Here’s Exactly How Much the Average Person Spent in 2016 in Your State

America, we need to talk.

We’ve catapulted out of the Great Recession, and the unemployment rate just hit its lowest point in more than a decade. But we feel it’s our personal duty as savings experts at The Penny Hoarder to talk about your spending.

Average personal consumption expenditures, a measure of personal spending, jumped 4% across the U.S. last year, according to the latest state-level data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

That’s just a little too much for our nerves.

Sure, there are some thrifty states, like Mississippi, where residents kept their average spending to $30,200 last year — about $83 a day. But then you’ve got (surprise, surprise) Washington, D.C., where residents spent an average of $56,843 a year, or nearly $156 a day.

Let’s follow the money.

Personal Spending Was Highest in These 10 States in 2016

In terms of the U.S. as a whole, the average resident spent $39,664, with housing and health care making up the biggest purchases at roughly $7,200 and $6,700 respectively.

But, you ask, how much did your state spend?

Here’s a list of the states where money is burning the biggest holes in the pockets of residents.

Washington, D.C. — $56,843

Massachusetts — $51,981

Alaska — $49,547

New Jersey — $48,972

New Hampshire — $48,810

Connecticut — $48,497

North Dakota — $48,225

Vermont — $47,648

New York — $46,906

Hawaii — $45,123

Personal Spending Falls Within Penny Hoarder Range in These 10 States

So how do these big-spending states compare with the thriftier ones?

Here are the 10 states with the lowest personal consumption expenditures in 2016.

Mississippi — $30,200

Arkansas — $31,117

Alabama — $31,336

Oklahoma — $32,978

South Carolina — $33,266

Kentucky — $33,288

Idaho — $33,653

North Carolina — $33,779

Louisiana — $34,181

Tennessee — $34,418

Live in One of Those Big-Spending States? Here Are Some Ways to Curb Your Spending Habits

Sure, buying stuff feels good, but here at The Penny Hoarder we know that saving money feels way better. So if you want to help your state break from the list of big spenders next year, we have plenty of suggestions.

Just opening a new bank account and setting aside $5 can be an awesome start.

Consolidating your debt is another good option for reducing your annual expenditures.

And if those ideas don’t work, you can always trick yourself into saving more money.

So, for you D.C denizens out there, you’ve still got a few months to go in 2017 to cut back. We’ve got your back.

Alex Mahadevan is a data journalist 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.

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

Here’s How Much Your Hotel Loyalty Program Is Really Saving You

Financially savvy travelers know they can save by signing up for hotel loyalty programs. But which programs provide the most bang for your buck?

CarTrawler, a travel technology platform, recently released the results of its third annual Hotel Reward Payback Survey. Consulting firm IdeaWorks gathered data for the survey using six hotel loyalty programs: Best Western Rewards, Hilton Honors, IHG Rewards Club, Marriott Rewards, Starwood SPG and Wyndham Rewards.

Rewards members with Wyndham get the most benefit, while members of Starwood’s loyalty program benefit the least of the six, the survey found.

For every $100 spent, here’s the average value of the rewards each loyalty program pays back:

• Wyndham Rewards: $16.70

• Marriott Rewards: $8.80

• Hilton Honors: $7.50

• Best Western Rewards: $7.40

• IHG Rewards Club: $6.70

• Starwood SPG: $5.40

Rewards Program Points Are Weakening

The Wall Street Journal compared this year’s hotel rewards study with IdeaWorks’ data from two years ago and found rewards program points aren’t worth as much as they used to be.

It now takes more points to get a complimentary room at Starwood and IHG hotels even though the price of rooms has gone down, according to The Wall Street Journal. Travelers staying at Hilton and Marriott hotels need fewer points to score comp rooms that now cost less, but the rewards points still aren’t as strong as before, the article said.

An analysis of Wyndham’s and Best Western’s programs wasn’t provided.

Still, The Wall Street Journal article pointed out that although points are weakening in value for free rooms, rewards programs aren’t necessarily offering less. Some loyalty programs are expanding to include other perks like room upgrades and free breakfast.

Save More with Hotel Brands’ Credit Cards

Racking up rewards with hotel-brand credit cards is another way to add to your travel savings. The survey also looked into which brands’ credit cards offer the best reward value for everyday purchases.

The survey found the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express provided users the greatest rewards, while the IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card provided the least rewards.

Here are the reward rates for every dollar spent on everyday purchases using hotel credit cards:

• Starwood Preferred Guest American Express: 2.7%

• Wyndham Rewards Visa: 2.5%

• Best Western Rewards MasterCard: 1.5%

• Hilton Honors American Express: 1.5%

• Marriott Rewards Premier Credit Card: 0.9%

• IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card: 0.7%

According to the survey, credit card rewards may be greater when you charge purchases like hotel stays or airline tickets instead of everyday purchases.

Just remember, whether you’re swiping your card for travel or everyday purchases, paying off the balance in full every month will help you avoid accumulating interest fees. That way, you can travel stress-free knowing you aren’t adding debt to your life.

Nicole Dow is a staff 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.

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

They Took Our Jobs! Here’s How Harvey and Irma Affected the U.S. Economy

September was the most active month for hurricanes and tropical storms in the Atlantic in more than 30 years in terms of storm strength and duration.

While the month brought waves of destruction, it also brought an end to the seven-year streak of job gains for the economy. For the first time since September 2010, the U.S. shed jobs — roughly 33,000 — according to the September jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“It is likely that the payroll employment estimates for September were lower due to the effects of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey,” said the bureau’s acting commissioner, William Wiatrowski, in a statement.

It’s one of the few times that tropical cyclone activity has affected U.S. hiring since Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005; employment reports following Hurricane Sandy and other storms since Katrina did not show a significant impact on employment.

The leisure and hospitality sector and, more specifically, the restaurant and bar industry took the biggest hit, with a loss of 104,700 jobs between August and September.  

On top of the jobs lost, 1.5 million people missed work due to the hurricanes for the entire week the statistics bureau was collecting its data, a 20-year record. That obviously doesn’t include those who hustled on the side to scrounge up cash during the emergency.

September Jobs Report Isn’t All Bad News

OK, now I’ll drop the economist Debbie Downer tone.

Despite the storm clouds over the latest jobs report, the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2%, the lowest it has been in more than a decade.

And average wages increased 2.5% to $22.23 an hour in September, up from $21.68 in September 2016.

So chin up, America! And if you do happen to be one of the workers who lost their jobs because of the hurricanes, keep an eye on The Penny Hoarder Jobs page on Facebook for tons of new opportunities.

Alex Mahadevan is a data journalist 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.

source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/2y5xDZw

Could a Corporation Have Its Own Entire City?

Amazon does everything else, so why not own a city, too? If all goes according to plan, Amazon The City may be coming to a municipality near you.

Source Business & Money | HowStuffWorks http://ift.tt/2wBN2Od

Could a Corporation Have Its Own Entire City?

Amazon does everything else, so why not own a city, too? If all goes according to plan, Amazon The City may be coming to a municipality near you.

Source Business & Money | HowStuffWorks http://ift.tt/2wBN2Od

Social Security Numbers as IDs: Great for Hackers, Sucks for Everyone Else

After more than 143 million identities were compromised in a data breach at Equifax, the credit reporting agency and White House officials are questioning the safety of using Social Security numbers for identification.

The risk of fraud already inspired the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to remove Social Security numbers from ID cards starting in 2018.

The Trump administration also plans to ask other government agencies to find new identification systems that don’t rely on Social Security numbers.

Slate reports that Rob Joyce, special assistant to the president and White House cybersecurity coordinator, discussed the safety issue at a cyber conference in Washington, D.C., this week.

“I feel very strongly that the Social Security number has outlived its usefulness,” Joyce said “Every time we use the Social Security number, you put it at risk.”

The same day, former Equifax CEO Richard Smith echoed the belief that the wide use of Social Security numbers as a form of identification is a liability.

“We should consider the creation of a public-private partnership to begin a dialogue on replacing the Social Security Number as the touchstone for identity verification in this country,” he said in written remarks presented to Congress. “It is time to have identity verification procedures that match the technological age in which we live.”

Smith resigned after 12 years as CEO of Equifax following the breach that impacted about 44% of the American population.

Social Security Numbers Weren’t Supposed to Be ID Numbers

When Social Security numbers were created in 1936, they weren’t meant to be used as widely as they are today. In fact, their only purpose was “tracking the earnings histories of U.S. workers, for use in determining Social Security benefit entitlement and computing benefit levels,” according to the Social Security Administration.

Although there is consensus now that it is necessary to replace Social Security numbers as our primary means of identification, there is no concrete plan yet for what a new system would look like.

At the cyber security conference, Joyce touched on the idea of a “modern cryptographic identifier.”

Bloomberg explained that this system would require you to have a physical device that would hold a secret code that serves as an identification method. To access the code and confirm your identity, you would have to enter a unique PIN.

SImply put, it could work like a credit card chip and PIN.

This is only one idea, and it would also come with a unique set of challenges, including how to create and distribute the identifiers. According to Bloomberg, it would likely take an act of Congress and a series of new laws to make a change like this.

Hopefully, the renewed focus on safety measures will make it more difficult for scammers and hackers to access personal information, while making us less susceptible to identity theft.

Desiree Stennett is a staff 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.

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

Here’s the Process to Help You Consistently Build 7 Backlinks a Week

Are you familiar with backlinks?

If you’re not or if you’re just getting used to the concept, you need to make this common term part of your everyday vocabulary.

By definition, a backlink is an incoming hyperlink from one website to another.

Anytime a website mentions your name, brand, or company with a link to your site, that’s a backlink.

Sure, these may happen by accident.

Maybe a company was doing some research, stumbled upon a statistic on your page, and wanted to give you credit for it.

That happens.

But you can’t rely on that as the sole way to build high quality backlinks.

Do you need to put an emphasis on backlinks?

Absolutely.

Here’s why.

First of all, getting mentioned and linked to from other websites is a great way to increase traffic to your page.

A reader who has never heard of you may be more inclined to click on a link recommended by someone they read faithfully.

But there’s more to it than that.

Backlinks affect your search ranking in Google’s algorithm:

Getting your page ranked high on Google needs to be a top priority.

According to Net Market Share, over 97% of searches from mobile devices and tablets are made through Google.

Google is responsible for over 75% of the total global search traffic from desktop devices as well.

Take a look at the graph above.

Nearly 24% of that algorithm has to do with the trust and authority of the host domain.

Over 20% of the algorithm involves external links to your page.

Essentially, backlinks can help with about 44% of the factors influencing your search engine ranking.

That doesn’t even include traffic, click-through rates, and page popularity.

I’ll show you how you can build 10 backlinks consistently each week.

1. Take advantage of broken links

Broken links can harm your website’s ranking.

The key is to find broken links on other sites and get your page linked to as a replacement.

This is also a great way to network, make some friends, and establish beneficial business relationships.

Here’s how you do it.

Find some websites similar to yours within the same industry.

For example, if I owned a restaurant, I’d look for blogs about food or pages that critique and suggest places to eat.

Next, use a service like Dead Link Checker.

Most people use such tools to check for dead links on their own websites.

You can do that as well.

But we’ll take this one step further.

Search for dead links on the websites you found relating to your industry.

Next, contact the person running the website, informing them about these broken links.

You’re doing this person a favor because, like I said before, dead links will hurt a website’s search engine ranking.

Now, you can suggest replacing these dead links with links to pages on your website.

This isn’t a foolproof method.

The webmaster doesn’t have to take your suggestions.

They can simply thank you for the heads-up and replace the link with somebody else’s.

But it doesn’t hurt to try.

Think of it like this.

What were your site’s chances of getting randomly chosen as a replacement for broken links?

Probably slim to none.

At least now, you’re in the running.

Give it a shot.

2. Write guest posts

Guest posts may sound unappealing to some people.

You may think it’s not worth your time to create content for other websites.

Big mistake.

Sure, the number of monthly blog posts published on your site has a positive impact on your site’s inbound traffic.

People look at these numbers the wrong way.

Yes, you need to write lots of blog posts each month on your own website.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t contribute to other blogs.

It’s not a waste of time.

Guest blogging is an effective inbound marketing strategy.

And it won’t cost you anything.

The only price is the time it takes you to write.

Guest blogging will open lots of doors for you.

First, your name, company, and brand will get exposed to a new audience.

These readers may have never heard of you before.

Next, you’ll have a chance to create backlinks to your own website throughout the article.

If a reputable company offers you to write a guest post, say yes.

You can also actively search for sites in your industry looking for guest posters.

3. Mimic the methods used by your competitors

If your competition is having success with building backlinks, you can follow their example.

Subscribe to your competitors’ newsletters.

Follow them on social media.

Pay attention to their tactics.

It’s an effective way to analyze your competition.

You can take this a step further with their backlink strategy.

Use a service like Monitor Backlinks.

With this platform you can monitor:

• domains
• competition
• keywords

It’s structured similarly to Google Alerts, which I’m sure you’re familiar with.

The only difference is the primary focus of this service is backlinks.

Here’s an example of what your reports will look like:

If you discover your competition has a home run strategy for building backlinks, follow their lead.

What websites are featuring your competition?

Reach out to them directly and ask if you can write a guest post.

Maybe send them a link to one of the infographics you created, and offer it as a source of information.

Monitoring the habits of your competitors is a great way to stay ahead of the curve.

4. Reach out to bloggers and journalists

Earlier, I talked about contacting webmasters to get backlinks through broken links on their websites.

You can apply this same concept to websites run by journalists and bloggers.

Even if they don’t have broken links, reach out to them. It can’t hurt.

If you don’t know how to reach the right person, here are some options.

First, try the “Contact Us” option directly on their website.

If that doesn’t work or an email address isn’t listed anywhere, try to search for the person by name on other platforms. Do they have a Linkedin account? Connect with the blogger there.

You can also send them a message on Facebook or another social media platform.

Introduce yourself. Tell the person why your pages would be a credible source to mention on their blog.

5. Actively promote your content

You won’t be able to generate any backlinks if people can’t find your information.

How are you promoting your content?

Content promotion needs to be at the top of your list of things to do every day.

Having a website isn’t enough.

You need different avenues to distribute your content across multiple channels.

Are you using videos as a marketing strategy?

You should be.

Videos are growing in popularity, especially on mobile devices.

Online marketers are recognizing this trend and planning for it accordingly.

If you’re not using video to promote your content, you’ll fall behind the competition.

Build a successful YouTube channel.

YouTube videos are optimized for mobile devices, which is necessary based on the graph above.

They also have a mobile application, so it won’t be a problem for people to find your video content.

You can include these same videos on other platforms like:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Your website
• Other people’s websites as guest posts

It’s an effective content promotion strategy.

Marking experts recognize the importance of videos and plan to use them more often moving forward:

The majority of businesses are planning to incorporate some form of video marketing as part of their content distribution channels in the next year.

You need to do the same thing.

Promoting your content will make it easier for people to find you.

Ultimately, you’ll end up getting more backlinks.

6. Build infographics on your website

People love images and visual data.

Use this knowledge to your advantage.

Here’s a great example from Marketing Profs:

Look at what they did.

They found a study and built a visual representation of the data.

What’s someone else more likely to use for a blog post?

Numbers? Or the infographic?

The infographic wins.

It’s easier for readers to find and interpret infographics, especially if they’re reading a long blog post.

Make infographics.

People will use them on their websites and backlink to your page as the data source.

It’s super effective.

If you’re a faithful reader of mine, you know I love to include infographics in my blog posts.

I always give credit to the source with a backlink.

Here are some tips to follow when building an infographic:

• Stay relevant. Use information related to your industry or areas of expertise.
• Use legible images. Nobody will use your graphic if it’s too hard to read or understand.
• Use accurate numbers. Make sure your data is coming from reliable and high quality sources. You don’t want to get a reputation for spreading inaccurate statistics.
• Use recent information. Data changes over time. Make sure you update your infographics. Instead of coming up with completely new graphics every year, update your old ones.

Building infographics will also increase your website traffic.

It’s a great way to generate backlinks as well.

7. Write reviews and comments

Here’s a great opportunity to backlink to your website.

Comment on related blog posts and articles in your industry.

Use your full name whenever you write comments.

This is a perfect opportunity to generate leads.

Here are some tips to keep in mind while you’re commenting on someone’s blog post.

• Talk to the author directly.
• Address them by their first name to start your comment.
• Take a stance on a specific topic in the article or ask a question.
• The post should be relatively short but more than just a few words.
• Always use a valid email address so people can contact you.
• Do not spam.
• Your whole post shouldn’t be about your business or website.
• Stick to the topic.
• Place a backlink to your page in a natural way within the comment.
• Don’t be afraid to comment on big blogs such as Forbes or Mashable.

Again, it’s a great way to gain exposure.

Conclusion

Now, you have a method for each day of the week to build backlinks to your website.

These seven tactics work.

And they don’t take much time or effort.

Building backlinks needs to be a regular part of your content marketing strategy.

Why?

Backlinks are a factor in Google’s ranking algorithm.

It’s the most popular search engine in the world.

If you’ve never actively tried to build backlinks, it’s easy to get started with the strategies I shared with you.

Start by contacting webmasters, bloggers, and journalists.

Use online tools to look for broken links. Try to get your page as the replacement link for these.

Even if you can’t find broken links, it doesn’t hurt to reach out to other websites, asking for a backlink.

Do not turn down guest posts. Search for websites in need of guest writers.

Build infographics. People will use your images as a source of information for their articles.

Actively promote your content. Use platforms such as YouTube to make videos as a promotional method.

See what your competitors are doing. If they have a great backlink building strategy, try their methods.

Comment on blogs and articles. It’s a great chance for you to gain some exposure and backlinks to your site.

Which strategies will you start using this week to build backlinks for your page?

Source Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/2ytL0UZ

Withdrawal Rate and What It Means for You

One of the most important factors to consider when thinking about retirement is your withdrawal rate. It comes up time and time again in articles and books on retirement, but is rarely fully explained and often becomes a topic that people gloss over.

Let’s change that.

Withdrawal rate simply refers to the amount of money you’re taking out of your savings each year (unless otherwise specified). So, if you’re taking $500 a year out of your savings account, that’s your withdrawal rate.

Most of the time, withdrawal rate is expressed as a percentage. So, let’s say you have $100 in your savings account and you withdraw $1 per year, your withdrawal rate would be 1%. Makes sense, right?

Here’s where things get tricky. With almost all investments, that investment continues to earn money during the years when you’re withdrawing money. So, with that savings account example above, it might be earning 1% interest during that year, so although you might withdraw $1 per year, it’s also earning $1 per year. So, at the end of the year, you will have taken out $1 but the account will still have a balance of $100 – the $1 in interest plus the $99 that you left in the account.

That’s why withdrawal rate is usually based on the amount in the account when you started making regular withdrawals.

Let’s clear this up with another savings account example. You have $1,000 in there, and you’re committing to withdrawing $10 each year. Your withdrawal rate is 1%. However, that account earns 1.25% interest. So, each year, you’re withdrawing $10, but during the first year, the account actually earns $12.50 in interest, leaving it with a balance of $1,002.50 at the end of the year. The next year, your withdrawal rate is still 1% and you’re still withdrawing $10 (because that’s all based on the starting balance of $1,000), but it’s earning 1.25% on the current balance, which means that it earns $12.53 in interest that year and ends up with a balance of $1,005.03 at the end of the year.

The key thing to notice here is that the withdrawal rate and the annual withdrawn amount stay the same, but the account balance can actually change over time. The withdrawal rate is based on the initial account balance and thus doesn’t change.

So, what does this all have to do with retirement?

Retirement calculations follow this same exact principle. When you retire, your goal should be for your retirement savings to last the rest of your life, right? You don’t want your money to run out when you’ve still got years of life left in you.

So, what people typically do in retirement is that they figure out a withdrawal rate and then withdraw that amount each year from their account. Let’s say, for example, that they have $1,000,000 in retirement savings at the start of retirement and decide on a 4% withdrawal rate. That means that, each year, they’re going to take 4% of $1,000,000 – or $40,000 – out of their account.

In other words, you might retire at 65, you hope to last until you’re in your 90s, and so you want to be able to withdraw 4% – $40,000 a year – for 30 years.

If you do the simple math – $40,000 times 30 – you’ll see that over those thirty years, you’re pulling $1.2 million out of the account, but it only has a balance of $1 million at the start. That means that the money that stays in the account had better be invested well, in order to earn that extra $200,000 in investment income.

Let’s play around with this a bit. Let’s say you choose a withdrawal rate of 5%. That would mean you’d take out $50,000 a year over 30 years, or $1.5 million. Your investments would have to come up with another $500,000 along the way as you’re drawing it down. That’s a pretty tall order!

On the other hand, you might choose a withdrawal rate of 3%. That would mean you’re taking out $30,000 a year for 30 years, or $900,000. In that case, you can actually afford to lose $100,000 in investments along the way and still be okay!

What you can see here is that the higher your withdrawal rate, the less safe everything is. The more money you take out each year, the less likely it becomes that your investment is going to last from the start of retirement to your passing.

(Yes, that’s an obvious point, but it’s an important one.)

Of course, you have another factor pushing the other way. If you go for a safer withdrawal rate, that means less money each year for you to live on. The person that takes $30,000 out of their investments each year might be safer than the person who takes out $50,000, but they have far less to live on.

The trick, of course, is to find a balance, and that balance is called the safe withdrawal rate. It’s the percentage of the initial balance you can take out each year and expect, with a high likelihood, that your investments will last until you pass away.

Obviously, a safe withdrawal rate comes with some assumptions. It assumes that you have a certain number of years to live between retirement and death – usually, thirty years is used. Also, it depends a great deal on how your money is invested and what the economy is like when you’re in retirement. Typically, a safe withdrawal rate is calculated with the idea that you’re invested fairly aggressively and that the market does pretty poorly by historical measures over that timeframe.

So, what exactly is a safe withdrawal rate, then? Most experts tend to agree that a safe withdrawal rate for retirees with a heavily diversified 401(k) is somewhere between 3% and 4%, with a few suggesting a bit lower, as low as 2.5%.

In other words, if you set your withdrawal rate at 3% when you retire and stick to that amount and your retirement investments are diversified but have a healthy amount in stocks, most experts agree that your retirement savings will last you for 30 years (at least).

Of course, you can set a different withdrawal rate if you choose. A higher one means that there’s a lower likelihood of your money lasting for 30 years; a lower rate means that it’s extremely likely to last for 30 years with money left over at that point. The choice is up to you.

How is this useful in retirement planning? You can use that “safe withdrawal rate” to see how much you’ll have to live on when you retire.

For example, let’s say you think you’ll have $600,000 saved up when you retire. If you multiply that by the safe withdrawal rate of 3%, you get $18,000 per year. Is that enough, along with Social Security and any other benefits you might have? What about inflation – remember, prices will go up, too. You might want to consider accelerating your savings.

A safe withdrawal rate simply helps you get a realistic picture of what your finances will look like after you retire. It suggests how much you can safely withdraw each year, and you can use that along with your Social Security estimates to figure out if that’s enough or if you need to start bumping up your retirement savings.

Good luck!

The post Withdrawal Rate and What It Means for You appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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

This is Why You Need to Stop Being Afraid of Online Bank Accounts

When people switch to online bank accounts, they suddenly become evangelists.

Have you noticed this?

I have one travel-obsessed friend who goes nuts about her Schwab Bank checking account and recommends it to fellow travelers every chance she gets.

I talked to a couple of guys who absolutely love their Chime accounts — one so much he even touts it to customers at work!

When my brother-in-law told me about Bank of Internet, I thought for sure he’d just made something up. But I looked into it and realized the bank’s not only real, but it also has some pretty cool perks.

And I’m guilty, too. I recommend my Aspiration Summit checking account to everyone who asks — and plenty who don’t, to be honest.

Why do we do this? For one, the big banks are, well, huge, so the little guys need some word-of-mouth love to be seen.

But also because online banks rock, and we want more people to know that.

We’re Leaving Traditional Banks Behind

Banks are not the most popular businesses in the world these days. That’s putting it kindly.

Two of the top five most-hated companies in America last year were well-known banks, with Wells Fargo and Bank of America inviting the ire of customers.

I tend to avoid interactions with big banks whenever possible. They’ve become expensive to use and inconvenient to communicate with.

Thankfully, these smart companies have stepped in to fix everything we hate about traditional banks. Online bank accounts are like the anti-bank — they give us all the financial benefits of the old guys but flip the script on the annoyances of working with a monolith.

Why We’re Switching to Online Banks

To put it simply, online banks are easier to use than the traditional ones. They’re cheaper and more accessible.

No brick-and-mortar locations with 9-to-5 staffers means the online companies have way lower overhead than the old guys. So they don’t pack on the fees quite so heavily — or, at all, really.

Chime is free to use — no monthly minimums and no monthly fees. Aspiration works on a pay-what-is-fair model. You choose to set a monthly tip up to $6 or as low as $0, and you can change it anytime.

Being online also means 24/7 access — on a web browser, through an app, via text, whatever kind of service you like to use to put distance between you and a long line of cars at the drive-up window at 5 p.m. on a Friday.

I use an app to do all my banking with Aspiration, including depositing checks with my phone’s camera. Plus, I can do it anytime. Who is actually available during bank hours?!

I also love the personality of the companies behind online bank accounts. While traditional banks sometimes feel like they haven’t updated their websites since 1999, I loved the creative touches Aspiration added to make sign-up enjoyable.

Plus, in an age when we all look on the big banks with a touch of suspicion because of years of scandal and mismanagement, Aspiration has popped up with the simple motto to “Do Well. Do Good.”

The company donates 10% of revenue to charity and makes it easy for account holders to do the same. Just choose a cause you care about and an amount you want to give each month, and it’ll automatically come right out of your Summit account.

4 Myths You Need to Stop Believing About Online Banks

So, why isn’t everyone flocking to online banks en masse? It seems they just don’t understand.

In the course of my evangelizing, I hear a lot of the same concerns from folks who are afraid to cut ties with their old banks. They’re totally understandable — but usually completely based on incorrect information.

Here are four myths about online banks you should stop believing right now.

1. Your Money Isn’t Safe if You’ve Never Heard of the Company

Yes, it is. Just like any other brick-and-mortar bank, make sure you’re signing up for an FDIC-insured account, and your money will be just as safe.

For example, both Aspiration and Chime accounts are FDIC-insured through banking partners, Aspiration with Radius and Chime with The Bancorp Bank.

If you’re interested in getting into the weeds…

Chime’s website and app use 128-bit encryption, two-factor authentication for password protection, as well as Touch ID login to keep your digital information safe. It issues a Visa debit card, which offers protection against unauthorized transactions.

Aspiration’s products use 256-bit encryption, multi-factor authentication and Touch ID login for the app. It issues a Mastercard debit card, which helps protect your information.

2. No One Is Around to Help You

If you can’t walk into a building and speak to that teller you know, you might not feel like you’re being taken care of. But good companies that offer online bank accounts also offer good customer service.

And you don’t have to wait in line for it!

One of those Chime users I mentioned, Samuel Demeny, told me, “Their customer service is top-notch …You can send a text message and within 10 or 15 minutes have a response. With [my previous bank] Wells Fargo, it was, like, two or three days.”

I’ve had a similar experience with Aspiration. While I haven’t had any issues I needed to contact customer service about over the past two years, the service I got setting up my account was delightful.

3. You Won’t Have Access to Your Cash

When my co-worker Carson Kohler told her dad about her Aspiration bank account, she says, “He was super troubled by the idea of having an online-only bank account. He named off all these scenarios where you might just want to walk into a brick-and-mortar bank.”

Maybe I’d prefer to walk into a bank if I were a bank robber, like, in an ’80s movie? The ski mask and the “Everybody on the ground now!” cybercrime just isn’t the same.

Save for that, though — and, just to be clear, I’m not a bank robber — I’m much more satisfied with my Aspiration Summit account.

It, like most online bank accounts, acts like any other checking account — and includes a debit card. You can pull money from an ATM, often with no fees.

With Aspiration’s Summit account, I’m reimbursed for ATM fees at any ATM, regardless of network.

With Chime, ATMs are fee-free at MoneyPass locations, which you can find in tons of spots, including Walmarts and grocery stores. Demeny said he uses the Chime app to find businesses where he can get free cash back at check out, like a nearby grocery store.

Check out this list for more banks with free ATMs. (Surprise! Five of the seven are online-only accounts.)

4. You Won’t Get the Perks of the Big Banks

Alright, so the online bank account comes with a shiny modern app, preaches some warm-and-fuzzies and costs almost nothing to keep.

But where’s the beef? You must have to give up the perks you enjoy at big banks, right?

Nope.

With Aspiration’s Summit account, you can earn up to 1% interest on your full balance — 100 times more than the average checking account. (You earn 0.25% if your balance is less than $2,500, still better than the average savings account at 0.06%.)

Aspiration is also a full-fledged financial firm that’ll help you grow your money through investing.

You can invest through its Redwood or Flagship funds with just a $100 minimum investment.

The Redwood fund focuses on companies with sustainable environmental and business practices that are “poised for growth,” while the Flagship fund is for more conservative investors counting on long-term growth.

Chime comes with two benefits users love: an early payday and easy savings.

Unlike most financial institutions, Chime doesn’t wait to give you access to your direct deposit funds until your pay date. It adds money to your account as soon as it receives notification from your employer and immediately posts the funds to your account — up to two days early.

It also helps you save digital change when you spend. It rounds up your Visa debit card purchases to the nearest dollar and puts the difference into your savings account.

You won’t notice the extra 20, 40, 60 cents here and there — but it’ll add up quickly!

It’s like tricking yourself into being financially responsible.

Ready to Try an Online-Only Bank Account?

Alright, I’ll stop. Now that I’ve poured the perks into this post, maybe I can lay off my friends and family… and that guy behind me in line at the ice cream place.

I hope this helps you chill out about some of your fears.

If you’re ready to give these bank accounts a whirl, here are two of our favorites:

Aspiration Summit checking account: Sign up for free ATMs, charitable giving and a strong APY.

Chime spending and savings accounts: Sign up for automatic savings and early direct deposit.

Dana Sitar (dana@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer/newsletter editor at The Penny Hoarder. Say hi and tell her a good joke on Twitter @danasitar.

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.

source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/2ks4rad

Ever Wonder How Generic and Brand-Name Drugs Differ? Here’s What We Found

The difference between generic and name-brand drugs sends my head spinning with questions.

Why is generic always cheaper — if not free? Why do some drugs not some in generic forms? Do I actually have different side effects or is it that the ol‘ placebo effect? How come I even have an option? Why do I sometimes not have an option?

I’ve asked the pharmacist and my doctor these questions, and I always get a mumbo-jumbo reply that doesn’t directly answer any of my questions. Sorry, I don’t have a PhD.

Now my rule of thumb is to just opt for the cheapest offering. However, I still wonder: What’s the difference?

In the spirit of saving money and questions — so many questions — I decided to dig up some research and chat with some experts.

Generic vs. Name-Brand Drugs: What’s the Deal?

Well, there really isn’t a big difference.

“The FDA goes to great lengths to ensure that the brand and generic drugs perform equally,” Sandy Walsh, a press officer at the Food and Drug Administration, writes in an email.

“Health care professionals and consumers can be assured that FDA approved generic drug products have met the same rigid standards as the innovator drug,” she continues. “All generic drugs approved by FDA have the same high quality, strength, purity and stability as brand-name drugs.”

Additionally, she says, the manufacturing, packaging and testing sites have to pass the same type of quality tests as the sites of brand-name drugs.

So, the active ingredients must not waiver from that of the name brand; however, certain components might. Those include the inactive ingredients and the time-release technology. Walsh says these don’t need to match exactly, but she assures me they are all safe.

Basically, the FDA has to approve everything, so generic drugs are safe for us. And they’re not much different than the name-brand version.

Then Why Are Generic Drugs a Thing — and Cheaper?

Here’s the origin of the generic drug: When a company creates a name-brand drug, it holds a patent on said drug for 20 years, according to Harvard Health Publishing. This patent begins when the drug is invented — not when it hits the market.

There are also exclusivity periods, which are exclusive marketing rights that can last up to seven years. These might not run in conjunction with the patent.

Once these regulations expire, other companies can step in to create their own versions of the drug — and charge less. They can do that because they don’t have to invest in research trials, marketing, advertising or distribution, a “long and costly process,” Harvard Health Publishing says.

When the generic drug hits the market, Walsh says, they help improve competition and provide different, more affordable options for the consumer.

However, it’s worth noting that when generic drugs first come out on the market, they’re usually just as expensive as the name-brand, explains Julie Howell, a Walgreens pharmacist in Lexington, South Carolina.

“A lot of the time, insurance doesn’t cover them because they aren’t in their system yet,” she says. “It takes a while, but as eventually more companies get their generics approved, the prices will start to go down.”

Different Types of Drugs, Different Effects

Does it have something to do with the placebo effect? Am I imagining it?

Your concerns are valid. Although all generic drugs are run through FDA standards, those inactive ingredients mentioned above can affect your body differently.

Howell says she gets the generic vs. name-brand question all the time.

She says that, although, the active ingredients are indeed the same, the inactive ingredients can cause different effects.

“These inactive ingredients can cause side effects or just cause the drug to be less effective,” she explains. “It’s super common with birth control, migraine meds, seizure meds and a few others.”

She says some people are simply sensitive to those inactive ingredients and have to stick with either the brand or generic version.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about your name-brand or generic drugs, be sure to chat with your doctor or your pharmacist. I’ve had many conversations with my doctor on the matter, and she’s always happy to help out — and help me determine the most affordable option.

Carson Kohler (@CarsonKohler) is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s thrilled to have a somewhat, not-too-complicated answer to a question that’s always plagued her.

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.

source The Penny Hoarder http://ift.tt/2fV7qGK

Meals in Minutes: Pan-Roasted Chicken With Lemon-Garlic Green Beans

By Holly Reisem Hanna Mondays are always a busy day in our household, and complicated meals are out of the question. That’s why I love this next recipe, it sounds complicated, but it is so simple to make, and best of all it can be made in one dish. I’ve even thrown this together on […]

The post Meals in Minutes: Pan-Roasted Chicken With Lemon-Garlic Green Beans appeared first on The Work at Home Woman.

Source The Work at Home Woman http://ift.tt/2fWVg0b

5 Tips to Help You Turn Your Internship Into a Job Before You Even Graduate