Puzzle Me This: This Museum Will Pay You to Put Together Jigsaw Puzzles

“Yo, dawg, we heard you like puzzles, so we put a puzzle within a puzzle and turned it into a job.” — The Strong National Museum of Play, probably. (All right so not really.)

But seriously, The Strong National Museum of Play, located in Rochester, New York, is looking for a full-time puzzle cataloger to put together more than 7,500 jigsaw puzzles in its extensive collection.

OK, don’t book your flight to Rochester just yet. I mean, sure, doing puzzles all day sounds like a breeze, right? But there’s a catch.

For this job, it’s not enough to just be a professional puzzler — you also have to be a history buff, because you’ll need to be able to identify and catalog puzzles from countries around the world, all dating back as far as the 1700s.

No Easy Task

Here’s the deal: whoever lands the job will have six months to assemble and catalog 7,500 jigsaw puzzles.

If you’re doing the math in your head right now (or on a calculator, I won’t judge), you’re probably wondering how in the world someone is supposed to complete close to eight puzzles per hour.

Well, they’re not. And that’s where the second “puzzle” comes in.

Obviously, the chosen puzzler won’t have time to fully piece together all 7,500 jigsaw puzzles. Instead, they’ll have to assemble just enough pieces to make out the image in the puzzle, so they can date it, log it and store it properly.

How to Become a Museum Puzzler

But while you should be quick with assembling jigsaw puzzles, you don’t necessarily need to be an expert puzzler.

The museum is actually looking for someone who has a strong understanding of history and can identify key historical figures and periods with little provided information (such as an incomplete jigsaw image).

The ideal candidate will have a bachelor’s degree in museum studies, history, library science, humanities or a related field. You should also have experience with scanning equipment and software and with a museum collections database such as Argus or PastPerfect.

This is a six-month position that may have the potential to turn into long-term work, according to Christopher Bensch, vice president for Collections at The Strong.

As for pay, you’ll make a comfortable sum (more than minimum wage — but nothing too crazy — according to Bensch).

The job comes with benefits, however, and you’ll be eligible to receive paid time off, holiday pay and medical coverage after 90 days.

If you think you’re ready to take on this puzzling position, you can apply here.

You’ll need to include a resume and cover letter. According to Time, a video showcasing your puzzle-solving abilities could help, too.

Grace Schweizer is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder. If you need her, she’ll be under a pile of blankets taking 6 months to do one puzzle — not 7,500.

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

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How to Run a Profitable Giveaway

Running a contest or a promotional giveaway is one of my favorite ways for a company to connect with their customers.

But like so many other aspects of business, I see too many people doing this wrong.

That’s OK – for now.

While it may sound simple, promotional campaigns like this aren’t as easy as just picking a name out of a hat.

You want to run a giveaway that creates brand awareness and generates a profit for your company.

When done correctly, this won’t cost much at all.

Contests can even generate some free advertising for your brand.

This is especially true if you use social media as the platform for your giveaways.

89% of marketing experts said that social media increased exposure for their company.

In addition to exposure, social media marketing:

• generates leads
• increases website traffic
• improves customer relationships
• helps search rankings

That’s what you need to remember.

Giveaways are a marketing tactic.

So if you’re not using these tools to promote your brand and ultimately increase profits, you’re doing it wrong.

I’ve got plenty of experience in this space.

I’ll show you how to run a profitable giveaway and provide some examples for you to follow as well.

Figure out what kind of contest you want to run

All promotional contests are not the same.

There are three main types of promotions that you can do.

1. Contest
2. Sweepstakes
3. Lottery

If you’re running a contest, it means that the participants are doing something that requires some sort of skill and effort to win a prize.

Some popular contests may include a photo, video, essay, or caption.

The winners are selected by some sort of vote or judgment.

Here’s an example.

The picture that has the most likes will win this contest.

A sweepstakes, on the other hand, requires no skill, and it’s based completely on chance.

Winners get determined randomly.

Purchases, payments, and other considerations cannot determine the winner of a sweepstakes.

A lottery means that contestants made some sort of purchase or monetary consideration in order to participate.

For example, buying a ticket for a chance to be selected would count as a lottery.

Don’t do this.

In fact, state and federal laws have restrictions against these kinds of giveaways.

So it’s in your best interest to just stick to contests and sweepstakes.

Before you get started, ask yourself if you want to just give something away randomly or if you want there to be skill involved.

There’s nothing wrong with a sweepstakes, but personally, I think contests are more effective.

When your customers know that their efforts will increase their chances of winning, it gets them more engaged with your brand.

Choose the right platform

Now that you’ve decided whether or not you’re going to run a contest or sweepstakes, it’s time to figure out how where you plan to host it.

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Your website
• Email

All of these are viable options.

In fact, you could potentially run the same contest through multiple platforms.

Select a winner on each one.

That could get your customers to participate more than once and increase your brand exposure even more.

Here’s an example of a website contest from Fairmont Hotels & Resorts.

It’s very professional and well written.

With that said, you don’t want to limit yourself by running a giveaway solely on your website.

How often do people visit your site?

Probably not as often as they use social media platforms.

That’s why I recommend using social media as the primary platforms for your giveaways.

It’s a great way to establish brand loyalty.

The people who follow you on social media are already interested in your business.

Running a giveaway here will peak their interest even more.

Plus, any actions that they take such as liking, commenting, posting, or sharing will get viewed on the newsfeed of all of their friends.

Set a deadline

It may sound simple or obvious, but you would be surprised how often I see this mistake.

Your deadline needs to be clear, for a few reasons.

Let’s say a customer or prospective contestant wants to enter your giveaway.

If they don’t see a posted deadline, it could turn them away.

This person may just assume that the deadline has passed, even if you haven’t chosen a winner yet.

You’re missing out on a chance of getting more exposure if this customer was going to share the information on their social media platforms.

Another reason you’ll need to post the deadline is to avoid late entries.

Pretend you’re running an Instagram contest where the winner is selected by the most number of likes on a photo.

You choose a winner but a few days later someone posts a picture that gets more likes than the one you selected.

This contestant contacts you for their prize.

Now what?

You’re put in a tough situation, and overall it’s not a good look for your company.

Adding a deadline to your giveaway is too easy for you to forget.

Look at the example above.

See how easy that was?

Next time you run a promotional giveaway, make sure the deadline is clearly posted.

It will save you some headaches down the road.

Make sure the rules are clear

Piggybacking off of my last point, you don’t want to have any confusion while you’re running the contest.

Depending on your location, rules may vary from state to state.

So you’ll want to make sure that whatever you’re doing falls within legal regulations.

Here are some things are commonly included as rules for a contest:

• Eligibility (age, location, etc.)
• No purchase required
• Purchases don’t increase chances of winning
• Dates (winner chosen and winner notified)
• Judging criteria (for contests)
• Privacy laws regarding the winner identity
• Odds of winnings

If you’re running a contest on a specific platform, make sure that you’re compliant with those rules and regulations as well.

Here’s a link to the Facebook guidelines for running a promotion, which is definitely something that I recommend you review before getting started.

For example, you must acknowledge that your promotion is not endorsed, sponsored, or affiliated with Facebook (the company) in any way.

Facebook also prohibits using phrases like:

• “share on your timeline to enter”
• “post this on a friend’s page to enter”
• “tag your friends to increase chances of winning”

So while you want to encourage posts and shares, just make sure you do it within the rules.

Here’s a snippet from TMZ’s contest rules and regulations.

The full page is much longer, but they clearly and thoroughly post everything to avoid any potential confusion, liability, or legal trouble.

If you have a long page of rules, consider providing a link to your website for a full explanation.

That’s more efficient than trying to post something as long as the above example as your Instagram caption.

The prize needs to be relevant

What are you giving away?

It needs to be related and appropriate for your brand and image.

Let’s say you’re a company that specializes in snowboarding and ski equipment.

Running a contest that gives the winner round trip tickets to the Bahamas doesn’t really speak to your audience.

Flying them out to a ski lodge in Colorado would make much more sense.

If you’re giving away a physical product, include a photo of it.

Telling the contestants that you’re giving away a new camera isn’t as effective as showing them the camera.

Here’s an example of a giveaway from Ticket Master.

It’s relevant.

You can buy tickets to sporting events on their website, so they’re giving customers a chance to win a trip to the Super Bowl.

Although they didn’t include an image of the actual tickets, the Super Bowl logo is just as effective.

Visuals speak to people more than words.

That’s why it’s important to incorporate them into your promotion.

Create a customized hashtag for your giveaway

Hashtags are one of the best ways to promote your brand on social media.

So come up with something unique that speaks to your company as well as the promotion.

If you’re having trouble coming up with something, you can use an online resource like Hashtagify to come up with related tags and trends for your industry.

Use that as a guide to create your own, but make sure nobody else has used it before, so there’s no confusion.

For those of you who already use hashtags successfully to promote your brand, make sure you come up with a new one for each contest.

Here’s a great example of how High Society Freeride used a unique hashtag to promote their giveaway.

Notice how they effectively used capitalization, so the hashtag pops and is easy to read.

#OneLifeMakeItCount reads much better than #onelifemakeitcount.

The hashtag can be the way you find a winner of a contest.

Just click on the hashtag to view all the pictures, videos, and posts.

That’s the easiest way to review and judge which entries were the best.

The hardest part about using a hashtag is just coming up with a creative one in the first place.

After that, it doesn’t require any effort or money from your company.

Hashtags can also increase engagement and make it easier for you to spread the word about your giveaway.

Make sure mobile users can access and participate in your contest

I mentioned earlier that you shouldn’t just run a giveaway through your website.

Keep mobile users in mind when you’re coming up with this marketing strategy.

Mobile users spend the majority of their time using apps.

So consider using platforms that are strictly for apps.

Instagram is a top choice for this.

Facebook and Twitter also have mobile applications, which is why earlier I recommended social media platforms as the top resource for giveaways.

If your company has its own mobile app, run your giveaway through there as well.

You can send users who downloaded the app notifications of the promotion directly to their phones.

Allow contestants to share the contest with friends and family

To get the most exposure, your giveaway needs to be shareable.

Earlier I mentioned that some platforms, such as Facebook, prohibit you from using certain statements to encourage sharing.

With that said, you can still include social sharing icons on your website.

Here’s a great example of how Fatherly did this to promote their sweepstakes.

Again, the whole idea behind this giveaway is to turn a profit for your company.

Allowing users to share this content will drive more traffic to your site and potentially improve conversions as well.

Notify everyone when you’ve selected a winner

This relates back to what we talked about earlier about establishing a timeline.

Take your deadline one step further.

For example, the date for participants to enter your promotion may be the last day of the month.

However, it could take you up to a week or two to go through all of the entries and select a winner, especially if it’s a contest with lots of participants.

So make it clear when a winner has been announced.

Look how Starbucks does this to announce the winners of their red cup contest.

Make sure you have the winner’s consent if you’re going to reveal their identity.

All of that should be clearly outlined in the rules (which we discussed earlier) to avoid any problems or confusion.

Conclusion

Don’t run a giveaway without a clear goal or reason.

Like every other business decision you make, this will require some thought and planning.

First, you need to determine which kind of giveaway you’re going to run.

If you want the winner to be completely random, you should hold a sweepstakes.

Contests are better if you want there to be some sort of skill, voting, or judgment involved in determining the winner.

Run the contest on multiple platforms.

Social media works best for establishing customer loyalty and increased brand awareness. It also makes the promotion more shareable.

Set a deadline and clearly post all of the rules for your giveaway.

Make sure your prize is relevant to your brand.

Creating a unique and customized hashtag will help you promote your brand and get more recognition.

When it’s over, make sure you announce to everyone that a winner has been selected.

What do you do after that?

Continue to run more contests!

If you follow these tips, it will be profitable for you every time.

What unique hashtag will you come up with to promote your giveaway on Instagram?

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This Free App Can Score You Some Money for That Massive Comcast Outage

The world came close to ending yesterday.

Just kidding. But Comcast, the largest broadband company in the U.S., experienced a huge outage Monday, Nov. 6. And, for many people, that might as well be the first sign of the apocalypse.

Down Detector’s outage map shows the Comcast outage plagued the East Coast — from Boston to Miami. In addition, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, New York, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle also experienced heavy concentrations of outages.

Disgruntled customers took to Twitter to let Comcast’s customer-care account know they weren’t happy.

Yup, work harder today. Comcast sucks, but I don’t see any refunds in our near future unfortunately. #comcaststillsucks

— Sean Menefee (@sm2designs) November 6, 2017

Still down in Metro Atlanta, has been since noonish. No internet no phone no tv. Glad I am saving money by bundling all 3. #comcastoutage

— Chris Martin (@cmartin68) November 7, 2017

Who do we ask for a refund? Cuz I was on the middle of a conference call when i lost my internet.

— Mass Imo (@mee081224) November 7, 2017

Some asked: “Why am I paying if I’m not getting internet?”

Others wondered about getting reimbursed for a lost half-day of working from home.

Then there’s the million-dollar question: Who do I even ask?

Lord knows Comcast’s customer services lines were — and probably are — still clogged.

An Easy Way to Get Money Back After the Comcast Outage

Here’s an easy way to get reimbursed for yesterday’s lost time — without picking up the phone: Let Trim handle it for you.

Trim is a little bot that will act as your personal financial assistant. It performs many functions, including reimbursing you for Amazon price drops, sending you personal alerts on your spending habits and even negotiating your internet and cable bills.

It works with Time Warner, Charter and — ding, ding! — Comcast.

You can sign up simply with Facebook. Then, upload a PDF of your most recent bill, and Trim’s AI-powered system gets to work reaching out to the cable company.

If at first it doesn’t succeed, it’ll keep negotiating until it can save you some money.

The best part is if you have any outages, Trim believes you deserve a credit, and it’ll handle that for you. So yesterday’s snafu? Trim will recognize that outage and haggle with Comcast on your behalf.

In the past, Trim users have reported big savings:

@ask_trim I thought trim pulled a quick one on me. I was wrong! Trim saved me $200 on my Comcast bill! I simply cant believe it. Thank You! http://pic.twitter.com/xtPzY5oqsm

— Schwifty (@Trmplstilskn00) October 20, 2017

#BelieveTheHype i just received a $100 comcast credit for no work. thanks .@ask_trim http://pic.twitter.com/URbRBxfLqV

— Joshua Lory (@joshua_lory) October 18, 2017

@ask_trim Great work on my Comcast bill! Thanks for the $47 in savings!

— J.D. (@JMD4733) October 16, 2017

@ask_trim thanks for saving me $28.97 for a one-day Comcast TV and internet outage! You are the best!

— Kevin Zuchini (@puddlejumper83) October 18, 2017

Even if you were one of the lucky ones who had their internet restored within a few hours, you could still be eligible for a reimbursement, so it’s worth checking.

Note: Trim takes 25% of the savings tab upfront, but the rest is yours.

The best part? Signing up is free.

Carson Kohler (@CarsonKohler) is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s thankful her internet didn’t go out,  because she was working from home. But she uses Trim, so she would have been stoked for that refund!

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

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Making Financial Goals Inevitable

One of the biggest challenges of long-term goal setting is that the goals that people tend to set for the long term have no real connection to the realities of their day to day lives.

Let’s look at retirement, for example. A long term goal related to retirement might be that you intend to save $1 million for the day you retire. That’s a number that will undoubtedly lead to a comfortable retirement for many Americans, but it’s also a number that is very far outside the day to day life experience of many Americans. Very few among us ever consider amounts in the seven figures in our lives. The average American household income clocks in somewhere around $70,000 per year, and the average American home is valued at around $190,000. Those are both tiny fractions of a million dollars, and even those numbers are outside the realm of day to day life for many of us.

Even more tangible financial goals, like simply paying off one’s debt, seems out of the realm of day to day possibility. The average American household is carrying $133,000 in debt. Paying that off, when the average household income is around $70,000, feels unrealistic.

Quite often, those big goals feel like a mountain far in the distance when you’re walking down the sidewalk, like a pedestrian in Tacoma, WA seeing Mount Rainier in the distance about 80 miles away. Yes, you could get there, but the prospect seems incredibly distant and not realistic.

For the vast majority of people, that sense of long term goals being unrealistic keeps us from working toward them. They don’t feel real in our day to day lives, so we just assume that we’ll take care of them “someday” and we move on with daily living.

The end result of that line of thinking is that 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and nearly half of all Americans have nothing saved for retirement.

We might dream big. We might even start working toward that big dream. But the lack of connection of that big dream to our day to day lives causes it to fade quickly into the background when almost anything urgent – an emergency, a desire, almost anything – pops into the picture.

The trick, then, isn’t how to keep those big monster goals constantly fresh in your mind. The trick is to make those goals inevitable, so that as you stumble through daily life you almost inevitably make progress toward them.

How do you do that? The trick, I’ve found, is to set up a rather short term project with the goal of setting up inevitability of the long term goal.

For example, you might decide that in the next two months, you’re going to put yourself in a position where a healthier retirement is inevitable, or that debt elimination is inevitable.

Of course, it’s worth noting that future poor behavior on your part can always eliminate that inevitability. What you’re actually doing is changing things so that the path of least resistance going forward in your life leads you to some positive results with regards to your big goal.

So, how do you do that? For big financial goals, it breaks down into two pieces.

Piece #1 – Excavate Your Day to Day Life

The first part of making a huge financial goal inevitable is to find the seed money for that giant goal in your daily life. In other words, this is a concerted effort to examine your daily life, find ways you’re spending money that aren’t very useful, change those practices, and keep track of the resulting savings.

One great way to start this process is to look at all of your monthly bills and subscriptions. Go through all of your monthly bills and see if there are any services you can cut entirely or at least trim down. Is this the time to drop cable and switch to over-the-air signals along with streaming services? Is it time to drop Hulu Plus if you haven’t watched it in months? Can you cancel a magazine subscription that you’re not keeping up with?

Go through every single monthly bill you have with a fine tooth comb. Do you need this bill? Do you need all of the services provide? Then, go through every service you’re subscribed to. Do you need that subscription at all? Does that crate subscription really bring you meaningful value?

What you might want to do is simply set a daily task for yourself to go through at least one bill or one subscription a day and figure out if it can be trimmed. Keep repeating this every day until you’ve gone through them all.

As you go through all of those bills and services, keep track of how much you’re cutting. If you cut $20 a month from your cable bill, keep track of it. If you cancel a $25 a year subscription, keep track of it.

Another thing that’s worth doing is to examine some of your regular shopping habits. Do you consistently buy store brand items? Do you buy too many unplanned things online? While those things are more behavioral and not as cut and dried in terms of what they save, you can still make some permanent changes by adopting simple new principles. “I’m going to try all store brands and only switch back if they don’t work for me.” “I’m going to limit my online spending to $100/month.” Then, track how much those changes are saving you.

Just evaluate one such change a day for, say, a month, and focus mostly on changes where you make the change once and the change is permanent, like altering a bill or canceling a service. Keep track of how much you’re going to save going forward from each change.

Piece #2 – Automate The Savings

At the end of the month, you’ve executed some changes. You’ve figured up how much each of those changes will save. Most of those changes are automatic changes, ones where it’s now easier to do things the new way rather than the old way, but you might find that you end up wanting to revert a few of them.

So, here’s what you do. Figure out how much you’re saving per month due to all of those changes. Divide that number in half, which gives you some breathing room for things like reverting a few changes and not feeling like you’re under intense pressure. Then, start putting aside that money automatically.

Let’s say you came up with four changes. One is $30/month. One is $24/year. One is $20/week. One is $100/month. Switch them all to a per-month rate, so $24/year is actually $2/month and $20/week is actually $80/month. Add them all up, giving you a total of $212/month. Divide that in half, giving you $106/month. We’ll use that as an example, but your number might be different.

That’s the amount you’re going to start putting aside for lasting financial change.

Now, how do you put it aside? Take a look at your big, giant, long-term financial goal. What is that goal?

Is it paying off your debts? If so, just add $106 a month to the payment of whatever debt has the highest interest rate. Even better, if you can, automate that extra payment and keep making all of your minimum payments like normal, ignoring the extra payment.

Is it saving for retirement? Set up an automatic contribution of $106/month to your Roth IRA.

Is it saving for your child’s college? Set up a 529 college savings plan for your child and contribute $106/month automatically to it.

Is it simply building an emergency fund? Set up an automatic transfer of $106 on the first of each month into a savings account, perhaps at a different bank entirely.

For some people, having this automatic transfer happen weekly might be smoother – perhaps an automatic transfer or automatic payment of $27 per week might be better. Just set up whatever you think will work best for you.

The thing is, once you set this up, you basically don’t have to do anything else. You’re already on a day-to-day path of least resistance in life, so you don’t have to work for change. However, you’re automatically putting money toward whatever your big financial goal is. Your debt will just start shrinking. Your retirement savings will just start growing. Your emergency fund will just start building. Whatever your goal is, you’re going to keep moving towards it now, no matter how you stumble or drift in day to day life.

What you’ve done is altered your general financial direction. This kind of alteration isn’t a big painful long term goal that’s so enormous that you feel like you’ll never get there. This alteration is something you can do in a few minutes a day over the course of a month, and then largely forget about the whole thing.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, this process excites you and empowers you to dig into more steps. Maybe you’ll now figure out more things you can do to change your situation. Maybe you’ll decide to use more of what’s left over to usher in more changes, like using that money to buy some things in bulk or to buy some quality reliable items that you won’t have to constantly replace or to get regular maintenance on your car to drastically extend the life of your car and save on costly repairs.

Again, it comes back to rethinking your goal. You might have this giant big long term goal in mind, but what you should really be thinking about is the next few weeks or the next month, where you’re actively putting pieces in place so that your life starts inevitably marching toward that goal without your consistent effort involved.

Good luck!

The post Making Financial Goals Inevitable appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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The Introvert’s Guide to Surviving (and Thriving!) at a Networking Event

To Protect and Serve: Here’s How to Start a Career as a Police Officer

Costumed theme park gigs aside, you’ll hardly ever see a job listing for a superhero.

But if thwarting bad guys and saving the day is your thing, snagging a job as a police officer comes pretty close.

It’s a pretty lucrative career — albeit a dangerous and stressful one — that doesn’t require a college degree in many cases.

The average salary for police or sheriff’s patrol officers in May 2016 was $62,760, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Of course, pay will vary depending on where you live. Officers in California earn an average of $96,660, according to BLS data, with several metro areas, including San Jose, Napa and San Francisco, paying their police officers over six figures.

Salaries will also fluctuate depending on which agency you join. For example, state governments tend to pay more than local municipalities, the BLS reports.

So now that we’ve got your attention with the salary you could earn, let’s dig into what it takes to actually become a police officer.

A Career as a Cop

The role of the police involves enforcing laws and protecting the public. To do so, an individual will need to undergo rigorous training and will be subjected to an intense hiring process.

While colleges offer degrees in law enforcement-related fields of study, such as criminal justice, many agencies only require applicants to have a high school diploma.

Federal jobs, like working for the FBI or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, are more likely to require applicants to have a college degree.

Candidates typically must be at least 21 years old with a clean criminal background.

In addition to various background checks, potential police officers must pass a basic skills test and a physical exam, which can include completing various exercises, according to LawEnforcementEDU. They’ll also have to undergo medical and psychological evaluations and pass a polygraph test.

Then comes specialized training at an academy.

Basic law enforcement training academies last about 21 weeks on average, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, though time will vary depending on the agency.

Recruits will learn about patrol procedures, handling investigations, writing reports, operating emergency vehicles and the use of weapons and other defensive tactics. Additionally, prospective officers will learn about laws, civil rights and police ethics, the BLS reports.

After graduating from police academy, recruits will still need to undergo in-the-field training. According to The Balance, the entire hiring process could take four months to a year to complete.

Once on the job, police officers can move up the ranks with promotions based on job performance, undergoing additional training or passing written exams.

Though the BLS classifies the job outlook for police officers as slower than average for all occupations, a quick search on Indeed shows hundreds of openings available around the country.

Having a degree, military experience or fluency in another language can greatly improve your chances for employment in this field.

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.

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Industry Insider: Emerging market funds are looking good for long-term investors

Emerging market equities, shares in companies located in less developed regions of the world, have been one of the biggest success stories so far in 2017.

In the year to date (30 December to 6 October 2017), the MSCI Emerging Markets index, which captures the performance of large and medium-sized companies across 24 emerging markets countries, has risen by 23% in sterling terms. This compares to 10% from the MSCI World index (large and medium-sized companies in 23 developed market countries) and 9% from the S&P 500 index (large US companies), according to FE Analytics.

Emerging markets have enjoyed a resurgence since the oil price bottomed during the first quarter of 2016. This followed a challenging few years when they lagged behind their developed counterparts, as lower commodity prices and fears of a Chinese slowdown weighed on performance.

Today, it appears to be a different story. Emerging markets have benefited from an improved economic backdrop, earnings growth and consumer trends.

• Industry Insider: Where in the world can you find a decent income?

Emerging economies are by no means homogenous, so there will be exceptions. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that investors in funds that specialise in global emerging markets are likely to be happy with returns over the past 18 months, with the average fund in the Investment Association’s global emerging markets sector up 49% from 1 April 2016 to 6 October 2017, according to FE Analytics.

Can this momentum continue? Analysts at Goldman Sachs Asset Management believe it can, with a little help from millennials. How the millennial consumer thinks and acts is likely to have a profound impact on emerging market growth over the coming years. For example, e-commerce penetration in China has surpassed the US – millennials typically making 40%-plus of purchases online*.

Some emerging markets offer superior growth prospects in comparison to developed markets. For example, India has great demographics, an entrepreneurial society and political stability under prime minister Narendra Modi. Unfortunately, valuations are starting to look pricey, so it isn’t a screaming buy right now. Nevertheless, it should represent a good long-term allocation – if you can lock your money away for at least fi ve to 10 years.

My enthusiasm doesn’t extend to Brazil, where president Michel Temer faces corruption allegations. This creates the potential for further economic instability, following the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff last year.

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I view China as a mixed bag. Question marks remain over the sustainability of debt levels and the potential impact of an economic slowdown. On the other hand, there are some fantastic companies in China, so stock selection is key.

On various metrics, emerging market stocks appear fair value right now; a re-rating has accompanied the fantastic run these markets have had over the past year.

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I suggest backing an active fund manager rather than an index tracker fund. This is because savvy stock pickers can buy into exciting companies (hopefully, at the right price), avoiding state-owned enterprises, where investment prospects are less favourable and debt levels can be high.

Julian Mayo and Mark Bickford-Smith, who manage the Charlemagne Magna Emerging Markets Dividend fund, are talented stock pickers. They focus on companies with high dividends or dividend growth potential. [Moneywise says: Note that this fund has a relatively high ongoing annual charge of 1.42%.]

I also like M&G Global Emerging Markets’ value bias. Manager Matthew Vaight identifies stocks where change is happening that hasn’t been appreciated by other investors. He is happy to hold these stocks long term. [Moneywise says: This fund’s ongoing annual charge is 0.98%]

However, there are risks: these include geo-politics (not least the growing tensions between the US and North Korea), US protectionism and the impact of Federal Reserve monetary policy tightening.

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Emerging market equities represent a good long-term investment, given the exciting growth prospect – but try to stay calm if volatility returns.

*Source: Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, ‘The Asian Consumer: Chinese Millennials’, September 2015 Past performance is not a reliable guide to future returns. You may not get back the amount originally invested, and tax rules can change over time.

Darius McDermott is managing director at Chelsea Financial Services and FundCalibre.

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When Can You Stop Paying for Life Insurance?

It’s a common belief that everyone needs life insurance, but if you reach a stage in life when no one else is counting on your income to provide for their needs, your money might be better spent elsewhere.

“Life insurance premiums can be a waste of hard-earned cash if you’re not trying to mitigate a specific risk,” says Brandon D. LaValley, a financial advisor based in Colorado. “Not everybody needs life insurance.”

The main purpose of life insurance is to provide for your dependents if you die unexpectedly. This is especially important for people with young children or spouses who would struggle to make ends meet on their own income. In such cases, if you die, the life insurance takes the place of your income.

While life insurance is a useful financial tool, it isn’t right for everyone, LaValley says. Once you become financially successful, your savings, investments, and home equity may be adequate to provide for your family without the need for a life policy. Setting aside funds to care for your dependents if you die is called “self-insuring.”

“If you’re in a position to self-insure, you may not need to be paying those insurance premiums,” LaValley says.

Life Insurance for Retirees

The need to maintain a life insurance policy typically diminishes as you age. Many retirees find themselves in a position where they can drop their coverage, LaValley adds.

As time passes, home mortgages get paid off and children grow up to become financially independent. At the same time, life insurance prices typically rise, since the risk of dying increases with age. This price increase can be avoided if you buy a permanent life insurance policy, which is designed to keep your payments level over time.

When you become a senior citizen, it makes sense to weigh the costs of having life insurance against the benefits it provides. When you’re 40 and plan to support a household for the next 20 to 30 years, you probably need life insurance, says Mike Davis, an investment advisor based in Tennessee. “However, if you’re retired and financially secure, making increasingly expensive life insurance payments does not always make good financial sense.”

Seniors sometimes use life insurance to create a legacy for a child, a grandchild, or a charity. However, if you don’t have a large cushion of cash to support yourself in your old age, the money you spend on insurance may do more good if it is saved or invested.

Reviewing Your Finances

It’s important that you don’t drop your life insurance before you have carefully reviewed your finances, says life insurance provider Matt Schmidt.

“Many people think they have adequate assets, but until you review all the angles, don’t change a thing with your insurance portfolio,” Schmidt says.

If you drop your coverage and decide to buy a new policy at some future date, “the costs would more than likely be a lot more expensive,” he adds. If there have been significant changes to your health, you may not even qualify for life insurance, Schmidt explains.

Four Important Questions

Here are four questions to consider before you drop your life insurance coverage:

1. Do you have children who have yet to complete their education? College costs continue to climb. Be sure your children would have the means to complete their schooling if the income stream you provide were suddenly cut off.

2. Could your spouse or a domestic partner support themselves if you died? Many spouses are capable of supporting themselves. However, if they’re disabled or unable to earn adequate income, life insurance benefits can be their lifeline.

3. Could your family pay your mortgage payments and other debts if you died? If not, your family could be forced to uproot themselves and sell their home.

4. Are your life insurance needs likely to change? LaValley says it’s important to reassess your life insurance needs whenever you experience a major life event, such as taking on a new mortgage, getting married, having children, divorcing, or changing jobs.

Life Insurance Choices

If you decide that you do need a life insurance policy, you must choose between term life, which covers you for a set time period, and permanent or whole life, which provides coverage as long as you live, if you keep up your payments. Term policies typically are much less expensive, but permanent life builds cash value over time.

Because many of the “big ticket” items we buy life insurance to protect are temporary, term life insurance often is the most appropriate choice, says Jordan M. Jacobs, an investment advisor based in Illinois.

“The mortgage we protect will eventually be paid off,” he says. “The children’s college tuition will eventually be paid. Therefore we ought to cover temporary needs with temporary (term) insurance.”

If you decide to terminate a cash-value permanent life policy, you’ll need to consider the possible tax ramifications, says Natalie Cooper, an independent insurance agent in Ohio. If you drop a term life policy, there are no such considerations.

“Term insurance has no value and no long-term financial commitment beyond the next premium payment due,” she says. “If you want it to end, just stop paying for it.”

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