Louis DeNaples is asking a state court to let him plow snow and conduct other side jobs at Mount Airy Casino Resort, a Poconos gambling hall he founded and turned over to his children after being charged with perjury for lying about alleged mob ties.Monday’s hearing before a three-judge Commonwealth Court panel was DeNaples’ latest legal attempt to lift a nearly decade-old ban on his ability to profit “directly or indirectly” from the casino. That ban [...]
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الثلاثاء، 5 ديسمبر 2017
Need a (Career) Lift? Check Out These Work-From-Home Jobs From AAA
Drivers nationwide have been known to trust that AAA will come through when they call. That’s likely due, in part, to responsive customer service representatives.
The company is looking to hire more of those helpful individuals to join their ranks.
We found job openings for AAA customer service reps in California, Texas, Michigan, Tennessee, Florida and Nebraska.
These positions come with good pay and benefits, as well as the potential for bonuses and the opportunity to work from home after six months.
Keep reading to learn more, or for other interesting job opportunities, be sure to check out our Jobs page on Facebook.
Customer Service Representatives for AAA
Pay:
Up to $18+ an hour (depending on location and experience)
Responsibilities include:
- Responding to calls in a fast-paced environment
- Assisting members with solutions to their problems
For several of these positions, applicants must:
- Have at least one year of customer service experience
- Have a high school diploma or GED
- Complete background and drug screenings, plus pass company pre-employment assessments
Benefits may include:
- Paid training
- The opportunity to work from home after six months
- Medical, dental and vision healthcare coverage
- Paid time off
- Potential for bonuses and advancement
AAA is hiring customer service reps based out of the following cities. Click the links below for more information and to apply.
Nicole Dow is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
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The Automatic Millionaire with New York Times Best Selling Author David Bach
Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of sitting down with financial expert and author David Bach. You probably know David from his amazing personal finance books, which include The Automatic Millionaire, Start Late, Finish Rich, and Smart Couples Finish Rich.
As a keynote speaker at FinCon this year, Bach made his way to Dallas to share his wisdom with money nerds like me.
This was a surreal experience for me because I've admired or, better said, had a “man crush” on David for several years because of his transition from a financial advisor to a globally recognized author and speaker.
Essentially, he has laid the stepping stones for a journey that I'm right in the middle of. So to meet him in person AND get some 1-on-1 time had me in a wonderfully giddy state.
Here's what you'll learn in the interview:
- How I first was introduced to David Bach in 2005 while on tour in Iraq. Because when you’re deployed, the only things you do in your free time are workout, play poker and read.
- How David's childhood really paved the path for his understanding and interest in the financial advising world.
- Hear what the turning point was for David transitioning from the financial advising segment of his career to chasing his passion.
- How did the actual transition take place to pursue his dream? Hear what the process looked like with the realities life has… providing for your family, taking care of your wife, moving across the country, etc.
- How David was able to reach his goal of teaching 1 million people.
- What by-products came from chasing his passion that really were not planned, but certainly are a bonus today. (This is the GOOD STUFF!)
- How when you’re passionate about something, you really never get tired of teaching about it.
- How taking a year or more sabbatical to rest and reflect is actually a really terrifying decision to make… but the single greatest thing David can recommend to anyone.
- How you can plan and prepare to take a sabbatical in the coming year.
- Hear what would be a success over the next three years for David and how he’s setting those goals now.
You can watch the interview here:
And if you want a free copy of David's best-selling book The Automatic Millionaire, I'm giving away 10 copies. Holla!
For your chance to win you just need to do 3 simple things:
- Subscribe to my YouTube channel. Just click here. Easy peasy.
- Like this video.
- Leave a comment.
That's it!
Or you can read the interview transcription below. Enjoy!
Interview with David Bach
Jeff Rose: When you're in Iraq and you have downtime, you either work out, play poker, or read books. I took a lot of books with me, probably because I was on a John Grisham kick at the time. I took every single John Grisham book with me and read them all before looking for other books to read.
The cool thing is, soldiers were getting books all the time. So, all the other units that were there before us left books for us to read, too. I saw this book called The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach. I had heard of the book, but never had the time to read it until I was on deployment.
David Bach: Wow!
Jeff Rose: If I recall correctly, I read it all in about a day and a half. I just absorbed it.
David Bach: That’s fantastic. The goal of that book was to make it so anybody could read it in a really short amount of time. That way, they could easily go and act on it.
Jeff Rose: I remember I read it and then everyone that was deployed with me knew I was a financial advisor. So, people would tell me they wanted to get a handle on their finances and ask me what book they should read. I started telling them about your book. This was 2005.
David Bach: That’s amazing.
Jeff Rose: Yes, that was the first time I was introduced to you and your ideas like “the latte factor.” I just wanted to say “thank you” for encouraging me and inspiring others how to handle their money differently.
David Bach: I just got chills. I didn't know this was coming, so thank you. It really makes me feel good. First of all, thank you again for your service. It makes me feel good to know that it was reaching you in Iraq. I just had the privilege of speaking to a group of people who were transitioning out of the military, and we gave everybody copies of The Automatic Millionaire. I also gave a talk. You guys do such a service for our country and financial education is so important when you make the transition from the military to the civilian world. I'm glad I could help you and I'm glad I could help some of your friends.
How David Started His Career as a Financial Advisor
Jeff Rose: Yeah, that's awesome. I kind of want to take a step back. You're a New York Times Bestselling Author. You've written a lot of content and put a lot of amazing advice out there. Before that, you were a financial advisor with Morgan Stanley. Can you tell me a little bit about how that started? What made you want to become a financial advisor?
David Bach: I don't know how much of my story you know, but I grew up in the business. My dad was a financial advisor. They used to call them stockbrokers. I still remember walking into my dad’s office. They had ticker tapes. Most of you who are watching this have absolutely no idea what a ticker tape is.
Before there was this thing called the internet, before there was a Quotron machine and stock quotes came off of a ticker tape machine. You would actually go into a stockbroker's office to find out where the stocks were trading. You don't even know what I'm talking about.
Jeff Rose: I've seen the movies.
David Bach: They would tear a piece of paper off. As a three or four-year-old kid, I remember going and getting those pieces of paper and bringing them to my dad's office. I remember when the computer came out and the Quotron was the first machine to give you a stock quote. My grandmother helped me buy my first stock at age seven. It was in McDonald's. She taught me how to become an investor one day at McDonald's. She took the Wall Street Journal, circled the stock, showed me MCD, put me in front of the TV, and taught me how to read the stock quotes going across the bottom of the screen. I started investing at seven. At age nine, my dad started teaching retirement classes.
When I was nine, my mom told my dad he needed to bring me to the class so I could at least see him one night a week. He did and he dressed me up in a suit and tie. I sat in the back of the room. During the breaks, his students would come up and tell me what they learned from my father that changed their life.
In 1993, I joined the business and went through training. I also started teaching classes right away. Eventually, I started teaching classes that taught women how to manage money. That happened because, in a very short period of time, I set in multiple meetings with widows. I met with three in a month. They were very unprepared.
Financially, they were okay and they were lucky because my dad was their advisor, but they knew very little about money. I was sort of shocked. I thought,
“I'm going to do something and create a class for women and money.”
That's what started my passion. I started teaching these classes until they became more popular. As my classes became more and more popular, I wanted to reach more people.
The Scariest Career Jump of His Life
Jeff Rose: Your business is thriving. You're teaching seminars. You're kind of reaching this point where you have a higher calling, like there's something bigger here than just managing money. We were just talking about how you were in the Strategic Coaching program, which is something I was in for five years. I listened to an interview that you did with Dan Sullivan. I'm not sure how long ago this was, but I remember it was a CD that I listened to in my car.
I still have it, but what I remember about the interview is that you said you were sitting in your office and I think you had a client call in that was trying to get their dividend check deposited while traveling overseas.
You kind of had this out-of-body experience where you wondered if it was your life’s calling to make sure your client’s dividend check was deposited while they were traveling. I think we've all kind of had moments like that. I'm curious because many people want to chase their calling and their passion forever. You have a thriving business. You've got no reason to not continue to do that.
David Bach: Everybody told me that I was out of my mind. I was nine years into Morgan Stanley. At the time, I think I had around $700 million in our management. I had built a fee-based business. Anybody who is listening to this knows that is the holy grail. I was doing financial planning and fee-based business and this was the 90’s. People looked at me like I was crazy when I said I was going to change gears.
“You're going to move to New York and write books and try to help a million people? What are you going to do if that doesn't work?”
Jeff Rose: Can you talk a little bit about that? Just making that bold leap. How do you go from a fee-based business that's on autopilot for the most part and to turn your back on that and say, “I want to do something else?”
David Bach: There were multiple parts to this. Interestingly enough, Strategic Coach was also a part of that. I started Strategic Coach in 1997. I had gone through Tony Robbins program in the early 90’s. I was in real estate first. At a Tony Robbins seminar, I kind of came up with my overarching big mission, which I wrote in a journal:
“I want to go out and teach a million women to be smarter with their money so they can protect their families and teach their kids.”
I became crystal clear on what I felt like I was here to do with my life.
The problem is, having a calling can really complicate your life. Let's just be totally honest, right? I was set living in the Bay Area with a beautiful home, a country club membership, and a great career. I decided to throw all that away so I could help other people.
I've had lots and lots of success, but none of it's been easy. What did I actually do to make the transition? I went through a lot of pain.
First, I went through the realization that I wanted something different. That's where that story that you're talking about with Dan Sullivan came in. I had that moment – a lightbulb moment. Basically, I built this great business with Morgan Stanley and I had succeeded as a financial advisor. The more you succeed as a financial advisor, you start to work with wealthier and wealthier clients. It's part of the way the business is set up. I'm going to work with wealthier and wealthier clients. I'm going to work with fewer of them. Once I was in my late 20’s, I could start to see the rest of my life. Basically, for the next 20 years I'm going to work with a hundred or fewer wealthy families and that's all I'm going to do? By the way, I'm not judging anybody if that’s what they do for a living. I know people who work with 10 families and they have the greatest life ever.
But, I wanted to go around and teach more people. I was teaching people Smart Women Finish Rich, which was my first book. Then I did some more, and I was flying all over the country. My wife was super supportive, but I was gone a lot.
Jeff Rose: You're still in your practice at this point?
David Bach: I'm still in my practice. It's like working three jobs. I'm running a practice and I'm promoting these books and I'm promoting the seminars. I was flying back and forth from California to New York a lot because that's where all the TV is. I was very blessed. I kept getting asked to go back on The View over and over again. I'm on The View with Barbara Walters for a long time, like an eight-minute segment. She just kept talking and talking with me. I'm like, “Oh my God, I'm on The View with Barbara Walters.” If my grandmother would have been alive to see this, she would be so proud.
I got back in the car and I said to my wife, “This was amazing. That was the best show I've ever done. I just spent two days traveling to be on TV for seven minutes. If I'm going to really do this, we need to move to New York.”
She said, “If that's what you really want to do, then let's do it.”
I hired a coach and I kind of worked through what would it take for me to make that transition. I didn't just wake up and do it one day. The transition was probably about a 12 to 18-month period of time where I really worked it all out. I worked it out financially. I worked it out mentally. I worked it out with my family and then I did it.
Then 9/11 happened. I told all my clients I was basically retiring and moving to New York. It wasn't retirement, though. I was going to move to New York and try to teach millions of people. I did that in June, July, and August and 9/11 rolled around. I rushed into the office and started calling all of my clients.
They said, “Well, you're not going now, right? You're not going to New York now?”
Not only did we go to New York, but we moved downtown. We moved to New York in November 2001.
Hitting the New York Times Best Seller's List
Jeff Rose: You made the move and made the transition. Now you’re writing more books and doing more workshops. When did you actually make the New York Times Best Seller list? Was that your second book?
David Bach: Smart Women hit the Best Seller list, but not until eight or nine months after it came out. I did a PBS special. The PBS special on Smart Women Finish Rich started airing everywhere and I was running all over the country. Then I starting having financial advisors teaching my seminars. We licensed Smart Women Finish Rich.
I packaged up my intellectual property. I took what I was already doing, that I knew would work, and I trained other financial advisors to go do it. When I did that, I started to scale things up.
At one point, we had 100,000 people a year going through seminars I wasn't teaching. It was all my content. All these people are getting great, free help and then the advisors were getting clients from it. Everybody won. That's how I ultimately reached a million people.
Jeff Rose: You reached your million people. That was one of your goals.
David Bach: I did. It took seven years. I'm not just measuring books. Between live events and books, we reached well over a million people. Kind of from the way I was measuring it, it was a seven-year timeframe.
Oprah vs. New York Times – Who Wins?
Jeff Rose: What was more exciting for you – hitting number one on The New York Times Best Seller list or being on Oprah?
David Bach: Wow. Being on Oprah. I have dreamed of being on Oprah and seen it in my mind for 10 years. I have letters. I came to Morgan Stanley in 1993 and started sending letters telling her she should have me on the show. I had no idea what I was talking about. I had never been on TV. I had no books. I tell this story on stage all the time. How did I get on Oprah? It just took 10 years, five books, and me doing every single media in the world other than Oprah.
There's a moral behind that. By the time I was on Oprah with her, I was ready. If you go back to why I wanted to be on Oprah, I wanted to be on Oprah because I wanted to inspire 10 million people across America to pay themselves first. One hour a day, automatically, for life. That was my mission.
If you look at why I am sitting here at the Sheraton in Dallas, which is 14 years after that show aired, and I'm here because I updated this book and I'm still doing all this stuff because I'm still obsessed with the same exact thing I was obsessed with back then. I decided I wanted to reach the millennials and make one more push before I'm done here.
Being on Oprah was amazing because I knew I was going to reach 10 million people with that show. We taped that show. The next day they called me and said it was the last taping of the year. It doesn't air live. At least the show I did didn't air live. It was taped in November. It's supposed to air the first week of January. The book was launched on the show.
They tell you not to tell anybody until it airs. Until it airs, it's not airing. The day after this show taped, they called me and they said, “If this show does for America what it just did at Harpo, this show's going to be a home-run.” I said, “What happened?”
She said, “So many people signed up for the 401(k) plan after you left Harpo. They either signed up or they increased their 401(k) contributions.” If that can happen on Harpo, when this show airs in America, it's going to be transformational. That's what happened.
Jeff Rose: That's awesome. I remember hearing that. I don't know if you did an interview with somebody else, but the number of people that signed up afterwards, that has impact. People actually took action, which is awesome.
David Bach: My passion hasn't changed since then. I just did a speech for the parent company of Advisor Excel. They have over 500 employees. I just did The Automatic Millionaire presentation for all the employees. I said to the founders, “Look, guys. I'm going to be there. Let me go do the speech for everybody who works here.”
They were, “Most people are signed up for the 401(k) plan. They're doing pretty well.” I'm like, “Well, let's make them do better.” I said, “Let's track it.” Within five days of me doing the speech, 133 people increased their 401(k) contributions. That's life changing.
Most of the people in this company were millennials. I'm there. I'm like, “Guys, I don't care. If you're doing 8%, I want you doing 10%. If you're doing 10%, I want you doing 12%.”
When you love what you teach, it doesn't get old. When you start to hear the stories and the transformation that people have, it gives you more fuel.
Strategic By-products of Making the Leap
Jeff Rose: Yeah. You leave Morgan Stanley, you're writing books, and you're still teaching. You're living the mission that you set out to do. You kind of had things in a vision, I guess – things that you thought were going to happen, things you wanted to happen. Was there anything that did happen that was a strategic byproduct or some sort of unexpected partnership that came along that you didn't see?
David Bach: That's a classic Strategic Coach word – “a strategic byproduct.” Once you go into Strategic Coach Dan, we love you. You start to have this cult language. For people who don't know what that means, a strategic byproduct happens when you create a goal, you work towards that goal, and something amazing happens as a result of working toward that goal.
My last 25 years have been one giant strategic byproduct. I went off and taught a class for women and money for my clients. That class became so popular that I started teaching it on bigger and bigger stages. This led to a bigger mission, which led to a book, which led to a PBS show.
I brought the idea of Smart Women Finish Rich, the seminar program, to Morgan Stanley and had this entire idea of how we'd have offices across the country and we'd be in a hundred cities doing this. Well, they passed. They said, “Well, you'll do it and then you'll take all these advisors out of Morgan Stanley and you'll leave.” We ended up getting a phone call. I think it was Registered Rep Magazine. I'm doing PR and I get a phone call from a mutual fund company. The next thing I know we're doing a partnership with them and a licensing deal.
That's how I got Smart Women Finish Rich into the entire financial services industry. Same firm, different side of it. Every firm on Wall Street is teaching my seminars now except for Morgan Stanley because I did a carve out.
Jeff Rose: That's awesome.
David Bach: When I left in 2001, they said, “Well, look, if you're going to leave, let's do a deal and you can train all of our advisors.”
We did. I went and trained 750 advisors for Morgan Stanley, toured the entire country for Morgan Stanley, and we did some more Couples Finish Rich tours all over the country.
Taking “Some” Time Off
Jeff Rose: Wow. When you're passionate about something, like you said, you can teach it all day long. You can do it all day long. It's 24/7. Dan Sullivan calls it the unique ability. I know it's something for me that I struggle with at times because I get so passionate about something that I want to do it. But I also recognize that I do have a wife, I do have kids, and I do have to unplug. Here recently, you took a “free day,” right?
David Bach: I took the free year.
Jeff Rose: A free year. You took a one-year sabbatical, or maybe, I think it was 18 months.
David Bach: Eighteen months.
Jeff Rose: An 18-month sabbatical. Now, you're the bread winner and the sole provider. How do you go from providing everything for your family to taking 18 months off to be a dad?
David Bach: That was scary, too. That was as scary, if not scarier, then the decision I made to leave Morgan Stanley. It's scary to stop. We're going and going and we're going. I was afraid. What if I stop? Am I going to be able to start again? I had reached a point, and it happened actually in Strategic Coach, where instead of working on a 10x plan for my business, I decided to 10x my free time. I started asking myself the question,
“What would it be like to not work for a year and just be a dad?”
I worked on the plan for a year. It's the single greatest thing I ever did. Taking a sabbatical, which I highly recommend … I always say you don't have to take a year. I've been going around teaching, basically, take six weeks. Take a six-week sabbatical. It's funny because there was an article recently about how all over the world, basically most countries take six weeks off. We don't. We take an average of five days a year off in America. I didn't think I was burnt out. I didn't think I was tired, but I knew the passion wasn't the same.
Something felt wrong and I didn't know what it was and then I took a break. I got present in my own life and I got all my energy back. That was the big miracle. At the time I was 46 and I was feeling 50. Today, I'm 50 and I feel 30.
I was doing an interview with Arianna Huffington who wrote this great book Thrive and I said, “Arianna, you talk about recharging your batteries.” I go, “You take a sabbatical, you replace your battery.”
For me, taking that time off completely replaced my battery. That's why I'm even here right now with you. First of all, it's amazing to be a dad, amazing to be traveling, amazing to have that free time. Also, at the end of the year, I was ready to work and all of my creative energy was back. That's what led me to do a deal where I became a Vice Chairman of a large RIA. That's what led me to want to go bring all this stuff back out again. That's what led me to start another financial services company. Sometimes I think we need to take those breaks and recharge.
Jeff Rose: Yeah, it was funny. Just following you on social media, I could definitely tell when you came back. I didn't know that you were on sabbatical but, all of a sudden, you're on your blog and you're on social media and the book's coming out. All of a sudden, he's back. David's back.
David Bach: Also, I didn't go around telling people I was taking a sabbatical, so it was very interesting. I didn't know, truthfully, if I could do it. I didn't know if I could just stop working. I'm like, “I'm going to not do anything. I'm not going to go do the Today Show. I'm not going to write a book. I'm not going to do speeches. I'm not going to do anything. I'm not going to be on social media.”
I'm like, “I wonder how long it will take for people to notice?” We think what we're doing right now is so important. If I don't put this video out and I don't deliver every week this free content that you're not paying for, what will happen to the world if I don't update my blog and update my YouTube video and send a Tweet out and post on Facebook?
You know what happened? The world keeps turning. It's actually very humbling. About three or four months in, people start emailing and making sure you're not dead, which is exactly what happened. “Are you okay?” It wasn't like you got 10,000 of those. My friends knew I was okay because my friends knew I had taken a break.
The next time I take a sabbatical I will publicly share on taking a sabbatical. I'm going to take another sabbatical. I haven't decided what year yet, but I think we should take breaks every seven years. That's my new theory. Every five to seven years. I think if you take a break every five to seven years, then it's not about retirement. Instead of retiring at 60 or 65, if you can take a break every five to seven years, the energy that you'll get propels you to maybe just always be doing something for the rest of your life.
Jeff Rose: Right. A very good friend of mine is in the process of taking a year sabbatical and he started earlier this year. I didn't know until February or April, sometime in the spring, that he was taking it. I had a chance to meet with him through this whole time frame. I just love hearing it. It really inspired me. I don't know if I'm ready to take a year yet, but I like the idea of taking six weeks. I told my wife, I'm like, “What do you got to do?” You just got to put it on the calendar, just make it happen.
I'm going to try to cheat a little bit and try to do it around Spring Break so our kids are out of school. That may help out a little bit.
David Bach: It's interesting because, when you say something like take a six-week break, the first thing that people start to think about is why they can't do it. Really anything like this.
I always go back to write all the reasons why you can't do it and then come up with what the solution would be. You take an example like Spring Break. Spring Break is like two weeks long. The next thing you know, putting another four weeks on top of that, it's 25 work days or it's 25 school days. Then, there are holidays in those 25 days. When you start to break it out, you go, “Maybe it's not that hard. Maybe we actually could do this and if we planned it a year out, or two years out, of course we could do that.”
We're shooting this at the end of 2017. You can't tell me that you can't figure out a way to take off six weeks in 2020. You might be able to tell me you can't take it off in 2018, but 2020 is three years from now. It's just about planning and making decisions. It's funny because I've had a lot of friends take sabbaticals now, too. I think a lot of it's because they saw what happened to me. It's kind of like, “Wow, that actually worked out okay for you.”
Jeff Rose: Yeah. I feel like God keeps putting me around people that are taking sabbaticals. I think he's knocking on my door and I just got to open up and listen.
David Bach: I was about a month into my sabbatical. It was like a miracle. I felt so good. I was sleeping so well. I was so blissfully happy and I'm walking my son to school and I'm like, “Life can't be any better than this.”
Here I'm walking him to school and Jack looks at me and goes, “You know dad, do you ever worry that now that you're not working you'll never be able to do anything again for the rest of your life? Like you won't be able to write another book or be back on television or make any money and we might lose our home?”
I was like “Are you kidding me?” Every fear I could have ever had was somehow voiced out of a twelve-year-old. I was in the perfect blissful state, but thanks for bringing up every insecurity. I don't know if he said the part about the home. I think I threw that in. I was like, “Yeah, actually I do worry about that, but I think it will be okay.” It's funny. You know what? It always does end up being okay.
His 3 Year Outlook
Jeff Rose: Awesome. David, I've got one last question for you to wrap this up. Imagine it’s three years from now and we're doing another interview and we're reflecting on what has happened over that three-year period. What would have happened in your life both personally and professionally for those three years to be a success?
David Bach: Let's think about that. I actually just wrote out my next three-year game plan on the plane flight out here. I'm not going to give it all to you because there are certain things that are very personal to me. I'll give you some things that I'm working on that I'm focused on the next 36 months.
First, I'm a co-founder of a firm called AE Wealth Management. In just 18 months, we're the fastest growing RIA in America. We have empowered over 200 financial advisors to come onto our platform. We have 2.5 billion in our management. That's fast going from ground zero with no private equity money and no outside capital.
My hope is that, 36 months from now, we are up to a thousand advisors. As I say that, my team's going to go, “What did he say?”
I've got a big dream for this firm. I'd like to see us empower a thousand independent financial advisors who are RIAs to build the best financial planning business that they can in their community. That's one from a business perspective. I going to shoot for 10 billion in 36 months. I just became an advisor for Clarity Money. I don't know if you're familiar with Clarity, but it's the hottest financial app going in 2017. It is Mint on steroids. I just was blown away by this app to the point that I basically came knocking on Adam Dell's door.
I'm also an investor in Acorns, which is the fastest growing firm for millennials. I'm excited about that. From a personal perspective with books, I'm putting Smart Women Finish Rich and Smart Couples Finish Rich back out. I also have two books I'm working on, Smart Kids Finish Rich and The Latte Factory. Those books will come out in 2019.
If I'm getting together with you in less than 36 months, I've got two more books out, at least another 100,000 people through the seminars, and I've gone on another major sabbatical at some point.
Jeff Rose: Well, I'll just give you one from me. I will have taken at least one six-week sabbatical.
David Bach: Love it.
Jeff Rose: Cheers. David, thanks once again for sharing your wisdom and just inspiring others and for all you do, man.
David Bach: My pleasure. By the way, congratulations on everything you've done. I knew about you over a year ago. I've seen what you've been doing online and you're having a huge impact on people and it's really cool. You're following your passion.
Jeff Rose: You’re right. I am.
The post The Automatic Millionaire with New York Times Best Selling Author David Bach appeared first on Good Financial Cents.
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Starbucks Is Giving Away $1M Worth of Gift Cards. Here’s How to Get One
The holidays are for giving –– but don’t worry. You shall receive, too.
This year, Starbucks plans to spread the joy of giving by handing out $1 million in gift cards.
What’s better than a hot cup of coffee during the festive season? One you don’t have to pay for. Listen up, Santa!
How to Get Your Share of Starbucks’ Give Good Initiative
The giveaway is part of Starbucks’ Project Give Good. During this initiative, the coffee chain will give away gift cards to local heroes in communities all over the world.
Starbucks representatives will hand out the gift cards at seasonal events, such as tree lighting ceremonies, caroling and other local events, Time Money reports.
While Starbucks will hand out gift cards in major urban areas around the country, including Seattle, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, that doesn’t mean you’ll miss out on the deal if you live in smaller cities. Locations have yet to be announced, but check back on Starbucks’ website, or follow #GiveGood on social media for announcements.
But wait — the generosity doesn’t stop there! On Dec. 5, the coffee chain will bring back its Starbucks for Life sweepstakes. Winners can win free coffee for a week, month, year or even life, as well as other prizes, according to Delish.
Oh, and one more thing. During Project Give Good, Starbucks will grant automatic gold status in its rewards program for a year to anyone who uses the Starbucks app or a registered Starbucks card for a purchase in December.
Generally, members need to earn 300 stars in a 12-month period to get gold status. Members earn two stars per $1 spent.
With gold status, customers are eligible for exclusive perks, including a gold-colored Starbucks card, a free drink or food item for every 125 stars they earn and a double-star day each month. Gold members also share green-level member benefits, which include a free birthday reward, free in-house refills, the ability to pay by phone, exclusive member events and offers, and more.
How’s that for a gift this year? Thanks, Starbucks!
Kelly Anne Smith is a junior writer and engagement specialist at The Penny Hoarder. Catch her on Twitter at @keywordkelly.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
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Progressive Is Hiring Full-Time Reps in Arizona (You Could Work From Home!)
If you live in or around Phoenix, Arizona, and want a job with great benefits and the potential to work from home, check this out.
Progressive is hiring full-time Inbound Sales Representatives and Customer Service Representatives for jobs beginning in January, February and March of 2018.
If you live outside of Phoenix, never fear! Check out our Jobs page on Facebook because we post new opportunities there all the time.
Inbound Sales Representative and Customer Service Representative at Progressive
Pay:
$15.00 to $19.00 per hour, depending on experience
Location:
Phoenix, Arizona. Potential to work from home after training and proven job competency.
Responsibilities include:
- Inbound Sales Representatives offer new customers the best products for their needs.
- Customer Service Representatives support existing customers.
Applicants for this position must have:
- Customer service, sales or similar experience
- Ability to work in a fast-paced and changing environment
- Multitasking and time-management skills
- Verbal and written communication skills
- Computer skills
Benefits include:
- Paid training
- Tuition assistance
- Casual dress code (jeans are OK!)
- Onsite gym
- Onsite healthcare at large locations
- Paid time off
- Medical, dental and vision insurance
- 401(k)
Apply here for the Inbound Sales Representative and Customer Service Representative jobs at Progressive.
Lisa McGreevy is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She loves telling readers about new job opportunities so look her up on Twitter (@lisah) if you’ve got a tip to share.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
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These Online Tutoring Companies Pay $20+/Hour (and They’re Hiring Now!)
Editor’s Note: The job listing for MathElf has expired but all of the other tutoring companies are still hiring!
Tutoring has always been a fantastic way for students and other academically-inclined folk to earn a little money on the side.
And now that the internet is here, you don’t even need to leave your house to do it. But, it can be tough to sift through all the online tutoring jobs out there.
Which ones are scammy? And which ones pay peanuts?
We did some of the sifting for you (aren’t we nice?), and found some online tutoring jobs that pay $20 per hour — and are hiring right now.
1. VIPKID
Always dreamt of moving abroad to teach English as a second language, but have commitments stateside? Thanks to the internet, you can still share your knowledge with students in China.
VIPKID is hiring part-time ESL teachers to work at least 7.5 hours per week, mostly on weekday mornings and weekend evenings. You’ll need a bachelor’s degree, plus experience working with kids ages 5-12.
The base pay is $14-$18 per hour, but because of bonuses, the company states the “typical salary” ranges from $16-$24 per hour.
2. Chegg
Chegg is a platform where students can find tutors. After you log in with Facebook and create a profile, you can get matched with students in any subject — and earn $20 per hour.
You’ll be required to prove you’re currently or were previously enrolled in a university by submitting copies of your diploma, student ID card or unofficial transcripts.
Unlike the other companies on this list, Chegg’s Glassdoor reviews are mixed, so do your research before applying.
3. Revolution Prep
Looking for a full-time tutoring job? Then Revolution Prep is looking for you.
It’s hiring professional tutors to “deliver exceptional one-on-one instruction to students grades 6-12 in a variety of academic subjects and college admissions tests.”
You must have at least a bachelor’s degree, plus the ability to work evenings and weekends. In return, you’ll earn $20 per hour — plus bonuses, health insurance, a 401(k) and paid time off.
Susan Shain, contributor for The Penny Hoarder, is always seeking adventure on a budget. Visit her blog at susanshain.com, or say hi on Twitter @susan_shain.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
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Investment Doctor: “Should I invest my £10,000 inheritance in a pension?”
The Investment Doctor helps a reader decide where best to put a £10,000 inheritance.
"I have an inheritance of £10,000 to invest, but I have no pension. I desperately need some suggestions as to where, and how, to invest in a pension. I am a 35-year-old mother of two. My husband does have a workplace pension – he works for one of the big building societies – but is hoping to become self-employed in a year or two.
"Our old age seems precarious, at best. My annual income has not been higher than £10,000 since I had my first child, seven years ago.
"Given that I have not been earning enough to pay tax, do I qualify for three years’ tax allowance and, if so, how do I claim it?
"It would be a relief if you would help by offering me some advice."
Initial diagnosis
Making provision for retirement is important but must be in the context of your overall financial planning.
Martin Bamford, chartered financial planner at Informed Choice, says: “Before saving for the future, you should consider repaying any short-term, unsecured debt and ensure you have a healthy emergency fund of cash savings.”
This is particularly important given your husband is about to go self-employed, as it will help you cope with periods of variable household income.
If you’re investing for at least 10 years, consider investment funds that buy shares as your money will be spread across dozens of companies, according to Tom McPhail, head of retirement policy at Hargreaves Lansdown.
“Your investment will go up and down in value, but over the long term it is reasonable to expect you’ll get back significantly more than if you just stick the money in the bank,” he says.
One option is a Stocks and Shares individual savings account (Isa), where any investment growth will be tax free and where you can get at your money at any time. You can save up to £20,000 this tax year in a Stocks and Shares Isa.
Treatment plan
Mr Bamford suggests you also consider a Lifetime Isa (Lisa), a new type of Isa which was introduced by the government in April for those under 40 years old. You can save up to £4,000 in each tax year – but you’ll also receive a government bonus of 25%, which equates to an extra £1,000 if the full amount is committed.
Note that you can’t pay into your Lisa once you reach 50, and if you withdraw the money before you turn 60 (unless you’re using it to buy your first home or you’re terminally ill) you’ll be charged 25%.
“You could invest your inheritance over a period of years, which also helps to drip-feed the money into investment markets, reducing any timing risk,” he adds.
The other option is to invest in a pension with each individual being allowed to pay in up to £40,000 every year, according to Gary Smith, a financial planner at Tilney. “You are also able to carry forward any unused annual allowances from the previous three tax-years,” he adds. However, the amount you will be able to contribute is restricted to the lower of your available £40,000 annual allowance or your earnings.
“If we assume that your earnings are £10,000 during the current tax-year, the maximum you could contribute personally would be the lower figure of £10,000,” he says.
However, Mr Smith also points out that your contribution would be topped up in tax relief.
“If we assume that you were able to contribute £10,000 into a pension during the current tax-year, then you would only actually need to contribute £8,000 of your inheritance, as £2,000 in tax relief would be obtained for you by your pension provider,” he adds.
You could then contribute the remaining £2,000 to a pension next year or use it to fund an Isa instead.
Diversified treatment plan
Another option would be to pay money into your husband’s pension, according to Mr McPhail.
“This might make sense if he is eligible for higher rate tax relief but it probably makes more sense to invest in your own name,” he says.
Alternatively, spread the £10,000 across a pension, a Lisa, and the balance in a stocks and shares Isa, using the first two to invest in long term funds and keeping some money in the Isa in cash.
“You get the pension and Lisa allowances every year so if you want to invest all your money for the long term and get the most out of the government top-ups you could always stagger your investment across two tax years,” Mr McPhail adds.
Rob Griffin writes for The Independent, Sunday Telegraph and Daily Express
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Thematic investing: can you spot a trend?
Could you identify a theme that is about to take off across the world? Over the long term, focusing on global trends can help make you a handsome return on your money.
From the rise of technology to ways of protecting the environment, there are many ways to invest in our future. Plus, ageing populations, infrastructure developments around the world, and exciting new areas, such as artificial intelligence, are among other themes catching the eye.
However, although it’s fairly easy to spot potential trends, it’s not always easy to profit from them, warns Patrick Connolly, a certified financial planner with Chase de Vere. “Relevant themes are likely to be known and understood by the stock market – and this could already be reflected in share prices,” he says.
Also, if a theme or sector begins to grow in popularity, then more competitors will arrive on the scene and make the job of picking winners even harder. “Investors must ensure they focus on long-term structural changes rather than short-term speculative or ‘flavour of the month’ ideas,” he adds.
One of the most popular recent themes has been ‘disruptive technology’. This term covers everything that fundamentally changes how we live – such as driverless cars and the progress towards a cashless society.
Adrian Lowcock, investment director at Architas, the multimanager, says: “Disruptive technology is creeping into everything. It affects how we work, what we earn, the productivity of the economy, inflation and economic growth.”
A prime example is the Apple iPhone which has been around for a decade and used by millions of people around the world. Tom Walker, manager of the Martin Currie Global Portfolio Trust, says Apple has not only reinvented the mobile phone but given meaning to the word smartphone.
“The success of the iPhone is based on the richest ecosystem that has ever been built,” he says. “You can download 2.2 million applications for your phone – up from 800 in July 2008.”
Cloud computing, which reduces a company’s investment in hardware and software, is another theme to watch, says Josh Spencer, manager of the T. Rowe Price Global Technology fund.
“It’s one of the most dominant trends in technology and still offers investors meaningful long-term growth potential,” he says.
The ageing population is another unavoidable theme, according to Mr Lowcock.
“It means healthcare will be a major issue and provide opportunities for companies to create new solutions,” he adds.
He believes pharmaceuticals companies may be a beneficiary. “Populations are ageing, and this group of people have money,” he says.
Many pharma companies have positive characteristics that make them good bets for investors.
Mr Lowcock explains: “They are good at generating revenue and can drive efficiencies in the businesses, but also tend to be more defensive in nature, as well as paying a reliable dividend.”
How to invest in themes
Investors drawn to investing thematically, can buy a general global fund or investment trust, which specialises in a thematic approach to investing, or a specialist fund that focuses on a specific theme.
Unfortunately, there is not one Investment Association sector that groups funds that invest thematically, so the funds will be scattered throughout different sectors. This will require some research to put a list of potential funds together that focus on the themes in which you want to invest.
For example, Pictet offers funds focusing on themes such as water scarcity, while Polar Capital is known for managing portfolios concentrating on healthcare.
If you opt for a specialist fund, then you need to do your homework, according to Darius McDermott, managing director of Chelsea Financial Services.
“The manager’s track record is important, and you need to compare its performance on a like-for-like basis, such as a sector specific index,” he says.
It’s a bonus if those at the helm have first-hand experience of the sector in which they invest as they will have a better understanding of the market.
“For example, a healthcare manager that has worked in the pharmaceutical industry or a natural resources manager that has spent time as a geologist,” he says.
However, Mr Connolly at Chase de Vere prefers to steer clear of specialist funds that invest in one theme. “This is because such funds carry additional risks with the underlying investments likely to be highly correlated, meaning they can rise or fall together,” he says.
He does though consider using the funds of investment managers that adopt a broadly thematic approach to their portfolio construction. He highlights Newton as a great example.
“Funds we recommend include Newton Global Income and Newton Real Return, which are taking advantage of themes such as globalisation, new technologies, the influence of China, ageing populations, and the growth of online connectivity,” he says.
ONE TO WATCH: Polar Capital Global Healthcare Trust
ABOUT THE FUND
Fund: Polar Capital Global Healthcare Trust
Managers: Daniel Mahony (above left) and Gareth Powell (above right)
Launch date: 15 June 2010 Fund AUM: £282.2 million
Minimum initial investment: None
Minimum top-up investment: None
Initial charge: 0% Ongoing charge: 1.01%
Contact details: Polarcapitalhealthcaretrust.com
This investment trust, which has a fixed life and is expected to expire in early 2025, aims to generate capital growth by investing in a global portfolio of healthcare stocks. It primarily focuses on listed equities issued by companies involved in pharmaceuticals, medical services, medical devices and biotechnology.
At present, it is invested in 46 companies, with 43% of its net assets in the 10 biggest holdings and 86% in large companies with market capitalisations more than $5bn.
The company, which pays two dividends a year, is also diversified by factors such as geography, industry sub-sector and investment size.
At 64%, the fund is most heavily invested in the United States, followed by 7% in Germany, 5% in Switzerland and 5% in Ireland. The other countries represented, which each account for less than 4%, are France, the UK, Japan and Australia.
As far as individual holdings are concerned, Johnson & Johnson, an American multinational manufacturer of medical devices, pharmaceutical and consumer packaged goods,has the largest share of net assets at 7%. This is followed by the 5% in Swiss multinational pharmaceutical companyNovartis and 4.9% in French multinational pharmaceutical companySanofi.
Other names among the top 10 largest positions include Merck & Co, Celgene, Becton Dickinson, UnitedHealth Group, Medtronic, Bayer, and Fresenius Medical Care AG.
QUICK GUIDE: Consider investing in this area if…
- You want to invest in themes
- You believe key trends will be a driver of investment returns
- You are interested in areas such as technological developments
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How to Be a Frugal Parent During the Holiday Season
I often mention my kids on here, but I don’t really talk about them directly too much. They don’t make the decision to write about their lives on The Simple Dollar – I do. I try to keep that privacy in mind on their behalf. (Sarah and I have a pretty clear understanding at this point as to what’s appropriate to talk about to an audience of thousands and what isn’t within our marriage.)
Having said that, the reality of my life is that I wear the “parent” hat a lot. They simply take up a lot of my time, my thoughts, and my energy. Caring for them, making sure they’re safe and secure, doing what I can to teach them how to be functional adults, spending quality time with them – that adds up to a lot of time and energy. It’s a journey that a lot of parents follow.
For me, the challenges of following that journey are never more apparent than around the holiday season.
Simply being children in the modern world – going to school each day, having friends, having a moderate amount of screen time, going to after school activities – fills them with a lot of different ideas, and many of those ideas are manifested in terms of wants and desires, and those wants and desires come out in full force during the holiday season.
Before we get going, I want to be absolutely clear that I don’t think it’s inherently wrong for people to want things and I don’t think it’s wrong for children to want things for the holidays. That’s a completely normal reaction to our internal lives and to the world around us.
The problem is that the holiday season, particularly for children, seems almost designed to push those wants and desires into overdrive. Children are encouraged to make “wish lists” and are constantly asked what kinds of things they want for Christmas. The desire to want things is not only accepted this time of the year, but it’s often encouraged both by marketers and by those who want an easy route to a child’s heart.
The challenges presented by that are numerous. It teaches children poor lessons about wish fulfillment and greed and wants and desires running rampant. Beyond that, it can really pressure the budgets of parents and pressures them into having to make some really challenging emotional and parental and financial decisions.
Like a lot of parents, we want our children to have a wonderful holiday season, but at the same time, we’re frugal people. We’re fairly careful with our money (much more so than the average American, but perhaps not always as careful as our ideals would like us to be) and we want to instill good values and self-control in our own children.
The last several holiday seasons have been a series of challenges and trials in that regard. For the last eight holiday seasons, we’ve had three children under our roof, ranging over those years from infancy to on the border of the teen years. We’ve seen all kinds of interests and desires come and go over the years and we’ve learned what kinds of things really work and what kinds of things really don’t.
Here’s what we’ve learned about being frugal parents during the holiday season.
Set Clear Goals
Before you even start interacting with your children during the holiday season, spend some time thinking about the goals you want to achieve this holiday season regarding your children. How much do you intend to spend on each of them? How are you going to keep their focus off of just the things that they want? What do you want the holidays to look like?
Encourage other people who are involved in the raising of your children to think about those things, too, and then share your thoughts. Try to set some goals that you can all agree on.
For example, Sarah and I have a dollar target that we’ve set for each child and we’re deciding on gifts together for them with some principles in mind. We’re also working together to try to minimize conversations about the “gimme gimme gimme” aspects of the holiday season.
Whatever specific goals you might set depends on you. The value comes from actually thinking about your goals in advance, setting specific goals, and sticking with them throughout the holiday season.
So, for example, you might decide that you’re going to spend a total of $200 on your child for the holidays, and that you’re going to subtly discourage talk of things that people want and focus instead on talk of thinking of others when you hear such conversation come up. Remind yourself of those goals throughout the season and they’ll be fresh in your mind when key moments come up.
Talk About What the Holidays Are Like Without Gifts
One practice I’ve found really useful is to have a few conversations with our family as a whole about what the holidays would be like without any presents at all. What would we do? Where would we go? Would it still be fun? (Of course.)
During these conversations, I try to steer the conversation into specific things we would do that everyone would enjoy. We could visit family members. We could roast chestnuts. We could make cookies. We could go caroling. We could have a giant snowball fight. We could make a giant snowman or an entire snow family. We could go sledding. We could do something together for charity. We could visit Grandma and Grandpa. We could make a giant batch of hot chocolate.
The goal is to initiate conversation about all of the enjoyable things that can be part of a holiday season without presents, and once the ideas start rolling in, they often roll in like a flood.
One great way to channel this conversation into something tangible is to simply make a list of the ideas and try to fill as much free time in December with all of the ideas as you can. You’ll find yourself doing things like going on a walk in the park to collect pinecones or making cranberry scones or finding a great hill to go sledding on.
This process reinforces the idea that the best part of the holiday season has nothing to do with receiving gifts. It has to do with other fun things, done together, that don’t have to involve spending money.
Limit the Requests for Gift Ideas and Filter “Help” for Relatives Through You, Not the Children
One challenge that we often face is that we often don’t just come up with gift ideas for ourselves for our own children, but are asked for ideas by grandparents and aunts and cousins. “What do your kids want for Christmas?”
While such requests are fine, they’re sometimes also directly transmitted to the children, which turns their focus back to a long list of “I want this” and “I want that,” which is part of what we’re trying to avoid in being frugal parents. Not only is that an expensive route to go down, it also doesn’t encourage our children to keep their inner desires calm and to look for other joys in the season.
Our usual approach is to simply filter the requests for gift ideas through us so that our children aren’t continually brought back to the idea of trying to continuously think about things that they want to get.
Instead, we try really hard to build a long list of ideas ourselves, figure out what ideas fit in our budget, and then share some of the remaining ideas with relatives. The reason? This keeps our children from being inundated with requests for wants, so they don’t have to sit around thinking about more and more and more things that they want.
Ideally, we don’t want them to actively think about their wants at all beyond what comes up in ordinary life. That requires paying attention to what they’re saying and doing on a day to day basis. We’ve found that if you’re watching for that, you can pick up on lots of gift ideas pretty easily and never have to engage them in an “I want…” mindset.
Don’t Browse for Wants
If your children are put into a situation where they need to generate a “holiday wish list,” try to make sure that such a list is done without the aid of some sort of tool that enables them to browse for things they want. Have them come up with ideas on their own, away from catalogs and web browsers.
Why? Catalogs and web browsers will just stick ideas in their head based on what they happen to see in the moment. Those ideas usually aren’t lasting wants – they’re just items they happen to desire in the moment.
The solution? Don’t let them browse specifically just to find things that they want.
Instead, if they do happen to find themselves in a situation where they are requested to come up with gift ideas, let them do it entirely on their own, without guidance from catalogs or Amazon. Give them a piece of paper and a pen and some time to think about it. The ideas that come out of their head are far more likely to be genuine wants and result in more meaningful gifts that they’ll actually enjoy instead of the random thing they spot in a catalog.
(As I noted earlier, the best way for frugal parents to handle this is to just watch and take notes over time and never put them in the position to make a “wish list,” but sometimes grandparents ask anyway. If that happens, try to avoid catalogs and websites.)
Establish Low Cost Traditions
We have a handful of holiday traditions established over the years. Every Christmas day at home, we roast chestnuts (the first attempt was comically disastrous and is brought up every year). Whenever we visit my wife’s parents, we make lefse (a Norwegian thin potato bread – think of a tortilla or a crepe and you’re close). We wear pajamas all day long on Christmas day and usually take a pajama-clad family picture. We have a holiday dinner at some point that involves Norwegian meatballs (or a vegetarian equivalent). If there is snow on the ground, we intentionally go sledding on that day.
Those kinds of little repeated traditions bring a certain consistent familiarity to the holiday season, tying the past to the present and to hopes for the future in a very simple way.
Establishing a few traditions that don’t cost anything or cost very little, particularly if those traditions are ones that can easily be repeated year after year, is a great way to establish a meaningful holiday season with deep family ties that will last and last without having to open up your pocketbook.
Find your own traditions. Look for things that are meaningful to you and also meaningful to your children and make those things into a regular part of your holiday season.
Include Charity As Part of Your Holidays
One great tradition to establish with your family is to include some sort of charitable effort in your holiday season. This type of tradition keeps the focus firmly on giving rather than receiving and can provide a meaningful experience for all involved.
There are many charities that will accept a few hours of help during the holiday season. Talk to your family about the type of charitable work that would be most meaningful for them, then call around in your community for opportunities for service during December.
You might find yourself stocking shelves in a food pantry or serving meals in a soup kitchen or washing clothes in a clothing pantry. You might find yourself cleaning up a public park or helping to clear snow for people unable to do it for themselves. You might find yourself reading books aloud or singing songs at a retirement home.
Whatever it is that you choose to do, do it from a place of giving to others. Your life already has infinite abundance – it is good to share some of that abundance.
Make Homemade Gifts for Others
One great way to keep the holiday season low cost and meaningful is to actually make gifts for people, and the process of making gifts can easily become a family project.
You can bake bundles of cookies for family members. Make the dough and form the cookies together, then wrap up the bundles together, too (while perhaps sampling the results along the way). You can do the same for homemade candies.
You can make photo cards by simply taking photographs of beautiful things, making prints of those photographs, and then affixing them to the front of blank stationery cards with rubber cement.
You can make jars of various canned goods – pickles, jellies, jams, preserves, salsa, and so forth. Make the items together, then go through the simple canning process together, too.
The possibilities are endless! The best part? A homemade gift conveys a great deal of meaning because it involves an investment of time and care, not just money.
Get Fewer Presents, But Strongly Desired Ones
In the end, you’re likely still going to buy presents for your children during the holiday season.
Our experience has been that the best holiday seasons tend to involve a small number of highly desired quality gifts rather than an abundance of gifts. You are far better off buying just one or two or three gifts that they’ll really love and will use extensively than piles of gifts that may be left practically unused because other items are attracting their attention. It’s much easier to give each gift some quality time and attention if you’ve only received a few gifts than if you’ve received a small mountain of gifts.
This year, our children are receiving roughly three presents each from us. Those presents are high quality items that they’ve really been wanting, but the number is relatively small. At the end of the day, however, each of those gifts will be deeply appreciated and repeatedly used – there won’t be extra gifts set aside that are basically forgotten. Each gift is impactful and meaningful and doesn’t fall prey to diminishing returns.
Final Thoughts
All of these strategies circle back to one key principle: it’s about the time spent together, not the stuff. Every time you take a step away from things and take a step toward shared time and shared experiences, it’s a net win in terms of having a meaningful and relatively inexpensive holiday season.
If you apply just one principle, it’s that one. Spend time together and de-emphasize the stuff.
Good luck and happy holidays!
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Jeff Prestridge: Why we still can’t call pension freedom a success story
How time flies. It has been just over two and a half years since the government introduced new rules allowing people greater freedom over how they take an income from their pension.
This pension game changer, the idea of George Osborne (then Chancellor of the Exchequer, now a newspaper editor), has dramatically changed the retirement landscape. For better and, sadly, for worse.
First the good bits. There is no doubt that until Mr Osborne intervened, many people got a rum financial deal at retirement, especially those who were required to turn their pension fund – work based or a personal plan – into lifetime income through the purchase of an annuity.
Although annuities can be perfectly sound retirement products, guaranteeing those who buy them a lifetime stream of monthly income, they were badly sold by most pension providers. Buyers often ended up with a poor annuity rate because they were not told of their right to shop around and bought the first annuity offered to them – by the company managing their pension pot.
Even worse, many ended up with inappropriate annuities that did not take into account key facts – for example, that they suffered from health issues, which meant they could have purchased an annuity that paid a higher rate because of a reduced life expectancy.
Only those who sought financial advice or who were financially savvy ended up with a good annuity deal. My dad, Stanley, fell into this camp. He had the nous to seek professional independent financial advice when he wanted to turn his self-employed pension into an income.
Stanley was advised to take out an annuity, which would continue paying after his death, albeit at a reduced two-thirds rate. When he died in May this year after a long (and glorious) life, it was financially comforting to know that his Aviva annuity would live on, providing an all-important monthly income for my mother, Helen.
Sadly, Dad was the exception rather than the rule. For every dad with a spouse-friendly annuity, there were probably nine others whose annuity died with them, leaving a spouse financially exposed.
Pension freedom has changed all this. Annuities can still be used by retirees to extract an income from their pension, but they have other solutions at their fingertips.
Now they can take income when they need it, rather than lock themselves into an annuity which cannot be unravelled. They can draw down income anytime from age 55 onwards. Indeed, they can even keep their pension fund invested until it suits them to start taking an income.
Yet, for all this new-found flexibility, plenty of issues need to be addressed before we can say that pension freedom is an unmitigated success.
The government has yet to stop many retirees being cold-called by companies whose sole purpose is to defraud them of their pensions. It has long promised legislation to make life impossible for these fraudsters. It never materialises. Pension cold-calling must be banned.
Access to sound financial information ahead of retirement should also be improved. Everyone aged 50 or over can seek free guidance from Pension Wise (Pensionwise.gov.uk), but this government service is under-utilised. Maybe people should be auto-enrolled into this service so they don’t miss out.
In addition, the way HM Revenue & Customs taxes income taken from pensions needs to be overhauled. In many cases, it is applying emergency tax rates to withdrawals, resulting in thousands of retirees having to go through the rigmarole of reclaiming back any overpaid tax. Surely, it cannot be beyond the wit of tax officials to make the taxation system more pension-freedom-friendly.
Finally, we need the financial regulator to get tough on those financial advisers who are persuading people to exchange benefits accumulated under work-based defined benefit pension arrangements (often known as final salary schemes) for a seemingly attractive one-off pension lump sum. A so-called transfer value.
Such transfers are tempting. They can make sense for those with an array of other pensions or who are either single or in poor health. But often the person who benefits the most is the financial adviser who arranges the transfer. This has to stop.
Fix all these gremlins and we can then talk about pension freedom being a great success story.
Jeff Prestridge is the personal finance editor of The Mail on Sunday. He won the Contribution to Personal Finance Education category at the Santander Media Awards 2016. Email him at columnists@moneywise.co.uk
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The Best Work From Home Jobs for 2018
By Holly Reisem Hanna Are you ready to work from home? Then 2018 is your year! With advances in technology and with corporate attitudes being more acceptive of telecommuting, there are more work-at-home positions than ever before! In fact, according to FlexJob’s annual analysis of the top companies that hire remote workers, there was a […]
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‘It’s my responsibility to keep myself secure online,’ say Moneywise users: Protect yourself from cyber crime
Nearly half (46%) of Moneywise.co.uk users strongly agree with the statement that it’s their responsibility to keep themselves secure online.
While over a third (34%), tend to agree that they need to ensure their own security when using the internet and apps.
The encouraging findings come as part of a poll of nearly 800 users, which Moneywise recently ran in partnership with the government’s Cyber Aware campaign. See the full results in the pie chart below.
The importance of protecting yourself from cyber crime
We didn’t ask Moneywise users why they felt the need to actively protect themselves rather than rely on businesses to do the job for them, but one possibility could be due to the number of high profile data hacks we’ve seen in the last few years.
Only last month the Information Commissioners Office said that 2.7 million Uber user accounts had been affected by a data breach in October 2016 - visit the National Cyber Security Centre website for information on what’s happened and what you should do about it.
Meanwhile, Equifax, TalkTalk, Tesco Bank, and Yahoo are among other high profile companies that have admitted customer data – including bank details in some instances – has been stolen.
A different type of cyber crime has even seen law firms increasingly being targeted by criminals pretending to be conveyancers. Here, tricks used are similar to phishing scams in that they include changing the email address of the solicitor slightly or emailing the home buyer to say that the solicitor has new bank account details where they need to transfer their deposit money to. The Solicitors Regulation Authority saw a record number of reports about this type of crime in the first quarter of this year, with £11 million stolen between April 2016 and March 2017.
But these cyber criminals aren’t just targeting businesses, consumers are also being contacted directly.
Santander, for example, found that almost three-quarters (74%) of Brits it surveyed have been targeted by phishing scams in the last year, and that some 65% of those surveyed have received a phishing email.
What’s worrying is that these cyber criminals are getting ever more sophisticated – they might contact you masquerading as services, such as banking or retail outlets, which the criminal already knows you use from obtaining bits of your data elsewhere – perhaps from a previous data breach. They can then use spoof email addresses and details of trusted contacts to make an email look even more legitimate.
Another scam is where cyber criminals will attempt to get control of your computer by downloading malware onto it. This is likely to happen if you click on a link or attachment in a phishing email.
And it’s not just computers that are at risk. The National Cyber Security Centre and the National Crime Agency warned earlier this year that it is likely that so-called ‘ransomware’ will target devices including smartphones, smart TVs, smart watches, and even fitness trackers containing personal data such as photos and emails. While this data itself may not be inherently valuable and might not be sold on criminal forums, hackers may lock a victim’s device blocking the owner’s access to their data. This may be sufficiently valuable to the victim that they may be willing to pay for it.
Further evidence of the threat comes from an investigation by consumer group Which? this summer, which found that ethical hackers could access home products including routers and CCTV.
How to protect yourself from cyber crime
So how can we be cyber aware? One of the most important things we can do is to:
- Set up a strong, separate password for your main email account, which is often the gateway for fraudsters to access further personal and financial information about you. You should also consider setting a strong, separate password for all your online accounts.
The best way to create a strong password is to start by using three random words because length gives complexity. The strongest passwords also contain a mixture of capital and lower case letters, numbers and symbols – so you can simply supplement these within your three random words, so long as the substitutions aren’t easy to guess.For more information, see How to create a password to give you peace of mind.
When we polled Moneywise users on how likely they are to use a strong separate password for their email account, the majority (65%) said they already do and nearly a third (32%) said they don’t do this at present but are more likely to start doing so after reading our article on How to create a strong password.
Moneywise user Neil, who commented on the poll, wrote: “It is the responsibility of all users to protect themselves, however the commercial users have a responsibility also to protect themselves and their customers.” Another commenter, Hesperus, added: “It is my responsibility to look after what I can.”
For the full poll results, see the pie chart below.
Another key action you can take, is to:
App and software updates contain vital security updates, which help protect your device from viruses and hackers.
These security updates are designed to fix weaknesses in software and apps, which could be used by hackers to attack your device and steal your identity. Installing them as soon as possible helps to keep your device secure.
When we asked Moneywise.co.uk users how likely they are to install these updates, we were pleased to see 87% of those who voted already install the latest software and app updates, although that still means one in 10 (13%) can improve their online security. See the pie chart below for the full results.
For more information and tips on how to protect yourself online, visit the Moneywise hub in partnership with Cyber Aware - Stay secure online: How to be Cyber Aware - and see Cyberaware.gov.uk.
If you think you’ve been a victim of fraud, contact your financial provider immediately, and notify Action Fraud via its website or by calling 0300 123 2040.
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