S. foster care system find families as awesome and loving as his.
Don’t want a shirt? Carter also wants you to check out a Reno, Nevada organization called Pinocchio’s Moms on the Run, which provides services for women with breast cancer.
His motivation here is clear, too. When he was 9, his mom battled cancer and won. His community stepped in to make sure his family was taken care of during that tough time, and he wants to make sure other families get help when they need it, too.
Clearly, Carter is the best 16-year-old ever.
So we salute you, Carter. Congratulations on your Wendy’s nuggets. You deserve them.
Desiree Stennett (@desi_stennett) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She knows Carter already has his nuggets but would love it if he could still reach 18 million retweets.
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.
The Class of 2017 is over-expectant and underskilled.
At least, that’s what a recent survey conducted by iCIMS Inc., a recruiting-software company, suggests.
The results of the survey, collected from a pool of 401 recruiters and 401 college seniors, show that while new job seekers’ expectations are higher than ever before, the education, training and skills required to land an entry-level position in an increasingly competitive job market are lacking — and employers are noticing.
College seniors are seriously over-expecting when it comes to their starting salaries, according to the survey.
More than half of the students surveyed said they expect to earn more than $50,000 at their first post-college job (with 12% saying they expected to earn upwards of $75,000).
But the average salary recruiters are willing to pay an entry-level employee tops out at $45,361 — a far cry from the average of $53,000 new recruits expect to earn.
The study also revealed that while 61% of recruiters say they are most interested in hiring (and paying higher salaries to) candidates with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math, a pretty slim (by comparison) 23% of college seniors surveyed will be graduating with a degree in any of the STEM fields.
But that may not be a make-it-or-break-it factor as far as securing a job goes. While 87% of recruiters agreed that a four-year college degree would make an entry-level job seeker instantly competitive, when it comes to your major, recruiters are a bit more flexible.
A sizeable 82% of recruiters surveyed said that they frequently hire entry-level candidates whose college majors do not directly reflect the open position.
Trudy Steinfeld, Associate Vice President of Student Affairs & Executive Director of the Wasserman Center for Career Development at New York University, notes employers “are looking for trainable candidates. If you have 60% of the skills they need, they can teach you the rest.”
What will hurt your job prospects? Not having a degree at all. Eighty-one percent of recruiters surveyed said they frequently screen out candidates who hold no degree whatsoever.
But if a degree will get you through a round of resume-grazing, what are employers looking for during the interview and hiring process?
While more than 90% of college seniors responded they were “confident” in their interviewing skills, recruiters stressed that entry-level job seekers have a ways to go on interview preparedness.
Here are the ways employers said potential candidates need to improve:
While the job hunt process has changed drastically over the last few decades, recruiters all agreed on one thing: Sending a thank you note after your interview can make you stand head and shoulders above the competition.
In fact, a whopping 74% of potential employees don’t even bother to follow up with a note after a job interview — and that’s a big mistake.
Whether it’s an email (for a more casual office environment), a promptly delivered, hand-written note or a direct connection through LinkedIn or another employee, be sure to follow up with the hiring manager who interviewed you. It leaves a lasting impression and may be the final decision maker between you and an equally qualified candidate.
So as you’re getting ready for your next big interview, here are some things to focus on:
Brush up on this list of 20 common job interview questions — rehearsing straightforward, well thought-out answers to the questions on this list will give you the extra boost you need when your mind is blanking during the interview.
Then, make sure you’ve mastered these eight simple (but high impact) skills that will make your resume shine.
Finally, avoid making any of these major mistakes during your interview (like answering a text message — yikes!). They’re instant dealbreakers.
But if you’ve done your homework, spruced up your resume and practiced, practiced, practiced, then it’s time to take a deep breath, let your personality shine through and convince those hiring managers that you’re the right choice.
And if you need something to dispel the nerves, here are five interview horror stories that will make you feel so much better about your own job hunt.
Grace Schweizer is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder.
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.
Amazon’s throwing it back to the good old days with its latest change in shipping terms.
The online shopping monolith has played with its minimum order requirement for free shipping over the past few years, presumably hoping to push casual users into becoming $99-per-year Prime members.
But Amazon’s going back to basics with its new free shipping minimum of just $25.
“This is the first time since 2013 that non-Prime members have been able to qualify for free shipping on orders of $25 or more at Amazon,” Phil Dengler, who first reported the change at Best Black Friday, wrote. “Since Amazon has now adjusted their minimum twice in less than three months, it is unknown how long the $25 figure will last.”
Minimum order requirements jumped from $35 to $49 in May 2016, but the hike only lasted eight months before Amazon quietly dropped the requirement back to $35.
Best Black Friday noted the change happened sometime in the last week. Since reports claim nearly half of American households are Amazon Prime members, there’s a swath of Amazon shoppers who haven’t kept up with free shipping thresholds because they haven’t needed to care.
Meanwhile, Dengler points out that Amazon’s free shipping for non-Prime members is, uh, not great, with deliveries taking five to eight days.
Walmart launched free shipping in two business days for orders of $35 or more earlier this year, while Target is testing a program to offer next-day delivery for online orders of household items.
Lisa Rowan is a writer and producer at The Penny Hoarder.
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.
UPDATE: On April 27, 2017, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos issued a memo forbidding the Department of Education from rejecting Upward Bound grant applications over formatting issues.
“Program offices may suggest page limits and formatting standards (such as font size, line spacing, and the like) but may not use ignoring these suggestions as a basis to reject grant applications,” reads the memo.
That’s great news for the more than 2,300 students affected by the DoE’s earlier decision that resulted in withholding over $10 million in grant money.
Thousands of high school students around the country may not be able to attend college when they graduate and you aren’t even going to believe the reason why.
The U.S. Department of Education has denied funding to a large swath of schools that applied for an Upward Bound grant to help underserved students pursue higher education.
The reason? Wait for it…
All 65 pages of the grant applications weren’t double spaced.
That’s right, folks. A minor formatting error that even most college professors would let slide is preventing kids from going to college.
Upward Bound is a DOE grant program that helps financially-strapped high schoolers access college prep courses and funding to attend college.
It’s been kicking around since 1964 and serves first-time college-bound students from low-income families.
Without this grant money, many students — particularly in poor and rural communities — simply won’t make it into college.
For the first time in the program’s history, the DOE required text in the Upward Bound grant application, including text on charts and graphs, to be double spaced.
Here’s what’s happening around the country at schools that overlooked this minor requirement.
All told, more than $10 million is being withheld from more than 2,300 students at around 40 colleges — over grant submission errors that mostly involve double spacing issues.
It’s perfectly acceptable to hold schools to high standards when doling out money, but the agency holding the purse strings should take a long look in the mirror before drawing any hard lines in the sand over minor issues.
“On Feb. 12, the department’s official Twitter quoted the famous black American scholar W.E.B. DuBois, but misspelled his name as DeBois,” notes Times-Picayune columnist Jarvis DeBerry. “After Twitter users mocked the Department of Education for misspelling the name of such a prominent scholar and leader, the Department of Education tweeted, ‘Post updated – our deepest apologizes for the earlier typo.’”
“Apologizes,” indeed.
If the DOE wants to be such sticklers about formatting, its own Upward Bound Program web site, which hasn’t been updated since 2016, could use a little line spacing help of its own.
Your Turn: Do you know anyone affected the DOE’s fussiness over the Upward Bound Grant application process?
Lisa McGreevy is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She believes the DOE should offer all the students affected by the agency’s ruling its “deepest apologizes.”
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.
Who’s ready to hear about another round of work-from-home jobs available right now?
Pull out your resume because I’ve got six new opportunities to share with you today.
Be sure to read the descriptions closely, since most of them are only accepting applicants from specific geographic areas.
One of the best things about working in retail is access to deep product discounts.
A neat perk of working (from home!) for this retailer is the “huge discount” employees get on all kinds of cool kitchenware and home furnishings to trick out your pad.
Responsibilities include:
You must be a resident of Nevada to apply.
Applicants for this position must also have:
You’ll be eligible for these benefits:
Pay: $11 per hour
Apply here for a Customer Service Associate job at Williams Sonoma.
A big shout out to Lisa Mills over at Work At Home Mom Revolution for pointing out the open customer service jobs at this catalog and e-commerce company.
Weekday first, second and third shifts are available at SC Contact Centers, a division of Colony Brands.
Rayna Clark, Home Agent Manager at SC Contact Centers, told me the company plans to fill “approximately 400 positions available starting this summer and hiring through the fall.”
Your responsibilities will include:
You must be a resident of Wisconsin, Missouri or Iowa to apply.
Applicants for this position must also have:
You’ll be eligible for these benefits:
Pay: Clark says the starting wage is $10.80 per hour plus add-on sales commission.
Apply here for a Customer Support Jobs at Colony Brands.
There are full-time and part-time work-from-home positions available with this popular wicker-loving retailer. FYI, part-time schedules may change week to week and will include weekends.
Your responsibilities will include:
You must be a resident of Tarrant, Parker, Wise, Ellis, Denton Johnson, Hood or Dallas counties in Texas to apply.
Applicants for this position must also have:
You’ll be eligible for the following benefits:
Pay: The company describes the pay as “competitive.”
Apply here for a Customer Relations Associate job at Pier 1 Imports.
Work-from-home employees for this company don’t need to live in Alaska, but they do need to live in Idaho to be eligible to apply for this full-time job.
Your responsibilities will include:
You must be a resident of Boise, Idaho to apply.
Applicants for this position must also have:
Applicants must not have used any nicotine products within the last six months.
You’ll be eligible for the following benefits:
Pay: $12.14 per hour
Apply here to be a Reservation Agent at Alaska Airlines.
Disney isn’t the only company hiring in Florida. This Orlando-based travel booking company is also looking for work-from-home customer care specialists.
According to the job description, “As a Customer Care Specialist you book and service vacations on Southwest Vacations, United Vacations, and all Mark Travel Corporation brands including Funjet Vacations!”
Candidates local to the Orlando area preferred.
Applicants for this position must also have:
You’ll be eligible for these benefits:
Pay: The company describes the pay as “competitive.”
Apply here to be a Customer Care Specialist at The Mark Travel Corporation.
If you want to be “the face and voice of DISH to [its] nearly 14 million customers,” now’s your chance (and check out the perk that comes with the job).
Your responsibilities will include:
You must be a resident of El Paso, Texas to apply.
Applicants for this position must also have:
You’ll be eligible for the following benefits:
Pay: $10.00 per hour plus bonus potential
Apply here to be a Customer Service Representative at DISH Network.
Don’t forget to keep an eye on our Facebook jobs page; we post our favorite work-from-home jobs there all the time.
Lisa McGreevy is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She likes bringing readers new work-from-home opportunities so look her up on Twitter (@lisah) if you’ve got a hot lead to share.
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.
For some folks — self-proclaimed “preppers” — being ready for anything is an obsession. For others, it’s an afterthought.
It’s Hurricane Preparedness Week so this is an excellent opportunity to take stock of your situation now instead of waiting for the next natural disaster to make headlines.
Are you ready for an emergency? Preparing doesn’t have to be expensive.
Sure, you could plunk down more than $200 on a one-size-fits-all emergency kit filled with stuff you probably won’t need.
Or, try the budget-friendly option: build your own customized, cost-effective kit. Here’s how.
First of all, know what you need.
The Red Cross suggests keeping these bare essentials on hand, mostly common-sense items: food, water, extra clothes and medicine.
You definitely need a stash of those. But what other goods make sense for where you live?
In my part of Florida, I can’t think of a disaster scenario that would necessitate the hand chain saw or rope in the $200 kit I mentioned, but maybe I’d feel differently if I had to deal with tornadoes or earthquakes, or if I lived in a wooded area.
Figure out what your kit needs and prioritize those items. And don’t get carried away — you probably just need to be able to feed yourself for a week or so, not build a shelter on a desert island.
Some of your preparation won’t cost you a dime. It’s all about gathering stuff you already have, like important documents, cell phone chargers, maps and spare emergency cash.
You can even stock your stash with free items — Raven signs up for free samples online and uses some of the giveaways toward her emergency kit.
Instead of buying it by the flat, consider bottling your own water. Use bleach-purified, leftover two-liter bottles and treated municipal water. Just don’t use milk or juice cartons, which can harbor bacteria. Date your bottles and replace them every six months, and you’re good to go.
If you’ll need water for hygienic purposes, clean your bathtub, then fill it with cold water. It won’t be potable, but you can use it to flush toilets and keep yourself clean.
Don’t forget your protein! Beef jerky is a great survival snack — but it isn’t cheap. You could dehydrate your own and save money and sodium content. Plus, you get to make your beef jerky the way you like. Check yard sales or Craigslist to find a dehydrator on the cheap.
Whenever you’re doing your own food prep, make sure you’re meticulous. Items undergoing long-term storage can get contaminated if they’re not perfectly sanitized and sealed — and you don’t want to discover your food stash is useless when an emergency arises.
In my area, hurricane shutters are important, but expensive.
The good news is you can make your own out of plywood or polycarbonate from Home Depot — just make sure to factor in the cost of waste when you’re doing your comparison. You may not be able to find much use for raw material scraps once you cut out shutters.
When you have to buy items, use coupons and your penny-hoarding knowledge to your advantage: Shop on the right day, use cash-back sites to earn rebates and use hacks to get the best deals at stores like CVS and Walmart.
When you pick up batteries, hydrogen peroxide, bleach and bandages, make sure to buy generic — they’ll work just as well as the brand name stuff. Check out the dollar store for these items, and while you’re there, pick up some emergency entertainment: crayons and coloring books for the kids, and a pack of cards for adults.
You probably already know how much you can save by buying in bulk. Emergency rations of paper towels, toilet paper, canned goods, batteries and bottled water are a perfect opportunity to take advantage of those savings.
Finally, consider battery-free emergency additions, like wind-up flashlights and weather radios. If you’re going to be without electricity, you’ll definitely want a handheld cell phone charger, which you can keep charged and prepared beforehand.
One of the best ways to save money on disaster preparedness is to play the long game: Look for sales in your day-to-day life and stock up, way before your storm season approaches. Cans of tuna on BOGO? Put your “get-ones” into your stash.
The more you can avoid a last-minute disaster-prep rush, the better: Vendors do price gouge. Here in Florida, the price of canned goods and gallons of water goes up in June and falls steeply in December, after hurricane season ends.
In case you do need a last-minute item, include disaster prep in your savings budget. Set aside $20 a month or so, and consider it part of your emergency fund — because that’s exactly what it is.
Stay safe, Penny Hoarders — and don’t forget your can opener!
Disclosure: A toast to savings! Thanks for allowing us to place affiliate links in this post.
Jamie Cattanach is a freelance writer whose work has been featured at Ms. Magazine, BUST, Roads & Kingdoms, The Write Life, Nashville Review, Word Riot and elsewhere.
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.
Over the years, I have shared literally thousands of frugality tips on The Simple Dollar. Most of them are useful tips – they will save you money – but not every tip works for everyone. Many of the tips I’ve shared on the site are ones where I can see from my own experience how it does save money, but it didn’t work out for me for some reason or another.
Some strategies, though, have been utter home runs for my family. The dozen strategies in this article have flat-out made our lives better. They’ve directly saved us money without any additional significant effort or time investment or negative change in routine, and many of them save us time as well. Some of the tips have a positive environmental impact. Some of them make other aspects of our life easier or add quality to our life in some way.
Quite simply, these are my favorite “little wins.” They’re little frugality tips that, on their own, aren’t life changing, but they’re just simply better ways of doing things compared to what I used to do. In each case, they result in more money in my pocket, but they usually come with additional benefits, too.
We used to be avid users of paper towels. We’d buy them at the store and then we “graduated” to buying them in bulk at a warehouse club. Even at the best prices, though, we were still spending at least $1.50 per roll for decent paper towels with any degree of absorbency.
The problem, of course, is that paper towels simply aren’t reusable. If someone spills a drink, you throw several paper towels at it, and then you throw them away and the money is lost. They’re useful, no doubt, but every time you use them, it’s just gone.
Gradually, we switched to having a “rag drawer.” In our kitchen, we have a drawer that just has a ton of microfiber rags and other miscellaneous rags in there for whatever spills or cleanup jobs may happen. We just toss them in a small laundry bin after use and then we wash the contents of that bin the next time we have a small load of clothes and put the rags back in the rag drawer when they’re clean.
The rags handle everything. They’re super absorbent, so one rag can handle something that it would take a bunch of paper towels to deal with. You can just toss them in a bin when you’re done and wash them when it’s super convenient, so there’s almost no time involved in refilling the rag drawer, plus you’re no longer spending time on paper towel purchasing or storage any more, either.
This solution is also way cheaper, since you can get tons of rags for just pennies each in various places, even microfiber ones. You only need to wash them a time or two before it’s a cost savings over paper towels, and if you wash them a dozen times, the savings is tremendous. There’s also the environmental factor – you’re not filling landfills with used paper towels.
I have zero interest in returning to our heavy paper towel use of the past.
If you walk out of our back door and turn to the left, you’ll see a little patch of herbs growing there. It’s pretty much constantly growing during the spring, summer, and fall. We never plant anything new there or do much of anything to care for it, but it constantly produces a variety of herbs for us. Right now, for example, it’s producing tons of chives, but at other times it might produce lots of fresh sage or thyme or oregano or tarragon or rosemary.
The only thing I do for maintenance on that herb patch is pull out a bunch of anything that’s threatening to dominate the patch. The chives tend to try to take over, so we’ll pull them out by the roots every once in a while. We sometimes water them a little, but they don’t need much, and sometimes I’ll spread some compost around in there – organic stuff like old bananas or vegetable peels or coffee grounds that’s completely turned into black compost by being left in a bucket for a month or so. I’ll usually compost and water at the same time once in the spring and then maybe once in the fall and then not worry about it for the rest of the year. If you don’t want to bother with compost, just get a small bag of fertilizer and use that instead.
Most of the time, though, we just do nothing at all with this little patch. It grows on its own and when we need some fresh herbs, we go out there while prepping a meal and cut them. It’s way way way cheaper than buying it at the store and it tastes miles better, too, and there’s almost zero effort involved once you have them planted. It requires maybe 30 minutes of effort a year – seriously – and it grows and grows every year without fail. That’s an amazing bargain, and it makes our meals tastier to boot.
Whenever I make soup, I don’t just make a little soup. I make a giant cauldron of soup. I pull out our big stock pot and make an absurd batch of soup.
Why do I do this? The truth is that if I’m going to the effort of making a batch of homemade soup, it’s not much extra work to make a quadruple or quintuple batch all at once. I have to slice some more vegetables, but I already have the cutting board and a knife out to do that.
When we’re ready to eat, we just serve ourselves straight from that big vat, and then after the meal is over, I get to work. I’ll prepare some large reusable freezer containers with enough soup to feed all of us for a meal, and I’ll pop those in the freezer. I’ll also prepare some small reusable freezer containers with enough soup for a single meal, and I’ll pop those in the freezer, too. I label them with a bit of masking tape and a marker so I know what they are and when they were stored.
Then, when we need a quick meal, we just pull one out and warm it up. For the whole meal, we’ll pull out a family container. For just one of us, we grab an individual container. You can microwave it easily and it’s absolutely delicious; it’s often better the second time around.
Soup is a cheap and tasty meal. I can make a number of killer soups for maybe $0.35 to $0.50 per person. When they’re frozen and stored like that, they become very quick and convenient meals and the soups are often better the second time around because the flavors have melded. It saves us a ton of time over the long run and it’s so inexpensive!
For those who have been paying attention over the history of The Simple Dollar, you’ll know that I’ve tried a lot of strategies for cutting into the cost of laundry soap.
At first, we simply bought it in bulk, buying huge dispensers for the laundry room. After that, I moved on to a fairly complicated recipe which was definitely cheaper than the bulk detergent but required a fair amount of work. I kept tinkering with that recipe over time and eventually I got it down to something super-simple that saves a ton of money.
I just buy a bag of soap flakes, a box of borax, and a box of washing soda at the store. In a plastic container, I mix a cup of each of those things – I just put them in there and shake it around for 30 seconds or so. I then put a measuring tablespoon in there. When I go to wash a laundry load, I scoop out a flat tablespoon of the mix, toss it into the load, and then close up the container with the spoon in it again. When the container gets low, I put in a cup of borax, a cup of washing soda, and a cup of flakes and shake it up again.
That’s it. It costs about three cents a load, which is a fraction of the cost of buying laundry detergent, and it takes almost no effort. It’s also easier to just take a box of borax or washing soda down to the laundry room when I need a refill than it is to carry a giant jug of laundry detergent or a five-gallon bucket full of my early attempts at homemade stuff. My current method is just more efficient and way cheaper.
About two years ago, we started instituting a daily routine where one parent would spend 30 minutes reading silently with all three children (and, on good days, both parents would be there, too).
Our original reason for doing this was to improve our children’s reading skills. We wanted them to become very strong at reading and constantly encouraged them to read a mix of comforting and easy page turners and somewhat more challenging works, to keep reading fun but also intellectually challenging.
It seems like a noble goal, but how is it frugal? It’s frugal in a bunch of ways.
First of all, it cultivated our children to be readers. They love books now. They want books as gifts. When you reach a threshold where reading most things is actually easy in terms of processing the words and you’re reading fun stuff that interests and excites you, you want to read more and more. Reading books is now one of their favorite hobbies and they often way overshoot the 30-minute clock when reading and also read at bedtime and on road trips and often at random times during the day.
We channel that reading by going to the library every other week and checking out books to read. Everyone that goes simply checks out two or three books and returns the ones we checked out the previous time (or renews them, if desired). Everyone goes home with something they’re excited to read for free.
Even better, it’s cut down significantly on the amount of screen time they engage in. There’s less energy use around our home. There’s less clamor for us to buy new entertainment items. There’s more conversation.
Our 30-minute reading policy, sustained over multiple years, has paid so many dividends in our home. It’s helped financially, it’s helped intellectually, it’s helped empathically. I couldn’t really ask for anything more.
For a long time, we used our programmable thermostat heavily, as it did a really great job of keeping our house at a certain temperature. We let the temperature go up during the summer when we weren’t home and down during the winter when we were sleeping and it definitely saved us money. Over time, though, we came to realize that the heating and cooling would still kick on at times where it was completely unnecessary.
Now, throughout the year, we set the thermostat to have the heating and cooling “off” unless it actually feels excessively hot or cold in the house. We don’t try to keep our indoor climate at a specific temperature all the time and it varies by as much as 30 degrees throughout the year. We occasionally use the programming feature, but only when it’s absolutely necessary.
This usually only happens on really hot or really cool days, and even on those days, our first response isn’t to turn on the furnace or the air conditioner. On hot days, we close the curtains on all windows facing the sun and wear shorts and t-shirts and go barefoot around the house and take cold showers. If it’s still too much and people don’t feel comfortable, then we kick on the air conditioning. On cold days, we’ll just throw on a sweatshirt and some thick socks around the house and grab a blanket if we’re doing something sedentary and, again, if anyone doesn’t feel comfortable, we then kick on the heat.
In other words, we simply switched to letting our comfort guide things. If we’re comfortable in the house, we just don’t run the heating or cooling. It saves us money and it actually made us realize that we’re comfortable at home in a pretty wide array of temperatures, and figuring that out helped us to reach a much better and less expensive approach for heating and cooling our home. We basically just flip it off if it’s on and things are comfortable and then never touch the thing unless someone feels really hot or cold.
Whenever we shop for clothes… or sporting goods… or school supplies… or lots of other things, we don’t start by heading down to the local department store. We start at Goodwill (or at other secondhand stores in the area).
We walk in there with a discerning eye and simply skip over 99% of the stuff there. It’s actually fairly rare that we find everything we’re looking for in a stop at a secondhand store. However, we almost always find one or two things that simply work. Someone dropped off a dress that looks basically new and is well made that perfectly fits my daughter and it costs $2.50. Someone’s selling some barely-used soccer equipment for one or two bucks, including some great goalie gloves for my son.
We might have 15 things we’re looking for and we find one at one store and two at another store and one more at a third store, but with about an hour’s effort, we’ve chopped a third of the items off of our list and saved $50 to $100.
Yep, 99% of the stuff we might find in a secondhand store isn’t of interest to us. So we ignore it. What we look for is that remaining 1% – the items that fit our needs and are well made but still carry a cheap price. Finding just one or two of those items per stop makes it well worth the stop, because it’s far better to spend $1.50 on a pair of barely-used goalie gloves or $2.50 on a dress than buying those gloves for $75 new or that dress for $50 new.
I like to call it the “multi-pass shopping trick.” We simply save up a list of important-but-not-urgent items that we need to pick up until the list is fairly long, consider the short term future to add a few more items to the list, and then start by shopping at Goodwill and a few other secondhand stores in the area. If we can knock just a few items off of our list by doing this, we’re saving a ton of money, and by shopping for all of this stuff together at once, we’re not really burning any extra time in doing so, either.
Over the last several years, our slow cooker has become the absolute centerpiece of our family’s meal planning. Without it, we would be hard-pressed to eat low-cost meals at home and would likely often rely on much more expensive takeout meals and restaurant meals, which, for a family of five, would add up super fast.
Our preferred slow cooker recipes – the ones we come back to time and time again – are ones where we can toss in a bunch of ingredients at the start of the day and then have a meal that’s ready to eat when we come home. Usually, it just involves setting a timer (or having me flip a switch at 10 AM or something, since I work from home) so that it’ll cook for the recommended amount of time so that it finishes roughly at the time we expect to be eating.
We make all kinds of things in the slow cooker, from lasagnas to soups, from curries to chili. We’ve cooked whole chickens and pot roasts in there. We’ve made oatmeal and mashed potatoes and shepherd’s pie and taco filling. No matter what, it’s ready to go when we get home, as long as we spent 10 minutes putting ingredients in the slow cooker and setting it in the morning before the work day begins.
I’d estimate that we average two nights per week when we eat supper right out of a slow cooker, and then the remnants of that meal becomes leftovers for lunch for the next day or two for Sarah and myself. Often, this cuts the costs of that meal per person down to $1 or $2, which is far cheaper than virtually any option we might consume from the store.
I don’t store my credit card number at any online stores these days. I simply don’t do it.
Yes, it’s inconvenient. Yes, there are times when it’s way easier to buy things if I just keep my credit card number stored there. But hear me out for a moment.
By simply not storing my credit card number on websites, I put an obstacle in my way for online buying, and most online buying is pretty non-essential and impulsive. There are very, very few things that I need to buy from, say, Amazon, and the time I would spend typing in my credit card number is time I can spend reflecting on whether or not I need that item.
This is a shift from the way I used to shop online, where I kept my buying information stored in several different websites. This made impulse buying very easy, and there were times that my buying was so impulsive that I would actually be surprised when things showed up in the mail.
Simply keeping my credit card numbers out of websites has drastically cut down on the frequency of impulse buying, which has mostly just saved me from spending my hard-earned money on a bunch of stuff that I didn’t need at all and would have quickly forgotten if I hadn’t pushed the easy “buy” button. Not having my credit card information there has made it feel less inviting to shop online, so I spend less time at e-commerce sites than I used to and more time doing other things that are more fulfilling anyway.
Every so often, our family – honestly, mostly just Sarah and myself – will challenge ourselves to have a money-free weekend or even a money-free week. During that time, we pledge to spend no money on anything and thus must eat things that we already have on hand and entertain ourselves with things we already own or can access for free.
It’s pretty simple to actually pull this off for a weekend, and it’s not overwhelmingly hard to do it for a week, though two or three weeks can get tricky. Instead, all it really does is redirects our focus onto doing things that we might not otherwise do. We’ll assemble meal plans using only foods we happen to have on hand, so we won’t even think about the grocery store. We’ll look far more seriously at what’s going on in our town or in nearby towns for free. We’ll explore the offerings at local libraries, local community groups, and so on. We’ll check out meetups. We’ll dig things out of our closet that we might have just forgotten about recently that fill us with excitement when we pull them out again, like a box of paints or an unfinished kit project or a book of some kind.
These “money-free” periods almost always rekindle my interest in free or extremely low-cost hobbies. They almost always introduce me to something new in my neighborhood that I didn’t know about before – again, usually something free. They cause me to make meals that I might never have otherwise made and that sometimes causes me to discover something delicious that enters our low-cost meal routines.
In short, this kind of artificial limitation almost always has a very positive impact on my life after the challenge is over. I’ve discovered new things to do and old things to dig into again and new ways of doing things, and all of those things shape my life going forward. That’s on top of the fact that “money free” periods directly save us money. All I have to give up for that is a few of the ordinary routines of doing things for a few days. I consider that an amazing bargain.
This is such a silly tip, but it’s saved us a lot of money over the years and we use it all the time, so it makes sense to share it here.
We have a handful of meals that we frequently make. Crockpot lasagna (as mentioned above). Grilled black bean burgers. Spaghetti with marinara sauce. Grilled cheese sandwiches and soup. Scrambled eggs and pancakes. Each of those things require specific combinations of seasonings to really bring out the flavor.
Many stores sell those seasoning mixes. Italian seasoning. Burger seasoning. Chili seasoning. You get the idea.
What we did, over the years, is figure out seasonings that both Sarah and I like, then simply make them on our own. We’ll buy low cost basic ingredients – salt, ground black pepper, basil, oregano, and so on – and then combine them in equal proportions in a shaker. Then, we just copiously use that shaker with whatever we’re making. We’ll use the “Italian shaker” to turn a mix of tomato sauce and diced tomatoes into a great pasta sauce. We’ll use the “burger shaker” to turn a black bean patty into something mouthwateringly amazing.
The thing is, this lets us hone the recipe. For example, we had a (now defunct) seasoning that we loved to put on burgers, but we both liked to also put additional black pepper on top. Now, we put plenty of black pepper into our seasoning and we don’t need the separate black pepper any more. I can put tons of garlic powder into the “Italian mix” because we all like it.
This makes meal prep very tasty for us and very efficient. I can get a wonderfully seasoned pasta meal on the table very quickly if necessary, for example, or, if I have a bit more time, I can trim some fresh herbs from outside (as mentioned above) and cook them in with the sauce and try to hone it. Having all of these options makes cooking at home so convenient and yet so tasty and varied. These mixes simply allow me to make better meals at home than I ever otherwise would have, they’re cheaper and better than what I would have ever bought at the store, and that all leads to a much happier home chef.
Whenever I need to buy a relatively inexpensive product that I’ll be using up over time, I generally default to buying the store brand version first. This goes for everything from hand soap to cereal, from milk to pasta, from trash bags to toilet paper. If that store brand product serves my needs without causing a calamity, I stick to it, and I only switch to different brands if there’s a genuine problem.
Why take this approach? It’s simple. The store brand is cheap. If it meets the needs I have from buying the product, why would I ever spend more money? There’s just no reason to do so. Of course, if I can find something wrong with the product, then it’s time to move on, but often there isn’t anything wrong, just an impression that another product might do the job in some “better” way that doesn’t really have much to do with the fact that the store brand takes care of what I need.
If a store brand doesn’t handle my needs, I’ll just go peek at Consumer Reports and try out their “best buy” recommendation as a replacement.
This isn’t how I shop for expensive items that I’m going to be reusing quite often. This is just a simple strategy for many basic food items and household items that I’m going to consume and eventually (theoretically) buy more of in the future. If I tried the store brand and it did the job, then there’s no reason not to buy the store brand again. If the store brand saves money, then I’m spending less with each purchase. If my grocery list is stuffed full of store brand items (and the humble grocery list is another powerful strategy), then I’m spending a lot less on each store visit, and that’s going to add up to serious savings over time.
Almost every article you read on The Simple Dollar starts off as either a question from a reader or an entry in my personal journal, and I attribute that journal to most of the good things that have happened in my life over the last decade or so.
I write in my journal almost every day. Whenever I’m struggling with something, I simply write it all down and then piece through what the solution is. Whenever I read some kind of powerful idea for self-improvement, I copy it down in my journal and see if I can figure out how it applies in my life. I use journal entries to review almost every aspect of my life on a rotating basis.
I try to examine the areas of my life where I’m unhappy and dig into why I’m unhappy and what I can do to improve it. I try to figure out what it is that I really want out of life and I do it for a while each and every day.
That process – looking at areas of dissatisfaction in my life, brainstorming solutions, trying out those solutions, reviewing what works and what doesn’t, looking at those areas I’m unhappy with, and repeating the cycle again – is something that has given birth to almost every good thing in my life over the last decade or so, and the core of it is making it into a daily routine and actually setting aside time for it and writing it down. The clarity that comes from that set-aside time and the actual process of writing down thoughts and reflecting on them as I write has been a literal life-changer.
It’s kept me focused on my finances when my attention wandered from it. It’s helped me figure out what works and what doesn’t work and why things work and don’t work for me. It’s helped me figure out solutions to every serious problem I’ve faced.
The amount of focus and direction that journaling has brought into my life since I really turned it strongly onto self-reflection rather than just listing the events of my day has been incalculable. It’s such a simple twist, but it’s helped me figure out that so many of my perceived needs are actually really just “wants” that I don’t need to follow up on. It’s helped me figure out strategies for spending less money on all kinds of things. It’s helped me prioritize what I actually should be spending my money and time on.
It takes about ten minutes a day, but it’s been a revolution in almost every spending choice, time use choice, and focus use choice in my entire life. I can’t recommend it more highly.
These changes are all pretty small changes. They’re all about choosing to do one little thing instead of another little thing. I buy borax and washing soda instead of a big jug of laundry detergent. I simply choose not to spend money for a weekend and see what happens. I reflect on things that dissatisfy me in my journal. I make giant vats of soup. I use our slow cooker like crazy. I shop at Goodwill after letting non-urgent purchases build up for a bit.
Here’s the thing: All of those little changes are, for me, almost strictly changes for the better. They result in spending less money and often spending less time and less effort, freeing me up to tackle other things in life. These changes aren’t sea changes, but they are all little repeatable improvements that are strict upgrades for me, and aren’t those really the best strategies, in the end?
Good luck!
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The post My Favorite ‘Little Wins’: 12 Simple Frugality Tips That Just Work appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
Google “gift ideas for college graduates” and you’ll find a dizzying array of tchotchkes whose sole purpose is to impress or entertain. Buzzfeed, for example, offers gift ideas ranging from a celebratory flask to a globe made of corks or a GoPro camera. Other gift lists include things like make-your-own-beer kits, fancy coffee makers, and monogrammed coasters.
While such novelty gifts might be perfect for certain college graduates, many are entirely impractical – especially for graduates with a pile of student loan debt.
Considering that nearly two thirds of college students left school with an average of $37,172 in student loans in 2016, many new grads may not be interested in starting their professional lives with quirky clutter, no matter how fun it is. Instead, they may wish for practical gifts they can use – gifts that will help them earn more to pay down debt or, at least, save them money.
If you can’t decide what to buy the college graduate in your life, think beyond the gadgets and gizmos to what they could actually use. Here are some practical ideas for the average college graduate who has bills to pay and not much else:
Want a gift your college grad will never throw away? Give them cold, hard cash they can use in whatever way they wish. With student loan bills nearly due, any indebted college graduate could use money to get their adult life started.
While you may never know how they use the cash (and there is, of course, a possibility they’ll use it in a way you don’t approve of), cash gifts are always appreciated. Plus, they’re perfectly practical for college graduates who could use cash more than a new coffee maker or waffle iron.
A company called GiftofCollege.com offers the perfect gift for people who want to help new graduates pay off their student loans. Plus, this gift idea guarantees the money isn’t used elsewhere or wasted. With Gift of College gift cards (which can be purchased online or at stores like Toys ‘R’ Us), you can donate to a child’s 529 plan or student loan account.
There are a few caveats to take care of before this one can work. First, your college graduate needs to set up an online Gift of College account and link their student loans. They can do this after they receive your gift card, but it is required.
Second, the gift-giver is charged a small fee for each Gift of College card – usually between $3.95 and $5.95, depending on the amount. A $500 gift card is $5.95, for example, bringing the grand total to $505.95. On the flip side, however, the recipient can use the money to pay off student loans with no fees.
Getting out of debt is no easy feat, and that’s especially true when you’re just out of college and starting a career. While personal finance books receive their share of yawns, they can be a smart gift idea for college graduates first learning to wrangle their money.
We all have our favorite personal finance books, but you could always go with a classic like The Millionaire Next Door or The Total Money Makeover.
Erin Lowry’s new book, Broke Millennial, is another fan favorite perfect for 20-somethings or college graduates first starting out. Through story-telling and real-world examples, Lowry tells others how to quit scraping by and get their financial lives together.
If you’re not keen on gifting money, books, or debt repayment, regular ol’ gift cards offer another practical gift opportunity. Depending on your college graduate’s needs, you could dole out gift cards to a home goods store, their favorite restaurants, or even the grocery store.
While gift cards can be extremely impersonal, they are always appreciated – especially by those who are struggling to pay bills. So, think long and hard about the gift cards your graduate might need or use. Once you decide, you can order gift cards online or buy them in nearly any retail store.
What most indebted college graduates really need is a job. Unfortunately, that is one gift that’s nearly impossible to give.
But to help with the process, you can give the gift of professional resume editing. With a paid resume service, your college graduate will receive a professional-looking resume that can help them stand out in a crowded field.
It’s easy to find people who offer this service online or in your local area. Usually, you can ask around and find a handful of English majors or career coaches who help young graduates improve their resume skills. As a last resort, you can book a resume service online.
Leaving college often means moving out on your own for the first time. If you’re an indebted graduate, that means facing a slew of brand new bills– things like deposits for rent and utilities, housewares, bedding, and everything else an apartment needs.
One of the biggest expenses to cover is, of course, furniture. When you’ve been living in a dorm or shared apartment for the last four or more years, you may have few usable pieces – or, at least, few you want to bring along to your post-college life.
Furniture is a solid gift option for college graduates getting their own place. If you’re not sure what to buy or what they need, a gift card to a department store or IKEA could do the trick.
This last gift idea can be tricky to execute, mostly because you may not know what your college graduate needs. It’s almost guaranteed they need something, but it’s hard to guess whether they’re bringing their shared coffee pot from their old apartment or in need of dishes, bed sheets, or new silverware.
Asking a parent or friend is a good way to gauge the type of housewares any college graduate actually needs. If your goal is buying something for the home, you could also opt to give gift cards to stores that offer an array of housewares and small appliances – places like Target, Walmart, or Bed, Bath, & Beyond.
While you might be inclined to purchase college graduates a silly gift they’ll laugh about this year, it might be wise to think of what they need instead. With the average student loan burden well over $30,000, they might wish the beer pong set you gave them was a toaster, a student loan payment, or some cold, hard cash.
While practical gifts may not be as fun, they’re needed now more than ever.
Holly Johnson is an award-winning personal finance writer and the author of Zero Down Your Debt. Johnson shares her obsession with frugality, budgeting, and travel at ClubThrifty.com.
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What are you getting as a college graduation gift this year? What would you add to this list?
The post Seven Practical Gift Ideas for the Indebted College Graduate appeared first on The Simple Dollar.
Arsenal’s less than stellar performance in the Premier League this season is matched by an even poorer performance in the property price growth tables, according to new research by an online estate agent.
When you’re a mom, Mother’s Day is like the Oscars, the Super Bowl and New Year’s Day all rolled into one.
It’s a combination of anticipation, excitement and, if you’re lucky, a day of relaxation.
When you’re a single mom, though, Mother’s Day is an entirely different jar of baby food.
Celebrating this holiday is different when you’re a single mother. Here are some of the things you miss when you’re the only adult in the house.
There’s no one to make you breakfast in bed.
And forget about sleeping late.
You won’t get a long soak in the tub.
There’s nobody around to organize a surprise gift for you.
You’ll still be doing chores all day.
Single moms are smart, savvy, resourceful and don’t need a partner or significant other to get the most out of Mother’s Day.
Here are five great ways to treat yo’self by yo’self.
1. Make a batch of healthy, affordable freezer meals a couple of days in advance so you can lounge around instead of getting stuck in the kitchen. (Bonus tip: Make yourself something special to eat for once the kids are in bed.)
2. For a few dollars, you can order a subscription box filled with samples of your favorite products.
When your package arrives arrives in the mail, stash it on a shelf and wait until Mother’s Day to open it.
3. DIY your own beauty products to feel like you’ve had a day at the spa without leaving your house — no babysitter required.
4. Plan to spend part of the day doing fun outdoor activities with your kids that won’t break the bank.
If the weather doesn’t cooperate, go roller skating for free instead.
5. Your kids are the love of your life, so why not pick one of these inexpensive date night ideas that won’t blow your budget.
Your turn: How do you celebrate Mother’s Day as a single mom?
Lisa McGreevy is a Staff Writer at The Penny Hoarder. As a single mom, her mother endured years of macaroni necklaces on Mother’s Day because Lisa couldn’t think of what else to make. She finally stopped stringing noodles last year.
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.
